Stokes’ record-breaking donation to leave his mark on Canberra

Kerry Stokes believes the NGA’s expanded sculpture garden will be an international drawcard and a source of national pride.

An artist’s impression of the new stainless steel and glass pavilion at the NGA sculpture garden, which will provide a space for exhibitions, events and education programs. Picture: Choirender

For billionaire mogul Kerry Stokes, his record-breaking donation to the National Gallery of Australia is the culmination of a decades-long affinity with a city that he describes as the jewel in Australia’s crown.

Mr Stokes and his wife Christine Simpson Stokes will donate $15m to the NGA in what is the biggest single cash donation in the institute’s history, giving it a major kickstart in its plans to ­secure $60m for an ambitious ­expansion and overhaul of the NGA’s sculpture garden.

The pair have long been among Australia’s most active philanthropists, most publicly through their Telethon initiative but also through their deep if more quiet support for the arts.

Their preference would have been to keep their latest donation quiet too, but in a rare interview told The Australian they had been convinced to go public by NGA director Nick Mitzevich in the hope it may stir others to donate to the sculpture project.

“We don’t attach our name normally to anything other than Telethon, but on this occasion Nick’s been a bloody good salesman,” Mr Stokes said.

Canberra has long had a special place in Mr Stokes’ heart. It was there some 44 years ago that Mr Stokes first made his mark on the national media landscape with his acquisition of Seven Canberra, which became the springboard for the series of deals that would make him one of the industry’s dominant figures.

“I got involved in Canberra, probably a bit too much,” he says, pointing to his board roles at a host of Canberra cultural institutions as well as his acquisition of the Canberra Times newspaper.

He recalls being at the official opening of the NGA by then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who Mr Stokes says was so unimpressed by the building’s brutalist design that he said he was looking forward to seeing the trees around it grow.

“There was a lot of criticism but over time it has developed a remarkable collection that the country should be proud of. What Nick is trying to achieve with the gardens will now turn it into a real international institution and I’m very excited about that,” he said.

Christine Simpson Stokes and Kerry Stokes. Supplied

Mr Stokes’ son, Ryan, will be keeping a close eye on the project as it evolves, having recently begun another term as the organisation’s chairman.

The overhaul of the sculpture garden will double its size and will tie in with the NGA’s recently unveiled Ouroboros, which at a cost of $14m was the most expensive acquisition in the gallery’s history. (Mr Stokes described the Lindy Lee sculpture as a “sensational” addition that would draw international visitors.)

“For me, Canberra as city and as a national capital is a jewel in Australia’s crown. It gets constantly criticised because it is a capital filled with public servants, but at the end of the day the institutions that have been built in Canberra will stand the nation in good stead for a long time to come,” Mr Stokes said.

Mrs Simpson Stokes said she was particularly drawn to the garden itself. “For me, gardens are very much part of our fabric,” she said. “Gardens are everything, they’re a metaphor for life, science, the planet. That part of it is really exciting.”

NGA director Nick Mitzevich said the project would deliver a world-class sculpture garden that would be a national attraction.