Impressionism is beloved by Australian audiences, there’s no doubt about it. While firmly grounded in realism and representational art, it is also in many instances, an abandonment of form and line to chase instead, the momentary and the luminous.
According to Tony Magnusson, coordinating curator at the Art Gallery of South Australia, “there are few countries and cultures as transfixed by the experience of light as our own.” We have a fascination with the outdoors, he says, which is shared by Impressionists who championed breezy plein air painting. Lastly, the movement is so esteemed here because we have our own story of local Impressionism, otherwise known as the Heidelberg School.
Colours of Impressionism is an overview of the movement through an account of colour. Coming from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, AGSA will host 67 oil paintings by 25 artists, made over some 60 years.
Magnusson explains that these artists introduced peinture claire, “the expression of light tones through a predominantly pale palette”, this approach he continues, “revolutionised painting and underpins the development of Impressionism.”
Out of the usual run of things, the gallery will install the works in the Elder Wing of the gallery which was commenced in 1889 – the exact year the metro station which now houses the Musée d’Orsay in Paris was built.
“We are hoping that the experience of the paintings in the Elder Wing will in many ways collapse time and space with the Elder Wing recalling the light-filled interior of the former metro station,” says Magnusson.
Past meets present in Leyla Steven’s latest exhibition, now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and co-curated by Artspace. The Australian-Balinese artists adopts a collaborative approach to restitution, scrutinising the systems of conservation and documentation we have inherited.
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
The National Gallery of Victoria has announced the next instalment of the Winter Masterpieces series, coming in June 2025, will be a return to French Impressionism—an exhibition from 2021 that closed as soon as it opened due to the global pandemic.
Anador Walsh reviews Ivan Cheng’s performance exhibition NP at Monash University Museum of Art—a three-day project, made in collaboration with a group of Year 11 students, that explores the loss of childhood innocence and role of documentation in performance.
rhythm wRites, a new exhibition at QUT Art Museum, spans 30 years of Bigambul artist Leah King-Smith’s manifold art practice, covering painting, photography, sound and animation.
