Friday, 14 August 2026
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa

Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands and waterways, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. 

• Lieutenant-Governor^[1]
• Consuls-General^[2]
• Shadow Minister^[3]
• Sculpture by the Sea representatives
• Supporters, donors, art lovers all, 

It is a pleasure to welcome you to Government House to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sculpture by the Sea.

Prague is roughly 16,000 kilometres from Bondi. Kafka wrote his masterpiece The Metamorphosis in Prague; Mozart put the last touches to his opera Don Giovanni there; and continuing backwards in history, the sugar cube was invented there in 1843. 

Literature, opera, and sugar – all the necessities of life – or nearly. There are two missing pieces of the story, or at least this story. The first is that Prague has, over centuries, acted as a refuge for all types of reprobates – and some little distance from Prague, in northern Bohemia, is a sculpture park set amongst 13th-century ruins. 

One such reprobate – a word I use in the positive sense of impish scoundrel, somewhat bohemian as it were – was David Handley, who was running away from the legal corporate world where he had hitherto worked. One night, with friends, David found himself wandering amongst those sculptures and as he puts it, he was struck by the ‘majesty’ of sculpture^[4] – and the kernel of the idea of a sculpture exhibition in Sydney was planted. 

David returned to Sydney in 1996 and went for another walk, this time along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk, again with friends. As he walked up and over the steps and ledges and past the rocky crevices he had found his outdoor gallery. 

David was back at ‘work.’ With a telephone call to Ron Robertson-Swann, and jettisoning, at least initially, everything he had learned in the legal and corporate world – this new endeavour started without a formal business plan, as governance was wonky at best and closer to being non-existent. Rather, this was the reimagining of that moment of wonder in the sculpture garden in northern Bohemia along that iconic stretch of coastline here in Sydney. 

David and a team of volunteers organised the first exhibition from a lounge room, with a marketing budget of $400 for a one-day exhibition.^[5] Sculpture by the Sea was born – attended by an astounding 25,000 people – and today has grown into the world's largest free-to-the-public sculpture exhibition.^[6] 

Although as I have intimated, Sculpture by the Sea did not start out as a carefully conceived corporate enterprise, there was another inspiration operating here, which takes me to the Ancient Greeks – or at least David’s Ancient Greek History lectures at university – where he was struck by the fact that Ancient Greeks didn’t have to pay taxes; something which he found appealing. Instead, those who could, would fund public works – a form of early philanthropy. And it has been the philanthropy of the modern citizen which has maintained Sculpture by the Sea over these last 30 years, during which time more than 2,400 sculptures have been exhibited from sculptors from around the world.^[7] 

Sculpture by the Sea has expanded to Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia, and in the most thoughtful endeavour the concept of sculpture in the outdoors found itself in NSW’s beautiful Snowy Valleys as part of the revitalisation of the Snowy after the devasting Black Summer Fires of 2019 and 2020. This project has been enhanced by the local community, with important curatorial decisions of choosing and planning the sculptures placed in the hands of the local community. 

That is the success story. What are the challenges? Still and always money – which is also the challenge for the individual artist, who on average spends $15,000 in the creation of a work for this exhibition. And the sculptures not only have to be manoeuvred and almost invariably craned into position, they have to withstand the winds and sometimes torrential rains of the coast. 

Tonight, in addition to the donors and supporters, we are joined by artists who have exhibited with Sculpture by the Sea 20 times or more:

• Keizo Ushio^[8] has come all the way from Japan and this year marks his 50th exhibition with Sculpture by the Sea.
• Ron Gomboc^[9] joins us from Perth.
• Koichi Ishino^[10] has exhibited since 2001, and even moved from Japan to Australia to be closer to the action.
• James Rogers,^[11] who also happens to have a wonderful sculpture right here in the grounds of Government House.^[12]
• Orest Keywan,^[13] who I hear has been in every Bondi exhibition except for the first one!
• And Stephen King,^[14] who was in this room not long ago receiving an Order of Australia for service to the visual arts as a sculptor.

Congratulations to this venerable ‘double-decade club.’ And congratulations to the artists featured in this year’s exhibitions who I know will make us stand in awe as we view your works along this magical coastal walk across the park and down onto the beach at Tamarama. 

To the many generous donors and supporters here – thank you for making this wonderful exhibition possible, year after year. And to David, the team at Sculpture by the Sea, and all those who are part of making Sculptures by the Sea come back year after year – thank you – what you have done for Sydney, Cottesloe, the Snowy cannot be captured in words, so as with sculpture, I will let it speak for itself.    

Happy 30th anniversary.