MONDAY 16 MARCH    QUEANBEYAN

Another pleasant warm day. It was a public holiday in the ACT.

Drove to the shops where I picked up my photos.

We went to the National Gallery,  on the southern side of the Lake. A white blocky shaped building, I thought its external architecture should be more creative than it is – very uninspiring.

We sat on one of the surrounding lawn areas and ate our picnic sandwiches. The lawns were crowded because of the holiday, with lots of other people relaxing in the sun.

Admission to the Gallery cost us $6.

I found much of the Gallery disappointing. I expected a much better and broader Australian collection on display, especially of 20th century Australian artists. For example, the Broken Hill based Brushmen of the Bush group did not seem to be represented. Why on earth was there no Pro Hart? They did have a small sample of Lloyd Rees work. Did not see much that I liked in their Australian section – even the McCubbins shown were not my favourites. They do have the Nolan Kelly series, which is interesting, even though I would not like to live with one!

We did find their aboriginal art section excellent. It included a large display of burial poles from Ramingining, in Arnhem Land, which was established to highlight 200 years of aboriginal deaths since settlement.

We were intrigued by a sculpture of the globe, hanging suspended over an outside area – done by Neil Dawson, a NZ artist. That and the burial poles were the best parts of the afternoon.

We did a lot of walking and standing around the Gallery, and were rather weary when we left there, about 4pm and went back to the van.

Tea was salads, steak and fries.