The Johnston Collection
Joined Atlas Obscura in 2016
The Johnston Collection is an exhibition-house of fine and decorative arts centred in an historic Melbourne townhouse. Bequeathed to the people of Victoria by William Robert Johnston (1911-1986), a prominent collector and antique dealer who amassed an extraordinary collection of Georgian, Regency, and Louis XV furniture, paintings, ceramics and objet d'art over his lifetime. The Collection is displayed in a domestic setting in Johnston's former residence, Fairhall. It was Johnston's wish that Fairhall be regularly rearranged and, since first opening to the public in 1990 a regular program of reinstallation and interventions of the permanent collection was established with creative people from the contemporary arts community invited to use Fairhall as an installation site to reinterpret the Collection.
