Previous exhibitions 2013
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Lost worlds of Peru
6 December 2013 – 21 April 2014 | Temporary Exhibitions Gallery
Gold and the Incas is the first exhibition of Peruvian art ever staged in Australia and will showcase the splendour of the ancient pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru. Audiences will encounter the aesthetic depth, drama and beauty of the famous Incan empire and its predecessors.
MOCHE culture North coast 100–800 AD, Bead in the form of an owl’s head, Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán, Lambayeque, Photograph: Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán
Children's Gallery Exhibition
17 August 2013 – 6 April 2014 | Children's Gallery
Toyshop is an exhibition for the very young gallery visitor. But, equally, it has something for all of us. Toys hold a special place for children as objects of fun and imagination. For an adult, they present a nostalgic link to the past, which is often employed by artists to stir up childhood memories or to capture the innocence or fun we once had as children.
Tom ANDERSEN PUFF TOYS (manufacturer),Toy train 1975 (Detail), Crafts Board Collection donated by the Australia Council 1982
Pop Remix
20 July 2013 – 27 January 2014
Roy Lichtenstein was a master of appropriation. Applying a systematic approach to his creative energy, the artist’s entire body of work was constructed following a sophisticated strategy of image selection, reinterpretation and reissue. Lichtenstein developed a central creative principle that became a potent formula: an ability to identify over-used cultural clichés and to repackage them as monumental remixes.
Roy Lichtenstein Nude with blue hair 1994 (detail) colour relief National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.
a selection of photographs of New Zealand 1960s to the present
28 June – 15 December 2013 | Photography Gallery
New Zealand has a complex history: rich with tradition and culture, though at times turbulent and bloody. Over recent decades, photographers have reflected on the meaning and ramifications of nationhood, often grounding their investigations in personal and wider histories.
Hans Neleman Power of the Trinity 1998 (Detail) colour photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Hans Neleman 2013
Australian art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
21 Sep – 8 Dec 2013 | Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
Beginning at 1800 and continuing until the present day, Australia shows more than 200 years of Australian art on the theme of land and landscape. It is the largest and most complete historical survey of Australian art ever to be displayed in Britain.
Sidney Nolan Ned Kelly, 1946 (Detail) Enamel paint on composition board, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Sunday Reed, 1977
Drawn from Africa
5 October 2013 – 3 November 2013 | Temporary Exhibitions Gallery
William Kentridge (born 1955) is a major figure in contemporary art, who has established an international reputation as a gifted figurative artist. Working in the tradition of William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier, Kentridge explores themes of the society in which he lives, but in a particularly subtle way.
William Kentridge Nose 18 2009 (detail) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The Poynton Bequest, 2010
The Making of a Master
1 June 2013 – 15 September 2013 | Temporary Exhibitions Gallery
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) is one of Britain’s greatest artists and a key figure of the Romantic generation. He is celebrated as a highly modern painter, his work much admired for its experimental character.
Turner from the Tate includes many of the artist’s most famous paintings. It provides a comprehensive overview of Turner’s monumental landscapes and atmospheric, light-filled seascapes, while offering extraordinary insights into his working life and practices.
J.M.W. Turner Peace – Burial at Sea exhibited 1842 (detail) Photo: © Tate, 2013
23 February 2013 – 4 August 2013 | Childrens Gallery
An exhibition exploring artists’ responses to issues of sustainability, the natural environment and the interconnectedness of ecological systems.
Creating worlds will present a diverse selection of Australian and Indigenous art from the national collection including sculpture and mixed media, paintings, prints and photographic works. It aims to inspire audiences of all ages to take positive action for a sustainable future, and to excite and educate visitors about the creative possibilities for looking after and interacting with our environment.
Arthur Wicks Alchemist Dreaming: River = Water 2009 digital print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist 2010
Art of Vanuatu
8 February 2013 – 16 June 2013 | Orde Poynton Gallery
Vanuatu is very different from other Pacific nations. Traditional practices better known as Kastom remain strong even after a century of dual colonial religious influences. Kastom: Art of Vanuatu presents for the first time the unique collection of arts from this area held by the National Gallery of Australia. In the early 1970s the Gallery contracted an agent to field collect in Vanuatu resulting in the acquisition of nearly two hundred works, a selection of which will be accompanied by other important works from the NGA's Vanuatu collection.
Kavankanamuel 'Anglautaki' Vanuatu, Malampa Province, Malakula Island, Kamanliver Village c.1970 Purchased by J-M Charpentier on behalf of the CAAB wood, clay, ochre, fibre National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Seventy years of a photographic tradition
21 December 2012 – 23 June 2013 | Photography Gallery
From the first decade of the twentieth century, improved plate sensitivity to low light conditions and shorter exposure times made it easier for photographers to take to the streets. The modern city has presented photographers with endless possibilities. In particular, America’s distinctive symbols of consumer culture—bill boards, advertising signs and highways—have been a well-explored subject in American photography since the 1930s.
Ernst Haas Albuquerque, New Mexico 1969 (detail) dye-transfer colour photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2000
The prints of Jessie Traill
16 February 2013 – 23 June 2013 | Project Gallery
This exhibition celebrates one of Australia’s most important
printmakers of the early 20th century, Jessie Traill. Embracing the medium of etching in the early 1900s, Traill forged a radical path for printmaking in Australia through the duality of her vision. From sublime aquatints of the natural landscape to her major series documenting the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the prints of Jessie Traill combine poetic sensitivity with an unerring eye for line and form. Her large, bold and dramatic compositions are recognised as vital to the evolution of postwar modernism.
Jessie Traill The little wood 1912 (detail) etching and aquatint National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2000