Intro -- Contents -- PREFACE A Personal Discovery of Art in the Country -- INTRODUCTION Times When the Arts Could Thrive -- 1 An Extraordinary Man -Ballarat Art Gallery, 1884 -- 2 Old Timers Wanting More - Bendigo Art Gallery, 1887 -- 3 Not the Archibald - Warrnambool Art Gallery and Museum, 1886/87 -- 4 Trying to Keep Up - Geelong Art Gallery, 1896 -- 5 Comfortable Castlemaine, 1913-1931 -- 6 A Small Civic Start - Shepparton, 1936 -- 7 Some Early (Halting) Moves to Support the Provincial Galleries -- 8 Mildura - Intrigue, Community Conflict and Individual Drive -- 9 Getting the Galleries Together - A 'Reluctant' National Gallery -- 10 Hamilton - Squatter Legacies - Upstaging the Others?, 1961 -- 11 Benalla - Patronage in a Community Divided -- 12 Centralism and the Struggle for Control -- 13 Smaller Towns Seeking a Place at the Table -- 14 Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement, 1965 - What Qualifies as a Gallery? -- 15 Regionalism as a Guiding Concept -- 16 A New Constitution (RGAV), 1970 -- 17 Ambitious but Ambivalent- Westbrook and the NGV -- 18 Suburban Rivalry - McClelland Gallery, 1961 and Mornington Peninsula Gallery, 1969 -- 19 Gippsland Competitors - Sale, 1965 and Morwell, 1971 -- 20 It's Too Much Work - The Battle for an Executive Officer -- 21 Warrnambool -Cleaning with Ajax -- 22 Bendigo - Shaken, Not Stirred -- 23 Ballarat - Flagging Its Wares |