Sydney art collector and philanthropist Judith Neilson has moved into the big league of university donors with a $6 million gift to UNSW to establish a new chair of contemporary art.
Ms Neilson, who opened the White Rabbit gallery to focus on contemporary Chinese art a decade ago, said she wanted to "deepen the intellectual rigour of research into Chinese contemporary art".
"We are looking to establish a leading scholar," she said.
The new gift follows her $10 million donation to UNSW two years ago for the Judith Neilson chair of architecture, which is specifically charged with researching affordable housing design.
Ms Neilson said she wanted to expand the study of Chinese contemporary art, which she described as "alive with ideas and energy, vibrant, often humorous, imaginative, technically superb and utterly compelling".
"We must give the work, the artists, and the distinctive and shared traditions the rigorous critical attention they deserve," she said.
The professor appointed to the new position will have privileged access to White Rabbit, whose collection – with Ms Neilson's personal stamp – is recognised as one of the world's most significant collections of Chinese contemporary art.
Cultural hub
The new appointee to the position – to be called the Judith Neilson chair in contemporary art – will be partly based at White Rabbit, in Sydney's Chippendale which Ms Neilson is transforming into a cultural hub using the fortune earned when her former husband, Kerr Neilson, listed his Platinum Asset Management in 2007.
Not only does Chippendale house the gallery, but also her distinctive, award-winning home, a new $41 million art space being built next door to her house which she will call Phoenix, as well as a 10,000 square-metre storage facility – Dangrove – being built in nearby Alexandria to house the White Rabbit collection.
Dangrove has been designed by former UNSW dean of built environment Alec Tzannes.
Ms Neilson's gift to the university will also fund a post-doctoral fellow and she says research students will "have access to the White Rabbit collection by invitation or request".
UNSW vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs said the new chair arising from Ms Neilson's gift would "strengthen the growing cultural and artistic bonds between China and Australia on the world stage".
The university has already forged strong links with China, last year securing up to $100 million of Chinese funding to establish a "Torch" innovation precinct in Sydney to commercialise technology.
"UNSW is committed to building enduring and reciprocal partnerships between China and Australia encompassing culture, education, research and innovation," Professor Jacobs said.
