It has been a busy and productive year for the team at the Wangaratta Art Gallery, which attracted more than 35,000 visitors to its array of exhibitions, events and programs in 2025.

Art enthusiasts have had the opportunity to see 16 exhibitions, including the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2025, attended 80 different events, and hundreds of young people including local school children have taken part in engaging and intriguing workshops and activities.

Gallery director Rachel Arndt said it had been an exciting year, with the gallery receiving remarkable support from the public in a variety of different ways, including through its Wangaratta Art Gallery (WAG) Friends not-for-profit group and generous donations.

"We received record visitation for the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2025, with a major review in national arts magazine, Artlink," Ms Arndt said.

"Artlink also reviewed Blake Griffiths Trading Cloth exhibition in Gallery 2 which was described by Artlink editor Una Rey as 'one of the most resolved and thoughtful exhibitions that I have seen in any media' which is high praise indeed."

The Wangaratta Art Gallery has also built on its own collection, first established by the Rural City of Wangaratta (then known as Wangaratta City Council) in 1980, before the gallery even existed.

A total of 11 significant artworks have been added this year including, Sidney Nolan, Goldfields, 1945, gifted to the gallery by a private donor in April.

Ms Arndt said the gift of this important Australian modernist painting represents the most significant donation in the history of the gallery, valued at over $360,000.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Friends celebrated the extraordinary gift with a preview and fundraising dinner held in August, which was a sell-out.

The gallery has long had a particular emphasis on collecting textile art, and this was realised when the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2025 winning work was added - Jemima Wyman’s Haze 19, 2024, valued at over $26,000.

Also acquired were substantial textile and sculptural works by Elizabeth Willing, Blake Griffiths and Juanita McLauchlan, the latter with support of WAG Friends.

A successful Robert Salzer Foundation grant, and the support of WAG Friends, enabled the gallery to purchase Yeddonba, 2023 by Matthew Harris, a work that depicts the stone shelters of the Aboriginal culture site in the Chiltern Mount Pilot National Park.

It is now on display as part of Matthew Harris’s exhibition Overland in Gallery 1 - the first solo exhibition of this Wangaratta born, internationally acclaimed artist in his hometown.

Ms Arndt said the gallery also received two significant cultural gifts this year – a textile work by Waanyi artist Judy Watson, and a Utopian batik by Kathleen Gnale.

"With a combined value of over $55,000 these are very powerful additions to our collection which we would otherwise not be able to afford," she said.

"These significant acquisitions, particularly the sizeable donations (valued at over $400,000) clearly demonstrate the support and investment in our community from those further afield – and the alignment with our community aspirations for a larger cultural footprint and reach – one that enables many more to visit, view, be inspired by and wonder over the gems in our collection."

Supporting the extension of its cultural and educational footprint, 40 of the gallery's events this year were education visits from 18 primary and secondary schools, tertiary institutions and after-school centres, reaching an estimated 864 students.

Many students took part in tours and workshops during the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award, and the gallery collaborated with council’s youth team to deliver a youth art program run by artist Jayanto Tan that reached six schools and 140 young people.

The gallery's Creation Station - a free art making activity space for all ages which is accessible throughout gallery opening hours - has gone from strength to strength, receiving positive feedback from all those who have participated in the unique offerings, inspired by the prevailing exhibition.

Ms Arndt said another bumper year is coming in 2026, with February bringing the national touring exhibition Kait James: Red Flags.

The exhibition is Wadawurrung artist Kait James’ most ambitious solo exhibition to date; the artist carving out a unique visual language based in the reappropriation of racialised products, from souvenir tea towels and pennant flags to children’s dolls and ceramic figurines, colloquially identified as "Aboriginalia".

March brings a group show curated in collaboration with the gallery's interstate neighbours Wagga Wagga Art Gallery and the City of Moreton Bay Galleries in South East Queensland.

The exhibition, Affording Truth, brings together new and existing work by 14 artists from across the country, who explore how we perceive and navigate truth in an era of global uncertainty.

Mid-year the gallery will host the ever-popular Petite Miniature Textiles 2026, curated by artist Cara Johnson – whose work was featured in this year’s Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award.

There are also multiple exhibitions coming to Gallery 2 from artists from across the country, while the Wangaratta Performing Arts and Convention Centre will play host to local talent across painting and works on paper, with details on all exhibitions and programs to be revealed in coming weeks.

The Wangaratta Art Gallery continues to play a vital role in making a diverse program of significant arts and cultural development opportunities accessible to everyone in the local community.