Shepparton Art Museum announces highlights of 2025 artistic program, featuring a major touring exhibition from Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce it will host Art Gallery of New South Wales’ touring exhibition Brett Whiteley: Inside the Studio in June 2025 as the exhibition’s sole Victorian venue on its national tour.

Offering audiences around Australia a fascinating insight into the studio practice of one of the nation’s most gifted and revered artists, Brett Whiteley: Inside the Studio draws from the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Brett Whiteley Studio in Sydney to present a selection of works across various media. Featuring paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, and ceramics, the exhibition considers the role of Whiteley’s studio spaces in informing the scale and content of his works, and how they became an expression and extension of his artistic identity.

Included in the exhibition are some of Whiteley’s most iconic paintings, such as The balcony 2, 1975, and Self portrait in the studio, 1976 (pictured above), alongside early abstract works made in London and New York in the 1960s, and works from Whiteley’s final series, Paris ‘Regard de Côté’. Rarely seen archival photographs from Whiteley’s time in studios across London, New York and Sydney show some of the artworks in various stages of completion, offering a glimpse into his creative world.

Brett Whiteley: Inside the Studio is a touring exhibition from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program. The exhibition will feature in SAM’s Lin Onus Gallery from 28 June to 31 August 2025.

Nick Yelverton, Art Gallery of New South Wales curator, Brett Whiteley Studio, said this is a unique opportunity for Victorian audiences to see iconic works by Whiteley.

"The works in this exhibition are highlights of both the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Brett Whiteley Studio collections in Sydney. We are excited to take Whiteley on the road and give interstate audiences the chance to delve into the life and mind of one of Australia’s most important artists.”

From February 2025, audiences can also look forward to a host of new exhibitions at SAM featuring artworks drawn from the collection, alongside new site-specific installations that activate the building’s interior spaces. Opening on 22 February in SAM’s Lin Onus Gallery, The Shape of Things to Come is a new exhibition curated by SAM Artistic Director Danny Lacy that pairs artworks from the SAM Collection with key loan artworks to evoke and inspire perspectives on our future, from the apocalyptic to the utopian. Featured artworks include River, 2023, an immense linocut work from Naarm/Melbourne-artist Dr. Bridget Hillebrand, on loan to SAM from the artist, and The Bird Agents, 2007-2008, a large-scale work on paper from artist Locust Jones.

Across the museum’s Level 2, a selection of works from artist Belinda Fox and intricate ceramic figures from artist Vipoo Srivilasa will feature in the showcases to explore materiality and technique. On the museum’s Level 4 Art Wall, artist Kerrie Poliness will take over the space to create a new, site-responsive mural that continues her work with geometric abstraction. In the Children’s Gallery, a new exhibition curated by SAM Curator – Community Caroline Esbenshade entitled Once Upon a Time will playfully invite kids and families to engage in imaginative storytelling through playful works from the SAM Collection and creative art activities. In late 2025, SAM will show JXSH MVIR FOREVER I LIVE, a major retrospective exhibition presented by Koorie Heritage Trust featuring the artworks of late Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta, and Barkindji artist Josh Muir.

Danny Lacy, SAM Artistic Director, says of the artistic program:

“We’re thrilled to be presenting such a dynamic and rich program in the first half of 2025 that brings the stories and practices of so many beloved and talented artists to regional Victoria. Our visitors will be awed by the scale of Brett Whiteley: Inside the Studio; the sheer volume of Whiteley’s many iconic works, paired with illuminating behind-the-scenes photos, lay bare the passion and creative drive of one of Australia’s most significant artists. We’ll also continue to bring rarely-seen works from our collection to the gallery floor, in dialogue with loaned works from other Australian institutions, that reunite visitors with past familiar works and introduce our community to new artists, techniques, and practice.”

ENDS

Featured image: Brett Whiteley, Self portrait in the studio, 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales, purchased 1977 © Wendy Whiteley