Revealed: Geelong Gallery boss to take reins at Adelaide flagship

The incoming director at the Art Gallery of South Australia has been revealed after an international search.

Geelong Gallery director Jason Smith will take the reins at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The Art Gallery of South Australia will appoint Geelong Gallery’s Jason Smith as its new director, following a months-long international search for a new boss at the Adelaide institution.

Mr Smith’s appointment will be made imminently and he will take up the position from next year. The Australian understands an international candidate previously had been identified for the role but ultimately turned down the offer.

Mr Smith, who has been chief executive and director of Geelong Gallery since April 2016, will succeed Rhana Devenport, who departed AGSA in July after six years at the helm of the North Terrace gallery.

The 58-year-old Mr Smith is a former director and chief executive of Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen, Victoria and director at Melbourne’s Monash Gallery of Art; he also is a former curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and former curatorial manager of Australian art at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane.

Mr Smith was on the selection panel for AGSA’s 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, the nation’s longest running contemporary art survey.

During his seven years at Geelong Gallery Mr Smith argued for an expansion of the Victorian institution, which has space to show only 3 per cent of its 6000-strong collection.

AGSA holds more than 47,000 pieces and, with its own relatively small footprint, for many years has been at the centre of expansion debates.

Former AGSA director Rhana Devenport. Picture: Saul Steed

Ms Devenport championed female artists during her tenure, hosting The Present Moment, a landmark exhibition of the work of Clarice Beckett, and increased the gallery’s focus on Indigenous art, primarily through AGSA’s large-scale Tarnanthi art festival.