Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Australian Art
24 May – 13 Jul 1986
John Brack, The pros and cons, 1985, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, Purchased 1985. © Helen Brack.
About
The exhibition Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Australian Art is an opportunity to display some recent purchases. Because of the size and nature the exhibition it is being shown at two venues. Those works selected for exhibition in Gallery 7 are by older and more established artists, while the Drill Hall Gallery has works by younger artists. The forty-seven works range across broad spectrum of the visual arts in Australia – painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, decorative arts — and have painting, been acquired sculpture by curators in several departments, and by the Director.
All are of recent date and together provide a concise view of creative activity in Australia at present. Thus, there are works by John Brack, James Gleeson and Col Levy, whose contributions to the history and development of Australian art already span several decades; paintings by an Aboriginal artist, Rover Thomas, which spring partly from a long-existing local tradition; recent works by mid-career artists such as Stephen Benwell, Grant Mudford, John Nixon and Imants Tillers; and work by Susan Norrie, Gay Hawkes, Jimmy Pike, Robyn Stacey etc, who here represent the generation of the 1980s.
A variety of credit lines indicates not only purchases from Government allocation and Gallery admission charges but also the presence of generous sponsorship to purchase contemporary Australian art. The support of industry commerce is represented by purchases made from the KODAK (Australasia) PTY LTD Fund and from the Philip Morris Arts Grant. The initial purchase for the Rotary collection of art by young Australians is included in exhibition and represents significant new support for the work of young artists.
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