The ‘Sydney Modern expansion’ seems a fitting description of a building that effectively doubles the size of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Hilma af Klint, Group IX/UW, The dove, no 2. 1915. Oil on canvas, 155.5 x 115.5 cm.
Courtesy of the Hilma af Klint Foundation. Kak174. Photo: The Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
The once secret paintings of Hilma af Klint are a revelation both for their beauty and for highlighting the impact of spiritualism on how artists see the world.
Peter Wegner’s Guy Warren in his 100th Year, winner of the 2021 Archibald Prize.
AGNSW/Peter Wegner/Photo Jenni Carter
In its centenary year, the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales could not resist the symbolism of awarding the Archibald Prize to Peter Werner’s portrait of the 100 year old Guy Warren.
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.
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.
Danie Mellor’s A Time of World’s Making (2019) detail.
Danie Mellor/AGNSW
Works by eight artists in the Dobell Drawing Biennial draw on dreams, history and reality. But drawing has escaped the gallery and will scribe on despite less government support for the arts.
Vincent Namatjira’s Stand strong for who you are, acrylic on linen, 152 x 198 cm.
Photo: AGNSW/Mim Stirling
For the first time in its 99 year-history, the Archibald Prize has been won by an Indigenous painter. The Wynne and Sulman Prize winners also signal a time of change.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre.
conjured up by Princess Takiyasha
(1845–46)
Art Gallery of NSW
The ambitiously named exhibition, The National: New Australian Art, lives up to its title as a visual examination of Australia in an age of uncertainty.
In the early 20th century, two families of collectors brought the best of modern French art to Russia. Many of their paintings - including works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne - can now be seen in Sydney.
Dorrit Black, The Bridge, 1930.
Oil on canvas on board,
60.0 x 81.0 cm.
Bequest of the artist, 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Dorrit Black, Grace Cossington Smith and Grace Crowley were some of many talented modernist women artists. But only with the advent of second wave feminism in the 1970s was their work properly acknowledged.
The distinctive visual style of Robert Mapplethorpe’s beautiful, oversized images seems now more classical than shocking. But he can still reveal the subconscious of an era we think we have outgrown.
Australia’s librarians are a vital component of our research institutions.
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The research libraries attached to Australia’s art galleries are one of the nation’s great cultural assets. But the National Gallery of Australia’s library is losing crucial staff as ‘efficiency dividends’ hit home.
The Art Gallery of NSW’s summer blockbuster sparkles with famous names, including Picasso, Matisse, Turner and Rodin. But for all of its trumpeting of risk and daring, it remains essentially a rather puritanical exercise.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne