Thomas Elder £25,000 bequest the catalyst for art gallery to be built and opened in 1900 on North Terrace, Adelaide

Thomas Elder's bequest to the National Gallery of South Australia was the first major endowment to any Australian gallery and led to getting its own dedicated building on North terrace, Adelaide city, in 1900. The open Doric portico to the building wasn't added until 1936 and the named changed to the Art Gallery of South Australia three years later.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia and Art Gallery of South Australia

A huge £25,000 bequest from pastoralist Thomas Elder in 1897 to buy artworks prompted the South Australian government move rapidly to have a special designed building dedicated to the-then National Gallery of South Australia on North Terrace, Adelaide city.

The Elder bequest was the first major endowment to any Australian gallery – seven years before the (Alfred) Fenton’s to the National Gallery of Victoria. The National Gallery of South Australia had been established in 1881.

The South Australian Society of Arts, started in 1856 with annual exhibitions in the South Australian Institute rooms on North Terrace, was a prime advocate for a public art collection. In 1880, the South Australian parliament gave £2,000 to the South Australia Institute to start buying a collection and the National Gallery of South Australia.

Twenty-two works bought at the Melbourne International Exhibition, with others lent by Queen Victoria, the prince of Wales, the British government and private collectors, made up the original collection of the National Gallery of South Australia.  This was originally in two rooms in the Jervois Wing home of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia, an outgrowth of the South Australian Institute, on North Terrace. In 1889, the collection was moved to the jubilee exhibition building for 10 years.

With Elder’s bequest, the South Australian government moved quickly to have a dedicated home built for the National Gallery of South Australia, giving work to skilled tradesmen in an economic downturn. The stone building with a colonnaded portico, designed by the South Australian government’s designer of public works, C.E. Owen Smyth, opened on North Terrace in 1900. The original section of the building later became known as the Elder Wing.

Additions to the building followed in 1936, 1962, 1979 and 1996.