Current exhibitions
Current and future | Travelling | Previous | Childrens
19 February – 4 October 2010 | Childrens Gallery
Shimmer examines the many ways artists have employed colour, pattern, line and materials to give their work a special energy in the eye of the viewer. Through a display of works from the national collection, this exhibition explores various interpretations of the power of patterns.
Audrey Flack Jolie madame (Pretty woman) 1973 (detail)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1978 © Audrey Flack
Tasmanian son of Empire
24 July – 4 October 2010 | Orde Poynton Gallery
Robert Dowling holds a special place in the history of Australian art. He was the first artist to be trained in Australia and was renowned for his paintings of pastoralists and their properties, Indigenous people and biblical themes. This is the first major exhibition of his oeuvre, including his much-lauded oriental subjects.
Robert Dowling ‘Mrs Adolphus Sceales with Black Jimmie on Merrang Station ’ 1855–56 (detail)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from the Founding Donor Fund 1984
2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art
13 August – 31 October 2010 | Exhibition Galleries
Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art introduces the lively, often frightening, sometimes fantastic supernatural world of ancestors and nature spirits. The serene stone monuments, large gold ornaments, architectural decorations, huge ancient bronzes and images of mythical beasts, created to entice the divine and repel the demonic, date from prehistoric to modern times.
Collected Flores, Indonesia The Bronze Weaver
6th century
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 2006
Connections
16 October 2010 – 15 May 2011 | Childrens Gallery
Connections explores the rich conversations that can take place between works of art across cultures, place and time.
Islamic works of art are paired with others in the national art collection under themes such as calligraphy, geometry, colour and the garden. Visitors will discover the beauty and diversity of Islamic art and develop an understanding of its influence around the world.
Iran Tile
17th century
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, bequest of William F Wells
In the spotlight:
Anton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950s
23 October 2010– 6 February 2011 | Orde Poynton Gallery
From his studio in New York, Australian-born Anton Bruehl created inventive and perfectly realised colour photographs for Condé Nast magazines such as Vogue. His work ranges across advertising, images of stars of stage, screen and socialites to his personal photography in the classic documentary tradition.
Anton Bruehl Portrait of Marlene Dietrich, reflected
1935
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc., New York, NY, USA, made possible with the generous support of Anton Bruehl Jr, 2006
australian . street . stencils . posters . zines . stickers
30 October 2010 – 27 February 2011 | Project Gallery
Playful, edgy, clever and satirical, the works in Space invaders have appeared in city streets around Australia. Street art has significantly altered Australian visual culture, especially over the past decade. It has announced the arrival of a new generation of contemporary artists.
This exciting exhibition looks at street art of the past 10 years by more than 40 of the most prolific and infamous street artists working in Australia today. The works are from the Gallery’s growing collection of street art—the only one of its kind in an Australian public gallery.
Prism Not titled (red shoes)
2004
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2007
Ballets Russes:
the art of costume
10 December 2010 – 20 March 2011 | Exhibition Galleries
A major exhibition of the Gallery’s renowned collection of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes including costumes by artists Natalia Goncharova, Michel Larionov, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Georges Braque, André Masson and Giorgio de Chirico.
Léon Bakst Costume for the Blue God c 1912 (detail)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1987
26 February – 29 May 2011 | Orde Poynton Gallery
Art from the Solomon Islands is the first major exhibition in Australia bringing together the finest traditional arts from the Solomons.
The Solomon Islands have an incredible history of warfare and art with early European accounts noting the artistic attention given to the decoration on weapons and raiding canoes. Drawn from museums and galleries across the Pacific, the exhibition features works with pitch black, glossy surfaces, iridescent nacreous shell, distended faces and fluid limbs—distinctive features of Solomons arts.
Roviana People Solomon Islands Portrait bust of a Young Man
1870–1900 (detail)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2007