Penelope Seidler

Penelope Seidler (Born Penelope Alice Marjorie Evatt, 1938) is an Australian architect, former member of National Gallery of Australia Council, and current member of the NGA Foundation Board. Accountant and director of the Sydney-based architectural firm Harry Seidler and associates. Penelope was wife and professional partner to architect Harry Seidler. She was the subject of the 2014 Archibald prize winning portrait by Fiona Lowry.

Penelope grew up in Wahroonga, New South Wales, daughter of the Hon. Clive Evatt QC (b. 1900 d.1984); a prominent barrister appointed as a QC as well as a NSW Labor politician (MLA for Hurstville 1939-1959), and his wife Marjorie Hanna Evatt (née Andreas), (b. 1903 - d.1984) with two siblings Hon. [Elizabeth Evatt] and Clive Evatt jnr. The Evatt family home located at 69 Junction Road, Wahroonga is now known as 'Parklands' and is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register.

Penelope is the director of the Sydney-based architectural firm Harry Seidler and associates.

Seidler studied for her Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Sydney and was registered as an architect in 1964. She joined Seidler and Associates that year as architect and financial manager. She has been a Fellow of the Australian institute of Architects since 1983, sitting on the NSW executive council between 1982 and 1984.

She was a founding member of Chief Executive Women (NSW) from 1990 to 2005.

She currently sits on UNSW's Faculty of the Built Environment advisory council.

Penelope Seidler has sat on the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1973, been a Biennale of Sydney director since late 2010, and is deputy commissioner for the world's largest contemporary art exhibition, Australian Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Until now, she was an International Advisory Board member of Vienna's Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, and is a former council member of the Australiana Fund.

In 1971 Seidler joined the Art Gallery of NSW Society's council being one of the first "volunteer guides" to show visitors around for a group of women who undertook a year's high-level training in the arts, which was an educational initiative where the gallery's popular lecture series grew. Judith White wrote that

“Perhaps Seidler's most remarkable accomplishment was to take on the organisation of the society's overseas tours...I'm pretty sure it was the first ever Western art tour into China… Certainly, it was the first from Australia and the group was a who's who of Sydney society - Lady Mary Fairfax, Bronwyn Bishop, Daniel Thomas, Leslie Walford... an extraordinary group of people...beyond that, as Harry Seidler's architectural career soared, and the couple's financial fortunes with it. She was very sure that her passionate and serious interest in art was a driving force in what they achieved as a couple and as a business."

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