The curator for the 2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Lara Nicholls, was born in the Lorne Hospital in 1968. At the time her family owned the Arab Restaurant but when she was two years old they moved to Melbourne, where she grew up and was educated.
At Melbourne University, she graduated with a double major in art history. A year travelling Europe followed. On her return, Lara was appointed to manage a city art gallery, until the desire to study further took her back to University to pursue a Master’s degree. She returned to Trinity College as a resident tutor and curator of their art collection, which she catalogued and exhibited at the University in 1997. She completed her research in France as a resident at the Cité des Arts, Paris.
When she returned to Melbourne, Sotheby’s offered her a position as an Australian painting specialist, where she worked for three years until her children came along. She began a private art consultancy and worked in her family’s financial services business. When that chapter closed in 2010, art endured and she returned to the fine art auction world at Deutscher and Hackett as their head of corporate collections.
2013 was a turning point. Lara questioned whether the commercial art world was really her preferred career path as she longed to return to the curatorial fold. Sacrificing a comfortable lifestyle in her home city, she relocated with her three daughters to Canberra to become the assistant curator of Australian painting and sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia, a position she still holds. With her mother living in Lorne, they return regularly for holidays.
Having dreamt of curating a public art event, adoring the familiar environment of Lorne and her long family history here, the job as curator of our 2018 event fitted perfectly.
Her curatorial practice can be enjoyed when her NGA travelling exhibition, Abstraction: Celebrating Australian Women Abstract Artists opens at the Geelong Art Gallery on February 25. She will be giving a guided tour on Saturday 25th in the space at 11am.
In her spare time, Lara enjoys cooking and travel and admits to a life-long love of writing.
