Piercing the veil
A new exhibition at Buxton Contemporary finds a rich complexity in the shadowy terrain between life and death.
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Arthur Streeton, Land of the Golden Fleece, 1926, oil on canvas, 92.3 x 146 cm Private collection, Sydney Photo: Jenni Carter, AGNSW.
Arthur Streeton, Fire’s on, 1891, oil on canvas, 183.8 x 122.5 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased 1893 Photo: Jenni Carter, AGNSW.
Arthur Streeton, Fatima Habiba, 1897, oil on canvas on cardboard, 29 x 27.4 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, gift of Douglas and Barbara Mullins through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1997.
Arthur Streeton, From McMahon’s Point — fare one penny, 1890, oil on canvas, 91.1 x 70.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1972.
Arthur Streeton, The Grand Canal, 1908, oil on canvas, 93 x 169 cm Collection of Susan Clarke, Victoria Photo: Glen Watson.
It’s extraordinary to discover from Wayne Tunnicliffe, head curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, that there are no books on Arthur Streeton currently in print.
Add to this the fact that the last retrospective of Streeton’s all-too-famous work was held 25 years ago—and before that in 1944. Tunnicliffe is redressing this surprising lack with a big new show (and a big book) that showcases 150 works, some of them not exhibited for more than a century. This show doubles the number in that last survey of 1995.
Tunnicliffe was keen to offer something fresh in Streeton—and he has. The curator has allotted equal weight to the large stretch of time Streeton spent working internationally, alongside his more recognisable Australian works. “A key focus is to explore Streeton’s cosmopolitanism—from his embrace of the international Impressionist movement and developing an Australian iteration with his artist friends in the 1880s, to his living and working in London for 25 years while painting in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy and France.”
The show draws parallels with contemporary concerns by exploring Streeton’s deep engagement later in his life with protecting the Australian environment. “It also explores the sheer joy and brio in his art and how his heartfelt connection to nature and landscape still resonates strongly with our audiences today,” Tunnicliffe says. The final four sections of the exhibition explore Streeton’s art after he returned to Australia in the early 1920s, entwining big-view Australian landscapes and images of Sydney city and harbour with paintings lamenting the loss of forests.
“To Streeton, how we lived in the city and country were deeply connected and he championed better urban planning along with the need to protect our natural environment. Many of his paintings are very direct in addressing these concerns.”
Streeton
Arthur Streeton
Art Gallery of New South Wales
7 November—14 February 2021
This article was originally published in the November/December 2020 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
A new exhibition at Buxton Contemporary finds a rich complexity in the shadowy terrain between life and death.
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