Kelly Gellatly joins Sheila Foundation board

MEDIA RELEASE / Sheila Foundation chair John Cruthers is delighted to announce that highly regarded arts industry professional Kelly Gellatly has joined the board of directors.

Kelly has over 25 years’ experience in arts leadership, curatorship and collection development and management, including in the state gallery and university sectors. While at the National Gallery of Victoria she curated retrospectives by artists including Rosalie Gascoigne and Gordon Bennett. From 2013-2020 she was director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art of the University of Melbourne, where she was instrumental in securing the Michael Buxton Gift for the university and in the development and building of Buxton Contemporary, a purpose-built museum on campus at Southbank.

‘It is exciting to welcome a new director with such strong curatorial, management and industry experience to our dynamic board. It is a timely appointment given Sheila Foundation is gathering considerable momentum in its mission to overturn decades of gender bias in the Australian art world and ensure equality for today’s women artists,’ said John.

John noted that Kelly’s knowledge, breadth of experience and connections will enhance the Sheila board’s already strong skillset. It also improves the foundation’s national footprint, with directors in NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and now Victoria.

Kelly has expressed her delight at joining such a strong group of talented and hard-working individuals.

‘I am a long admirer of the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art and have been impressed by the commitment and dynamism of the Sheila Foundation since its inception. The statistics of the poor representation of women in our state and national collections may now be well known, but statistics alone don’t generate change.

‘I look forward to working with the board on initiatives and programs that increase the representation of women artists in collections and through exhibition, and to helping to champion the extraordinary work our women artists make.’

Sheila Foundation’s focus is to support Australian women artists past, present and future. Its current  programs include the Michela & Adrian Fini Artist Fellowship, the Sheila Network, support for The Countess Report and the significant research project Into the Light: Recovering Australia’s lost women artists 1870-1960.  The Foundation also provides funding and support to the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at The University of Western Australia, the largest stand-alone collection of Australian women’s art and a national treasure.

ABOUT KELLY GELLATLY

Kelly is a senior executive with over 25 years’ arts leadership, curatorial, and collection development experience in national, state and university-based art museums with a longstanding contribution to the enrichment and education of diverse communities through art. Her leadership roles include director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne from 2013 to 2020, and Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Kelly has curated more than 50 exhibitions of the work of leading Australian and international artists and has an extensive publishing history on contemporary art, Australian modernism and photographic practice. She has a deep working knowledge of the Australian cultural sector, a strong fundraising history, and extensive experience in the design, oversight and delivery of major museum infrastructure projects.

Kelly is the founding director of Agency Untitled.

ABOUT SHEILA FOUNDATION

Sheila is a national philanthropic foundation with a mission to overturn decades of gender bias by writing Australian women artists back into our art history and ensuring equality for today’s women artists.

Sheila will have succeeded when a visit to a state or national gallery shows equally the art, lives, stories and ideas of women and men, when students learn about our great women artists in equal measure to the great male artists, and when the women graduates from our art schools are equally represented in the art community.

Sheila has three strategic focus areas:

• Contemporary Women – Providing opportunities and support for living Australian women artists.

• Into the Light – Painting women back into Australia’s art history.

• Going Global – Supporting the unique Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, the largest standalone collection of Australian women’s art.

The foundation is named after Lady Sheila Cruthers, a trailblazer in supporting and collecting

Australian women artists. Sheila Foundation honours Lady Sheila in name, and in mission.