The South East Art Society (SEAS) is holding its annual Members’ Exhibition in the Old Courthouse Gallery, Mount Gambier until 12 November 2023.
There were two prize categories – the Adam Lindsay Gordon Art Award (sponsored by Freestyle Publications) and the Local History Art Award (sponsored by SEAS) – with cash prizes for both categories.
The exhibition opening and prize presentation was attended by about 30 people including some of the artists, members of the National Trust, and sponsors; celebrating the life and works of Australia’s national poet, who was also a horse trainer and steeplechase jockey, police trooper, and briefly a politician.
Gordon was well-known in the South East of South Australia where he spent almost half his short life in this country, being in initially posted to Mount Gambier in 1853 as a trooper when the first police station was a bark and slab hut near the Cave Garden, and then transferred to Penola in 1854.
In 1862, when the first circuit court was held in Robe and Mount Gambier, Gordon was an orderly for Supreme Court Judge, Edward Gwynne. The court hearings were held in the second police station, built in 1856, alongside the now Old Courthouse.
Born 190 years ago, on 19 October 1833, at Charlton Kings in Gloucestershire, England, Adam Lindsay Gordon was an artist himself, producing numerous sketches, mostly of horses and horsemen but also caricatures of people who amused him.
The exhibition is open from 10 am to 4 pm Wednesday to Sunday, and art works are available for sale.
SEAS president Vicki Thorpe praised the quality and wide range of entries, highlighting the amazing local talent among its members.