Art Ew - National Gallery of Australia

4 national gallery of australia
but also excelled in pottery and scroll painting. Largely
drawn from international private collections, Black robe,
white mist shows contemplative works of paper and clay
inscribed with Rengetsu’s elegant poetry and understated
calligraphy. Her work reflects the beauty of the imperfect
and unconventional. This is the first time a major museum
exhibition on her work has been staged outside Japan.
The major travelling exhibition for the Gallery’s twentyfifth
anniversary year, Ocean to Outback: Australian
landscapes 1850–1950, has been curated by me specifically
for the smaller galleries around Australia. Concentrating
on the dynamic century of Australian landscape painting
from the colonial 1850s and gold rush era to the
period immediately following the Second World War,
the exhibition features many of the Gallery’s treasured
Australian landscapes alongside some fine but lesser
known works from the national collection which have
been especially cleaned and appropriately reframed for the
exhibition. Ocean to Outback is truly national, travelling
to and including images of every state and territory –
from urban and suburban landscapes to outback and
coastal views. The exhibition, sponsored by RM Williams,
is accompanied by a substantial and very accessible fully
illustrated catalogue.
Internationally, as part of the Gallery’s anniversary
celebrations, an exhibition of Australian art will be
displayed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh,
USA, in October. The show, Andy and Oz: parallel visions,
curated by Tom Sokolowski, Director of the Andy Warhol
Museum and Deborah Hart, Senior Curator, Australian
Painting and Sculpture (after 1920), coincides with a
festival of Australian culture, and focuses on the work of
Australian artists whose art has affinities with renowned
American artist Andy Warhol.
The Australian artists cross several generations and
include works from the 1970s through to the present day.
Artists such as Martin Sharp, Richard Larter, Tracey Moffatt,
Juan Davila, Fiona Hall, Christian Thompson and Tim
Horn will be featured. The works in the exhibition will be
drawn predominantly from the Gallery’s collection. Some
parallels between these artists’ works and Andy Warhol’s
art are immediately apparent, while others are totally
unexpected and surprising. This exciting event will provide
a greater awareness of significant Australian art and artists
internationally. We are grateful to Ann Lewis AM, Henry
Gillespie and Penelope Seidler for their generous support
of the exhibition.
Finally, I am pleased to announce the release of Printed
images by Australian artists 1885–1955 by Roger Butler,
the second volume in our series of publications on the
history of printing in Australia. It is as splendid as the first
volume, Printed images in colonial Australia 1801–1901.
The third volume, which deals with contemporary
printmaking, will be released later this year.
The celebrations for our twenty-fifth year won’t stop in
October! Keep an eye out for more twenty-fifth anniversary
events and major acquisitions throughout the year.
Ron Radford