33rd Annual Exhibition

‘Celebrating Pastels in Australia’

Our Annual Exhibition this year will be held at the Victorian Artists’ Society in East Melbourne

24 October to 2 November 2019

We are very excited to be holding our 33rd Annual Exhibition at the prestigious Victorian Artists’ Society galleries at 430 Albert Street, East Melbourne.

This historic building has had a major restoration in 2019, including but not limited to, a new roof, installation of a lift, and the upper Galleries restored to their original plan exposing headlight windows than had not been seen for many years. It is particularly special for us to be holding our annual exhibition here on the anniversary of the VAS’s 150th year. More information about VAS is on their website

But what an honour to be able to have our work hung in this wonderful historic building where Dame Nellie Melba has sung from the balcony to the people below. And it has been the home of the famous artists who began the Society – Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Tom Roberts, Walter Withers, Frederick McCubbin, and many others who have plied their brushes in classes and hung their paintings in the galleries. Many of these artists form the foundation of Australia’s major art collections in national galleries across Australia.

Please mark you diaries with the following important dates

Delivery of Paintings 21 October 2019 (times to be confirmed)

Grand Opening & Prize Giving 24 October 2019 at 2pm

Collection of Paintings 2 November 2019 (times to be confirmed)

from left : Regina Hona (winner Best in Show), Anne Taylor (President) & Jennifer Fyfe (Judge) at our 32nd Annual Exhibition in 2019

This year is special

We are very proud of the work of our members and are looking forward to the increased exposure that an exhibition will give you all at VAS.

We have a concert pianist booked for our Opening and demonstrations by prominent Pastellists during the course of the exhibition.

We will be marketing and promoting our exhibition widely this year – promotional materials in nearby hotels, Visitors’ Centres; promotion on radio stations; advertisements in local and city papers & art magazines, Flyers for distribution; promotion on our Social Media channels, Facebook and Instagram; and word-of-mouth. The VAS will also be promoting our exhibition to all their contacts. At the Exhibition, we will have Information Flyers on ‘What is Pastel’, ‘How to Use the Pastel Medium’ and Membership Forms will be available for people to join our Society. There will be opportunities for people with special needs to visit our exhibition.

We will call the Exhibition – “Celebrating Pastels in Australia”

Because of the extra space (compared with previous years), this Exhibition will allow us to increase the size and number of the paintings. More details to come on this.

Our Exhibition will run from the third week in October to Cup Day in November 2020. Think of the opportunity this will give us for exposure and opportunity for sales and your own promotion. We are going to run a major marketing campaign with advertising, placing of promotional materials around in nearby hotels, Visitors’ Centres, radio stations, local and city papers, Flyers, word of mouth. We will have the backing of the committee of the VicArts and they have a good list of contacts.

We will have information flyers on “What is pastel?”, “How to use this pastel medium”; Application Forms for joining the PSVA will be available.

So get your painting hats on and let’s make this the best exhibition we’ve ever had!