Along the way, Betty Churcher brought countless people with her, from prime ministers and artists, to gallery-goers and art novices, infecting everyone with her enthusiasm.

This was the main message that shone through the many words spoken at Ms Churcher's memorial service at on Tuesday, where the former director of the National Gallery of Australia was remembered as a cultural icon and a pioneer for women everywhere.

Ms Churcher, who was director from 1990-1997, died last month aged 84, after a long and fulfilling life as an artist, a mother to four sons, an educator, a gallery director, a writer and, above all, art lover.

Hundreds of people gathered in the gallery's Gandel Hall to pay tribute to the woman credited for bringing art to the masses, not to mention crowds to the gallery, earning her the affectionate nickname "Betty Blockbuster".

It was a name that suited her perfectly, highlighting both her determination to put the NGA on the map, and mischievous streak when it came to promoting exhibitions.

Alan Dodge, who worked as a senior advisor in special exhibitions and development at the gallery when Ms Churcher became director, said she effortlessly endeared herself to both staff and the press.

As far as media stunts go, she hit the ground running when she famously convinced the then-chair of the gallery's council, former prime minister Gough Whitlam, to dress in a toga for the opening event of her first blockbuster, Civilisation: Ancient Treasures from the British Museum.

Former governor-general Dame Quentin Bryce, a fellow Brisbane native and long-term friend, spoke of Ms Churcher's tireless and infectious enthusiasm for what was also a private passion.

"She became synonymous with art in our lives, opening up beauty, form, colour, space and magic. She made us curious, she gave us confidence in our capacity to understand, to feel that euphoric and truly thrilling out of this world experience," Dame Quentin said.

Former prime minister Paul Keating, in a letter read out at the service, said Ms Churcher's choice to give up a promising career as a painter to focus on raising her children had been to the art world's benefit.

"Arguably, the nation got the better of Betty's artistic instinct with her as gallery director and proselytiser," he said.

"No government can ask more and no country can expect better of its national gallery, its most important artistic institution, than a director who can not only competently run and build the institution, but who rejoiced in the works at its core."

Speaking at the service via a pre-recorded video, British Museum director Neil MacGregor said Ms Churcher would forever change the way Australia was viewed as a country of art-lovers.

"In a very few years … she had changed the way European galleries thought about lending to Australia. Betty was able to persuade everybody that great pictures had to be seen by as many people as possible, and that meant by as many people of Australia as possible. And one after another, great pictures of Europe came to Australia," he said.

Son Peter Churcher said that for his mother, her love of life and art were inextricably linked.

"Art for my mother was not something to perplex, or to over-conceptualise. It was not something floating high up in the intellectual ether, or out of anyone's reach, but its impulse and power was right there in one's own heart," he said.