Canberra arts advocate, writer and critic Meredith Hinchliffe has been awarded a Philanthropy Leadership Award from Creative Australia.

The awards celebrate exemplary individuals from Australia’s philanthropy, business and arts sectors who show leadership in private giving, philanthropy and business partnerships with the arts. 

Recipients are chosen as inspiring advocates who encourage others to give to the arts and Hinchliffe’s predecessors include John and Pauline Gandel and Tim and Gina Fairfax.

Hinchliffe, whose professional career in the arts dates back to 1977, was described by Creative Australia’s Partnership Award assessors, Carly Severino, from Australian Communities Foundation, and Kim Harland, from Philanthropy Australia, as “one of Canberra’s most significant philanthropic forces, having helped to nurture and preserve a wide variety of cultural institutions in the nation’s capital”.

They said her work in the realm of giving had great impact across organisations large and small, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, Craft + Design Canberra, Canberra Contemporary Artspace and Ausdance ACT.

Hinchliffe’s efforts, they said, had allowed works by artists of the local region to be acquired by Canberra Museum and Gallery, which has also received donations from her own extensive art collection.

Hinchliffe continues to be as active as ever. 

She is a Canberra CityNews craft reviewer, a role she’s been performing with different magazines and newspapers since the ’70s and is currently a voluntary research associate at the National Museum of Australia, working on the Trevor Kennedy Collection.

On learning that she would be named in the Philanthropy Leadership Award, Hinchliffe told me, her initial reaction had been, “this must be a scam.”

But formal correspondence followed and she realised it was true, confirmed when a film crew arrived from Creative Australia (formerly the Australia Council) to interview and film her at Craft + Design Canberra in the North Building for more than an hour.

As for how she felt on hearing the news she said: “It’s such a big deal, I think it’s good that it’s recognised.

“I don’t consider myself to be a rich person, but it really helps the people I give to.” 

Hinchliffe started donating around 2004 when her late father left her an unexpectedly large bequest. 

“I thought, what am I going to do with it? Then I decided I wanted to support the galleries. I was already donating to the NGA and I’d donated to the Canberra International Music Festival several times, so for me to do that wasn’t unusual,” she said. 

But while she sees it’s important to give to institutions, she’s equally committed to giving to individuals, saying: “It really helps the people I give to.” 

In recent years, she’s given a leg up to a designer/artist and a writer/curator, for instance.

“I think it’s really rewarding. I feel I’m useful and it’s good to know that the money is not just floating out the window,” she said.

While most of her giving has been directed towards the decorative arts and crafts, as something of a Renaissance person, her interests are broad. She’s even given to the National Library for a particular program digitising election ephemera.

It concerns her that the Canberra Museum in Gallery struggles and, noting that the Legislative Assembly has a bigger art acquisition budget than CMAG, says: “A little bit can make a difference… anybody thinking about donating should give it a go.”

So, what brings her the most joy? 

“I really like to see artists prosper, I do think they should be able to live the way everybody else does,” Hinchliffe says. “It’s really disappointing when they have to struggle to pay their bills.”

Ms Hinchliffe was appointed a member of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Australia Day awards for “significant service to the arts through a range of roles and organisations”.