The show presented artists from both Sydney and Melbourne[6] and included Jewish migrants Sali Herman, whose Two Soldiers Sleeping on a Train was bought by a Melbourne family, and Judy Cassab (a future Archibald Prize winner); alongside George Bell; Elaine Haxton, who showed works made on a visit to Communist China with an Australian cultural delegation; with a landscape by Charles Bush, and a wood carving by sculptor Clifford Last.
[7][8] Brummels Gallery continued to promote significant Australian artists, many of whom had sought refuge in the country after World War II, including a one-man exhibition by Sali Herman;[9] abstract paintings, drawings and sketches for ceramic murals by John Howley, Donald Laycock and Lawrence Daws with pottery by Tom Sanders (10–15 December 1956) opened by architect Peter McIntyre;[10] Anita Aarons, Ola Cohn, Vincas Jolantas, Inge King, Julius Kane, Clifford Last, Clement Meadmore, Andor Meszaros, Lenton Parr, Günther Stein, Tina Wentcher, Teisutis Zikaras in Twelve Melbourne Sculptors (1957), opened by Neil Clerehan (who himself held a sculpture show there that year,[11] as did Vincas Jolantas); watercolours by Guy Grey-Smith (also 1957),[12] drawings by Teisutis Zikaras, a group show of Eric Thake, James Meldrum, Douglas Annand, Charles Bush, and Kenneth Hood[13] (all 1957);[14] silversmithing and jewellery by Matcham Skipper (1958); drawings by Jon Molvig (mid-1958),[15] sketches, costumes, and designs for the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust by Barry Kay, 20 April – 2 May 1959;[16] Antonio Rodrigues wooden sculpture (1959).
This first manifestation of Brummels closed briefly after a fire,[19] and after Pat Collins moved to Hobart to open Tasmania's first liquor-licensed restaurant, the gallery reopened in October 1962 with a posthumous show of graphic works by Latvian Janis Riekstins.
[24] This period brought a reawakening[25][26] to the photographic medium as an art form not seen since the Pictorialist era, and saw the National Gallery of Victoria open the first photography department in a government-run institution, under the curatorship of Jennie Boddington.
[28] Having run for eight years, the gallery had advanced the standing of photography as art and the careers of many Australian photographers including Warren Breninger, Godwin Bradbeer,[29] Ponch Hawkes, David Moore, Gerard Groeneveld, Peter Leiss, Steven Lojewski, Rod McNicol, Wesley Stacey, Robert Ashton, Ian Dodd, Sue Ford, George Gittoes,[30] Ashe Venn,[31] John Williams, Jon Rhodes, Geoff Strong, Jean-Marc Le Pechoux and Henry Talbot.