The Archibald Prize and the Royal Easter Show have a great deal in common. Both are enjoyed by the general public, but the entrants in the competitions are very serious about winning.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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