Exhibition catalogue of Australian art which toured the United States and Canada, 134 works were included in this exhibition among which were 11 bark paintings from the East Alligator River District, Northern Territory and three pen drawings by Tommy McRae from Victoria; front and back cover includes Aboriginal motifs by Alistair Morrison; article by Margaret Preston annotated separately.
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.
This publication brings together existing research as well as new data to show how Arnhem Land bark painting was critical in the making of Indigenous Australian contemporary art and the self-determination agendas of Indigenous Australians. It identifies how, when and what the shifts in the reception of the art were, especially as they occurred within institutional exhibition displays. Despite key studies already being published on the reception of Aboriginal art in this area, the overall process is not well known or always considered, while the focus has tended to be placed on Western Desert acrylic paintings. This text, however represents a refocus, and addresses this more fully by integrating Arnhem Land bark painting into the contemporary history of Aboriginal art. The trajectory moves from its understanding as a form of ethnographic art, to seeing it as conceptual art and appreciating it for its cultural agency and contemporaneity.
A Companion to Australian Art is a thorough introduction to the art produced in Australia from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 to the early 21st century. Beginning with the colonial art made by Australia’s first European settlers, this volume presents a collection of clear and accessible essays by established art historians and emerging scholars alike. Engaging, clearly-written chapters provide fresh insights into the principal Australian art movements, considered from a variety of chronological, regional and thematic perspectives. The text seeks to provide a balanced account of historical events to help readers discover the art of Australia on their own terms and draw their own conclusions. The book begins by surveying the historiography of Australian art and exploring the history of art museums in Australia. The following chapters discuss art forms such as photography, sculpture, portraiture and landscape painting, examining the practice of art in the separate colonies before Federation, and in the Commonwealth from the early 20th century to the present day. This authoritative volume covers the last 250 years of art in Australia, including the Early Colonial, High Colonial and Federation periods as well as the successive Modernist styles of the 20th century, and considers how traditional Aboriginal art has adapted and changed over the last fifty years. The Companion to Australian Art is a valuable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students of the history of Australian artforms from colonization to postmodernism, and for general readers with an interest in the nation’s colonial art history.
The uneasy relationship between the arts, US art museums, and the federal government has not been thoroughly explored by scholars. This book focuses on the development of “national diplomacy exhibitions” during World War II and the early Cold War and explains how the War provided the government with an impetus to create a national arts policy. It discusses how national diplomacy exhibitions on US soil were deployed as persuasive tools to influence public opinion, to reconcile discrepancies between high art and democracy, and to resolve America’s lagging art status and difficulties with “the foreign.” The type of soft diplomacy that art museums provide by initiating national diplomacy exhibitions has not received emphasis in the scholarly community and art museums have essentially been ignored in cultural studies of the early Cold War. Scholarly analysis of museum exhibitions in the last quarter of the 20th century is now a popular topic, but investigations of exhibitions between 1939-1960 have been thin. By scrutinizing major exhibitions during those formative years this book takes a new perspective and examines the foundational development of the so-called “blockbuster” exhibition stimulated by World War II. The book will interest readers in visual studies, history, museums, cultural affairs, government, and international diplomacy.
Pacific Rim Modernisms explores the complex ways that writers, artists, and intellectuals of the Pacific Rim have contributed to modernist culture, literature, and identity.
The story of Australian art does not begin and end with landscape. This book puts flowers front and centre, because they have often been ignored in preference for more masculine themes. Departing from where studies of single flower artists leave off, Useless Beauty embraces the general topic of flowers in Australian art and shines new light on a slice of Australian art history that extends from 1880 to 1950. It is the first book of broad chronology to discuss Australian art through blossoms, which it does by addressing stories of major figures including Hans Heysen, Margaret Preston and Sidney Nolan, as well as specific objects such as surreal flowers, Aboriginal flowers and war flowers. Whether modern or conservative, the artists in this study shared an intellectual and emotional passion for flora. This was true for men as well as women, despite blossoms being a more traditionally feminine subject. Through spectacular reproductions of historical and contemporary artworks drawn from collections in Australia, the United States, Britain and New Zealand, Useless Beauty explores how flowers influenced the psyche, governed rituals, defined identity and brought a psychological dimension to the everyday. The peak years for flower-centricity in Australian art were between 1920 and 1940 when flowers were known as the apotheosis of useless beauty.
A Companion to Modern Art presents a series of original essays by international and interdisciplinary authors who offer a comprehensive overview of the origins and evolution of artistic works, movements, approaches, influences, and legacies of Modern Art. Presents a contemporary debate and dialogue rather than a seamless consensus on Modern Art Aims for reader accessibility by highlighting a plurality of approaches and voices in the field Presents Modern Art’s foundational philosophic ideas and practices, as well as the complexities of key artists such as Cezanne and Picasso, and those who straddled the modern and contemporary Looks at the historical reception of Modern Art, in addition to the latest insights of art historians, curators, and critics to artists, educators, and more
How have imperialism and its after-effects impacted patterns of cultural exchange, artistic creativity and historical/curatorial interpretation? World Art and the Legacies of Colonial Violence - comprised of ten essays by an international roster of art historians, curators, and anthropologists - forges innovative approaches to post-colonial studies, Indigenous studies, critical heritage studies, and the new museology. This volume probes the degree to which global histories of conflict, coercion and occupation have shaped art historical approaches to intercultural knowledge and representation. These debates are relevant to contemporary artists and scholars of visual, material and museological culture in their attempts to negotiate imperial and colonial legacies. Confronting the aesthetics of Abolition, Fascism and Filipino independence, and re-thinking relationships between colonised and coloniser in Cameroon, North America and East Timor, the collection brings together new readings of Primitivism and Aboriginal art as well. It features discussions of touring exhibitions, popular media, modernist paintings and sculptures, historic photographs, human remains and art installations. In addition to the critical application of phenomenology in a fresh and contemporary manner, the volume?s ?world art? perspective nurtures the possibility that intercultural ethics are relevant to the study of art, power and modernity.
