Early European settlers tended to look at Australia’s Indigenous population with a mixture of curiosity, pity, disdain or fear. Although first-hand contact was limited, Aboriginals were invariably seen as an inferior race and their long-standing connection with the land was actively challeng
Reconciliation, painted by David Boyd in 2001, represents the continuation of an important theme that had preoccupied the artist his entire life.
In 1961, David Boyd became the winner of the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship Award for his painting, Monoliths. This award
Garry Shead is one of Australia’s most renowned artists for his poetic depictions of Australian culture and the essence of human love. Arguably his most powerful series, Dance Sequence, is one of the artist’s most adored series and includes the present work, Dancing up t
Brett Whiteley is associated with Sydney and its harbour in a way that no other artist of our time is. He depicts the glistening, emerald waters with the city beyond in his unmistakably characteristic palette and the gestural arcs of his ink brush. Whiteley’s most famous and well-loved works
The death of Robert Dickerson in October of this year took many people by surprise. It was not that his death at the age of 91 was particularly unexpected, even if he had been in robust health for the preceding few years, but it was because Dickerson was a maverick and unique figure in
John Olsen (born 1928) first encountered the Simpson Desert when he flew over Lake Eyre, to its immediate south, in 1975. Twelve months of flooding rains had transformed the lake – ordinarily a parched, desolate saltpan – into a veritable oasis, teeming with flora and birdlife. The trip resu
In the late 1960s Arthur Boyd commenced a series of paintings to illustrate a text by historian T.S.R. Boase on the theme of Nebuchadnezzar, the ancient King of Babylon. Boase examined historical and biblical sources that describe the story of the King who, according to the Book of Daniel wa
Charles Blackman strode on to the international stage with the Whitechapel Gallery’s 1961 exhibition, Recent Australian Painting, in which ‘a hothouse of geniuses suddenly stepped on to the pages of history.’1
This largely self-taught artist credits the six year
Russell Drysdale was honoured with a knighthood in 1969 for services to the arts. However, this prestigious public and formal validation was preceded by many decades of private and informal admiration by artists, curators and collectors. In fact, Drysdale’s reputation grew soon after his fir
As one of Australia’s greatest artists of the twentieth century, Arthur Boyd’s creative oeuvre encompasses a range of different themes and stylistic modes of expression. From symbolically charged allegorical paintings, to naturalistic landscapes that respond to Australia’s varied terrain – t