‘Dissolving Worlds: Tim and Mic Gruchy’ (installation view), Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, April 2023. Photography: Carl Warner
About Griffith University Art Museum
Griffith University Art Museum is a free public gallery located within the Queensland College of Art & Design, at the southern end of Brisbane’s cultural precinct at South Bank.
Situated in one of Australia’s oldest art schools, GUAM is committed to innovative research and experimentation to encourage appreciation and understanding of art and its role in society. The Art Museum stimulates active learning about art and the creative process through exhibitions, public programmes, research, teaching, publishing and dialogue among communities of Griffith University students, faculty, artists, scholars, alumni, and the wider public.
GUAM is custodian of the Griffith University Art Collection, a diverse collection that includes painting, sculpture, works on paper, ceramics, political posters and the country’s foremost collection of early Australian video art. Over the last 50 years the Art Collection has become the largest university art collection in Queensland, and the State’s second largest public art collection.
After 25 years situated at Griffith University’s Brisbane South (Nathan) Campus, our main exhibition space was relocated to the University’s Brisbane City (South Bank) Campus in 2001.
Our team
Carrie McCarthy
Acting Director
Lizzie Riek
Acting Curator
Sharna Barker
Acting Collections Manager
Patrick Lester
Curatorial & Collections Officer - Access
Louise Walder
Acting Administration Officer
Nicola Holly
Acting Administration Officer
Ellen Anderson
Acting Collections Officer - Registration
Our history
Oral History – Dr Margriet Bonnin
Dr Margriet Bonnin was the foundation Director of the Queensland Film and Drama Centre (now Griffith University Art Museum) taking up her appointment in 1978, three years after the Centre's opening, and holding the position until 1998.
Margriet was an astute administrator, while at the same time being suited to the innovative and pioneering approach to teaching and administration being promoted by Griffith University. This included running workshops in the Arts that encouraged community involvement/attendance.
This oral history recounts her experiences as one of the early senior academic administrators employed by the organisation.
Glenn R. Cooke
Those who started, those who stayed, those who departed, those who strayed: Art training in Brisbane to 1991
"Throughout the second half of the twentieth century the higher education sector in Australia went through a series of reorganisations culminating in the Dawkins Report 1988 which recommended that the various technical colleges, teachers’ colleges and colleges of advanced education be incorporated into a system of multi-campus universities. Negotiations were put underway so that on 1 July 1991 the Queensland Conservatorium of Music amalgamated with Griffith University. The art, craft and design courses and students of the Queensland College of Art and Design, from Associate Diploma level on, also joined Griffith University and on 1 January 1992 an independent history of 110 years was brought to a close.”
- Gwendolyn GRANT (1878-1968)
- Tech. College, George street soldiers and truck. 1942
- Watercolour on paper, 24.6 x 31cm
- Griffith University Art Collection. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Gregor Grant 1993