Tag: Australian Art

Lecture | Dr Christopher Heathcote – Discovering Dobell | TarraWarra Museum of Art

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William Dobell Gentleman conversing with a prawn 1970 oil on panel 27.8 x 25.4 cm Private collection © Sir William Dobell Art Foundation

2pm, Saturday 22 July Dr. Christopher Heathcote, curator of Discovering Dobell, as he shares his fresh insights into the work of William Dobell. Exploring in detail Dobell’s London years, his portraits of Sydneysiders, and the more experimental New Guinea paintings, Heathcote’s lecture will present a close examination of the artist’s practice, shedding new light on the processes and methods by which the artist developed ideas from sketches to paintings. Exploring in detail Dobell’s London years, his portraits of Sydneysiders, and the more experimental New Guinea paintings, Heathcote’s lecture will present a close examination of the artist’s practice, shedding new light on the processes and methods by which the artist developed his ideas through several drawings and studies to reach one or more paintings. Dr. Christopher Heathcote is one of Australia’s foremost art critics and has written on a broad range of topics…

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News and Exhibition | Sidney Nolan’s man behind Ned Kelly mask revealed | Heide MoMA

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Recent research by Paula Dredge and Kendrah Morgan with assistance from the Australian Synchrotron has revelead a face behind the mask of one of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings. From April 22 to May 14 Heide will host a virtual reality display that will allow visitors to explore this ‘face behind the mask.’ From Heide Working in collaboration with the scientific research centre Australian Synchrotron, and utilising its state of the art technology, art conservators have imaged pigments buried underneath layers of paint to reveal a face behind the mask of Sidney Nolan’s painting Ned Kelly, “Nobody knows anything about my case but myself” 1945. When examining the painting in 2012, Paula Dredge, Paintings Conservator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Kendrah Morgan, Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne noticed brush strokes underneath the…

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Meet the Artist – Louise Hearman | TarraWarra Museum of Art

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TarraWarra Museum of Art presents the first survey exhibition of Louise Hearman’s work, curated by Anna Davis and organised and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, MCA from 18 February – 14 May 2017, with paintings and drawings from across her 25-year practice. Meet the artist and join Fiona Gruber posing questions to curator and artist and gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the work in this exhibition. Compere: Fiona Gruber, journalist and producer with twenty years experience writing and broadcasting across the arts as a commentator, profile writer, and reviewer Guests: Louise Hearman, artist and Anna Davis, Curator, MCA and Curator Louise Hearman exhibition Date: Saturday 18 March, 2pm Venue: TarraWarra Museum of Art, Tickets: $20 / $15 concession – book via twma.com.au Telephone (03) 5957 3100 Email museum@twma.com.au  

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Exhibition | We Who Love: The Nolan Slates | Heide Museum of Modern Art

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Sidney Nolan (Lovers and flowers) January 1942 25.5 x 50.8 cm Collection of The University of Queensland Purhcased with the assistance of the Alumni Association and the Peter Stuyvesant Cultural Foundation 1997 © The University of Queensland

About the Exhibition We who love: The Nolan slates is a window into the world of renowned Australian painter Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), reflecting a time of artistic experimentation and personal upheaval. From December 1941 to June 1942, Nolan made around 32 paintings on roofing slates. They reveal his distinctive preference for non-art materials, his avant-garde aspirations and his literary interests. Through the paintings, Nolan recorded the end of his marriage, new relationships with patrons John and Sunday Reed, and fears arising from the war in the Pacific. Concerned that there might not be ‘many more tomorrows’, Nolan painted the slates as a remarkable, even desperate, avowal of emotional and creative freedom. Nolan’s deeply personal paintings on slate have been exhibited as a group just twice since 1943. We who love presents the most comprehensive display of the series ever assembled.…

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Open Day and Founders Talk at Duldig Studio

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Karl Duldig, Koré, 1976, bronze.

