Grafton Regional Gallery

About the Gallery

The Grafton Regional Gallery is a source of of community inspiration, delivering a vibrant and innovative program of exhibitions, events, workshops and outreach education. The Gallery enriches your well-being, gets you involved, is visionary, unexpected and amazing in every way.

The Gallery was established in 1988 as a place of arts awareness, education and support for arts practitioners. It has evolved to play an important role in building community resilience, reflecting our sense of place and telling local stories through the visual arts. As is typical of many regional galleries, the Gallery has undergone several stages of restoration and redevelopment on its current site over three decades. During 2005 Clarence Valley Council purchased land immediately adjacent to the Gallery and the journey of planning and funding an expanded GRG began.

In mid-2018 the Gallery was awarded $7.6 million in funding support from the NSW Government to complete planned physical infrastructure expansion and internal fit-out works. The refurbished and extended gallery was officially opened on Friday 19 March 2021, providing an expanded on-site space and delivering a reconfigured floor plan aligned with contemporary gallery needs and visitor expectations.

Collection Strengths

The Grafton Regional Gallery Collection was established in 1988 with a donation from the Jacaranda Art Society and now holds more than 3,300 items.  It includes works that celebrate the Clarence Valley region, with the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award and Clarence Valley Indigenous Art Award providing a focus on excellence in contemporary drawing and local Indigenous stories.  The collection holds significant representation of artwork by Doris and Gladys O’Grady, John William Lindt and Ken Done.

Programming Strengths

Grafton Regional Gallery presents a dynamic program of contemporary exhibitions across all medium and creative events to inspire all ages. Every two years the Gallery presents the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award and tour that celebrates contemporary drawing nationally.

Exhibition Spaces

Grafton Regional Gallery has five unique state of the art exhibition spaces. From the double height space of Gallery 1 to the welcoming atmosphere of the Courtyard Gallery the exhibition spaces have the flexibility to cater for all types of exhibitions. The exhibition spaces have museum standard climate control, led lighting, rigging points, data and power through out and lift access to the upper level gallery.