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'Painting matters to Australia and Australians as it does in few other countries. It has formed our consciousness, our sense of where we come from, and who we are. It cries out for wider recognition and acknowledgement.' - Patrick McCaughey Why has Australia, an island continent with a small population, produced such original and powerful art? And why is it so little known beyond our shores? Strange Country: Why Australian Painting Matters is Patrick McCaughey's answer.
This book is a portrait of the period when modern art became contemporary art. It explores how and why writers and artists in Australia argued over the idea of a distinctively Australian modern and then postmodern art from 1962, the date of publication of a foundational book, Australian Painting 1788–1960, up to 1988, the year of the Australian Bicentennial. Across nine chapters about art, exhibitions, curators and critics, this book describes the shift from modern art to contemporary art through the successive attempts to define a place in the world for Australian art. But by 1988, Australian art looked less and less like a viable tradition inside which to interpret ‘our’ art. Instead...
Patrick McCaughey remains one of Australian art's most remarkable and charismatic figures. The Bright Shapes and the True Names is the story of his brilliant career-his emigration to Australia at the age of ten, his discovery of art in his late teens, his days as the dynamic and outspoken art critic for the Age and his glittering directorship of the National Gallery of Victoria. Together with memories of Fred Williams and other artists, the frenzied activity of the Whitlam government's Visual Arts Board, and an extraordinary account of the notorious theft of Picasso's Weeping Woman from the NGV, McCaughey offers a fascinating and enthusiastic insider's view of the Australian art world and its development over three decades.
Widely regarded as a major Australian artist, Rosalie Gascoigne first exhibited in 1974 at the age of fifty-seven. She rapidly achieved critical acclaim for her assemblages which were her response to the Monaro landscape surrounding Canberra. The great blonde paddocks, vast skies and big raucous birds contrasted with the familiar lush green harbour city of Auckland she had left behind. Her medium: weathered discards from the landscape. By her death in 1999, her work had been purchased for major public art collections in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and New York, and had been exhibited across Europe and Asia. Gascoigne’s story is often cast in simple terms—an inspirational tale of an o...
Colin Colahan was an Australian painter of outstanding ability and reputation who from the 1920s to the 1970s was remarkably productive. Colahan was one of the more brilliant pupils of the painter Max Meldrum. Identification with the unfashionable 'Meldrumites' is one explanation for Colahan's disappearance from the public gaze. The other has murkier origins in the still unsolved murder of his girlfriend, Mollie Dean, in 1930. There was nothing of substance to link Colahan to the brutal murder, but fevered public speculation cast a depressing shadow for many years and helped propel him to Europe in 1935. There he stayed for the rest of his long life. The story of Colahan's personal life is tantalising in itselfandmdash;three marriages, five children, numerous lovers, beautiful houses in England and Italy, portrait painter of the rich and famous. It was an urbane life. He was a witty, charming, talented man. This intimate, engaging portrait is indeed most welcome, and will restore Colahan's life and work to its rightful place in the history of Australian art.
Sometimes a few dedicated heroes can turn a spark of change into a firestorm of rebellion. Such was the case during the Protestant Reformation, when courageous souls stood against oppression, changing the way we approach religion even today. In Freedom at Stake, men and women consumed with passion and dedication incite turmoil among traditional thinkers and established powers. They inspire change across Europe, from peasants and farmers to popes and kings. But as they bravely fan the flames, can they help but get burnt? Do their risks pay off, or do their actions consume them? In these fiery years, everything is at stake—freedom, liberty, and even life.
Melbourne's a city you get to know from the inside out – you have to walk it to love it. My favourite time to do this is at night. That's when you capture glimpses of people – eating, laughing, talking, arguing, watching TV and reading – through half-open terrace house doors and windows … It is a city of inside places and conversation. Of intimacy. Melbourne begins on Black Saturday, the day that bushfires tore through the outskirts of Melbourne, destroying the townships of Marysville and Kinglake, shattering thousands of lives. Sophie Cunningham writes about what happened over the year that followed. Sit through a heatwave, visit the drains underneath the city, participate in a lett...
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 con...