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Articles on Here's looking at

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Cindy Sherman was the subject, costume designer, make-up artist and photographer for the large-scale images showcased in a new retrospective. Detail: Untitled #466. Image courtesy of Cindy Sherman and Metro Pictures, New York

Here’s looking at: Cindy Sherman ‘Head Shots’

Cindy Sherman understands how people perform for the camera. Her art is a portrait of human vulnerability.
Why is Whistler’s mother one of the most persistently famous images in the world? James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 (Portrait of the artist's mother) 1871. Image courtesy of the NGV.

Here’s looking at: ‘Whistler’s Mother’

Whistler’s Mother, which arrives in Melbourne on March 25, is one of the most famous portraits in the world. But James Whistler never wanted the sitter’s identity known.
Casuarina trees were the perfect metaphor for Blumann’s life and the state of the world. Detail from Elise Blumann, On the Swan, Nedlands, 1942, Oil on composition board, 55.6x66.4cm. University of Western Australia.

Here’s looking at: On the Swan by Elise Blumann

Casuarina trees and the tortured forms of the Melaleucas on the foreshore of the Swan River were the perfect metaphor for Blumann’s life and the world before and during the second world war.
Guy Grey-Smith’s Rottnest connects strongly to the land. Detail from Guy Grey-Smith, Rottnest, 1954-57, oil on canvas, 61.2x76.5 cm (h,w), The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Tom Collins Bequest Fund, 1957, © The University of Western Australia

Here’s looking at: Rottnest by Guy Grey-Smith

Guy Grey-Smith’s painting showcases the insistent rhythms of the indigenous vegetation and the rolling, flowing movements that take our eye meandering across the landscape and back towards the horizon.
Why is this seemingly unintelligible mess of house paint revered as a masterpiece? Detail: Jackson Pollock. Blue poles. 1952. © Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ARS

Here’s looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock

Gough Whitlam’s government paid $A1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles in 1973. But why exactly is this ‘seemingly unintelligible mess of house paint’ revered as a masterpiece?

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