December 15, 2020

Exhibition celebrates extraordinary donations to UOW Art Collection

Avid art collector has bestowed hundreds of prints during last two decades

An exhibition that showcases a range of prints donated to the University of Wollongong (UOW) by renowned art collector Dr Douglas Kagi was launched yesterday (Monday 14 December) in the Gallery of the new Jillian Broadbent Building.

Dr Kagi’s prolific and generous contribution to UOW’s Art Collection is celebrated in The Kagi Donations, which is on display until 17 March 2021. 

Dr Kagi visited the exhibition yesterday along with UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings CBE and Professor Glenn Salkeld, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences, and the Humanities.

The works on display have been drawn from donations Dr Kagi made to UOW, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program, in 2003, 2006, and 2016, include a number of rare and valuable prints on paper.

Karen Cass, of the UOW Art Collection, said Dr Kagi’s extraordinary donations over the past two decades have added considerable depth to the University’s print collection.

“Dr Kagi has been a generous, ongoing benefactor to the UOW Art Collection. His donations, which include both international and Australian artists, have provided students and researchers with the opportunity to study these works in volume.

“The artists, their subjects, styles, print techniques, print studios, pigments, and even the paper used, all contribute to our understanding of the way printmaking was used and developed in the 20^th century.

“We are thrilled to be able to highlight the work of major artists from Europe, America, Asia and Australia, and also celebrate the extraordinary donations Dr Kagi has made to transform the UOW Art Collection.”

Dr Kagi began collecting artworks in the 1970s, acquiring predominantly limited-edition prints, etchings, lithographs and screenprints from contemporary artists. This coincided with a period in art history in which print became a popular method of allowing artists to explore their ideas in an inexpensive medium.

Since 2003, Dr Kagi has donated close to 800 works to the UOW Art Collection, by artists such as Richard Hamilton, Graham Sutherland, Eduardo Paolozzi, Jorge Castillo, Joan Hernandez Pijuan and Leonard Baskin.

The Kagi Donations is open to the public 10am-3pm, from Monday to Wednesday, when UOW is operational. The exhibition can be viewed in the UOW Gallery in Building 29, the Jillian Broadbent Building, at UOW’s Wollongong campus.