Talk:List of art museums and galleries in Australia

Criteria needed

It is going to be interesting to try and manage the growth of this list using just the WP notability criterion. There may need to be some discussion here in future, particularly around preventing it becoming a never-ending list, and a favoured haunt of linkspammers. I will keep an eye out. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

My personal knowledge of these museums is nil, but, based on their articles, several seem to be very marginal indeed. That may be cause, though, to recommend such articles for deletion rather than to modify the list. If the article is deleted, the list should be adjusted accordingly. It doesn't seem entirely logical to me to have more stringent criteria for the galleries on the list than for those having articles. We could, perhaps, have some designator for especially important listed galleries, but that would be almost certain to be controversial. Tim Ross (talk) 10:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I've just tagged half a dozen for deletion. Well, there went the evening... hamiltonstone (talk) 12:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for your attention to this. I was drawn to the list by what appeared to be its initial intent, that is, to promote a particular commercial venture by including it among more venerable institutions, and deleted several private commercial galleries from the list, as they seemed to lack the claim to notability that would not be an issue for a major museum or public gallery. Perhaps confusion and controversy can be avoided by clarifying the list's scope to include museums and galleries with permanent collections only. The lede for List of museums states, in part: This list of museums is defined for this context as institutions (including nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private businesses) that collect and care for objects of cultural, artistic, scientific, or historical interest and make their collections or related exhibits available for public viewing. Museums and public galleries generally serve a different function than commercial galleries, and would seem to require separate consideration. In this respect, Art museum and List of museums may offer some guidance. JNW (talk) 14:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to be so exclusive. Most signifiant artists exhibited in commercial galleries before they ever appeared in museums and public galleries, and there, often only after they were deceased. It was Velasquez Gallery, in a furniture showroom, that first exhibited Nolan's 'Ned Kelly' series, for example. So, given that the list is "art museums and galleries in Australia" and not just "art museums of Australia", can it not include a list of commercial galleries historical and contemporary?Headings could separate ongoing from defunct, and separate the commercial from the public simply by creating headings in the table, or separate tables. Where articles on commercial galleries include a referenced list of exhibits and the artist in them, with wikilinks, they can assemble valuable introductory information, not found in WP artist bios, for art history researchers, and that is what Wikipedia does well. I'll proceed along those lines Jamesmcardle^(talk) 05:01, 22 October 2020 (UTC)