Dr Sue-Anne Wallace AM, 30 July 1946–4 March 2024
Sue-Anne in 2022It is with great sadness, I advise that on 4 March of this year, Dr Sue-Anne Wallace AM unexpectedly passed away. Sue-Anne has been an active member of the Theatre Heritage Australia committee for the past four years and will be sadly missed.
Sue-Anne came to THA with enormous experience in the arts and cultural sector. She began her career working as a pharmacist, and spent ten years as Senior Clinical Pharmacist at the Royal Canberra Hospital (1975–1985) before moving into the art museum and galleries sector.
Sue-Anne undertook her first PhD in Art History, researching the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia. She went on to teach Australian art at ANU (1985–1988) and served as Head of Education Access at the National Gallery of Australia (1988–1991); she was Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1991–1993), Director of the Visual Arts/Craft Board at the Australia Council for the Arts in Sydney (1994–1996), President of Museums Australia (1996), and Director of the QUT Cultural Precinct.
Between 2005 and 2009, she was the Executive Officer of the Fundraising Institute Australia, and went on to serve as CEO for the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation. In 2015 she received a Churchill Scholarship to investigate international best practice in self-regulation and complaints handling. She developed a suite of ethical fundraising guidelines for not-for-profit organisations, and in 2017 she was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), for “significant service to the not-for-profit sector, particularly through charitable fundraising reform and establishing codes of practice.” I am pleased to say, that these are the same ethical guidelines that THA has adopted (at Sue-Anne’s recommendation), when we were setting up our own fundraising program a few years ago.
When Sue-Anne passed away, she had just one year left on her second PhD, examining the life of Walter Bentley, a noted Australian Shakespearean actor of the early twentieth century—and, as it happened, her grandfather.
In the relatively brief time she was on the committee, Sue-Anne played a significant role in a number of critical areas that will ensure the long-term sustainability of the organisation. She was part of the team that prepared and submitted our application for inclusion on the Register of Cultural Organisations (ROCO) and deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, allowing us to accept tax deductible donations. Sue-Anne was instrumental in leading our fundraising program and implementing the ethical guidelines mentioned earlier. She was a generous, enthusiastic contributor to the work of the whole committee and wrote a number of articles to THA’s On Stage magazine.
Sue-Anne was our first Sydney-based committee member, and as such she was an enthusiastic advocate for THA expanding our connections and reach into Sydney. She was instrumental in negotiating our partnership with the SB&W Foundation, where we now hold a regular winter series of events. When we needed a new Treasurer, she helped us enlist David Williams (also of Sydney) whom she had worked with previously.
We are enormously grateful for her contribution to THA. We are committed to continuing the work she has started in Sydney, and aim to maintain the very high standard she set.
We send our deepest condolences to her family—her husband Grant, daughters Naomi and Chloe, step-children Paul, Joanna, Andrew and Christopher, and her ten grand-children, who were the great joy of her life, and who no doubt miss her terribly.
As do we.
Sue-Anne in the early 2000s
Sue-Anne in 2017—on the day she received her AM—with her daughters Naomi and Chloe and husband Grant
Related articles
Theatrical Portraits of Walter Bentley
Walter Bentley and the Actors’ Association of Australia (Part 1)
Walter Bentley and the Actors’ Association of Australia (Part 2)
