Their modernist interpretations of Australia in the interwar period have both a complexity and a simplicity.
Tracker Nat, holding his hat on the far left, with Paul Hasluck standing next to him, holding Nat’s shield in this picture from 1958.
National Archives of Australia. NAA: A1200, L28199.
In 1895 the Wynne Prize was proposed as an award for a ‘landscape painting of Australian scenery’. Today it is more likely to be given to an Indigenous artist’s explanation of Country.
This illustrated health manual dating back to the 13th century provides a glimpse of daily life in aristocratic households during the Middle Ages.
Jeffrey Smart, Margaret Olley in the Louvre Museum.
1994–95 Tuscany, Italy. Oil on canvas 67 x 110 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Bequest of Ian Whalland 1997. 85.1997
Jeffrey Smart is admired for his carefully structured paintings of Tuscany and Rome. This National Gallery of Australia’s centenary celebration of his birth takes the viewer back to Adelaide.
Matisse: Life & Spirit is a celebration of the creativity of the master of colour.
Art historians have long used traditional X-rays, X-ray fluorescence or infrared imaging to better understand artists’ techniques.
Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons
Breathless headlines of artificial intelligence discovering or restoring lost works of art ignore the fact that these machines rarely, if ever, reveal one secret or solve a single mystery.
For as little as $20, you can now own a tiny piece of a valuable work of art.
Yasuko Inoue/iStock via Getty Images
Art is a risky investment, with estimated long-run returns, on average, below stocks. But investing in artworks may provide diversification to an investment portfolio, as well as enjoyment.
XIV Crows (からす) by Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi, 1972.
Courtesy the Maruki Gallery
Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi were witness to the direct aftermath of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. The art they created is striking.
Dušan Marek, born Bítouchov, Czechoslovakia 1926, died Adelaide 1993. Analysis of Substance, 1952, Kings Cross, Sydney. Oil on canvas, 36.5 x 88.2 cm.
Purchased with the assistance of James Agapitos OAM and Ray Wilson OAM 2007, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Australian surrealism has long been understood as if it was imported from Paris. This new exhibition places two Czech-Australian émigrés at the heart of the movement.
It’s 100 years since the Art Gallery of NSW first held the Archibald Prize. Though loathed by some critics, it is an annual snapshot of the kind of society we are, and who our heroes might be.
The style and date given for the painted room never sat right with MA Katritzky, who spent lockdown investigating whether the room was actually created by one of Britain’s greatest painters.
The first Duke of Montagu was a a Francophile through and through. After spending time with Louis XIV, he dreamed of a Versailles of his own.
Clara Southern, Australia 1860-1940, An old bee farm, c.1900. Oil on canvas, 69.1 × 112.4 cm.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1942
This exhibition will become the definitive show of Australian Impressionism - and it features talented women artists alongside iconic males.
After an Indian politician recently tried to shame a woman for wearing ripped jeans, women’s responses were swift and sharp.
(Twitter/@prag65043538, @sherryshroff, @ruchikokcha)
After an Indian politician disparaged a woman for her lack of morals because she was wearing ripped jeans, an online protest erupted, reviving the original protest-culture of the ripped jean.
Degas’ Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening (1877) depicts a group of prostitutes.
WikiArt
Hyperbole surrounds the Impressionists, who are perennial blockbuster fodder. In truth, they were not a united group of radicals and their subject matter is far darker than commonly acknowledged.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne