Art Appreciation 2023 online Golden threads: tracing connections between artists, collections and cultures

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Vincent Alessi

Explore the influences that informed Vincent van Gogh’s approach to portraiture through a study of Head of a peasant 1884, now in the Art Gallery’s collection.  This lecture will explore how this painting (part of Van Gogh’s project to paint 50 peasant heads) was instrumental in the development of the artist’s first great genre painting, The potato eaters.

Dr Vincent Alessi is director of Linden New Art and a specialist on the life and work of Vincent van Gogh and mid to late 19th-century European art history at La Trobe University.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Richard Perram

Is there such a thing as queer art?  This lecture will explore works by queer artists in the Art Gallery’s collection, starting with Gilbert & George’s Reaming 1982, then segue into an examination of Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia, curated for Sydney WorldPride 2023. 

Richard Perram OAM was director of Bathurst Regional Art Gallery from 2004 until 2017, and is curator of 'Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia' at the National Art School.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Claudia Chan Shaw

This lecture will examine Australian-born Martin Lewis’ Glow of the city 1929, a moody nocturnal print in the style we now call art deco. Made while Lewis was living in New York, the work captures an evocative moment in the rise of a great metropolis, with a flapper gazing over the rooftops of New York City, illuminated by the towering art deco Chanin building.   

Claudia Chan Shaw is a fashion designer, television and radio presenter, author, artist, curator and tour leader for the Art Gallery Members’ world art tours. She is co-host of the television series Antiques DownUnder.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Louise Marshall

Develop an intimate understanding of Francesco di Simone Ferrucci’s marble relief Madonna and Child c1480s, which was likely made for the home rather than the church or chapel. This lecture will explore the meaning of the various details, from the curtain tacked up by fictive nails, to the naked Christ child holding a goldfinch and the Virgin’s discreetly exposed breast.  

Dr Louise Marshall is honorary senior lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Sydney and an internationally renowned expert on Italian Renaissance art.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Jane Clark

The Art Gallery of New South Wales has had a pivitol role in fostering the popularity of Australian Impressionism, through its early purchase of ‘national’ paintings by local young protagonists. This lecture will explore how Australian art tells many changing stories over time, with a focus on In the afternoon 1891, by John Russell, the only Australian artist to work alongside Claude Monet,.

Jane Clark is senior research curator at Mona (the Museum of Old and New Art), Hobart. She was previously curator of major special exhibitions in both Australian and international art at the National Gallery of Victoria and deputy chair of Sotheby’s in Australia.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Alastair Blanshard 

This lecture will explore Australia’s fascination with antiquity, starting with Jacques Blanchard’s Mars and the vestal virgin, c1637–38, a sensuous portrayal of the events that lead to the birth of the founders of Rome – Romulus and Remus. Like many of his contemporaries, Blanchard found in the world of Greek and Roman myth a place that transcended and challenged contemporary morality.

Professor Alastair Blanshard is the Paul Eliadis Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland and previously lectured at the universities of Oxford and Reading.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Anne Gérard-Austin

Discover Louise Marie-Jeanne Hersent’s intriguing Portrait of a young woman leaning on a meridienne 1828, which was recently acquired by the Art Gallery. Hersent exhibited her art along with other women artists in France. Her pursuits belong to a larger untold story – the rise of women’s public, professional artistic activity in France from the late 18th through to the early 19th century.

Dr Anne Gérard-Austin is acting curator of international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She has a BA and MA from the École du Louvre, Paris and a PhD from the University of Sydney.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Alisa Bunbury

Taking as its starting point the Art Gallery’s painting At Lilydale 1870, this lecure will explore the pastoral landscapes of Louis Buvelot and the way in which his art, and that of his contemporaries, influenced and complemented an evolving emotional response to the gum tree among settler Australians in the second half of the 19th century. 

Alisa Bunbury is an independent writer, researcher and curator specialising in 19th-century Australian settler art. She is currently the Grimwade Collection Curator at the University of Melbourne.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Alex McKay

Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of compassion, known in various forms throughout the Buddhist world. In China he even takes the female form as the beautiful goddess Guanyin. As a Boddhisattva – one who works for the enlightenment of all sentient beings – he is particularly popular in Tibet where his earthly manifestation is as the Dalai Lama. This lecture will explore this highly venerated deity in the context of the Art Gallery’s 19th-century Tibetan statuette. 

Dr Alex McKay is a historian of the Indo-Tibetan Himalayas. He is a former lecturer and research fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by David R Marshall

Paul Cézanne was the most important modernist painter for the first half of the 20th century and the prime source for cubism, art deco and much Western art until 1950, but where does his art stand today? This lecture focuses on his Banks of the Marne c1888 and explores how this depiction of a French riverbank speaks to us in terms of place, representation and the history of art. 

Dr David R Marshall is associate professor and principal fellow in art history at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and honorary research fellow of the British School in Rome. He is also a director of the Melbourne Art Network and was the founder and editor of Melbourne Art Journal.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Denise Mimmocchi

Creating to the dictum of painting ‘light in colour’, Grace Cossington Smith authored a radical, vibrant visual language that she used to invoke the pulsating energies and spirit of her modern age. This lecture focuses on her series depicting the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, includingThe curve of the bridge 1928–29, which are among the most significant and arresting works of 20th-century Australian art.

Denise Mimmocchi is senior curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, co-author of Sydney moderns: art for a new world and co-editor of O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: making modernism.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Alison Inglis

Discover the significance of gifts by artists and artists' families, as well as the impact of individual bequests and memorials, in enhancing public collections. This lecture will focus on George Lambert’s painting Holiday at Essex 1910 and also include two examples of international philanthropy from Britain's National Art Collections Fund and the Contemporary Art Society, London.

Dr Alison Inglis is an honorary fellow in art history at the University of Melbourne, with a longstanding research interest in Australian art collections.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Olivia Meehan

Focusing on Moon Garden Gate and other mural works from the early 1930s by Australian modernist Roy de Maistre, this lecture will explore some of the principles of seeing found in traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, including the reading of imagery ‘planted’ in nature and garden design.

Dr Olivia Meehan is an art historian and object-based learning co-ordinator in the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Jacqueline Strecker

This lecture explores how the Angry Penguins, a radical group of modern Australian artists, created a range of astonishing artworks that reinvigorated and reimagined Australian subjects, myths and histories. Influenced by a range of European avant-garde movements especially German Expressionism, the group included Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker.

Dr Jacqueline Strecker is head of curatorial at the Powerhouse and has lectured and published widely on European and Australian modernism, nationally and internationally.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Anne Ryan

Printmaker Jessie Traill’s Sydney Harbour Bridge series of etchings, including The great arch c1932, captured the construction of one of the most enduring and influential symbols of modern Australia. This lecture explores how the artist was given special access to the building site and how she felt to be part of this great national project.

Anne Ryan is curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where she has worked since 1997. In 2002, she was the Sarah and William Holmes Scholar at the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Peter McNeil

Enter the lost world of cocktail-shaker chic and queer delirium in this lecture, which takes us into the world of much-loved modern Sydney painter Adrian Feint. The artist is best known for his surrealistic flower paintings in the 1930s and 40s, including the Art Gallery’s Flowers in sunlight 1940, populated with luscious blooms, carefully chosen antiques and set in Elizabeth Bay.  

Peter McNeil is UTS Distinguished Professor of Design History and an award-winning design historian with a focus on Sydney modern art and design.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Lorraine Kypiotis

This lecture explores the work of Dorrit Black, one of Australia’s finest painters, and examines her cubist paintings and linocuts, which expressed her commitment to experimental use of colour, line and form. After travelling to Europe in 1927 and training and working with André Lhote and Albert Gleizes, Black redefined modernism within a local context.

Lorraine Kypiotis is the head of undergraduate studies and a senior lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Sydney.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Morris Low

This lecture explores the importance of China to the life and work of Australian artist Ian Fairweather, starting with the Art Gallery’s painting Tea garden, Peking c1936. Arguably, Fairweather fashioned himself along the lines of East Asian masculinity, combining wu (martial valour) and wen(cultural attainment) – in Japanese, bu and bun – ultimately secluding himself like a Chinese scholar-recluse on Bribie Island off the Queensland coast.    

Dr Morris Low is associate professor of history at the University of Queensland where he teaches East Asian history and is editor of the East Asian Series of research monographs

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Geoffrey Edwards

Learn more about the remarkable career of Australian sculptor Robert Klippel within the context of post-war modernist modes of expression. This lecture will examine the principal influences on Klippel’s multifaceted practice and look at comparable developments in the sculptural work of Klippel’s contemporaries in Melbourne and Sydney.

Geoffrey Edwards is a freelance curator and writer. Formerly he was director of Geelong Art Gallery and, before that, senior curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Roger Leong

John Brack’s painting Barry Humphries in the character of Mrs Everage 1969 represents an important phase in comedian Barry Humphries’ career and was a caustic observation of Australian fashion in the 1960s. This lecture will discuss Humphries’ take on suburban Australian style from the 1960s to the 1980s, with deference to sources such as Queen Elizabeth II and North American fashion.

Roger Leong is a senior curator at the Powerhouse. He has curated over 20 exhibitions across art, fashion and the applied arts, including at the National Gallery of Australia and National Gallery of Victoria.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Peter Kohane

Explore how Godfrey Miller’s Nude and the moon c1960, with the human figure absorbed within an abstract composition of lines and luminous colours, exemplifies the idea that material things are made of light. Miller’s artistic achievement prompts an inquiry into a cultural ideal that involves a person’s sense of affinity with matter and light as they reside in paintings, buildings and cities.    

Dr Peter Kohane is a senior lecturer in the Program of Architecture at the University of New South Wales. He teaches and publishes on architectural design, theory and history, with an emphasis on developments in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Term 2 lecture
Presented by Steven Alderton

John Olsen was inspired by Kenneth Slessor’s 1939 poem ‘Five bells’ to create a series of works, including the Art Gallery’s iconic 1963 painting, which confirmed his position as one of Australia’s leading abstract artists and have come to embody the harbour and the city of Sydney.

Steven Alderton is the director and CEO of the National Art School, Sydney, and an artist, writer and curator. He has curated many exhibitions by leading Australian artists and was the curator of the 2021 exhibition John Olsen: Goya’s Dog.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Jackie Menzies

Examine the Art Gallery’s fine example of a Tang horse, with its Turkic rider which exemplifies the outstanding quality of the ‘golden age’ of China’s Tang dynasty (618–906). Standing out among the pottery figures placed in tombs as symbols of status and wealth, the Tang horse captures elegantly the cosmopolitanism and confidence of cities along the fabled Silk Road.

Jackie Menzies OAM is emeritus curator of Asian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, an honorary associate in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Sydney, and president of the Asian Arts Society of Australia (TAASA).

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Mark Ledbury

Explore Eugène Delacroix’s Angelica and the wounded Medoro c1860, and its inspiration, Ariosto’s epic Italian poem Orlando Furioso.  This lecture will offer a tantalising glimpse into the life, mind and art of Delacroix, one of the 19th century’s greatest artists, alongside some of the most vibrant and imaginative paintings in early modern Europe, from artists ranging from Rubens to Ingres and Fragonard.

Professor Mark Ledbury is Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture and director at the Power Institute, University of Sydney. He is author and anthology editor of The Versailles Effect.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Anne Dunlop

This lecture explores the important links between still-life painting, botany and natural history in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, and of the fundamental and often overlooked role of women in the development of all three fields, by looking at the work of Dutch artist Maria van Oosterwijck and the Art Gallery’s painting Flowers and grapes hanging from a ring c1670–90.

Professor Anne Dunlop FAHA holds the Herald Chair of Fine Art at the University of Melbourne and is a specialist in medieval and early-modern European art. 

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Lisa Beaven

This lecture focus on a sculpture of a woman by a female artist – Harriet Hosmer’s 1857 sculpture of Beatrice Cenci. Whilst Hosmer’s gender and sexuality are a key aspect of the work, the exporation will be anchored in the cultural and historical context of the city of Rome in the 17th century, when Cenci was imprisoned and executed, and the 19th century, when Hosmer’s studio became a gathering place for American and English expatriate artists, writers and poets.

