Australian Girls Own Gallery (aGOG)
The australian Girls Own Gallery was a commercial gallery that operated in Leichhardt Street, Kingston in Canberra from 1989 to 1998. The gallery was owned and operated by former National Gallery of Australia curator Helen Maxwell.
The gallery was significant because it only represented women artists. Maxwell started the gallery because she felt as that there was a bias against women artists within the art world and she 'felt strongly that women didn't get enough of a voice'.
The first exhibition at aGOG was Les femmes formidables 1 which ran from 16 March – 19 April 1989 and featured the work of five female artists: Banduk Marika, Barbara Hanrahan, Joyce Allen, Lidia Groblika and Kate Lohse. Art historian and art critic Sasha Grishin noted that the represented artists 'form an important cross-section of contemporary women printmakers in Australia'.
aGOG would exhibit several group and solo shows each year. Represented artists included: Vivienne Binns, Pam Debenham, Judy Horacek, Marie McMahon, Patsy Payne, Mitzi Shearer, Ruth Waller, and Judy Watson.
After closing aGOG in 1998, Maxwell went on to open Helen Maxwell Gallery in Braddon, Canberra, which represented both male and female artists and was closed in 2010.
