Collection
The Murray Art Museum Albury Collection began in 1947 with the Albury Art Prize. Today, the collection contains over 2400 items. Photography and works on paper are strongly represented, along with smaller representations of painting, sculpture and digital artworks.
National Photography Prize
Begun in 1983, the National Photography Prize has been instrumental in building the museum's reputation as a committed collector of contemporary photography. Our complete contemporary photography collection – commenced even earlier in the 1960s - and has grown to comprise over 600 works and is one of the most important of its kind in Australia. It includes works by Tracey Moffatt, Max Dupain, Richard Woldendorp and Phillip Quirk.
Giving to the Collection
We rely on the generous support of donors and artists to maintain and grow our permanent collection and to contribute towards specific projects. Some of our greatest treasures have been donated from private collections or purchased with donated funds.
Your donation is essential to increasing our capacity to acquire new works. You can give to the collection through a number of ways including donation, our Cultural Gifts Program or by bequest.
The Museum's dedicated staff members coordinate all offers of donation. Before we accept works, they are considered against our Cultural Assets Development and Management Policy, existing collection holdings, provenance, conservation requirements and storage constraints.
Please read the guidelines below before making a donation. Filling in our online Collection Donation Information form can also help move forward the process.
Guidelines for Giving
In the first instance please contact the Museum and speak to one of our curatorial staff about your gift. We'd prefer you didn't post or drop off works before an agreement is made on whether or not we can accept your donation.
Assessing Donations
We'll only accept works that you legally own. We cannot accept works that belong to someone else, have been stolen, or have been illegally exported from their country of origin or illegally removed from archaeological, historic or significant sites.
Once both parties have agreed to arrange a viewing, it can be considered by the Museum's Advisory Committee which meets every two months. If the committee agrees to proceed, an officer will be assigned to complete the donation process. As part of this process, we may contact you for further information.
The entire process can take several months, but the assigned officer will keep you informed.
There is no guarantee that we will be able to accept all works that are offered for donation.
Donated works assessed as significant will be registered as part of the MAMA Collection. Under the terms of a Gift Certificate, these donations become the property of Murray Art Museum Albury.
We'll ensure the long-term preservation of your donation by:
- creating a record of the works including photographs and digitisation of record information on the Collection database
- providing conservation treatment where required
- packing and storing the works
- maintaining your donation in the Collection Store
- limiting access to items to maintain long-term preservation.
Donated works that are part of the MAMA Collection may be:
- publicly shown in exhibitions and displays
- examined by researchers to contribute to our understanding of Albury and the region's history, society, culture and environment;
- borrowed under standard AlburyCity loan procedures
- viewed in the Collection Store by prior arrangement.
If we already have works in our collection similar to your donation, we may accept your donation to become part of the MAMA – Learning and Outreach programs. These works are loaned to schools and institutions or used in workshops.
There is no guarantee that your works will ever be on public display, but we always try to make the collection available to the public for research and education purposes. All works that are accepted as donations are important to us, whether they are on display or not.
Unfortunately, not. Once you have donated an item it becomes the property of Murray Art Museum Albury. However, anyone can access information about works in the collection through the museum.
Art Valuations
Murray Art Museum Albury does not provide valuations of artwork. Depending on the type of item you're seeking to have valued, we suggest researching online auction sites, contacting an art dealer, auction house or an independent valuer.
A list of valuers is available via the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program. The Program provides tax incentives for donations of culturally significant items from private collectors to public institutions.