European & American Art
The National Gallery of Australia’s display of international art spans the years from 1850 to the present day. On show are paintings, sculpture, prints, decorative arts and photographs by European and American artists, as well as a selection of Australian works. These integrated displays demonstrate both the wealth of the Gallery’s collection and the impact of artistic styles across a variety of disciplines. Not all works are always in the galleries, as some are required for exhibition elsewhere.
Gallery 1 is divided into rooms of Impressionism, Fauvism and the School of Paris, Ballets Russes, Dada and Surrealism, Cubism and Expressionism. The French realist artists Honoré Daumier and Gustave Courbet are joined by Claude Monet (Haystacks, middayand Waterlilies), an early work by Paul Cézanne and a small study by Georges Seurat. Changing displays of prints and posters by such masters as Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard can be seen, as well as examples of Arts and Crafts design, and Art Nouveau objects. Other treasures include Amedeo Modigliani’s limestone sculpture, Standing nude, and Kasimir Malevich’s House under construction. Alongside paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte and Joan Miró, the Dada and Surrealist room includes the work of Australian Surrealists and indigenous American, Pacific and African sculpture from Max Ernst’s collection of ‘tribal’ art.
Gallery 2 ranges from Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art. One of the Gallery's best-known paintings, Jackson Pollock's Blue poles, is usually displayed with Willem de Kooning's Woman V and paintings by Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and others. Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg are represented by key works, and the Gallery’s outstanding holdings of American prints and posters complement these Pop masters and their contemporaries. American art of the 1970s is another strength and regular changeovers ensure visitors see works made of neon or incorporating photography, or using organic elements such as ochres, branches or earth core samples, as well as more traditional paint and canvas.
Gallery 3 is normally dedicated to contemporary art from the 1970s to today. The major works often seen in this space are Francis Bacon’s magnificent triptych, Chuck Close’s photo-realist portrait Bob, and Colin McCahon’s Victory over death 2. Neo-Expressionist paintings from Europe are included, as well as contemporary sculpture and works using new media.
The National Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery is graced by Constantin Brancusi’s black and white marble Birds in space. On sandstone bases in a calm pool, the birds oversee the only gallery in an Australian museum dedicated to sculpture. Donald Judd’s brass boxes, Louise Bourgeois’ pink wooden C.O.Y.O.T.E. and Anselm Kiefer’s magisterial Abendlandare joined by works from the great Australian sculptors Rosalie Gascoigne, Robert Klippel and Ken Unsworth.
New acquisitions
Special focus
- Lucian Freud After Cézanne
- Ron Mueck Pregnant woman
- Sculpture Garden
- James Turrell's Skyspace
- Leo Haks collection
- Provenance Research
- Old masters on loan
Related exhibitions
- Andy and Oz: Parallel Visions
- Anne Dangar at Moly-Sabata: tradition and innovation
- Bill Viola: The Passions
- Chihuly: masterworks in glass
- Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
- Degas: master of French art
- French paintings: from the Musée Fabre, Montpellier
- Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera & Mexican modernism: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection
- Gary Hill & Bruce Nauman: new international media art
- Hockney masterworks in paint
- In a flash
- Jackson Pollock: before Blue Poles
- Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond
- Monet & Japan
- Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of Sara Lee Corporation
- Natural causes
- New worlds from old: 19th Century Australian and American landscapes
- Not a super highway: Nam June Paik’s cars for the 20th century
- Pierre Bonnard: observing nature
- Printed light: photographic vision and the modern print
- Read my lips: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman
- Rembrandt: a genius and his impact
- Revealing the Holy land: the photographic exploration of Palestine
- Revolutionary Russians
- Rodin: sculpture and drawings
- Sean Scully: body of light
- Secession: modern art and design in Austria & Germany 1890s–1920s
- Soft sculpture
- The Book of Kells: & the art of illumination
- The Italians: three centuries of Italian art
- Turner to Monet: the triumph of landscape
- An artist abroad: the prints of James McNeill Whistler
- After image:screenprints of Andy Warhol
- Against the grain: Helen Frankenthaler woodcuts
- An artist abroad: the prints of James McNeill Whistler
- Dance hall days: French posters from Chéret to Toulouse-Lautrec
- First impressions the early history of lithography – a comparative survey
- Matisse: the art of drawing
- Monet & Japan
- Picasso & The Vollard Suite
- Printed light: photographic vision and the modern print
- Read my lips: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman
- Robert Rauschenberg 1967–1978
- Rosenquist: Welcome to the water planet
- Rough cuts: European figurative prints from Gauguin to Paladino
- Secession: modern art and design in Austria & Germany 1890s–1920s
- Sol LeWitt: drawings, prints and books 1968-1988
- Stella & Tyler: masterworks in print
- The Birth of the Modern Poster
- The big Americans: the art of collaboration
- The universal soldier: John Walker's Passing Bells
- War: The prints of Otto Dix
Select publications
- Building the collection Pauline Green, editor, 2003
- Douglas Annand: the art of life Anne McDonald, 2001
- French paintings from the Musée Fabre, Montpellier Michel Hilaire, Jörg Zutter and Olivier Zeder, editors, 2003
- Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican modernism: the Jacques and Natasha Gelman collection, Anthony White editor, 2001
- Lucian Freud: after Cézanne, 2001
- Pierre Bonnard: observing nature Jörg Zutter, editor, 2003
- Rodin: sculpture and drawings 2001
- Sean Scully: body of light, 2004
- Secession: modern art and design in Austria and Germany 1890s–1920s Christine Dixon, 2000
- An artist abroad: the prints of James McNeill Whistler Jane Kinsman, 2005
- Building the collection Pauline Green, editor, 2003
- Monet and Japan, 2001
- The big Americans: the art of collaboration, Jane Kinsman, 2002
Enquiries
- For more publications visit the library catalogue online
- Contact International.Art@nga.gov.au