“Our choice of Streeton’s works for a first loan exhibition of this kind is also I think very appropriate to our present conditions. We are living in very tumultuous times…”
These words were not uttered by the current Art Gallery of New South Wales Director Michael Brand in opening this exhibition but by the President of the Trustees, Sir John Sulman when he launched a huge retrospective exhibition on the 20th November 1931. It comprised a hundred and seventy-three works from forty-one collections, it was the most ambitious loan exhibition the Gallery had undertaken and set the template for modern art retrospectives in Australia.
Exhibition curator and author of the monograph accompanying this exhibition Wayne Tunnicliffe stated that this exhibition features some one hundred and fifty works from forty-two public and private collections, some not exhibited for more than one hundred years.
Paying homage to one of Australia’s greatest artists Gallery director Michael Brand indicated that it would be just called Streeton just as exhibitions by Cezanne, Picasso, and the like were promoted by just the surname.
The expansive exhibition. brings together sun-drenched Impressionist landscapes from the 1880s, vivid depictions of Sydney harbour in the 1890’s, pastoral paintings from. the 1920s and 1930s, and a selection of artworks from the artist’s international career painting in Egypt, England, Italy and World War 1 France.
Exhibition visitors can watch a new documentary film, ‘Streeton-A Life’, which explores the key moments in Arthur Streeton’s artistic journey. Through his correspondence, read by actor Mark lee, Streeton’s voice is integral to the telling of his story. A central theme is Streeton’s concern with preserving Sydney Harbour’s foreshore which later became active environmental campaigning to save Australia’s old-growth forests especially in the Dandenong ranges where he resided later in his life.
The exhibition runs from Saturday 7th November 2020 to Sunday 14th February 2021.
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/
Featured image:Boulogne 1918. All pics by Ben Apfelbaum