Roger Kemp Tapestries

The three magnificent Roger Kemp tapestries hanging on the nothern wall of the Robert Blackwood Concert Hall foyer are from the National Gallery of Victoria's Great Hall, on loan during the NGV's relocation and redevelopment of their St Kilda Road premises.

Based on original paintings by Roger Kemp entitled Evolving Forms, Piano Movement and Organic Form, the three tapestries were woven at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop from 1984 to 1991. The weaving of Evolving Forms and Piano Movement was undertaken in full consultation with Roger Kemp, while the weaving of Organic Form continued after his death in 1987.

The works were commissioned by the Art Foundation of Victoria with funds donated by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, an emeritus trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria and one of the founders of the Victorian Tapestry Workshop.

The Victorian Tapestry Workshop, established by the Victorian Government in 1976 in the historic Emerald Hill area of South Melbourne, is today regarded as a world centre for tapestry. One of only a small number of similar workshops in the world, the Workshop has an international reputation for the quality of its tapestries and for the fact that all of its weavers are also trained artists, able to enter into a special collaboration with the artists whose designs they translate.