The names on the exterior

The names lettered in bronze below the entablature of the Art Gallery of New South Wales were chosen by Frederick Eccleston Du Faur, president of the Art Gallery’s Board of Trustees from 1892 to 1915. They have been criticised as misleading, said to provide ‘a permanent daydream of old masterpieces, whose equivalent could never be seen inside the building’.

When the names were chosen, there was no ambition for the Art Gallery to collect old masters. Like similar names around the National Archives in Paris, a building familiar to Du Faur, they were a catalogue of luminaries in the world of visual culture. They were aspirational, intended more as a challenge to Australian artists rather than a wish list for future Art Gallery acquisitions.

As late as 1965 there were calls for the names to be removed. Trustee and artist Douglas Dundas suggested that they be replaced by the names of ‘notable Australian artists’. The trustees agreed in principle but could not decide on who should be included ‘as names,’ they noted, do not ‘always endure the test of time’.

Forty-four names were intended. Thirty-two names are found on the existing elevations. Seven intended names are known from architectural drawings, the other five are unknown.

Painters appear on the south half of the front elevation, and on the adjoining side elevation to the south: [moving to the right from the entrance] Giotto, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Murillo, Rubens, Andrea del Sarto, Botticelli, Bellini, Cimabue, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Tintoretto, Velasquez, Vandyck and Gainsborough.

Sculptors appear on the north half of the front and were presumably intended for the adjoining side elevation to the north: [moving to the left from the entrance] Michael Angelo, Donatello, Ghiberti, Pheidias, Cellini, Canova, Jean Goujon, Pythagoras, Praxiteles and Anthemius.

Architects appear on the rear elevation: Christopher Wren, Philibert de l’Orme, Perrault, Juan de Herrera, Mansart and Inigo Jones.

The names intended for the unbuilt part of the rear elevation are found on drawings from 1895 for the front, south and rear elevations. These drawings correspond with the names as installed, except that those on the side elevation are placed in a different order [Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Tintoretto, Bellini, Botticelli, Cimabue, Velasquez, Vandyck and Gainsborough].

A drawing dated 27 November 1895, for the elevation of the small portion of the Art Gallery built in 1896, shows six names: Ictinus, Phidias, Raphael, M. Angelo, Titian and C Wren. Five of these names appear on the elevations that were completed; one, Ictinus, must have been intended for the unbuilt north elevation.

The names intended for the rear elevation towards the north, which was never built, were Sansovino, Bramante, Palladio, Vignola, Vitruvius and Brunelleschi.