About Us
The Official Opening of The Bunker Cartoon Gallery – 24th August 1996
From left to right
Edward J. (Ted) Ovens ( Former OBU Flight Lieutenant & Commanding Officer), Cec Abrahms, Gary Nehl (Former Member for Cowper), Senator Richard Alston (Former Federal Minister for Communications & the Arts), Hon. Andrew Fraser (State Member for Cowper), behind Former Councillor & Mayor John Smith, Lt. Trevor Brentnall (then President Coffs City Rotary Club), John Essex-Clark (Former Councillor).
The National Cartoon Gallery, the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere, is custodian to a unique and historical collection of over 26,000 artworks from leading Australian and international cartoonists including private donations and bequeaths of rare artworks.
The collection focuses on satirical and political cartooning, an artform which uses humour, exaggeration, and caricature to offer pointed commentary on current events, social ills, and power dynamics, and most often found in newspapers or online, serving as crucial, often vicious, critiques that challenge authority and provoke thought.
First opened in 1996, it is housed in a unique building, a combination of an original underground World War II bunker converted into an exhibition space together with a newer second upstairs gallery completed in 2021.
The Gallery holds regularly changing cartoon exhibitions curated from the collection and themed along the lines of contemporary and topical themes, and hosts the annual Rotary Cartoon Awards, an event which brings together the best of cartooning in Australia and New Zealand.
The upstairs gallery hosts the National Holden Motor Museum, a significant collection of Holden Motor Cars, some dating back to the late 1940s to a range throughout the decades till the recent demise of Holden car production. The collection is proudly supplied and curated by Geoff King Motors.
The Gallery has been the recipient of many awards, including the distinguished Stanley Award presented by the Australian Cartoonists Association for outstanding contribution to cartooning and the North Coast NSW Tourism Awards for Heritage and Culture.
The Bunker operates as a not-for-profit registered charity with charitable gift recipient status, administered by a volunteer Board of Directors and run by a dedicated group of over 30 volunteers.