The Duldig Studio is open on the second Saturday of every month. On Saturday 9 July 2016, we will be open from 1.00 to 3.00pm. See the award winning Art Behind the Wire exhibition, hear the Founder’s Talk at 2pm or do clay and drawing activities in the Sculpture Garden, for both kids and grown-ups. Entry is by gold coin donation on Open Saturdays. Founder’s Talk at 2pm: Karl Duldig and the women in his life Eva de Jong-Duldig, the artist’s daughter will take us on a journey through Karl’s work, focusing on  the ‘kneeling female figure’. The female figure was a key  theme throughout his work, reflecting his deep respect for,  ‘woman – who inspires man in all his achievements’ (Karl Duldig). She will look at work from all periods, and the social and psychological influences which shaped his…

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New Book | Hegel’s Owl: The Life of Bernard Smith – Sheridan Palmer

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A new book by Sheridan Palmer documenting the life and work of Bernard Smith has recently been published. ‘Better to make history than to write about it. What is needed is a brotherhood of some kind, compact, devoted, with a colourful title . . .’ Bernard Smith, letter to Robin Boyd, 1957 Bernard Smith’s ‘brotherhood’ was to become the famous group of Australian artists called The Antipodeans, and Smith was to write their manifesto. ‘The Antipodeans’ exhibition in 1959 was a watershed moment for Australian art. The exhibition included work by Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval, Clifton Pugh and, of course, Bernard Smith. But this is just one of Smith’s significant contributions to the history of Australian art, and one of many instances where he sought to highlight the importance of contemporary Australian…

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Exhibition | Max and Olive: the photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain | Ian Potter Museum of Art

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Exhibition Dates: Tuesday 31 May 2020 to Sunday 24 Jul 2020 A National Gallery of Australia Exhibition Olive Cotton and Max Dupain are key figures in Australian visual culture. They shared a long and close personal and professional relationship. This exhibition looks at their work made between 1934 and 1945, the period of their professional association; this was an exciting period of experimentation and growth in Australian photography, and Cotton and Dupain were at the centre of these developments. This is the first exhibition to look at the work of these two photographers as they shared their lives, studio and professional practice. The exhibition includes 71 photographs from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and focuses on the key period in each of their careers, when they made many of their most memorable images. Keenly aware of international…

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Exhibition Review | Whistler’s Mother | NGV International

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The National Gallery of Victoria’s latest loan exhibition is based around a single painting by James McNeil Whistler – his Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 of 1871, popularly known as the Portrait of the artist’s mother, or just ‘Whistler’s Mother’. Compared to the just-closed Warhol/Wei Wei summer blockbuster, this is a small, intimate exhibition. The painting is on loan from the Musée d’Orsay and the exhibition is filled out with etchings, prints, paintings, furniture and decorative arts from the NGV’s permanent collection. The exhibition sets this single painting into a fresh context, one that enriches our understanding of Whistler and allows us to see works from the NGV collection in a new light. I find it impossible to really talk about this exhibition without first dealing with the language being used to promote it. We are told (in the marketing…

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Symposium | Turning on Burn: A Reflective Conversation | VCA

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A symposium presented by Art & Australia at VCA |Turning on Burn: A Reflective Conversation This symposium explores and speculates upon the work and legacy of Australian conceptual artist Ian Burn (1939–1993). After graduating from the National Gallery of Art School (now the VCA School of Art), Burn spent much of his career working in the avant-garde scenes of London and New York. He was a key member of Art & Language, a collaborative group who produced the ground-breaking publication  Art–Language and included artists Roger Cutforth, Joseph Kosuth and Mel Ramsden. Returning to Australia in 1977, Burn became involved in the Art Workers Union (AWU), a political and social platform that championed artists’ rights and helped change the landscape and expectations under which artists work in Australia. In addition to his artistic practice he also taught art history, developing an…

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Exhibition | Making History – The Angry Penguins | Heide Museum of Modern Art

