ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.- The Art Gallery of South Australia presents today "The Morgan Thomas Bequest - Centenary Exhibition," on view through 27 July, 2003. In 1903, wealthy Adelaide surgeon, Dr Morgan Thomas bequeathed £65,000 to be divided between South Australia’s Art Gallery, Library and Museum. His generous gift a century ago has enabled the Art Gallery of South Australia to purchase more than a thousand decorative art objects and paintings, and has helped create one of Australia’s great public art collections.
The Morgan Thomas Bequest Centenary Exhibition, curated by Robert Reason, Associate Curator of Australian and European Decorative Arts will, for the first time, bring together more than 90 important decorative art objects and paintings from Australia, Europe and Asia acquired through the fund since the first purchases in 1904.
One of the fund’s most significant contributions was to provide the means to establish and develop a substantial decorative arts collection including Asian art and other objects. The Gallery’s first purchases of European and Asian ceramics were made with this Bequest. Today, the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection of European and Australian decorative arts is one of the finest in the country.
To further mark the centenary of the bequest, the Art Gallery of South Australia will put the remaining balance of the fund towards the purchase of one last major work of art: a rare watercolor drawing by William Morris. The drawing is the design for the wallpaper Wreath c.1876 and will be a key work in the Gallery’s William Morris collection which is now the largest outside Britain. It will be the only original William Morris watercolor drawing in Australia. It is fitting that the supplementary amount of money required to purchase the Morris drawing will be raised through an Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation launch dinner, to be held in the exhibition.
For more than a hundred years, the Art Gallery of South Australia has enjoyed generous private patronage. Nearly ninety percent of the Gallery’s collection comprises gifts of art, or purchases made with private money, making it the highest proportion of private benefaction of any state or federal art museum in Australia.
The Morgan Thomas Bequest Centenary Exhibition will honor the man behind one of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s most important legacies and highlight the invaluable contribution of private benefactors to South Australia’s public art collection.
A number of special events has been scheduled to complement the exhibition, including lunchtime talks by the Gallery’s Curators and free guided tours by the Gallery’s most generous living benefactor (and Gallery Guide) Mr Max Carter.