The Eva and Marc Besen Collection: Australian Painting and Sculpture

About the exhibition
Having started collecting art together in the 1950 s, by the time of this exhibition, Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AC had acquired an assured and comprehensive collection that covered a significant period in the development of modern Australian art. Coinciding with the Department of Visual Arts teaching its first course in Australian art, this exhibition offered an opportunity for staff and students to view the major works in its modern and contemporary history. Landscapes—whether peopled, emptied of figures, or abstracted—dominated the painting selection. Persistent traces of an expressionist legacy found in contemporary works demonstrated some continuity over this period of great change and innovation.

This exhibition inspired the Besens’ eventual decision to gift their collection to the newly established TarraWarra Museum of Art. In 2023, Marc Besen reflected that after seeing highlights from their collection on display in 1976 at the Exhibition Gallery at Monash University, the Besens ‘came to understand the benefits of its public access’.

Reference: Marc Besen AC, ‘A Personal Reflection’, in Victoria Lynn and Anthony Fitzpatrick (eds), Portrait of a Collection: TarraWarra Museum of Art, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 2024, p. 19.

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^{Image: Guy Stuart, Vat & Disc 3 1968, oil on canvas, 168 x 126 cm. Eva and Marc Besen Collection, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Vic. Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AO 2001}