chandler coventry

Chandler Coventry (1924-1999) was born into one of the established grazing families in New England.

As a young man he moved to Sydney where he worked in commercial art galleries.

In 1970 he opened his own gallery in Hargreave Street, Paddington. He also established his own collection of contemporary Australian art.

Some of his works hung in his Sydney home; most covered the walls of the Coventry family residence, "Rockvale Station", on the outskirts of Armidale.

It was a collection of over 300 works of art acquired with a knowledge and a unique passion which recognised innovative and artists of the times.

In the late 1970s after having given some works of art to Armidale, Coventry offered his collection on the understanding that an art museum would be built to house both his and Hinton's collections.

Through a huge community effort and with assistance from government funding NERAM was opened in 1983.

The Chandler Coventry Collection was described by James Mollison, the former Director of the Australian National Gallery, as one of the most important private collections of contemporary Australian Art.

The collection currently has over 400 works of art and strongly reflects recent art movements.

The focus is on expressionist and abstractionist painters with some figurative artists and includes paintings by Ralph Balson, Peter Booth, Gunter Christmann, Janet Dawson, Elaine Haxton, Leah MacKinnon, Michael Taylor, Dick Watkins and Brett Whiteley.