For a woman with brightly coloured hair and enormous earrings, Art Works host Namila Benson is adept at fading into the background and letting the artists do the talking.
15th century paintings and frescoes by Fra Angelico and others inside monastery Convent of San Marco, Florence.
Shutterstock
The Renaissance San Marco convent, now a museum, is where Fra Angelico lived and painted under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. It was also where Savonarola proclaimed the Bonfire of the Vanities.
The 2013 reward of US$5 million has since been doubled.
AP Photo/Steven Senne
It may be the greatest robbery you’ve never heard of. In 1990 thieves stole US$200 million worth of art from a Boston gallery. A new Netflix series seeks to find the culprits.
Time/Timeless/No Time (2004) by Walter De Maria.
Todd Lappin/Flickr
Born in 1943, photographer William Yang has spoken of having to ‘come out’ twice: first as a gay man and secondly in search of his Chinese identity. A new exhibition marks his career.
For many years the British government resisted requests for the UK’s National Gallery to tour its collection, one of the world’s greatest. Now 61 of these works can be seen in Canberra.
Clarice Beckett, Australia, 1887 - 1935, The red sunshade, 1932, Melbourne, oil on board; Gift of Alastair Hunter OAM and the late Tom Hunter in memory of Elizabeth through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 2019, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
AGSA
Known for her soft capturing of tonal shifts and poignant moments, painter Clarice Beckett’s legacy was almost lost to time and decay. Now her work is being celebrated in a major exhibition.
Maxxi Minaxi May, The light crystals (detail). FSC wood and plastic rulers, glue.
Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell
What if an ‘install crew’ was given carte blanche to take over the walls and floor of a gallery? At this year’s Perth Festival, this is exactly what happened.
Judith Beheading Holofernes, painted by Artemisia Gentileschi c. 1614-20.
Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli/Wikimedia Commons
50 years ago Art News published Linda Nochlin’s essay, Why have there been no great women artists? It would change how we see art and its institutions, and still reverberates today.
With more than 100 artists from more than 30 countries, this exhibition features alternative realms drawn from a Google quantum computer, a Jeff Koons ‘selfie magnet’ and moments of Zen beauty.
Opiate of Opulence, from the series Horror Has A Face, Fiona Foley, 2017.
Courtesy of Andrew Baker Art Dealer
For over 60 years, Daniel Thomas has shaped and extended our understanding of Australian art. Sometimes cheeky, always erudite, Thomas’s writings are collected in a new book.
Tjungkara Ken, Sandra Ken, Yaritji Young, Freda Brady and Maringka Tunkin, Seven Sisters, 2018.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2020
Lindy Lee sees beauty in a moon drop, a speck of dust caught in a beam of light, and fragments of molten bronze. A new exhibition arcs over the entire trajectory of Lee’s career.
Anthony Warlow and Ana Marina rehearse the Phantom of the Opera in Melbourne, 2007.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Decades of under-funding have left many Australian art schools in a perilous state. And the present political and intellectual hostility to the creative arts is threatening their very existence.
Albert Namatjira’s Hermannsburg (c.1951)
National Gallery of Australia/Namatjira Legacy Trust
Asking Australians about their favourite art and artists reveals divides between those who like traditional versus contemporary forms. But Indigenous art transcends such categories.
Joy Hester at Fitzroy Gardens, 1942.
Albert Tucker/State Library of Victoria
Joy Hester’s entire body of work can be understood as an exploration of human relationships, connections, in all their complexity. A major retrospective now acknowledges her contribution.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne