A collection of paintings by iconic Australian artist Sidney Nolan will finally have a permanent home, with a decision by the Commonwealth Government to keep them in Canberra.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope yesterday announced that the 24 paintings, known as the Foundation Collection, would be housed in a dedicated gallery space within Canberra Museum and Gallery, using funds set aside in the 2008-09 ACT budget, hopefully within a matter of months.
Nolan donated the paintings to the people of Australia in 1974, and they have since remained in the ownership of the Commonwealth, which has delegated custody to the ACT.
The art works, worth an estimated $31 million, were entrusted to the then Department of the Capital Territory, which had responsibility for the historic Lanyon Homestead, where they went on display in 1975. They were relocated to the Canberra Museum and Gallery in 2007 because of environmental and security problems at Lanyon, the bushfire threat and a drop-off in visitors.
Mr Stanhope welcomed the decision yesterday by Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor, saying it would ensure that the collection would remain safe and accessible.
But Nolan's widow, Lady Mary Nolan, has been strongly opposed to the paintings' relocation, saying her husband, who died in 1992, donated the paintings on the condition that they remain at Lanyon.
Lady Mary, who lives in Britain, wrote to the Home Affairs Minister last year, warning she would seek to have the more than 200 works returned to her if the Foundation Collection was to be permanently relocated to CMAG.
Mr Stanhope defended the decision yesterday, saying the Nolan Gallery at Lanyon would have required a significant upgrade to ensure the safety of the art works, and the homestead's relative isolation meant that two staff members had to be there at all times.
Visitor numbers had also dropped in recent years to just over 6000 a year, or an average of 20 a day, with no visitors at all on some days.
CMAG, on the other hand, was averaging around 40,000 visitors a year.
The ACT Government, as custodian of the collection, has set aside $260,000 to build a dedicated Nolan space within CMAG, with $113,000 of recurrent funding to run public programs on the collection.
Mr Stanhope said he understood that Mr O'Connor had written to Lady Mary to advise her of the decision.
''I believe that at the end of the day the other issue that we have to weigh up really left us with no reasonable alternative but the decision that we have taken,'' he said.''I regret enormously that that decision may distress Lady Mary, but I have responsibilities too, with resourcing and staffing and the capacity for us to continue to rebuild this collection.''
ACT shadow arts minister Vicki Dunne described the decision yesterday as unfortunate and retrograde.
''I think that the space that they have allocated is not large enough to adequately, let alone appropriately, display such an important and iconic collection,'' she said.