Art Gallery of Western Australia

The Art Gallery of Western Australia sits on the southern edge of the Perth Cultural Centre and holds the state's main art collection across several interconnected buildings. The Australian collection is the strongest draw — it covers colonial and Federation-era painting through to contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander work, with particular depth in West Australian artists.

The gallery is free to enter for the permanent collection. The ground floor Australian galleries are a good hour's browsing; the Aboriginal art collection upstairs is even more impressive. Temporary exhibitions, usually of international calibre, occupy the purpose-built modern wing. The café in the older building has a pleasant courtyard. Combined with the other Cultural Centre institutions next door, this is an easy half-day out.

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The gallery holds the most significant collection of Australian Aboriginal art under one roof in the country. The collection was built methodically from the 1970s onward, at a time when Aboriginal art was still largely dismissed by the mainstream art world, and it now represents artists from across the continent. The depth and quality here puts many better-known galleries to shame.

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