September 26th, 2025Trentham’s Little Gallery Winter fundraising show a success

Trentham’s Little Gallery Winter Fundraising Show achieved new heights by having one of their biggest shows ever in the 14 years they have been open.
With record sales, the gallery made a substantial donation to the Central Highlands Rural Health Treehouse program in Trentham.

The quality of the artwork in the group show featuring 16 local artists was outstanding and cements the Winter Show as one of Central Victoria’s leading art calendar events and as a destination for regional art.
Despite the current economic downturn a whopping record amount of $43,000 in art sales was made, not bad for a small country town gallery. An additional $5000 was raised from the donated art raffle.
The gallery also received an events grant from Hepburn Shire Council which helped to execute a regional show of an exceptionally high standard.
With the commission on works sold and 100 per cent of the art raffle, the Little Gallery made a donation of $15,000 to the Treehouse program which helps those in the community living with dementia.
CHRH CEO Maree Cuddihy and Treehouse manager Dora Mansbridge said the fundraiser would not have been possible without the artists who contributed their work and the community members who came along and purchased artwork and raffle tickets at the exhibition.
The Winter Show had thousands of visitors over the three weeks in July aided by Trentham being in the run, then winning, Top Tiny Tourism Town Victoria.
That was followed this month by the national award.
Little Gallery is an artist-run space and prides itself on adding to the cultural identity of the region by representing local artists and is a true representation of the strong regional arts community within Trentham, Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges region.
Artist Rose Wilson, founding member of the Little Gallery, said: “We host these fundraising shows to give back to the amazing community that supports us.
“The generosity of our locals is heartwarming and we received many donations from local businesses The Cosmo, The General and the Trentham Wine and Food Co which helped with food and wine, along with art donations from our local artists for the raffle and many volunteers who assisted on the opening night.
“The gallery team work extremely hard to make these shows successful, and each year we say it can’t get better than this, but it does.”

From left, Treehouse manager Dora Mansbridge, CHRH Social Support program facilitator Victoria Hanson, Maria Coyle, Rose Wilson, CHRH Social Support program assistant Cathy Bloomfield, CHRH CEO Maree Cuddihy, Helen Cottle, Kim Haughie, Jimmy Rix and CHRH board member and fundraising committee chair Sally Kirkright
Words & image: Contributed