Tucked away in North Adelaide is a stunning home turned art gallery, and many locals still don’t know it exists. Yet behind its doors sits one of the most remarkable private art collections in the country, one collected over a lifetime from travels far and wide.
At the heart of the David Roche Gallery is Fermoy House, the former residence of celebrated collector of grandeur and design David Roche. Inside, more than 3,000 works of European fine and decorative art from the 18th and 19th centuries fill the rooms. It’s immersive and fascinating, and will leave you with a feeling worlds away from a traditional gallery.
Explore this historic house is on a guided tour, held three times daily from Tuesday to Saturday. Each tour moves through the richly decorated interiors where paintings, sculpture, porcelain and ornate furniture sit together just as Roche envisioned, and lived among himself.
“It’s probably best described as a miniature version of an English country house,” says gallery director Robert Reason.
Unlike a conventional gallery, where artworks are separated by type or period, Fermoy House presents the collection in a domestic setting. That approach is part of what makes the experience so distinctive.
“When you come to see a house museum, it’s one person’s vision,” Reason explains. “That traditional hierarchy of the arts disappears. You’re in a room full of paintings, furniture and objects, and you treat them all the same way.”
“You learn just as much about the collector as you do the work.”
A highlight for Reason is a cabinet in Roche’s former bedroom, packed with remarkable treasures.
“Within there there’s just an incredible collection that you would be thrilled to see at any gallery or museum anywhere in the world, and yet here it is in Adelaide,” he says.
Among the pieces are Russian objets d’art, delicate stick pins Roche once wore around town, ornate boxes that once held beauty patches small edible treats, even snuff. It’s a display full of nooks that reward patience.
“There’s one cabinet you could really look at for an hour all by itself,” Reason says.
The house remains almost exactly as Roche designed it, with each room developed around its own theme and style. “It gives people a good impression of what it was like when David lived there,” Reason says.
Alongside the permanent house museum, the gallery also hosts three to four rotating exhibitions each year in a separate exhibition space. Visitors can choose to explore both the historic house and the current exhibition, or purchase a ticket just for the exhibition.
The shows range from historical to contemporary and often connect in subtle ways to Roche’s interests in decorative arts, portraiture and ceramics. Others bring works to Adelaide that might not otherwise be seen locally. Recently, the gallery held an Art Deco exhibition, displaying 180 works from the 1920s, showing how the bold style meandered into everyday Australian life. Fantastic Forms is the gallery’s current exhibition, celebrating Australian artist Merric Boyd born 1888, with over 200 drawings and ceramics from the Bundanon Collection.
“There’s no other venue they could have gone to,” Reason says of some exhibitions. “We like to think of the gallery as offering exhibitions in Adelaide that people wouldn’t otherwise get to see.”
Robert Reason came to the David Roche Gallery through a long connection with its founder, David Roche. Before joining the gallery, Reason worked at the Art Gallery of South Australia, where he occasionally borrowed pieces from Roche’s collection for exhibitions. The two developed a professional relationship over the years, including collaborating on an exhibition and book project in 2008. After Roche’s passing in 2013, Reason was invited to join the David Roche Foundation as it prepared to open the gallery to the public in 2016. He initially worked as senior curator before stepping into the director role, continuing the work of preserving and sharing Roche’s remarkable collection.
The gallery is also preparing for a major milestone. In June, it will celebrate its tenth anniversary with several upgrades, including the opening of a new cafe. The redevelopment will also expand storage and workshop facilities, refresh the gallery shop and introduce a new reference library and meeting space designed to support researchers and scholars.
For visitors, though, the real magic remains inside Fermoy House itself.
With its labyrinth of rooms filled with exquisite objects and stories from centuries past, the David Roche Gallery offers a rare chance to step directly into the world of a passionate collector and experience art the way he lived amongst it.
And as Reason points out, it’s the kind of place that rewards repeat visits.
“There’s so much to look at,” he says. “You just can’t take it all in in one go.”
David Roche Gallery
Where: 241 Melbourne St, North Adelaide
When: Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 4pm
For more information, click here.
