Realities Gallery was a Melbourne gallery which showed work of Australian art of the western and indigenous traditions, and Pacific and international art. It operated from 1971 to 1992.
History
Ross Street 1971–75
In 1970 Danish-born Marianne Baillieu (1939–2012) set up business importing artworks for sale. With her husband, solicitor and businessman Ian Baillieu, they purchased a small retail property in Ross Street, Toorak, which they renovated to open Realities gallery there in April 1971. The Bulletin magazine described the gallery in up-market Toorak Village as having "the air of a sparkling white eggshell with almost every surface glazed white, including the floor which means the public must put on Abominable Snowman socks to be able to walk on it."
In October 1974 the gallery presented old master drawings, watercolours and prints rarely seen for sale in Australia. The works were acquired from London, Boston, and New York. A catalogue of 35 pages, including 12 pages of plates, displayed works in the exhibition from Italian, Dutch and French schools from the 16th to 18th centuries, including Annibale Carracci's Head of a Boy Wearing a Flat Cap priced at $A12,500; Giovanni Battista Tiepolo with two drawings ($A7,000 and $A8,000); and Jacob Jordaens' The Martyrdom of St Sebastian ($A7,500), with others by Bonasone, Boschi, Busiri, Cipriani, Ferri, Garzi, Graziani, Martini, Novelli, and Pinelli. Another achievement of this early period was Baillieu's sale of works to the Sydney Opera House which was then completing construction.
Realities attracted crowds of students and the general public and Baillieu expressed her delight in giving wide exposure to a broad range of the art that she showed, which included dolls, weaving and electronics as well as the traditional media:
“I like to produce exhibitions which have purpose. I like to classify, not just show things indiscriminately. I like to put together a formal survey which will produce an emotional reaction for the community, one aspect of an artist’s work, a trend or movement. For instance I have had exhibitions showing artists work today beside their work [of] 20 years ago."
Jackson Street 1975–1992
The early 1970s brought a boom in sales of locally produced art, joining a worldwide upward trend in the art market that did not pause until the early 1990s. The major state galleries, especially those of Victoria and New South Wales which were glamorously re-housed, were collecting Australian works and receiving blockbuster exhibitions from overseas, and art was seen as a viable investment, with incentives provided by the culturally activist Whitlam government.
Deciding to concentrate on Australian artists, in 1975, Baillieu moved Realities to 33-35 Jackson Street, Toorak. Incidentally, the same year saw the closure of neighbouring Toorak Gallery 1.3 km away at 277 Toorak Rd., South Yarra, which had for ten years shown mainly contemporary Australian art.
Realities' new venue was on a larger site of 1,117 sq. metres occupied by historic buildings; a schoolhouse (c.1867), parish hall (c.1912), verger’s cottage (1928) and a small ablutions block, and had them renovated and combined by architect Ross Ramus of Gunn Hayball Pty. Ltd. The adaptation of the building as a gallery (most particularly the work to the Hall) was documented in a contemporary national survey as an example of the recycling of heritage buildings. George Baldessin's three-part sculpture in bronze, rusted steel and chrome was sited at the entrance, and the first exhibition was Roger Kemp's. Brigid Cole-Adams described the space in an April 1980 article on the occasion of Bailleu's departure;
Aboriginal art also enjoyed unprecedented interest, and in August 1977, Baillieu presented Paintings by the Desert Tribes of Central Australia at Realities, the first exhibition by Papunya Tula artists at a commercial gallery, and sold Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's Warlugulong (1977), an acrylic on canvas painting, for A$1,200 to the Commonwealth Bank. After being on-sold several times, the work was auctioned in 2007 for $2.4 million, beating all previous records for Aboriginal artwork.
Realities was one of few contemporary art galleries to show photography just as it too became collectible. Photographer-exhibitors included Bill Henson, Mark Strizic, Grant Mudford, American Leigh Weiner, and Joyce Evans.