David Murray Bequest Centenary
1908 - 2008
14 August - 19 October 2008
The name David Murray is synonymous with the Gallery’s fine collection of prints and drawings. This year marks the centenary of his bequest to the Gallery – some 5,000 old master prints, which totally transformed the Gallery’s print collection. Prior to his bequest, the institution’s fledgling print collection contained only seventy-six items, being mainly British prints. David Murray’s collection was rich in European old master prints, so establishing a new collecting path for the Gallery. Highlights included German Renaissance prints by Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien, Dutch and Flemish prints by Hendrick Goltzius, Rubens and Rembrandt, Italian prints by Mantegna, Marcantonio Raimondi and Castiglione, as well as an old master drawing of St Jerome by Giambattista Tiepolo.
Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn, The Netherlands, 1606-1669,
The descent from the Cross by torchlight, 1654, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, etching, drypoint on paper, 20.9 x 16.2 cm; David Murray Bequest Fund 1949, Art
Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
David Murray also bequeathed £3,000 to the Gallery for the establishment of a print room and the ongoing purchase of prints. In the century since, over 1,500 European and Australian prints have been purchased with these funds. Fine prints by William Blake, Jacques Callot, Honore Daumier, Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, G.B. Piranesi, Rembrandt, Toulouse-Lautrec and many others have strengthened the European collection; while prints by Henri van Raalte, Lionel Lindsay, Margaret Preston, Jessie Traill, Dorrit Black, Noel Counihan, Fred Williams, John Brack and Brett Whiteley are among key works added to the Australian collection.
David Murray, a Scot, lived in South Australia from 1853 until 1900. With his brother
William, Murray initially established a drapery store in Gilbert Place. By the time he moved to
London in 1900, David Murray was the senior partner of a flourishing import and export business.
Murray was also well known in civic life in Adelaide, serving as a member of Parliament, an elder
of the Flinders Street Presbyterian Church, founder of the Adelaide YMCA, and benefactor to
educational institutions such as the School of Mines and Industries and University of Adelaide.
