1871 (24 April) Meeting to establish an Academy of Art 'for the purpose of promoting the fine arts through lecture, art classes and regular exhibitions' is held in Sydney.

1872 The first exhibition of Colonial art, under the auspices of the Academy, is held at the Chamber of Commerce, Sydney Exchange.

1874 (30 July) The government makes £500 available to the NSW Academy of Art for the purchase of artworks and appoints five members of the Academy's Council to administer the money. Believing the money too little for the purchase of oil paintings, the five members decide to spend it on watercolours by living artists.

Conrad Martens
Apsley Falls
watercolour on paper

1874 Apsley Falls by Conrad Martens is commissioned by the Trustees and purchased for £50 out of the first government grant of £500. This is the first work on paper by an Australian artist to be acquired by the Gallery.

1875 Mount Olympus, Lake St Clair, Tasmania by W C Piguenit is purchased through a gift of 50 subscribers. This is the first oil painting by an Australian artist to be acquired by the Gallery.

1875 (April) The Gallery's collection is first housed at Clark's Assembly Hall in Elizabeth Street and open to the public on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

1877 (July) A memorial display of three paintings by Adelaide Ironside at Clark's Assembly Hall is the Gallery's first solo exhibition of an Australian artist.

1879 (August) A wooden fine arts annexe of nine rooms is built for Sydney's International Exhibition and the national collection is moved there from Clark's Assembly Hall. It is located in the Domain at the western entrance of the Botanic Gardens.

1880 (20 September) The Fine Arts Annexe is officially opened as 'The Art Gallery of New South Wales'.

1882 (22 September) The destruction of the Crystal Palace places pressure on the Government to provide a more permanent and secure home for the national collection.

1883 The name of the Gallery is changed to 'The National Art Gallery of New South Wales'.

1884 Architect John Horbury Hunt is engaged to submit designs for the new Art Gallery.

1885 (December) The Gallery's collection is moved to a building of six rooms designed by Horbury Hunt at the present site in the Domain.

1892 Eliezer Montiefore, a founding Trustee and President of the Trustees, is appointed the Gallery's first Director.

1895 George Edward Layton is appointed Secretary and Superintendent.

1896-1909 Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon designs and builds the old sections of the Gallery, which remain basically unchanged until 1969.

Walter Liberty Vernon, Government Architect
Plans for Art Gallery of New South Wales

1897 The inaugural Wynne Prize is awarded to Walter Withers for The storm.

1899 Gallery is incorporated by an Act of Parliament.

1900 Perceval Ball suggests that the empty panels on the façade of the Gallery be filled with bas-reliefs illustrating the arts and industries. It is later decided to depict the various eras of art.

1905 Gother Victor Fyers Mann is appointed Secretary and Superintendent. He is renamed Director and Secretary in 1912.

Crowds queuing to see Holman Hunt's Light of the world, 1906

1906 Over 300 000 people come to the Gallery during March and April to see Holman Hunt's painting Light of the world.

1922 The inaugural Archibald Prize is awarded to W B McInnes for Desbrowe Annear.

1929 James Stuart MacDonald is appointed Director and Secretary.

1936 The inaugural Sulman Prize is awarded to Henry Hanke for La Gitana.

1937 John William Ashton is appointed Director and Secretary.

1938 Electric light is temporarily installed at the Gallery, which remains open at night for the first time.

1938 Nora Heyson is the first woman to win the Archibald Prize with her portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman, the wife of the Consul General for the Netherlands.

1943 William Dobell won the award for Joshua Smith. Raymond Lindsay, writing for The Daily Telegraph, notes 'it is daring to the point of caricature, but its intense vitality lifts it from any such moribund definition. It has all the qualities of a good painting'. When the award is announced, two other entrants, Mary Edwards and Joseph Wolinski, take legal action against Dobell and the Trustees on the ground that the painting is not a portrait as defined by the Archibald Bequest. The case is heard from 23 to 26 October in the Supreme Court of NSW before Justice Roper, who dismisses the suit and orders the claimant to pay costs for Dobell and the Trustees. This is followed by an appeal and an unsuccessful demand to the Equity Court to restrain the Trustes from handing over the money.

