Sidney Nolan’s painting Mrs Fraser is a captivating story. In 1947 Nolan spent an extended period in Queensland, including several weeks in Brisbane and on Fraser Island (formerly known as Great Sandy Island). In Brisbane’s John Oxley Library he read, among other things, accounts of the shipwreck of the English brig, the Stirling Castle, off…
Continue reading » “Sidney Nolan’s Mrs Fraser is a spectacular colonial narrative”
By telling the story of Australian Art, we can observe the changing nature of portraiture — the shift from democratic modes such as the nineteenth-century photograph, to oil paintings produced after a number of sittings and preparatory sketches. These portraits tell stories of contact between cultures, including colonial and immigrant experiences. Many of these stories connect…
We take a look at William Dobell’s The Cypriot 1940 (illustrated), a portrait of his friend Aegus Gabrielides which is a strange and complex painting with an equally intriguing history. The Gallery’s painting is the last of six known portraits of Gabrielides by Dobell (1899-1970) over a period of several years. RELATED: The life and…
Telling the Story of Australian Art The second in our series on your Australian Art Collection reimagined, we focus on the major commission from Dale Harding, descendent of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples of central Queensland, who has been inspired by the significant galleries of rock art around his country near Carnarvon Gorge. One of…
The life and work of Albert Namatjira have left a lasting legacy for artists throughout the country. As a boy in the 1950s, Ginger Riley Munduwalawala, a Mara painter from the Gulf of Carpentaria, met Albert Namatjira. For many artists, Namatjira’s use of non-traditional colours and techniques was a liberating influence and, when Riley took…
The Hermannsburg School of watercolour painting is the longest continuing contemporary Aboriginal art movement, spanning the period from the mid 1930s to today. This important movement was established at Ntaria (Hermannsburg) before moving to Alice Springs, 125 kilometres to the east. Here, the families of the original painters have continued the tradition, living and working…
Continue reading » “Arrernte Watercolours integral in the Namatjira story”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.