Modernism in Australia and Oceania
(Previously published as 'The Experience of Aboriginality in the Creation of the Radically New' in Ross, S. (ed.) (2014) Modernist World, Abingdon: Routledge.)1
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Literature Subject Overview
Literary modernism is a truly global and plural phenomenon, playing out in multiple cultural paradigms, in various timeframes, and in response to diverse experiences of…
Impressionism (Painting)
Impressionism is an artistic movement that flourished in France between 1860 and 1890. The term has been widely adopted around the world to describe artistic…
Social Realism
Photography
White, Patrick (1912–1990)
Born in London to parents from established Australian families, Patrick White became one of Australia’s most influential writers, his career culminating in his receipt of…
Tucker, Albert (1914–1999)
Albert Tucker was a modern Australian painter, known best for his series of works depicting the horrors of wartime and harsh images of the Australian…
Drysdale, Russell (1912–1981)
Russell Drysdale was an Australian artist who created an original vision of the Australian landscape from the 1940s to the 1960s, portraying the emptiness and…
Boyd, Arthur (1920–1999)
Arthur Boyd is widely recognized as one of Australia’s greatest artists. He was born in Melbourne to Merric and Doris (née Gough) Boyd, into a…
Lindsay, Norman Alfred Williams (1879–1969)
Norman Lindsay was one of Australia’s most prominent (and most notorious) artists in the early twentieth century. Throughout his extensive career he worked in a…
Cotton, Olive (1911–2003)
Olive Cotton was one of Australia’s leading 20th-century photographers. She became a skilled observer of nature, incorporating both the principles of Pictorialism and modernism into…
Cossington Smith, Grace (1892–1984)
Grace Cossington Smith was one of Australia’s foremost female modernist artists. Having developed an enthusiasm for modern theories of color and design at the Dattilo…
de Maistre, Roy (1894–1968)
Roy de Maistre was born in New South Wales and is recognized as an initiator of modern art practices in Australia. Aware of the new…
Fox, Ethel Carrick (1872–1952)
British trained painter Ethel Carrick Fox married Australian artist Emmanuel Phillips Fox in 1905 and spent her five-decade career closely associated with Australian artists. Although…
Dobell, William (1899–1970)
William Dobell was an icon of Australian art during his lifetime, renowned for portraiture but also for the controversy surrounding his being awarded the Archibald…
Slessor, Kenneth (1901–1971)
Kenneth Slessor (born Kenneth Adolphe Schloesser in East Orange, NSW on 27 March 1901, died 30 June 1971) was a major Australian poet, essayist, editor,…
Tonalism
Tonalism is an often under-appreciated aspect of Australian painting, which developed from the mid-1910s to the 1950s. A technique pioneered by Max Meldrum (1875–1955) it…
Nolan, Sidney (1917–1992)
Sidney Nolan is a renowned Australian artist, especially for his iconic rendering of the bushranger and anti-hero Ned Kelly. Primarily known as a painter, he…
The Lindsay Family (1870–1958)
The Lindsays were a multigenerational family of artists, designers, curators, and authors in Australia. The originating generation, who made the most quantifiable contribution to modern…
Beier, Ulli (1922–2011)
Ulli Beier (b. 1922, Glowitz, Poland – d. 2011, Sydney, Australia) was a Polish-born publisher, writer, translator, lecturer, curator, theatre producer, and particularly a promoter…
Namatjira, Albert (Elea) (1902–1959)
Albert Namatjira was the leading artist of the modern Aboriginal watercolor art movement at the Hermannsburg (Ntaria) Lutheran mission in Central Australia. He was the…
Beckett, Clarice Marjoribanks (1887–1935)
Clarice Beckett was a major Australian artist, and remains an important figure in feminist history. Beckett’s abstracted impressionism, subtle color harmonies, and ordered placement of…
Heide Circle
The group of avant-garde Australian artists and their supporters, now identified as the Heide Circle, evolved over three decades, from the pioneering modernism of the…
Williams, Fred (1927–1982)
Fred Williams was an Australian painter and printmaker who bridged the gulf between the country’s landscape painters and contemporary art. In the 1960s he turned…
Dangar, Anne (1885–1951)
Anne Dangar is a singular figure in the Australian experience of modernism. Forgotten in her homeland throughout the 20th century due to her long-term residence…