The Art Gallery of Ballarat, founded in 1884, is the oldest regional art gallery in Australia and has a permanent collection well above the regional norm — strong holdings of nineteenth-century Australian painters (Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton), the Heidelberg School, and serious contemporary Australian art.
The building itself is a fine Italianate sandstone block on Lydiard Street, the city's grandest Victorian streetscape. Admission is free. Allow at least 90 minutes. The gallery shop is the best in town for prints and design books.