Collection

At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, we live and breathe our role as a place of experience and inspiration, with the collection at its heart. Over more than 150 years as an art museum, we have asked, ‘What does art look like?’

From our harbourside home on Gadigal Country, the Art Gallery’s diverse collection tells stories of human encounter, cultural exchange and artistic cross-fertilisation, and offers insights into the individual creative mind.

We acknowledge the deep continuity and centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture; commit to recognising the work of women; and celebrate the importance of the arts of Asia and the Pacific to our understanding of global art and our place within it. In displaying our collection, we hope to offer moments of local and global connection and reflection; lines of exchange and conversations; and new perspectives that demonstrate how the art of the past continues to resonate in our present – and how it can help us imagine our future.

We hope to ignite your imagination, inspire curiosity and provoke new ways of thinking about the world.