Cowra Regional Art Gallery

About the Gallery

The Cowra Regional Art Gallery opened in October 2000 and is a cultural facility of the Cowra Shire Council. The Gallery is situated opposite the Cowra Civic Centre and the Australian World Peace Bell and located in the same building with the Cowra Shire Library,

The Gallery is a purpose built facility including a flexible exhibition space with 3.8m high ceiling, versatile moving panels and state of the art LED lighting introduced in 2019. The Gallery offers a diverse and stimulating program including significant state and national touring exhibitions, curated in-house projects featuring contemporary visual art and craft practises and the Calleen Art Award during October/November. The Gallery shop offers a unique range of cards from major Australian art institutions, art and local history publications and selected jewellery and merchandise by artists from the region.

Collection Strengths

The collection follows several strands: the Calleen Collection comprising the winners of the acquisitive Calleen Art Award established in 1977 by Mrs Patricia Fagan OAM. The Olive Cotton Collection of photography, The Cowra Sculpture Park Collection, the Italian POW Collection and a diverse range of contemporary works including painting, works on paper and ceramics with an emphasis on leading Australian women artists.

Programming Strengths

The Cowra Regional Art Gallery offers a program of stimulating and vibrant exhibitions including touring exhibitions incorporating contemporary art and craft practises and socio/historical themes, curated in-house exhibition projects including works from the Gallery collection of artworks, the Calleen Art Award — an annual national acquisitive painting prize, and youth art projects including upstART exhibition and awards.

Exhibition Spaces

The Gallery exhibition space is approximately 10m x 15m. This includes 3 sets movable walls, each set consisting of four interchangeable panels 2m wide on tracking fixed to the ceiling.