Art Gallery of Ballarat: the collection, the Eureka Flag and visiting

The Art Gallery of Ballarat, on Lydiard Street North in the Ballarat CBD, holds a significant collection of Australian colonial and 19th-century art alongside more recent acquisitions. It opened in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and has carried its current name since 2008, so the older name still appears in guidebooks and signage but is not the gallery's official name.

The gallery owns the surviving fragments of the original Eureka Flag, flown at the Eureka Stockade in 1854, but the flag is not shown at the gallery. It has been on long-term loan since 2013 to the Eureka Centre Ballarat at the Eureka Stockade Memorial Park in Ballarat East, where it is on permanent display.

Check before you travel. The Lydiard Street building is closed for interior upgrades, including a new climate-control system funded by the City of Ballarat, and the gallery has not published a reopening date. While it is closed, the Gallery Shop is open on Lydiard Street North and the gallery's Backspace Gallery at 43 Mair Street continues to show exhibitions. Entry to the permanent collection is free when the building is open; some temporary exhibitions carry a fee.

The Lydiard Street site is a short walk from Ballarat station. The Ballarat Botanical Gardens and Lake Wendouree are a separate trip, roughly 2km northwest of the gallery, not next door to it.