GREGORY, Anne Grant

Suddenly, while on holiday in Taveuni. Survived by her husband of forty-three years, Bill; her son, Shannon; daughter, Heidi; and granddaughter Fynn. The funeral and cremation ceremony was held on 23rd February in her beloved Fiji amid lush, peaceful surroundings.

Anne spent her youth in Adelaide and Brisbane, before moving to America where she attended the University of Idaho.

From an early age, she was a lover of horses riding with a travelling rodeo, and by the age of twenty was the European barrel-riding champion. Equally passionate of ocean sailing, by twenty-eight she was racing her own forty-seven-foot sailboat. In 1983 she won her class at the famous Antigua race week and went on to win the prestigious Noulargue Cup in St. Tropez.

In the same year, Anne and Bill moved to Paris, in an apartment that would be a home away from home for twenty-nine years. Their shared love of art became a central preoccupation.

Anne returned to Australia in 1986 to open her first gallery, Poster Palais, later renamed Galerie Anne Gregory, specialising in posters of the Belle Epoque to Art Deco, as well as European and American modern master prints and drawings.

In 1990 Anne and Bill opened Annandale Galleries – a fixture of the Sydney art world, which thrived thanks to her natural curiosity, passion and enthusiasm. The gallery is best known for Aboriginal barks and sculpture from Arnhem Land and exhibitions of international and Australian contemporary artists (notably William Kentridge, Zadok Ben David, Ben Nicholson, Henri Matisse, Robert Motherwell, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso). Perhaps Anne’s most lasting legacy will be her role in bringing Indigenous artists to the wide audience they deserve.

Annie, as her many neighbours and friends called her, was a presence that will be missed in Annandale. She gave warm hellos to anyone – especially if they had a dog! During the last five years, through numerous health challenges, she never lost her enthusiasm and empathy for the people she encountered.