The Studio Gallery houses one of the best collections of African art in the country and one of the finest collections of African beadwork in the world. The University art collections were initiated in the late 1950s. Although concerned with African traditional and contemporary material the focus is on South Africa.
The University of the Witwatersrand's art gallery curates and hosts contemporary and academic exhibitions, and houses and manages the Standard Bank Collection of African Art, including sculpture, beadwork and ethnographic objects from Southern, Central and West Africa. It has an extensive permanent collection of South African art including important political and controversial art works, and hosts the annual Wits Fine Art student exhibition and the Martienssen Art Prize. The University Gallery was the first in South Africa to start consciously acquiring local indigenous material and to validate it as art. In 1977 permanent exhibition spaces were established on campus. Two in the Gertrude Posel Gallery are in constant use for temporary exhibitions. The exhibition is the public face of the Galleries and it is with these that the following entry is concerned. The University is a place where controversial and experimental exhibitions are held and where students are given an opportunity to show their work.