Dr Lisa Beaven is a lecturer in art history at La Trobe University, Melbourne who specialises in art patronage, collecting and material culture in Rome in the 17th century.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Jeremy Clarke

Charles Condor's Rainy day 1888 is a striking example of the works that Australian impressionist painters created on the lids of cigar boxes, not just for the colours and execution in Condor’s painting but also because of a subject that almost hides in plain sight. Condor's inclusion of Chinese market gardeners was unusual at a time of marked anti-Chinese prejudice. This lecture explores threads of connection between China and Australia, as depicted through this and other artworks.

Dr Jeremy Clarke is a former lecturer in the History Department of Boston College (Massachusetts) and a specialist in Chinese history, with a focus on art, representation and cross-cultural exchange.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Beatrice Gralton

Brett Whiteley’s contribution to 20th-century Australian art has been one of celebration and scrutiny. The artist’s former studio in Surry Hills has been open to the public as a museum for close to 30 years. What new lessons are we learning in the 21st century about this Australian art icon?

Beatrice Gralton is the senior curator of the Brett Whiteley Studio at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her previous curatorial roles include associate curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Design in Washington DC.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Jaime Tsai

With reference to works by Eugenia Lim and Ah Xian, this lecture considers the complexity of Australian–Chinese cultural exchange in the 21st century. With recent global events bringing the relationship between Australia and China into sharp relief, what role can Australian–Chinese artists play in mediating these relations, and how might it impact their sense of identity and belonging?

Dr Jaime Tsai is a lecturer in art history and theory at the National Art School, Sydney.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Georgina Cole

Discover Ralph Balson, an English plumber and house painter who emigrated to Australia in 1913 and subsequently became a key member of Sydney’s artistic Avant-Garde. He is credited with having the first solo exhibition of purely abstract painting in Australia in 1941.

Dr Georgina Cole explores the forms and meanings of Painting no.9 1959, a key work in his shift to a more painterly approach to abstraction.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Anthony Burke

Discover how the extremes of abstraction continue to inspire audiences, architects and artists today, starting with the abstract painting Houndstooth (horizontals) 1991 by Debra Dawes. This lecture will explore the proposition that it is the give and take across disciplines that has inspired some of the most enigmatic and powerful works of architecture and art in the modern cannon.  

Anthony Burke is a professor of architecture at UTS and a presenter with the ABC TV, with over 25 years experience lecturing, publishing and exhibiting.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Joyce Morgan

Explore the life and art of charismatic and eccentric artist Martin Sharp, Australia’s only internationally recognised pop artist. From swinging London to Sydney’s Yellow House, Sharp was at the epicentre of a cultural flowering and in many ways his art defines the heady spirit of the sixties.

Joyce Morgan is a Sydney author. Her biography Martin Sharp: his life and times was longlisted for the Stella Prize.

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Molly Duggins

This lecture will consider how Janet Laurence’s The memory of nature 2010 operates like a wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) for the Anthropocene age, and examine how Laurence’s vitrines, featuring the remains of once vibrant animal and plant matter, critically engage with the history of museum collection and display.

Dr Molly Duggins is a lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Sydney. 

Term 3 lecture
Presented by Nicholas Chambers

Frank Stella’s Khurasan Gate variation II 1970 is among the largest paintings in the Art Gallery’s collection and an emblematic example of mid-century New York abstraction. This lecture will consider Stella’s 1963 trip to Iran and explore the influence of ancient Persian art and architecture on his art of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Nicholas Chambers is senior curator of modern and contemporary international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He was previously the Milton Fine Curator of Art at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh and curator of contemporary international art at QAG | GOMA, Brisbane.

Term 1 lecture
Presented by Iain Shearer

With a focus on a stelae (upright stone slab or column) from the Art Gallery’s collection, originally carved for the Northern Wei rulers of 6th-century CE China, this lecture will explore a warp-and-weft of ideas, people, plague, and knowledges that bind Africa with Asia and to Europe and consider how the golden threads of Late Antiquity continue to reach into contemporary life.

Iain Shearer is an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and former Sackler scholar for Afghanistan and Iran at the British Museum. He is a fellow at the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.