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Walsh's eccentricities are not a fashion statement.

We head to Moorilla to view progress on his museum, which is slowly taking shape on the small and picturesque peninsula that is also home to Walsh's winery, restaurant, chalets and boutique Moo beer brewery.

A Komatsu excavator is precariously rambling over the steep sandstone hillside that will house Walsh's subterranean galleries.

MONA is not Walsh's first attempt at a museum - the site formerly housed the much smaller Moorilla Museum of Antiquities, which Walsh hoped would be a cultural bonus for visitors to the winery.

But rather than surprise them with his gold and pre-Columbian artefacts, Roman Empire mosaics and African tribal art, he found, instead, that visitors were more interested in Moorilla's wine (they make a fine drop of pinot noir) or Moorilla's proximity to the Cadbury chocolate factory.

Walsh's favourite guestbook entry: "I can see Cadbury's from here." Even with Cadbury in the vicinity, MONA will be a little harder to ignore - in content and design.

With his radical taste in art, Walsh is setting a precedent for Australia's private collectors, says Tamara Winikoff, the head of the National Association for the Visual Arts.

His collection will inevitably influence the Australian public's understanding of contemporary art practice and advance the careers of the living artists who are shown, she says.

"People like (Wa...

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