At Serengeti the great herds in migration are just like the walls of Lascaux come alive … These animals have a message for us in that they are unique – the message will become fossilized as the species die out. One comes to view them as works which will not be repeated again; the fascination

Margaret Olley’s Duxford Street terrace house was brimming with collected objects used primarily for picture-making. The endless array of fruit bowls, ceramic jugs, lamps, vases of flowers, painted plates, woven baskets and glass bottles were acquired by Olley specifically to be included in

Native Flowers and Geebungs 1938 dates from a critical phase of Margaret Preston’s career, when the artist consolidated her reputation as a leading exponent of Australian modernism.  Since the early 1920s, Preston had regularly exhibited with Sydney’s Society of Artists, whose

A painting by Jeffrey Smart might begin with a sudden epiphany, a flash of inspiration found by the side of the road. Smart would make a quick sketch, and maybe a snapshot, then store the motif on an imaginary shelf, awaiting its day in the studio. At this point, the hard work would begin. A

The first of these Kelly pictures was painted between 1945 and 1947 … The scale is large, and the execution ‘naïve’: a ‘primitive’ treatment that seemed, at the time, to be a somewhat systematic and artful way of achieving an atmosphere of ‘folklore’ in these pictures. Mr Nolan has told me t

Lloyd Rees is one of the most published Australian painters of his generation. From the first major monograph by Renee Free released in 1972, many more have followed, focusing on his paintings, drawings and prints – one of the most recent being a 2013 catalogue raisonné of his representation

By the time he discovered Werribee Gorge in 1977, Fred Williams had nothing left to prove. He was the country’s leading landscape painter, and one of the most highly respected figures in Australian art. He sat on the Acquisitions Committee of the Australian National Gallery, as it was then k

The depiction of the solitary figure in the landscape was a visual theme that Arthur Boyd turned to often throughout his career. Most often – as is the case with Hillside with Figure – the model is Yvonne, Boyd’s wife. Yvonne is often depicted nude, her hair held tightly in a bun, a

Sidney Nolan was closely in tune with Australian life. Although he lived away from Australia for much of his career, the history of his birth country continued to be the wellspring of his art. Nolan was intent on finding suitable metaphors and myths for a ‘young’ country still finding its id

The Australian landscape and Arthur Boyd are synonymous within the history of Australian painting. Boyd and his wife Yvonne first encountered the landscape of the Shoalhaven in 1972 when visiting Bundanon homestead at the invitation of Frank McDonald. Boyd only intended to visit Australia fo