The Ian Potter Museum of Art is the University of Melbourne’s art museum. The Potter is one of the largest university-based art museums in Australia and a national leader in the field. The Potter manages the University Art Collection, a rich resource of art and artefacts spanning the Neolithic period to contemporary practice. The Potter is a cultural and educational facility, serving both the campus community and the general public.

Basil Sellers Art Prize

The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, has been privileged to partner with art collector, sporting enthusiast and benefactor Basil Sellers AM on the Basil Sellers Art Prize over a ten-year period from 2008 to 2016. Celebrating the convergence of art and sport, the ensuing five exhibitions saw some of the country’s finest and most accomplished contemporary artists create challenging and ambitious new works engaged with a wide variety of sporting codes. Over its ten-year history, the Prize bore witness to shifts in the cultural landscape. Bringing together rich and diverse explorations of the personal and collective significance of sport and sporting culture, the exhibitions provided artists with a platform from which to discuss a range of issues important to society, including sport and disability, failure, anxiety, meditation and spirituality in sport, women and sport, access and participation, celebrity, spectacle and racism. From the outset, the Basil Sellers Art Prize sought to engage with art and sport in the broadest possible sense; artists were not restricted by medium or approach. For many years the Basil Sellers Art Prize was the richest prize in the country and reflects the Ian Potter Museum of Art’s commitment to supporting contemporary Australian artists and to provoking debate and reflection on Australian culture, past and present.