This council-run public gallery was established in 1998, and its collection and program capitalise on the rich artistic heritage of the area, which boasts harbour foreshores and bushland that have inspired artists from the Australian Impressionists Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton (who painted in the artists’ camps at Mosman Bay, Little Sirius Cove and Balmoral) onwards.
Highlights of Mosman Art Gallery’s annual calendar include the Artists of Mosman: 2088 group show and the Mosman Art Prize and exhibition. The latter, founded in 1947, attracts a consistently high calibre of painters (including Archibald Prize and Doug Moran finalists/winners) – no doubt somewhat to do with its generous prize pool of $40,000.
In February 2016, the Gallery added one more feather to its cap: a major artwork by Newcastle-born Gamilaraay artist Warwick Keen, installed within the Gallery forecourt. The piece, titled Country, was previously exhibited as part of Mosman Art Gallery’s award-winning 2015 exhibition Bungaree's Farm. It is inspired by the dendroglyphs (carved trees) traditional to the Aboriginal people of New South Wales.