The Countess Report, 2019.

The Countess Report

To achieve gender parity and due recognition for Australian women artists, we need to benchmark where we are now and use this as a foundation to move forward. This insight led to Sheila’s support of the inaugural The Countess Report in 2014, followed by reports in 2018 and 2022. These reports and the improvements they facilitated and documented have been among Sheila’s most significant achievements.

The Countess Report, a collaboration between Elvis Richardson, Amy Prcevich and Miranda Samuels, has become the trusted data source for conversations on gender parity in Australian art, and a key driver of change since Elvis first established her CoUNTess blog in 2008. It provides state-by-state statistics across the ten key areas of the visual arts sector.

We are proud that Sheila has been a partner and ongoing financial supporter of The Countess Report since 2014. This funding has allowed the report to be expanded and professionalised, and has helped provide salaries for female artists to contribute to creating the report.

ARTIST STORY

Elvis Richardson

"Sheila Foundation is so distinctive as they have done something different by focusing on women artists – they have made themselves special by doing so."

Image: Amy Prcevich and Elvis Richardson at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne. Artwork pictured by Ellen Yeong Gyeong Son, In the name of love. Photo by Phoebe Powell.

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