Ewing Collection on show at the Potter

The collection comprises 56 paintings, prints and drawings by major nineteenth and early twentieth-century artists.

It includes work by Arthur Streeton, Max Meldrum, Nicholas Chevalier, Rupert Bunny, Hans Heyson, JJ Hilder and Harold Herbert.

Director of the Ian Potter Museum Chris McAuliffe explained Dr Ewing favoured art which reflected a colonist’s aspirations towards prosperity, security and self-improvement.

"When he began collecting art in 1908, the painting, poetry and literature of a new nation sought to establish a distinctive identity and secure future," he said. 

"The Ewing Collection is more than a fine collection of pictures, or a fine act of philanthropy; it is a living register of the civic and national ideals of Edwardian Melbourne."

Dr McAuliffe said the themes of nationhood and identity remained central to Australian visual culture today, and this exhibition provided an opportunity to consider the changing values in the interpretation of Australian art.

"Beauty, nationalism and pedagogy were combined in Dr Ewing’s words on the plaque which accompanied the original display of the collection at the Melbourne University Union Gallery in 1938," he explained.

"It said he chose to donate his collection to the University 'that our youth may be inspired with the beauty as well as a deeper love of their country by the works of our artists'."