However, this period included two World Wars and a Depression and governments always considered they had more pressing priorities, including building the initial infrastructure of Canberra and Old Parliament House in the 1920s and the rapid expansion of Canberra and the building of government offices, Lake Burley Griffin and the National Library of Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1965 the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board was finally able to persuade Prime Minister Robert Menzies to take the steps necessary to establish the gallery.

He envisaged the Capitol to be "either a general administration structure for popular receptions and ceremony or for housing archives and commemorating Australian Achievements".

Constructions under the supervision of the National Capital Development Commission and it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982, during the premiership of Whitlam's successor, Malcolm Fraser.

The new prime minister, William McMahon announced the appointment of Mollison as acting director of the National Gallery of Australia in October 1971.

Madigan said of this device that it was "the intention of the architectural concept to implant into the grammar of the design a sense of freedom so that the building could be submitted to change and variety but would always express its true purpose".

The design provides space for both the display and storage of works of art and to accommodate the curatorial and support staff of the Gallery.

On the principal floor, the galleries are large, and are used to display the Indigenous Australian and International (meaning European and American) collections.

The bottom level also contains a series of large galleries, originally intended to house sculpture, but now used to display the Asian art collection.

[11] A former director, Betty Churcher, was particularly critical of Madigan, and told a journalist that "the dead hand of an architect cannot stay clamped on a building forever".

[12] When Ron Radford became director, he expanded the brief to include a suite of new galleries to display the collection of indigenous art and a new Australian Garden fronting King Edward Terrace.

[13] Stage 1 of the Indigenous galleries and new entrance project was officially opened on 30 September 2010 by Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia.

[16][17] Two art critics criticised the purchase in 2021: John McDonald of The Sydney Morning Herald thought that the money could have been better spent filling some significant gaps in its collection,[18] while Christopher Allen concurred, and thought that it merely "offer[s] a passive experience to audiences who are unwilling or unable to engage more actively with works of art"[19] and that "$14m is an absurd price for a work of debatable value by an artist of modest standing".

[20] In 1976, the newly established ANG Council advertised for a permanent director to fill the position that James Mollison had been acting in since 1971.

In 1977 Mollison persuaded Sunday Reed to donate Sidney Nolan's remarkable Ned Kelly series to the ANG.

During his directorship, the National Gallery of Australia gained government support for improving the building and significant private donations and corporate sponsorship.

Kennedy's cancellation of the Sensation exhibition (scheduled at the National Gallery of Australia from 2 June 2000 to 13 August 2000) was controversial, as it was seen by many as censorship.

Its most controversial work was Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting which used elephant dung and was accused of being blasphemous.

The then Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani campaigned against the exhibition, claiming it was "Catholic-bashing" and an "aggressive vicious, disgusting attack on religion."

In November 1999, Kennedy cancelled the exhibition and stated that the events in New York had "obscured discussion of the artistic merit of the works of art.

[32] In April 2018, it was announced that Nick Mitzevich, the third NGA director to be appointed from the Art Gallery of South Australia, would take over at the start of July 2018.

[37][39][40] Comprising around 300 works from the gallery's own collection, the exhibition included the work of Agnes Goodsir, Bessie Davidson, Clarice Beckett, Olive Cotton, Grace Cossington Smith, Yvonne Audette, Janet Dawson, Lesley Dumbrell, Margaret Worth, Rosalie Gascoigne, Bea Maddock, Judy Watson,[37] Frances Burke, Margaret Preston,[36] Olive Ashworth, and other artists of the previous 150 years.

[44] The NGA held the inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial (NIAT), Culture Warriors, from 13 October 2007 to 10 February 2008.

The exhibition afterwards toured the country, shown at Cairns Regional Gallery, the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide and the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo, NSW.

The title references the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, that recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australians for the first time.

[58] Featured artists included Margaret Olley, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Tracey Moffatt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Mabel Juli, Rosemary Laing, Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor, Betty Muffler,[59] Stella Bowen, Dora Chapman, Fiona Foley, Brenda L. Croft,[56] Discount Universe and many others.

The two exhibitions do not purport to be a complete account, but rather "[look] at moments in which women created new forms of art and cultural commentary such as feminism... [highlighting] creative and intellectual relationships between artists across time".

[63] In 2020 the gallery purchased American artist Jordan Wolfson's "Cube"[64] for A$6.67 million,[65] about half the museum's annual acquisition budget.

The group, aged between 15 and 25, meet online monthly and work with staff and artists to develop and deliver a variety of programs for young people.

[73] and includes: This collection is dominated by the Aboriginal Memorial of 200 painted tree trunks commemorating all the indigenous people who had died between 1788 and 1988 defending their land against invaders.