Clarice Beckett, now recognised as one of Australia’s finest early modernists, lived a humble life. She never left the state of Victoria and painted most of her oeuvre in the Melbourne seaside suburb of Beaumaris while caring for her aging...
Slide Show
Art Reviews
By Corinna Cullen BA MA Art History and Curatorial Studies
28 Jan 2020
‘You make your own reality, there is no other rule.’1
By Catherine Baxendale B Phil Hons
28 Jan 2020
Born in Lilydale, north east of Melbourne, in 1927, Whisson’s formative years were spent under the tutelage of Danila Vassilieff (1897-1958), Melbourne’s pre-eminent figurative expressionist.1 Through Vassilieff, Whisson formed loose acquaintances with Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) and...
By Anonymous
28 Jan 2020
The first impression of Roy de Maistre’s Annunciation c1934 is one of a painted stage set. There are minimal brightly coloured flats on each side of the image that focus the viewer’s attention on two cubist figures occupying centre stage. This seems like an innovative approach to...
By Anonymous
28 Jan 2020
Modern World by Roger Kemp encapsulates a watershed moment in Australia’s history. Conveying the excitement then overtaking the contemporary world, this remarkable painting speaks of that heady time when, having emerged from years of armed conflict, the nation was poised to surge ahead...
By Rodney James BA (Hons.), MA
28 Jan 2020
Sydney Harbour 1922, presents a tranquil, luminous vision of sea and sky. It is a richly evocative work that was painted following Boyd’s move to Sydney early that year. For a period of six months, prior to travelling to London in September to organise an exhibition of recent international art,...
By Anonymous
28 Jan 2020
The present work may be the work exhibited by Eugene von Guérard at the 1849 Annual Exhibition of the Art Association of Rhineland-Westphalen, Düsseldorf, as No. 22, Italienische Landschaft, Composition [1849]. The painting, as noted in the art news of the Düsseldorfer Journal und Kreisblatt 198...
By Anonymous
28 Jan 2020
The experience of the emigrant in Australia’s colonial history has been the subject of surprisingly few painterly images. The most famous, arguably, is Ford Madox Brown’s (1821-1893) The Last of England 1825 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collection). Closer to home, Tom Roberts’ Coming...
By Anonymous
27 Aug 2019
Jeffrey Smart is known for his carefully drawn and constructed urban landscapes. He combines flat areas of colour against a carefully balanced geometry derived from the straight lines and antiseptic spaces of the contemporary city landscape and its arid hinterlands. Blousy, slightly faded...
By Anonymous
27 Aug 2019
In a celebrated passage in Romantic poet William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) The Prelude, a boy ventures across a lake in a boat to find himself suddenly aware and intimidated by the rearing mountainous peak beyond the lake. There is a resonance with this, one of the classic encounters...
