Montsalvat

Montsalvat is an artist colony in Eltham, Victoria, Australia, established by Justus Jorgensen in 1934. It is home to over a dozen buildings, houses and halls set amongst richly established gardens on 48,562 m2 (12 acres) of land. The colony of Montsalvat has a detailed history that reflects the life of Jörgensen and his friends and family; there is also a legend behind its name, while its buildings and gardens are steeped in the art and culture of Melbourne and its surroundings.

Visitors can pay a small fee to walk throughout the colony's historical gardens, artists' houses/workshops and explore the surrounding buildings. All of the buildings on the site were designed and built by residents with locally available materials, from various sources. The Great Hall offers an extensive network of spaces from extravagant halls and vast exhibition spaces, to small corridors and tiny balconies overlooking the gardens.

Currently Montsalvat's grounds and buildings are mostly used for exhibitions, performances, conferences, seminars, weddings and receptions; however, many artists (such as luthiers, jewellers, painters,glass artists, ceramicists, textile artists, sculptors and a writer) continue to reside in Montsalvat. Several classes on various disciplines of art are offered year round by the resident artists.

The name Montsalvat features in both German and English mythology. In the opera Parsifal by German composer Richard Wagner, Montsalvat is the castle, built by Titurel, where the Holy Grail is protected; and in Act III of his namesake opera, Lohengrin sings of it as home. In the English legend of "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", Montsalvat is mentioned as the home of the Holy Grail. Though established only in 1934, Montsalvat has created its own myths and legends. Montsalvat means "Saved Mount" in Catalan.

Montsalvat is the creation of Justus Jörgensen and the inspired work of many hands. Born in 1894, Jörgensen trained as an architect with a Melbourne firm of architects, Schreiber & Co. Later, he turned his talents to painting, enrolling at the National Gallery School of Art in Melbourne, whose principal was a leading member of the Heidelberg School of Artists, Frederick McCubbin. In 1917, after hearing an important lecture by the artist Max Meldrum, Jörgensen decided to join the Meldrum Studio.

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