Sheila is a national foundation that addresses the historical and continuing gender bias against women in Australian art. It will paint Australian women artists back into our history, assist and celebrate contemporary women artists and support the unique Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, Australia’s largest stand-alone collection of women’s art.

Sheila Foundation officially launched in May 2018 and is already:

• supporting The Countess Report which provides the facts and data that show the need for change
• progressing the digitisation of the Cruthers Collection to help historians, researchers and artists rethink Australian art history
• progressing Into the Light, a major project to fill the gaps in Australian art history, having completed the pilot project
• supporting emerging contemporary women artists through acquisitions to public collections
• acquiring important historical works by Australian women artists to ensure they can take their place in public collections.

The aim is to achieve an endowment fund of $2 million, building on the Cruthers family’s initial donation of $600,000 to enable the Foundation to bring these programs to life.