1945 Hal Missingham is appointed Director and Secretary.

1958 A new Art Gallery of New South Wales Act 1958 is passed and the Gallery's name reverts to 'The Art Gallery of New South Wales'.

1969 The Captain Cook wing is built and opened to public in 1970.

1971 Peter Phillip Laverty is appointed Director.

1975 The exhibition Modern masters: Monet to Matisse is the first of the modern blockbusters to be held at the Gallery, attracting 180 000 over 29 days.

1976 The Biennale of Sydney is first held at the Gallery. The newly opened Sydney Opera House was the location for the inaugural Biennale of Sydney in 1973.

Edmund Capon, Director

1978 Edmund Capon is appointed Director.

1979 The Departments of Contemporary Art and Asian Art are founded.

1980 The Art Gallery of New South Wales Act 1980 establishes the 'Art Gallery of New South Wales Trust'. It reduces the number of Trustees to nine and stipulates 'at least two of whom shall be knowledgeable and experienced in the visual arts'.

1988 Bicentennial extensions to the Gallery by Government Architect Andrew Andersons double the size of the Gallery, providing expanded display space for the permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, a new gallery for Asian art and an outdoor sculpture garden.

1993 Kevin Connor wins the inaugural Dobell Prize for Pyrmont and city.

1994 Yiribana Gallery, dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, is opened.

2003

January A new gallery conservation studio is completed.
January An Art After Hours program is initiated, with an extended late night opening of the gallery every Wednesday until 9pm. It also includes a weekly series of free talks, films and other special events. In its first year it attracts just under 2000 visitors each Wednesday night.
March The inaugural Australian Photographic Portrait Prize is won by Greg Weight for Railway Blues Jim Conway.
May The Art Gallery Society of New South Wales celebrates its 50th anniversary.
May A new functions room is opened at the end of the Grand Court, with a restaurant situated in the north-east corner, overlooking the harbour.
13 June A new upper level exhibition space is opened. Named the Rudy Komon Gallery, it includes 550 square metres of exhibition display area.
23 October The new Asian galleries are opened, concluding a three-year, $16.4 million project. They are designed by Sydney architect Richard Johnston, of the firm Johnson Pilton Walker. 'The first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking about the building was a lantern, something consistent with a number of Asian cultures,' says Johnston. 'The simple pavilion is a consistent idea through a number of Asian cultures, so too is the idea of a pavilion on a platform.' The first temporary exhibition held in the new space is of Dadang Christanto's They give evidence, a work subsequently acquired by the Gallery. An Asian collection handbook is published to coincide with the opening of the new galleries.

2004

February An exhibition of Man Ray's work sets an attendance record for photography exhibitions, with over 52 000 visitors.
March A legal challenge is mounted against the award of the Archibald Prize to Craig Ruddy for his David Gulpilil, two worlds. The challenge claims that the work's media disqualifies it from being awarded the prize.
April A program of Community Ambassadors provides the Gallery with regular Asian language tours and cross-cultural perspectives on the permanent collection.
October The acquisition of Cy Twombly's Three studies from the Temeraire 1998-99 is widely reported, creating some controversy about Gallery acquisitions.
20 December The Nelson Meers Foundation Nolan Room is opened, with a display of five major Sidney Nolan paintings gifted to the Gallery by the Foundation over the past five years.
December The Anne Landa Award is established. It is Australia's first award exhibition for moving image and new media.

2005

26 May myVirtualGallery is launched on the Gallery's website.
26 September The former Gallery boardroom is reopened as a new display space for paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Australian artists from the collection.

2006

May Justice Hamilton rules in favour of the Gallery over the disputed 2004 award of the Archibald Prize to Craig Ruddy.
19 October James Gleeson and his partner Frank O’Keefe pledge $16 million through the Gleeson O’Keefe Foundation to acquire works for the Gallery's collection.

2007

10 June A 17th-century Dutch painting by Frans van Mieris I, A cavalier (self-portrait), is stolen from the Gallery. Its whereabouts remain unknown.
28 August The Belgiorno-Nettis family donates $4 million over four years to the Gallery to support contemporary art.

2008

February The NSW Government announces a grant of $25.7 million to construct an offsite storage facility.
3 April The gift of the John Kaldor Collection to the Gallery is announced. Valued at over $35 million, it comprises some 260 works representing the history of international contemporary art.