The horse has been a integral part of human history for millennia, prized both for their agility, speed and endurance, or strength needed to pull a plow or a carriage full of people. However improved transportation options towards the end of the 1800s, especially the construction of railways, and the development of new mechanical innovations…
‘Strike a pose’ presents artworks made in the first decades of the twentieth century where artists assume the posture of the Grand Manner or ‘swagger’ portrait, exemplified by George Lambert’s The artist and his wife. These paintings are juxtaposed against Yasumasa Morimura’s modern-day parody Doublonnage (Marcel) which riffs on art history and the photographs of Marcel Duchamp, disrupting…
Continue reading » “Strike a pose: Exploring the self-portrait”
The exhibition ‘Looking Out, Looking In: Exploring the Self-Portrait’ considers the complex and fascinating genre of the self-portrait — a distinct form of portraiture in which subject and artist are one, here we examine the enduring human interest in the self-image, revealing artistic tendencies towards both introspection and flamboyance. ‘Looking Out, Looking In’ is devised…
Continue reading » “Looking Out, Looking In: Exploring the Self-Portrait”
In 1940, William Dobell (1899-1970) returned to Australia after ten years in Europe. He completed The Cypriot (illustrated) that same year, a portrait of his friend Aegus Gabrielides. Was it the first major painting he produced, and what is the mystery behind the work? RELATED: The life and art of William Dobell DELVE DEEPER: The…
Continue reading » “The Mystery behind William Dobell’s ‘The Cypriot’”
During the First World War, George W Lambert (1873-1930) served Australia as an Official War Artist attached to the ANZAC Mounted Division. He spent two terms in service, the first with the Light Horse in Palestine, and the second in Gallipoli and Egypt before his military contract discharge, when he was commissioned to paint an…
Continue reading » “An incident at Romani: In memory of the Light Horse Field Ambulance, Brisbane”
Though not a painting of a named sitter, George Washington Lambert’s Portrait group (The mother) 1907 (illustrated) nevertheless belongs to that category of art — Edwardian salon portraiture — which flourished in England in the first decade of the twentieth century. These were works especially characterised by flamboyance and bravura, where old master techniques were combined with…
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.