1929

In 1929, Geelong Gallery focused its energy on further organising the collection and managing the newly built H P Douglass Memorial Gallery.

Many donations were welcomed into the permanent collection, including several statues and an oil painting gifted by the late James Wood, a Melbourne citizen who grew up in Geelong. 

Amongst the works gifted by James Wood was The petition by Valeressos, a mysterious and mononymous artist of which little is known. The image depicts a woman guiding an older male figure, both dressed in richly coloured noble attire. The woman gestures to a kneeling female figure dressed in black attire, possibly signifying the recent death of a loved one. She holds a piece of paper in her outstretched right hand—likely the petition referred to in the work’s title—and guards a child, who warily regards the dog in the composition’s lower left, with her left arm.