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The Morgan Thomas Bequest In 1903, wealthy Adelaide surgeon, Dr. Morgan Thomas bequeathed £65,000 to be divided between South Australia’s Art Gallery, Library and Museum. It was Australia’s single largest cultural Bequest at that time, and it would transform the collections of all three institutions; particularly that of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Now celebrating one hundred years, this commemorative exhibition showcases just some of the more than a thousand works of art acquired through the Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund. The Art Gallery’s £16,500 share of the Bequest allowed it to broaden its collection policy and to establish the Decorative Arts and Asian Art collections. Among the first purchases in 1904 were several hundred British, Chinese and Japanese ceramic objects, which formed the nucleus of the European and Asian decorative arts collection. Foremost amongst these acquisitions are the now treasured Wedgwood Swan vase (1876) and the rare Chinese porcelain King Charles Spaniel (c1750-80). The Morgan Thomas Bequest has for a hundred years enabled the purchase of many exceptional decorative art items, including the Morris & Co. tapestry The Adoration of the Magi (1900-02, designed 1887), a remarkable group of arts and crafts silver and a collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century English furniture. The Bequest also enhanced the Australian and European paintings collections. The Gallery’s three outstanding John Glover paintings of Tasmania, including A View of the Artist’s House and Garden (1835) were acquired through the Bequest, as well as Phillips Fox’s Alfresco (c1904) and Arthur Streeton’s magnificent Federation landscape painting Australia Felix (1907). In 1948 the Bequest enabled the purchase of six Old Master paintings for the European collection, including Veronese Bonifazio’s Rest on the flight into Egypt (late 1520s) and Marcus Gheeraerts’ Dame Magdalene Pultney, later Lady Aston (c1620). The combined value of the Morgan Thomas acquisitions is now worth nearly 30 million dollars. The last great purchase of the Bequest, indeed finalising the Bequest in its centenary year, is the acquisition of a rare William Morris drawing for his wallpaper Wreath c1876. The Art Gallery Foundation have also contributed to this important acquisition. The philanthropy of this one man has secured many significant items of cultural heritage for all South Australians to enjoy. To perpetuate his name and generosity, the Art Gallery named gallery thirteen ‘The Morgan Thomas Gallery’. Now one hundred years after the Bequest’s inception, this exhibition brings together the Art Gallery’s great Morgan Thomas Bequest treasures for the first time.
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Bonifazio, Italy, born 1487, died 1553 Rest on the Flight into Egypt (detail), 1520s late oil on canvas 110.8 x 171.4 cm Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund |
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| Biography - Dr. Morgan Thomas (1824–1903) When Dr. Morgan Thomas, a bachelor, died in his sleep on the morning of March 8 1903, he did so a very wealthy man (unbeknownst to the citizens of Adelaide) and a very generous man. For this unassuming surgeon had taken steps to endow the Art Gallery, Museum and Library of South Australia with a magnificent bequest of £65,000 (approximately $20 million today, but in the early twentieth century it had a far greater art purchasing capacity). Born in Glynneath, Wales in 1824, Morgan Thomas studied to be a surgeon at the University of London and later became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. Aged 24, Thomas departed Britain on the barque Zealous, arriving in the fledgling settlement of Adelaide in 1848. Little is known of his life in those first few years other than that he was living in the Adelaide Hills township of Nairne around 1851. By July 1853 he had accepted the position of Medical Officer at the then isolated settlement of Robe on the south-east coast of South Australia. His stay there was brief, for in 1855 he returned to Adelaide as the Assistant Colonial Surgeon and House Surgeon for the Adelaide Hospital. He held this position until 1858, when he then established his own private practice in Adelaide. A frugal person, Thomas resided first in a suite of rooms at the Lunatic Asylum and then at the main Hospital during his working life in Adelaide. From the 1870s onward he lived at 142 Wakefield Street; lodging with a Mr & Mrs Olsen. Upon Mr Olsen’s death in 1900, Thomas purchased the house and its complete furnishings. During his retirement he became something of a known identity on the streets of Adelaide. According to A. A. Lendon’s 1933 biographical manuscript, Thomas was a stickler for routine, for example, at 2.30pm sharp he would enter the Chemist shop at 80 Rundle Street to talk with the proprietor Mr R. Hutton. Dr. Morgan Thomas is buried at the North Road Cemetery in Nailsworth. His handsome memorial is in red granite with inset allegorical rondels in bronze designed by Harry P. Gill, the Art Gallery’s first Honorary Curator. |
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| Admission charges Entry by gold coin donation. Guided Tours Tours Private Tours |
 Unknown, India A portrait of Mirza Mohammed Salin Shah (detail), c.1825, Dehli gouache on paper, 34.0 x 22.5, Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1940
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Talks & Special Tours Tuesday 27 May at 12.45 pmLunchtime Talk Robert Reason, Associate Curator of European and Decorative Arts, speaks about Wedgwood & Sons, Swan vase, 1876, displayed in the exhibition. Meet at the exhibition entrance to gallery 22. Special Tours A guide to the Morgan Thomas
Bequest A guide to the Morgan Thomas
Bequest Tuesday 15 July at 12.45 pm For families and children Family Drop in Days in June & July Sunday 22 June Sunday 27 July Sponsors |
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