Aspects of Australian Figurative Painting: 1942-1962 – Dreams, Fears, and Desires
Dates:
16 August – 21 September 1984
Artists:
Herbert Badham, Jean Bellette, Josl (Yosel) Bergner, Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Noel Counihan, Ray Crooke, William Dargie, Robert Dickerson, William Dobell, Russel Drysdale, Adrian Feint, Donald Friend, Sam Fullbrook, James Gleeson, Pro Hart, Weaver Hawkins, Ivor Hele, Sali Herman, Joy Hester, Jacqueline Hick, Francis Lymburner, Mirka Mora, Jon Molvig, Albert Namatjira, Sidney Nolan, John Olsen, John Perceval, Margaret Preston, Clifton Pugh, Jeffrey Smart, Grace Cossington Smith, David Strachan, Albert Tucker, Danila Vassilieff, Brett Whiteley, James Wigley
Curators:
Christine Dixon, Terry Smith and Virginia Spate
Location:
Exhibition Gallery
Monash University, Clayton Campus
Touring:
Shown as part of the Fifth Biennale of Sydney, S.H. Ervin Gallery
11 April – 17 June 1984
About the exhibition
Featuring a range of figurative paintings made in Australia over two decades, this exhibition had a contemporary orientation despite its historical grouping. Across Australia, Europe and North America, the first half of the 1980s marked a high level of returned interest and investigations into figurative painting, especially in surrealist or new expressionist styles. Originally shown as part of the 5th Biennale of Sydney, organised around the theme Private Symbol: Social Metaphor, this presentation of historical works centred on the question of ‘what might we learn from confronting an earlier manifestation of the same concerns, itself a precedent for the present?’
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Image: Donald Friend, Demolitions 1945, pen and coloured ink, coloured wash, and Chinese white, 35.5 x 38.1 cm. Australian War Memorial, Canberra