Melbourne Art Foundation is delighted to welcome new Chair Peter Jopling AM QC

The Board of the Melbourne Art Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of Peter Jopling AM QC as its new Chair. Peter takes the reins from long-standing board member Charles Justin AM, who has stepped down after four years as Chair.

A board member and director of the Melbourne Art Foundation since 2018, Peter is a Melbourne based Queen’s Counsel and is Chair of the Ian Potter Museum of Art and Chair of the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Foundation Ltd. In 2014 Peter was made a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia for significant service to the law in Victoria and to the community.

Peter is delighted to take on the new role, which will be added to his already impressive and extensive experience working with Boards and Committees across the cultural sector. These include previous roles as Deputy Chair of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, a Director of the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery and Director of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation.

Peter is also a Patron of the Australian World Orchestra and a member of the Victorian College of the Arts Foundation, as well as the Melbourne University Humanities Foundation. He has also held board directorships of science and business school boards as well as various legal governing boards.

“We are thrilled to welcome Peter to the role of Chair of the Melbourne Art Foundation. I believe he is the perfect person to take the organisation to the next stage of development,” said Maree Di Pasquale, CEO.

‘Peter has made an enormous contribution to the arts – his comprehensive governance experience across the private, public and cultural sectors will provide the necessary vision and strategic acumen to continue to steer the organisation toward our goals of promoting contemporary art and supporting living artists.”

Peter succeeds long-standing board member Charles Justin AM, Founder of the Justin Art House Museum, who stepped down after four years as Chair, after overseeing the revitalisation of Melbourne Art Fair and the stabilization of the Melbourne Art Foundation during the ongoing global pandemic.

“In the last four years it has been my privilege, as Chair, to work with the Melbourne Art foundation Board and CEO Maree Di Pasquale. Our goal, in extremely challenging circumstances, was to revision and restructure Melbourne Art Foundation and Melbourne Art Fair to sustainably support the contemporary visual arts community in Australasia. I’m excited to see this be realised in Melbourne Art Fair and our other programs in 2022”, said Charles Justin.

The Melbourne Art Foundation board and executive thank Charles for his leadership and important work in helping to secure the future of the organisation and its core initiative, Melbourne Art Fair.

Melbourne Art Foundation is a not-for-profit Australian arts organisation established in 2003 to promote contemporary art and support living artists. It is the owner and operator of Melbourne Art Fair, a seminal fixture on the region’s cultural calendar stimulating critical and commercial attention for galleries and their artists for over 30 years.

Melbourne Art Fair
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 17-20 February 2022