Christine Abrahams


Christine Abrahams was a gallery director and major supporter of contemporary Australian art in Melbourne from the 1970s.

Life

Artist Lenton Parr said of Christine that she valued art "as a gift to the spirit and a source of pleasure and enlightenment."
She was Manager of Powell Street Gallery between 1976 and 1980, and a Co-Director of Axiom Gallery from 1980 to 1982 which was established in March 1980 at 27 Gipps Street Richmond, an inner, once-industrial, suburb of Melbourne, in the same precinct as an increasing number of other commercial galleries, including the long-running Pinacotheca and Church Street Centre for Photography.

Axiom gallery exhibitions curator

Of Axiom, critic and artist Robert Rooney remarked;
Axiom's opening show consisted of large abstract paintings by Sydney Ball, Fred Cress, John Walker and John Firth-Smith, selling at between $700 to $9500, and was followed by a solo of works by photographer David Moore.
Other exhibitions included;
In summing up the year 1980, critic Brigid Cole-Adams described Axiom as a "good more conventional gallery with interesting contemporary work including both abstract and new realist styles."

Renamed Christine Abrahams Gallery

In December 1982 Axiom gallery closed, was eponymously renamed the 'Christine Abrahams Gallery', and reopened on 12 February 1983. It showed a broad spectrum of visual arts by contemporary artists, including photography, by architects, and craftspeople including jewellers, and furniture makers.
The building had been converted in 1980 from a clothing factory by the architect of Abrahams' own 1982 Brighton residence, Daryl Jackson, who preserved the industrial aesthetic of exposed trusses, bare concrete floors and steel roller-door. Jackson himself exhibited at the gallery in April 1984, showing drawings and models for a 'more humane' neo-industrial style. Critic Robert Rooney described the renovation as "spacious and well-planned, and an ideal setting for...large paintings." The configuration of the gallery with a smaller space to the left of the main gallery allowed for shows of smaller 'works on paper' simultaneously with shows usually of larger paintings or sculpture.
Exhibitions under the name 'Christine Abrahams Gallery' included;
After Christine's death on 15 September 1994, the gallery was operated by her son Guy Abrahams, who had been co-director since 1987.
The gallery was closed after 28 years in November 2008.

Influence

Christine initiated the influential Australian Contemporary Art Fair and was a member of its organising committee in 1988, 1990 and 1992.
She was on the board of the Fifth Australian Sculpture Triennial and was a member of the Visual Art Export Group of the Australia Council and the Craft Council of Victoria.