Artworks by prominent Australian Federation-era painters will be exhibited at the UQ Art Museum from 25 July.
The exhibition, from the National Gallery of Australia, includes artwork by George W. Lambert, E. Phillips Fox and Rupert Bunny.
Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 tells the parallel stories of landscape painting in Australia and the art produced by Australians who lived in Europe during the formative years of the 20th Century.
National Gallery of Australia Director Gerard Vaughan said the exhibition shared the richness and diversity of Australian painting during the Federation period.
“From sunlit images that convey a patriotic embrace of landscape, to portraiture and figure paintings by expatriate Australians living in Europe, the exhibition highlights an enthusiastic exploration of national identity,” he said.
“It features some of the most well-known and loved paintings from the national art collection, along with recently acquired or conserved works, and it is a tremendous joy to share them with audiences around Australia.”
UQ Art Museum Director Dr Campbell Gray said the exhibition would take viewers on a journey through the Federation era and around the world.
“From patriotic visions of the Australian bush to the bohemian enclaves of London and Paris where sumptuous portraits were produced, Capital and Country presents a rich and beautiful collection of paintings reflecting an important period in Australia’s nation building,” Dr Gray said.
The 46 paintings by 25 Australian artists include Australian pastoral and bush landscapes, and art produced by Australians who lived in Europe, taking in Edwardian England and the last years of the Belle Époque in France before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
Alongside well-known paintings by Rupert Bunny, E. Phillips Fox, Hans Heysen, George W. Lambert and Frederick McCubbin are lesser-known works by Richard Hayley-Lever and by a leading figure in Brisbane’s then-fledgling art community, R. Godfrey Rivers.
Women artists, little recognised in their own time, are represented in paintings by Ethel Carrick, Florence Fuller, Hilda Rix Nicholas, Clara Southern and Violet Teague.
Artworks from other national collections include Tom Roberts’s sketch of the ‘Opening of Federal Parliament’ of 1901, from the National Library of Australia; and paintings from Parliament House in Canberra, by W. Lister Lister and Penleigh Boyd, depicting the pastoral plains proposed as the site of the nation’s capital,
Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 opens 25 July and continues until 1 November 2015.
Media: Sonia Uranishi, +61 409 387 623, sonia@soniauranishicommunication.com or Sebastian Moody, +61 7 3346 8761, s.moody@uq.edu.au
Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914
A National Gallery of Australia Exhibition
Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia and the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians. The exhibition is also supported by the NGA Council Exhibitions Fund and Media Partner ABC Local Radio
