Closing the loop in cultural engagement

The commercial gallery system is an industry built on the rise and fall of the new comers, those with ambition and a commitment to the commercialisation of artistic works. We all acknowledge the work of major commercial galleries in the development of Australian Art, beginning in the 19th century with the Romantics, Realists and new Australian Impressionists through to the early modernists in the 1920s and 1930s. By the late mid 20th century numerous dealer galleries had emerged in Australia, and nurtured an industry under the stewardship of names like Rudy Komon, Tam and Anne Purves, Bruce Pollard, Georges Mora, Ray Hughes, Philip Bacon, Kim Bonython and many others. More recently newer names have come and gone, some dominating the sphere like Abrahams, Sherman, Oxley, Schwartz, Greenaway, Pizzi and others along with Galleries: Tolarno, Sutton, Australian, Macquarie, Powell St, all acting as key players in the industry