O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington SmithMaking Modernism

“…this end of year ecstasy is a welcome reaffirmation of the profound value of an artist’s life and work.”

Julie Ewington, The Monthly

Making Modernism brings together for the first time the iconic art of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of America’s most significant painters of the twentieth century, alongside modernist masterpieces by pioneering Australian artists, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith.

Though they developed highly individual styles, the artists are connected by their choice of subject, experimentation with light, colour and form, and their commitment to presenting alternative ways of seeing the world. As well as creatively reinventing the still life, each developed a distinct interpretation of place, and in so doing established new means of expressing something of the culture of their respective nations in the twentieth century.

Presenting thirty works by each artist from the breadth of their careers, the exhibition considers similarities and distinctions in their art to bring new perspectives to light about modernism’s dispersal and reinvention as it developed beyond the metropolitan wellspring of Europe.

Presented in partnership with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
Note: This display includes works that are protected under the Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan Act 2013. More information