Six Australian Art Galleries Join Google Art Project

Image: "The Kiss" by Pablo Picasso in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. REUTERS/David Gray

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is among six Australian galleries to share their collections with the online community via Google Art Project. The project, launched last year, allows art enthusiasts to view the great artistic works of the world, all from the convenience of their computer screen.

The Art Gallery of NSW has now launched 415 of its most notable works, including a wide sampling drawn from every aspect of its collection. Included are works from the gallery's Australian, Indigenous, Asian and European collections. All of the pieces are featured in incredible high-resolution detail, revealing brushwork and other elements that are undetectable by the naked eye. 250 of these works are accessible through the website's 3D gallery walkthrough.

"To think," says Anne Flanagan, acting direction of the Art Gallery of NSW, "that while a person here at the Gallery is viewing a work, someone else, anywhere in the world, can also be viewing the same work with such crystal-clear definition."

Other participating Australian galleries include the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Museum, and Griffith University's Rock Art Research Centre. They have joined the efforts of 151 cultural institutions in 40 countries, under Google, to transform the art-viewing process, and to make fine art universally accessible.