Degas beautifully captured women in private moments.
Detail of Edgar Degas, Woman seated on the edge of the bath sponging her neck c. 1880–95, Musée D’Orsay, Paris
Edgar Degas was fascinated with women’s bodies. Whether dancing, ironing or bathing, he captured these intimate moments with a voyeur’s detached scrutiny.
William Barak’s Ceremony has sold at auction to an unknown buyer.
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Can you repatriate a painting? Descendants of Aboriginal painter William Barak ran a crowdsourcing campaign to try to buy back the previously unknown artwork Ceremony.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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?