Geelong Gallery: free entry, opening hours and what to see

Geelong Gallery is free to visit and open every day from 10 am to 5 pm. It is on Little Malop Street in central Geelong, facing Johnstone Park and about 300 m from the railway station. Founded in 1896, it holds more than 6,000 works. Its strength is colonial painting, and two pictures are reason enough to go: Frederick McCubbin’s A bush burial and Eugene von Guerard’s View of Geelong. Give it an hour, more if a big exhibition is on.

Visiting at a glance

	Detail
Address	Little Malop Street, Geelong, beside Johnstone Park
Entry	Free (some special exhibitions may charge)
Hours	Monday to Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm
Closed	Reported closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Good Friday
Phone	03 5229 3645
From Geelong station	About 300 m on foot
To the National Wool Museum	About 400 m

Checked October 2026 on the gallery’s visit page. The closing days come from search listings of the same page, so confirm them around holidays.

The gallery says its facilities are accessible to all and staff will help with any needs.

Collection highlights

The gallery’s own collection page names its greatest strength as colonial paintings, and that is where to start.

Work	Artist	Year
A bush burial	Frederick McCubbin	1890
View of Geelong	Eugene von Guerard	1856
Aborigines met on the road to the diggings	Eugene von Guerard	1854
The Weatherboard Falls	Eugene von Guerard	1863
On the Woods Point Road	Louis Buvelot	1872
Geelong gold cup	Edward Fischer	1890
Hill End	Russell Drysdale	1948

These are works the gallery names on its collection page. We could not confirm which are hanging right now, so if you are coming for one painting, check ahead.

A bush burial, painted by McCubbin in 1890, is the picture most visitors ask for. Von Guerard’s View of Geelong dates from 1856, five years after gold was found at Ballarat and Geelong became the main port for the goldfields. Look at it before you walk down to the waterfront and you get a sense of how much the town has changed.

Beyond the colonial rooms, the collection takes in English painted porcelain, works on paper, and modern and contemporary Australian art. Since 2016 the gallery has also been custodian of the Colin Holden Print Collection, held for the Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

History

The gallery was established in 1896, which makes 2026 its 130th year. It calls itself one of Australia’s leading and oldest regional art galleries. For the anniversary it ran Milestones in Collecting, a look at how the collection was built, from 30 May to 18 October 2026. Check the gallery’s exhibitions page for what follows it.

The Little Malop Street precinct

The gallery is one end of Geelong’s cultural block. A few doors along is the Geelong Arts Centre, whose Little Malop Street building reopened on 19 August 2023 after a $140 million redevelopment that added a 550-seat theatre, The Story House, and a smaller one, The Open House. Neos Kosmos called it Australia’s biggest regional arts centre when it opened.

A few steps away is the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre, the domed building known as The Dome, which opened in late 2015. The Heritage Centre on Level 3 has had shorter hours and was reported closed for repairs, so do not count on it being open.

Johnstone Park itself was set aside in 1848 and turned into a park in 1872. Its bandstand dates from 1917. Little Malop Street, running east from the gallery, is the city’s dining strip, with outdoor tables in the laneways.

Geelong as a City of Design

UNESCO named Geelong a City of Design on 31 October 2017, and the council describes it as Australia’s first and only City of Design. The Geelong Arts Centre’s other building, on Ryrie Street, was redeveloped earlier, in a $38.5 million project finished in 2019. Costa Hall, a separate concert venue of about 1,400 seats, is at Deakin University’s Waterfront Campus. A gallery visit in the afternoon and a show at one of these in the evening is an easy way to spend a day and night in town.

A morning in central Geelong

The gallery fits neatly into a walking day:

1. Start at Geelong station and walk 300 m to the gallery.
2. Spend an hour with the collection, then cross Johnstone Park to The Dome.
3. Walk about 400 m down to the National Wool Museum on Moorabool Street.
4. Finish on the Geelong Waterfront, one block further, with the Carousel and the painted bollards.

On a wet day, add a hands-on class: the matcha and ceramic painting workshop runs in central Geelong and sends you home with a mug or bowl you painted yourself. The Old Geelong Gaol is about a kilometre from the gallery if you want another indoor stop. For a full day plan from Melbourne, see the Geelong day trip guide.

Getting there and parking

The train from Southern Cross in Melbourne takes about an hour, and the gallery is a five-minute walk from Geelong station. The gallery has no car park of its own; it notes a free bus bay on Little Malop Street and various parking options in central Geelong. The Civic Centre car park on Gheringhap Street is close and, according to the National Wool Museum, free after 6 pm on Fridays and all weekend. The Geelong parking guide covers the rest.

The Geelong Visitor Information Centre is in City Hall at 30 Gheringhap Street, open 10 am to 4 pm daily, a short walk from the gallery.