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Robert Blackburn | Entrance to the National Gallery VictoriaPreviousNext/7
Photograph: Eugene Hyland | The 18th and 19th century salon gallery, featuring 'Anguish'PreviousNext/7
Photographer: Charlotte AmbrosePreviousNext/7
NGV InternationalSee blockbuster exhibitions alongside an impressive permanent collection at the National Gallery of Victoria
Art | Galleries
Southbank
Monday 28 October 2024ShareCopy LinkFacebookTwitterPinterestEmailWhatsAppBook onlineWritten by Time Out editorsAdvertising
Time Out says
This grand modernist building on St Kilda Road is Australia's oldest art museum and amongst the most popular in the country. That title has been won thanks to the gallery's top-notch and diverse permanent collection, their fantastic visiting collections and an ongoing series of additional events aimed at locals and tourists alike.
The permanent collection includes a Rembrandt, a Bonnard and a Tiepolo – not bad for a gallery that's only been around since the mid 1800s. All visitors to the NGV must pass the water wall upon entry, and yes, it is hard to resist touching it. The ground floor is where you'll usually find the gallery's major exhibitions and it's also where you'll find the magnificent, boiled lolly-like stained glass ceiling in the Great Hall.
Upstairs you've got the permanent collections, as well as the smaller visiting exhibitions. You cannot visit the NGV without spending a hefty chunk of time in the 19th Century Gallery (or Salon Gallery). It gets its nickname from the style the paintings are hung in, and houses one of the most emotive paintings in the gallery: 'Anguish' by August Friedrich Schenck. The painting depicts a hopeless scene, with a bereft ewe standing over the body of her lamb.
You could easily spend a whole day in the bulding, so be sure to make regular pit stops. If you're feeling fancy the Tea Room offers high tea as well as cakes and light meals, while downstairs you can fill your belly with the seasonal menu items at Garden Restaurant.
Check out our hit-list of the best galleries in Melbourne.
Details
Address180 St Kilda RdMelbourne3006Transport:Nearby stations: Flinders StreetPrice:VariousOpening hours:Daily 10am-5pmDirectionsWebsiteCall
What’s on
Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light
As Susan Sontag observed in On Photography, great images can act as memento mori, interrupting the flow of time by freezing moments that are otherwise fleeting. But the power to make – and be remembered for – such images has never been evenly distributed. For much of the twentieth century, women faced formidable barriers to working as photographers, their contributions often sidelined within the male-dominated field. Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light, a major new exhibition at the NGV, sets out to redress that imbalance – putting women back in the frame and revisiting the history of 20th-century photography. Running until May 3, 2026, the exhibit brings together more than 300 photographs, prints, photobooks and magazines by 80-plus artists, spanning portraiture, photojournalism, fashion, documentary and the avant-garde. From the suffrage movement through to the women’s liberation era, this period reveals how women used the camera to record, reflect on and challenge the world around them. Drawn entirely from the NGV Collection, the exhibition features more than 170 recently acquired works, with 130 on public view for the first time. Recognisable images sit alongside lesser-known ones, revealing the dense international networks that connected women photographers from Melbourne to Tokyo and Paris to Buenos Aires. Highlights include Dorothea Lange’s 'Migrant Mother' (1936), one of the defining images of the Great Depression; Lee Miller’s portrait of Man Ray in...
Photography
Until 3 May 2026
Westwood | Kawakubo
Born just a year apart, Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo (the visionary behind Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market) couldn’t have come from more different worlds – but both knew how to tear up the fashion rulebook. Their designs dismantled ideas of beauty, gender and taste, and now Melbourne gets a world-first chance to see their radical vision side by side. Open now at the NGV, Westwood | Kawakubo is a showcase of more than 140 boundary-breaking designs. Many are drawn from the NGV’s own holdings – an extraordinary cache of 300-plus Kawakubo pieces and more than 100 by Westwood – making this one of the most important showcases of their work anywhere in the world. The exhibition is arranged thematically, moving from punk’s anarchic spirit in the 1970s to the avant-garde silhouettes of today. Expect explorations of their shared obsessions with historical dress, radical cutting techniques and subversions of gender norms, alongside rare runway footage, archival photography and film. There are plenty of highlights: punk ensembles once worn by the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie Sioux; the tartan Anglomania gown famously modelled by Kate Moss; Sarah Jessica Parker’s wedding dress from Sex and the City: The Movie; Rihanna’s sculptural ‘petal dress’ from the Met Gala; and key Comme des Garçons collections like Body Meets Dress – Dress Meets Body (SS97) and Uncertain Future (SS25). A centrepiece gallery pits Westwood’s sweeping 18th-century ballgowns against Kawakubo’s...
Exhibitions
Until 19 Apr 2026
NGV Friday Nights
Whack on something striking and dust off your dancing shoes as the much-loved NGV Friday Nights returns to dazzle Melburnians this summer. Every Friday night, the NGV will open its doors after hours to show off the gallery's coolest new kid: Westwood | Kawakubo, an epic exhibition tracing five decades of radical self expression through the eyes of two of fashion's most trailblazing designers: Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, the visionary behind Comme des Garçons. Westwood | Kawakubo is a showcase of more than 140 boundary-breaking designs. Many are drawn from the NGV’s own holdings – an extraordinary cache of 300-plus Kawakubo pieces and more than 100 by Westwood – making this one of the most important showcases of their work anywhere in the world. The exhibition is arranged thematically, moving from punk’s anarchic spirit in the 1970s to the avant-garde silhouettes of today. Expect explorations of their shared obsessions with historical dress, radical cutting techniques and subversions of gender norms, alongside rare runway footage, archival photography and film. Grab a bubbly from the Moët and Chandon Champagne Bar, sink a signature summery cocktail at the Four Pillars Bar, or taste a Yarra Valley wine from the Yering Station Wine Bar. There will also be share-style snacks floating around, and a pop-up Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream Cart, because, obviously. Eclectic live music and epic performances will also be popping off in the gallery, with renowned Aussie DJs like...
Exhibitions
Until 17 Apr 2026
Mother
From Raphael’s 'Madonna and Child' to Louise Bourgeois’ 'Maman', the maternal bond has long been one of art’s most enduring subjects. And now, a new exhibition at the NGV, Mother: Stories from the NGV Collection, puts motherhood firmly in the frame, bringing together more than 200 historical and contemporary works to examine how the experience of being, becoming and relating to motherhood has been imagined across cultures, generations and media. Running from March 27 to July 12, 2026, at the NGV's Ian Potter Centre, Mother will span painting, sculpture, photography, weaving, decorative arts and moving image, moving beyond sentimental tropes to grapple with the realities and contradictions of motherhood – warts and all. Themes range from societal expectations and invisible labour to mythology, religion and the deep connections between motherhood, nature and Country for First Nations communities. A standout from the exhibit is Ruth O’Leary’s 'Flinders Street, 2017', created after the birth of her first child, in which a public photobooth becomes a makeshift studio: a poignant meditation on care and the blurred boundaries between public and private life. Other highlights include two new acquisitions by David Hockney, a moving image work by Hayley Millar Baker and a towering sculpture from 1893 by Betram Mackennal. The exhibition features works by an expansive roster of artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, Camille Henrot, David Hockney, Tracey Moffatt, Iluwanti...
27 Mar12 July 2026
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