The National Gallery’s collection of European and American art develops and expands from the beginning of the nineteenth century in a variety of media: painting and sculpture; strong collections of original prints, posters, illustrated books and drawings; an extensive representation of the history of photography; and a selection of theatre arts, decorative arts and design.
The collection is essentially modern. The holdings of European and American art parallel the recorded history of Australian art over the past two hundred years and finds its strength in the twentieth century. As well as holding the work of some of the greatest modern figures such as Monet, Matisse, Brancusi, Pollock and Warhol, the Gallery is building a contemporary collection that reflects current directions. These interdependent areas allow a rich and complex appreciation of Western art from abroad and its substantial impact on the art of European Australia.
Along with European and American art, the National Gallery’s international collection includes a small group of objects from Africa and pre-Columbian America. These works underscore the Gallery’s belief that an understanding of modern art involves an appreciation of the way in which the work of non-Western visual culture has profoundly influenced the direction of twentieth-century art.
New acquisitions
Special focus
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
