Australia's $500 million Jackson Pollock is going on the road, and Perth is the big winner

Blue Poles is finally leaving Canberra, and Perth just won a fight it did not even know it was in.

The National Gallery of Australia announced yesterday that Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles will travel to the Art Gallery of Western Australia from April to September 2027, the first time the painting has been loaned to an Australian venue since 2003 and the first time it has ever been shown in WA at all.

Some quick context for anyone who has not thought about this painting since high school art class. Blue Poles is a nearly five metre wide 1952 canvas of drips, splashes and eight bold black and blue vertical forms, and it became a genuine national scandal when the Whitlam government bought it in 1973 for $1.3 million, the most ever paid for an American painting at the time. It is now valued at roughly $500 million.

The move is happening because the NGA building in Canberra is about to go through major capital works, and rather than crate the painting into storage, the government is sending it on the road under the Sharing the National Collection program. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Arts Minister Tony Burke both framed it as proof the national collection belongs to the whole country, not just Canberra, which is the kind of line that is easy to roll your eyes at until you remember Western Australians have genuinely never had the chance to see this thing in person.

And the program has actual runs on the board. More than 2.1 million Australians have engaged with over 327 loaned works since it started, and some venues have reported visitor spikes above 700 per cent for shows built around national collection pieces.

So mark your calendar for April 2027, not this year, because that is when Perth actually gets it. But start planning the trip now, because a $500 million painting that once caused a genuine political uproar does not turn up in a regional gallery very often, and this is very much a once in a generation chance to see it outside Canberra.