1983

During the early 1980s, Dr Bruce Munro and Judy Munro gifted over twenty works to Geelong Gallery by some of Australia’s most highly acclaimed sculptors, including Bertram Mackennal, Ron Robertson-Swann, and Inge King.

In 1982 eight artists were short-listed to prepare maquettes for the 1982 Ian Potter Foundation Prize. Geoffrey Bartlett’s Messenger was selected and installed in the National Gallery of Victoria’s moat in 1983 and remained there until 2003 when it was relocated to the NGV International’s sculpture garden moat. The maquette of Bartlett’s work was one of the Munro family’s donations to Geelong Gallery. 

Jock Clutterbuck’s Cave of Wiswas was also gifted by the Munro family. In a 1980 artist’s statement, Clutterbuck explained that ‘Wiswas is an Arabic word to describe the zone of confusion which cloaks events here in the present moment as they appear and become the past’.