This story was first published in the Newcastle Herald Weekender in print and online in the Newcastle Herald Weekender on January 19, 2025.
Image credit: Ron Mueck’s Pregnant Woman, Maitland Regional Art Gallery’s ‘Bodywork’ exhibition 2025 (supplied)
It’s a rainy Thursday morning during the early January school holidays when I speak to Dr Gerry Bobsien, Gallery Director of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG).
“I can’t open my door. It’s teaming with people out there!” she says happily, describing how busy the gallery is outside her office. “We had 700 people through yesterday.”
2025 is a big year for MRAG with the much-loved regional art gallery marking its 50th anniversary.
MRAG, which is operated by the Maitland City Council, has grown and evolved greatly over the last half a century. As has Maitland itself, which, in recent years, was named one of the fastest-growing regional cities in New South Wales.
“This is a year of celebration for a gallery that has art, community, and connection deeply embedded in the heart of all we do,” says Bobsien, who is a passionate champion of MRAG and the role it plays in the local and broader community.
“We are all really proud of what this gallery has achieved and delivered over 50 years of service to the public and the feedback from our audience and from people who visit us says so much about what a cultural hub and an art museum can do for the health, wellbeing, and vibrancy of communities and society.”
The Maitland City Art Gallery, as it was first known, was established in April 1975 and housed in Brough House on Church Street, Maitland, with Margaret Sivyer OAM serving as its founding director.
“The Maitland Art Prize paved the way for the development of the gallery as it is today. It was an exhibition and prize that started in 1957 as a collaboration between the Hunter River Agricultural and Horticultural Association, Maitland City Council, and the Maitland branch of what was then the Arts Council of NSW,” explains Bobsien.
The Art Gallery relocated to its current home on Maitland’s High Street on Wonnarua Country in 2003. Built in 1910, the striking heritage complex – which formerly housed the Maitland Technical College – was designed by reputed government architect Walter Liberty Vernon (who counts the Art Gallery of New South Wales among his works). It was renamed the Maitland Regional Art Gallery in 2004.
Until 2008, MRAG operated across two older buildings on the High Street site. Under the guidance of its then-director Joe Eisenberg OAM, it closed for renovations (which included consolidating the two buildings) and was re-opened by artist Margaret Olley AC in August 2009.
Today, MRAG is known as a vibrant and welcoming gallery that offers free, accessible, and engaging exhibitions, events, and programs, alongside its dynamic collection of close to 7,500 works by local, national, and international artists. Many of the collection’s artworks have been digitised and are available to view online via the Maitland City Council website.
A master plan for the external grounds of MRAG is also in the works. A garden has been designed and will be developed in the next two or so years. In the longer term, the addition of an outside pavilion, for use by education groups and as a function centre, is also planned.
“MRAG is much loved not only here in Maitland and across the Hunter but across the country. We get a lot of visitors from Sydney and interstate. They know the quality and significance of our collection.” says Bobsien. She adds that works from the collection (many of which were gifted by benefactors) will feature heavily in this year’s program.
“Our collection is really important because they have been gathered over the last 50 years and really reflect the times that we live in. They say something about us as a community and our place in the world.”
The 2025 program is a celebration of the gallery’s 50th anniversary and aims to capture the essence of MRAG and what makes it special. This, Bobsien notes, includes its dynamic collection, long-running Arts Health program and rich educational offerings (both a legacy of one of MRAG’s former directors Brigette Uren), and very strong connections to the community.
“This is a space where people can come and learn, experience art, further their career as an artist, and provide opportunity for a refuge in the rain. We are a community institution with community at our heart.”
She adds, “We are very grateful to continually learn from and spend time with the Elders and community from Mindaribba Local Aboriginal Land Council, here on Wonnarua Country.”
The 2025 offering is rich and exciting and showcases many works by celebrated artists from across Maitland, the Hunter, and Australia. Among the local names are Patrick Mavety, Chris Capper, Virginia Cuppaidge, Gillian Bencke, Darren Horsfield, Rebecca Rath, Xander Holliday, and Benjamin Gallagher.
Currently on show is Ron Mueck’s monumental ‘Pregnant woman’, which is on loan from the National Gallery of Australia until September 28. ‘Mother’ (July 12-October 26) and ‘Body work’ (November 30, 2024-March 2, 2025) are two exhibitions featuring works themed around the body that have been drawn from the MRAG Collection in response to ‘Pregnant woman’. In ‘Notes on life, loss, longing and love’ (May 17-June 29), the community is asked to share their own stories in response to Mueck’s sculpture.
From Melbourne’s ACMI Museum ‘Between [the] details’ (July 5-October 12) showcases six moving image artworks by Australian artists. While the ‘Brenda Clouten memorial art scholarship’ (March 22-June 15) marks its 20-year anniversary with an exhibition that features works from shortlisted finalists from the visual arts program’s two decades.
Finally, ‘Shared’, a tribute to MRAG celebrating the big 50, (November 1, 2025-February 8, 2026) brings together special works from the MRAG Collection that have been prized, gifted, collected, and shared over that time.
Bobsien marks her fifth year as the director of MRAG in 2025. A role she said she was honoured to take on and still thoroughly loves. “It was really important to me that I maintain the integrity, the accessibility, the DNA of this building, and this cultural institution and what it means for the community – and then amplifying it and building on that reputation.”
Bobsien recounts the story of a visitor to the gallery a few years ago. A mother who regularly visits MRAG with her teenage son said to her: ‘My son likes sport, and is also very open-minded, creative – and likes a whole lot of other things too. I want to make my son a good human being and bringing him to this place contributes to that.’
“It resonated with me back then and it’s stayed with me. I think about it whenever we’re thinking about our programming and who our audience is.”
She muses later, “There is one thing that we at MRAG are determined to be and that is relevant to our audience.”
Maitland Regional Art Gallery,
230 High Street, Maitland
Lisa Cugnetto 