Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery

About the Gallery

The Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery was founded in 1904 and is the oldest regional gallery in New South Wales. Housed in the Heritage-listed Sully’s Emporium – a significant Broken Hill manufacturer operating from 1885-1985 – the Gallery presents an annual exhibition program of local, state and national artists, as well as touring exhibitions from major cultural institutions. This includes The Maari Ma Indigenous Art Awards and the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize.

BHRAG is dedicated to supporting contemporary artists working in the Far West of NSW, as well as presenting national solo exhibitions that demonstrates the breadth and diversity of artistic practice. On permanent display is a sample of the more than 2000 artworks in the Gallery’s collection, with a particular focus on paintings and works on paper. The Gallery’s exhibition program is supported by extensive education and public programs, with a focus on schools and communities in both Broken Hill and the Far West of NSW. This includes our partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW to continue to deliver the Djamu outreach program.

The BHRAG retail shop allows you to take something of Broken Hill home with you, featuring the work of local artists and makers as well as a thoughtfully curated selection of art and design gifts.

Collection Strengths

Since its inception in 1904, the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery has acquired, through donation or purchase, a collection of national importance. The Gallery manages more than 2,000 colonial, modern and contemporary Australian artworks, predominantly paintings and works on paper, by artists including John Olsen, Badger Bates, Arthur Boyd, Liz Cuming, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Lloyd Rees, and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. The Gallery also possesses an authoritative collection of artworks narrating the history of Broken Hill. This includes works by J.C. Goodhart, Sam Byrne, Robert Emerson Curtis, May Harding, Hoppy Hopgood and Pro Hart.

Key Collection areas include International Nineteenth Century painting; Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Australian painting; and Contemporary Aboriginal Art, particularly works on paper. Today the collection is further strengthened through the generous donation of artworks, as well as through the Gallery’s acquisitive award, The Pro Hart Outback Art Prize.

Programming Strengths

BHRAG offers art-educational and art-making workshops, public programs and events that work to engage community, support practicing artists and inspire our next generation of regional cultural practitioners. Working with schools in Broken Hill, Wilcannia, Menindee and beyond, BHRAG art educational workshops and programs offer students and teachers an opportunity to engage with art outside of the classroom and in the regional context, collaborating across many aspects of these communities. The Gallery’s highly successful annual Artist in Residence program continues this focus. Assessed annually through an application process, the program is awarded to an artist/collaborative group to develop a responsive project for installation or presentation in the public domain. The residency engages with the local community and draws inspiration from the people and place of Broken Hill. In addition, BHRAG runs art-making workshops that tie into our exhibition program and host a range of artist talks and music events throughout the Gallery and our dedicated workshop space.

Exhibition Spaces

Since 2004, the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery has found its permanent home in the historic Sully’s Emporium, with many of the building’s original features restored to enhance the experience for local and travelling visitors. The Gallery has five temporary exhibition spaces that enable a range of displays from two-dimensional works to video-installation. On the ground floor, our two largest gallery spaces accentuate the heritage features of the Emporium, providing expansive international standard spaces for dedicated solo and touring exhibitions. The original Sully’s atrium opens up to the Gallery’s second floor, providing a unique architectural centre point for BHRAG’s permanent Collection display. The Gallery has an additional three exhibition spaces upstairs whose more intimate scale provides an ideal space for solo and group exhibitions working in smaller-scale two-dimensional and mixed-media practices.