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Making History celebrates the influential role of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed in the development of Australian art and intellectual culture from the 1930s right up to the early 1980s. The Reeds’ first home at Heide, the Victorian farmhouse now referred to as Heide I, provides the setting for a changing selection of art works, archival material and personal effects which reveal the range of their activities and commitments: as art collectors and benefactors; as instigators of significant cultural organisations; and as cultivators of their extensive property, developed so that one day it would become a public gallery and park for all to enjoy. The first display features works by the revolutionary and now highly acclaimed artists who congregated at Heide during the watershed years of the 1940s: Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Albert Tucker and…

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Conversation | Jan Senbergs and Patrick McCaughey | NGV Australia

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Jan Senbergs with Patrick McCaughey Artist in Conversation One of Australia’s leading artists, Jan Senbergs held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1960. Acclaimed as a painter, printmaker and draughtsman, Senbergs’s work is characterised by its humanist vision, finely-honed sense of the absurd and the artist’s wide ranging curiosity. Hear from this eminent artist as he reflects on his artistic career with renowned art historian Patrick McCaughey, author of Voyage and Landfall: The Art of Jan Senbergs. The conversation will be followed by a book signing with Jan Senbergs and Patrick McCaughey. Date: Sunday 20 Mar, 2pm Venue: NGV Australia Theatre. Book via the NGV website: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/program/artist-in-conversation-jan-senbergs-with-patrick-mccaughey/

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Exhibitions | Marcin Wojcik – Anna Horne – Paula Hunt – David Attwood and Clare Peake – Carla Adams | Bus Projects

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  Exhibition Dates: Opening Wednesday 16 6-8pm until April 2nd. Malleable Scenario. Marcin Wojcik. Gallery 1. Reaching ‘the scene’ attempts to manifest the elusive state available only to those who commit themselves to a moment’s endurance. Going alone with eyes set on some enigmatic endpoint on a set course / line / road. In this body of work, the re-constructed scenario’s pits the solitary athlete (a cyclist) against multiple horizons (the scene) in a perpetual pursuit. Here the cast cyclist peddles endlessly forward around a velodrome, up a mountain as well as attempting to chase the unattainable. The aim of the task is to commit and give everything – to practice and exercise through the pain and the zen of repetition. Further, each scenario gestures a depth of the horizon we all chase but what is given instead are abstracted clues, some…

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Lecture and Symposium | New Perspectives on Italian and Australian Art History | University of Melbourne

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Photo of Gerard Vaughan

A symposium on new perspectives on Italian and Australian Art History at the University next week, with a keynote by National Gallery of Australia Director Dr Gerard Vaughan. Full program for symposium is now available on the website (pdf link). Changing the National Gallery of Australia: re-thinking the installations | Dr Gerard Vaughan In late 2015, the Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Dr Gerard Vaughan announced: ‘We have commenced an ambitious project to transform the experience at the NGA. Every time you visit the Gallery there will be new discoveries as we constantly revitalise the galleries dedicated to the permanent collection.’ In this lecture, Dr Vaughan will provide a detailed account of the new rehang, which has included the relocation of the entire Australian collection downstairs. International art, including Jackson Pollock’s famous Blue Poles (1952), has now moved…

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News | Horsham Regional Art Gallery to re-open after redevelopment

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Images from Horsham Regional Art Gallery's collection

The redeveloped Horsham Regional Art Gallery will reopen this weekend, as part of the new visual and performing arts hub located at the Horsham Town Hall. A $20 million construction project was undertaken in 2014 to create a new arts and performance hub for Horsham, co-locating the city’s visual and performing arts venues. The official opening of the Horsham Town Hall will take place in mid-February, the new Horsham Regional Art Gallery will open on Saturday 30 January. The special retrospective exhibition Smiling when I wake will celebrate the best of the gallery’s photography collection. It includes work from Australian artists Tracey Moffatt, Max Dupain and Carol Jerrems. At the same time the gallery will open an exhibition of works by local artist Mack Jost and a collection showcasing artistic visions of the Wimmera Mallee region called The pulse of…

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