‘The sky’s the limit’: Newcastle Art Gallery unveils ‘divisive’ $48m expansion with huge opening show | Museums

As visitors pass the reception desk, they will encounter Margaret Olley’s small gallery which will rotate her colorful still lifes and Newcastle watercolours: a nod to Olley’s tradition of giving the gallery a work of art every year on her birthday; and $500,000 bequeathed by the Margaret Olley Trust for the exhibition in 2025.

Walking through the new double-height First Nations gallery, which features a photographic collection by Dr. Christian Thompson and two new commissions from Rena Lamb and Megan Cobb, visitors can detour into a smaller, older room filled with historical masterpieces from the likes of William Dobell and Grace Cossington Smith.

A flight of floating stairs made of poured concrete, retained from the original building, takes visitors to the top, for a chance to bask under John Olsen’s painting “Sea Sun of 5 Bells” (1964) mounted – as the artist intended – on the ceiling.

Around the corner, a dense red Danny Marty statue provides a more tactile experience. Constructed of several tightly strung plastic curtains through which visitors are invited to move, the approximately 4 x 4 meter “Looking for Felix” (2000) immerses you in the intensity of colors and gentle rustling sounds: an ode to Cuban artist Felix González Torres.

A temporary wall has been installed in the center of one of the new, larger spaces. If not now, when? By local artist Fiona Lee who lost her home, studio and property in the 2019-20 bushfires. She used pieces of metal strewn from her melted Toyota to write the word “NOW” in large letters on a wall, urging the government to take action on the climate crisis. Nearby are Patricia Piccinini’s charming and worrisome little helpers of nature – a variant (of the northern hairy-nosed wombat). This living creature appears calm and content, but from behind it reveals six pockets on either side of its armour-like spine, which contain the protruding feet and hands of growing wombats in various stages of gestation.

“The sky’s the limit now,” Morton says, “because we’re a mature gallery. We’re what a city our size should have.”

The 2026-2027 program will feature solo shows by emerging and mid-career local artists, including Tian Baker and Angela Tiatia, alongside artists from further afield, such as Torres Strait Islander-born, Cairns-based Brian Robinson, Japanese kinetic sculpture duo A. A. Murakami and beloved comedian, children’s book author and illustrator Anh Do. At the same time, the new open space residencies will provide Hunter Region artists with seed funding, mentorship and a space to produce new works: performances that are particularly important at a time of funding cuts across the regional arts and Australian creative industries more broadly, as artistic education opportunities, such as Newcastle University’s fine arts degree, close.

The exhibition really showed that there is an appetite for art. Since September 2025, small sections of the expansion have been open for viewing during limited hours – more than 20,000 visitors from 35 countries, and every Australian state and territory, have passed through the doors, according to the gallery. Sometimes, there are lines lining the street to arrive – and the store has already exceeded its annual goals. “We’re flooded,” Morton said firmly.

This success is especially justified given the battle that was fought to achieve it. The expansion project was voted down by Newcastle City Council when it was first mooted in 2008, due to funding issues and criticism of the initial plan which sought to demolish the original 1977 Brutalist building rather than incorporate it. Only after years of political back and forth — and a relentless fundraising campaign led by Morton, who joined the council in 2018 — did the council finally vote unanimously in favor of expansion in 2021, committing to the largest infrastructure investment the city has made.

“For a very long time, the art gallery has been a very divisive source,” Bath says. “There were people who had never come here before but felt strongly that the art gallery was everything that was wrong with the city, that it was not for the working class.”