National Gallery of Victoria Art School

[1] Among its luminaries, the school was headed by Sir William Dargie in 1946–53,[2] John Brack from 1962–68, and Lenton Parr from 1968 to its absorption into the newly created Victorian College of the Arts.

Students enrolling were required to demonstrate only rudimentary artistic skill and came from all over the country, paying a very reasonable ten shillings per term (a value of A$40–50 in 2022) in the 1920s.

The museum provided classes in natural history, and students benefitted from ready access to its art collections.

[1] A past students' club was formed in the early 1920s and held reunions attended by many who were to become significant artists, including Norah Gurdon, Victor Cobb, Dora Wilson, Elma Roach, Madge Freeman, Ruth Hollick, and Isabel May Tweddle.

Jock Clutterbuck (VCA) and David Wilson (Prahran) alternated the role of head of the newly merged Department of Sculpture.

National Gallery of Victoria Art School students 1896
Melbourne National Gallery School life class in 1935 (L-R) Phyl Waterhouse, Alannah Coleman, Charles Bush, Jean Mcinnes and Miss Eastwood (posed not in front of their own canvases). On the walls; works by Hugh Ramsay , John Longstaff , Max Meldrum , James Quinn , Isaac Cohen and Charles Wheeler . Taken for Table Talk magazine
A group of students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School with animal costumes c. 1930