Synopses & Reviews
This unprecedented book charts the development of Australian art since 1800, from early Aboriginal paintings and the work of the first colonial settlers to contemporary artists whose work reflects their culturally diverse influences. The book celebrates key moments in the Australian canon and showcases more recent artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Fiona Hall, and Vernon Ah Kee, who have emerged and established a highly original native art scene. Because the art of this continent is indelibly linked to its epic landscape, this book focuses especially on this complex and evolving alliance, illustratand#173;ing in some 200 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and film and video stills the distinctive Australian terrain, and examining the ways in which Australian artists have sought to negotiate their identities in relation to the extremes of their land.
Synopsis
This comprehensive survey uniquely covers both Aboriginal art and that of European Australians, providing a revealing examination of the interaction between the two. Painting, bark art, photography, rock art, sculpture, and the decorative arts are all fully explored to present the rich texture of Australian art traditions.
Well-known artists such as Margaret Preston, Rover Thomas, and Sidney Nolan are all discussed, as are the natural history illustrators, Aboriginal draughtsmen, and pastellists, whose work is only now being brought to light by new research. Taking the European colonization of the continent in 1788 as his starting point, Sayers highlights important issues concerning colonial art and women artists in this fascinating new story of Australian art.
About the Author
Andrew Sayers is Director of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. Previously he was Assistant Director (Collections) at the National Gallery of Australia. Between 1985 and 1996 he was Curator of Australian Drawings at the National Gallery of Australia. He was responsible for several retrospective exhibitions of the drawings of Australian artists. His definitive study Drawing in Australia was published in 1989, following the extensive survey exhibition mounted for the Bicentennial in 1988. He is the author of Sidney Nolan: The Ned Kelly Story (1994) and Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century (1994).
Table of Contents
1. Art and the Dreaming
2. The lines of empire 1788-1835
3. The pursuit of knowledge 1835-1870
4. Colonial art worlds 1851-1888
5. What should Australian artists paint? 1885-1900
6. Beautifying the objects of our daily life; art and decorative art 1890-1920
7. Order and transcendence; art between the wars 1919-1939
8. Aboriginal art and its reception 1934-1949
9. Art, myth, and society; the Australian avant garde 1939-1950
10. Icon and abstraction 1951-1968
11. Saying and seeing; contemporary art 1968-1999
Notes
Timeline
Bibliographic Essay
Museums and Websites
List of Illustrations
Index