24 October - 9 November 2025
An exhibition to celebrate: Packsaddle’s 40th anniversary
An annual selling exhibition to raise funds for the New England Regional Art Museum
Packsaddle is an annual invitational selling exhibition of artwork from well known and emerging Australian artists. Held annually at NERAM, the exhibition includes a large collection of paintings, limited edition prints, pottery, sculpture and works on paper. The idea for an annual selling exhibition came from a small group of women artists, most notably June Atherton, Pat Elkin, Benoni Pearson and Beverley Wright, who enjoyed painting and critiquing each other’s work.
2025 entry forms
Please note, artists must be invited by the Packsaddle fundraising committee to enter work. If you wish to submit a work for consideration please forward at least two images to us via our contact page.
Each artist is limited to two artworks; neither artwork is to exceed 100cm x 100cm (including the frame), with artworks to be delivered in Sydney to the drop off point at the time stipulated in the Conditions of Entry or if delivering by hand to NERAM by 4pm Friday 10 October 2025.
We would love to meet you, and we invite all exhibiting artists and participating galleries to visit NERAM during the exhibition.
For four decades, the Packsaddle exhibition has been a cornerstone of NERAM’s calendar—an eagerly anticipated event that brings together artists, collectors, and art lovers from across the region and beyond. But more than an exhibition, Packsaddle is a community: a dedicated group of volunteers and supporters, whose passion for contemporary Australian art and tireless fundraising efforts have made an extraordinary contribution to NERAM’s history, its collections, and its future.”.
— Rachael Parsons, NERAM Director, foreword to the Loungeroom Collectors booklet 2025
Funds for conservation
In 2015 NERAM launched the Adopt an Artwork program, which invites members of the community to sponsor the conservation of works from the Collections. We continue to support the program enthusiastically and have adopted 26 works so far. We have given more than $85,000 to the program and the current market valuation of the artworks we have helped conserve is over $350,000.
Esther Paterson (1896-1971)
The Yellow Gloves (also known as Portrait of Betty Paterson) 1938
oil on canvas
Howard Hinton Collection