3 Dec 2011 - 29 Jan 2012
A major exhibition from the NGA's collection. Hazelhurst is the only venue in NSW these portraits are on display, some for the first time.
Australian Portraits 1880 -1960 took a fresh look at portraits from the National Gallery of Australia's collection, from the 1880s late colonial period to the mid 1960s and the move into abstraction. It featured 54 portraits by 34 leading Australian painters, including Tom Roberts, E Phillips Fox, Hugh Ramsay, George W Lambert, Max Meldrum, Rupert Bunny, Violet Teague, Margaret Preston, Stella Bowen, Napier Waller, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Roy de Maistre, Russell Drysdale and John Brack.
The exhibition included much-loved paintings from the Gallery's collection in addition to little-known works and two recently acquired pieces that had not been shown in public before.
Australian Portraits 1880 –1960 considered the international influences upon Australian portrait painting and the more distinctive turns that Australian portraiture has taken in its own right. Australian artists have often challenged the possibilities of portraiture, rejected the predictable and pushed boundaries in both their choice of subject and their painterly approach.
Image: Hugh Ramsay, Miss Nellie Patterson [detail] 1903, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1966.