Here’s an original gift idea from Korumburra Rotary

 A LIONS Christmas cake is always a welcome gift at Christmas but this festive season the Korumburra Rotary Club has come up with an original gift idea that’s going to be hard to beat.

But opportunity only knocks once they say!

For more than 50 years, up until everything stopped for COVID, the Korumburra Rotary Club ran its time-honoured annual art show, which wasn’t just a major social and fundraising occasion for the town, but also an eagerly anticipated event by established regional artists and up-and-comers from all over.

Artists like Ernie Trembath, with his distinctive landscapes, Julie Lundgren-Coulter and her breezy watercolours, Lorraine Lewitzka, Ross Patterson, Fiona Bilborough, the distinctive style of Filopino-Australian artist Do Noble, Glenn Hoyle and many others.

They’ve all graced the winners’ wall at the Korumburra Rotary Art Show but in a unique aspect of the event over the years, the club offered an acquisition award where they paid a generous cash prize but also took ownership of the first prize painting and often the second-prize winner.

The result was the development of a magnificent collection of 140 literally award-winning paintings which until recent times were displayed in the Federation Gallery on the corner of King Street and the South Gippsland Highway, the site of the old Korumburra Shire Council offices.

“When the shire sold the site for development, we were told there would be a replacement gallery for Rotary to display its collection but it never eventuated,” said former art show stalwart Mark Holmes.

“It missed the brief completely,” he said.

“A lot of effort by Rotary and considerable funding from government went into the establishment of the Federation Gallery,” said George Auddino, another art show organiser.

“But when they built the new community hub, there wasn’t anywhere to hang even one painting,” he said.

The South Gippsland Shire Council provided storage for the collection after the Federation Gallery was handed over but recently, they told Rotary they no longer had the space.

“It all happened quickly from there. We had to take the paintings back but there was simply nowhere to put them.

“Fortunately, Michael Holloway of the Leongatha Rotary Club offered us this vacant stop in Korumburra, at no charge beyond paying the rates and the outgoings and the only option was to put the artworks up for sale,” said Mark.

“Someone suggested we should have handed them over to an art auctioneer for sale but we were advised there would be almost nothing left after that process,” said George.

“The best place to sell the paintings turned out to be right here where people know the background of the paintings and are likely to offer somewhere near their value.

“Of course, they are being priced well below their value.”

The paintings are available for sale from as little as $100 to as much as $3000 for ‘Acheron Valley’ by Ernie Trembath which won first prize at the Korumburra Rotary Art Show back in its heyday in 1982.

“That was painted before he had his accident,” said Mark Holmes.

The significance of that part of the history of the work is that the Cranbourne artist lost partial use of his right hand in a car accident in 2003, aged 60, when he also broke his neck.

The incident forced Trembath to teach himself how to paint left-handed and while he ultimately regained most of the use of his right, he continued to paint left-handed because he couldn't hold the brush in his right hand for lengthy periods of time.

But there are more paintings besides Trembath’s.

And while some with price tags of $200 and $300 might be for works by relatively unknown artists, they’re original pieces, many of them beautiful works, good enough to win the art show in their year, from dozens of other contenders and well worthy of being hung in your home or workplace.

There’ll be many bargains and what better gift for Christmas knowing the money is going to a good cause.

“There are our usual charities of course, but we’d like to find a special project to commit the money to and we’ll be giving that some thought,” said Mr Auddino.

“We’ve already had some very generous support, not only from Michael Holloway, from our signwriter, Andrew Fraser of ‘Looking At You’ Signs, and quite a few others.

“We’ve hung the paintings and they will officially go on sale when we open for business on Saturday, December 6 at 10am.”

The Korumburra Rotary Art Collection shop, at 95 Commercial Street Korumburra will be open from 10am to 2pm each Saturday and Sunday in the lead up to Christmas, and every weekend until the end of January or until the paintings are sold whichever comes first.

“We’ll be keeping a small art bank of 20 or so paintings to rotate with the works we have been displaying at the Korumburra Hospital. We’ll continue our commitment to the hospital,” said Mark Holmes.

So, there it is, a magnificent collection of Korumburra Rotary Art Show winners, being put up for sale at bargain-base prices. Don’t miss the opportunity to get a piece of Korumburra history for your wall at home or at work.