National Gallery of Australia

The Book of Kells and the Art of Illumination brings together the Gospel of St. Mark from the 1200-year-old Irish masterpiece with a selection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts which demonstrate the legacy of Kells throughout the centuries, both in terms of Gospel illustration and of the illuminated book. Not only does the Book of Kells testify to the vitality of Celtic art in the Early Middle Ages, but its fortunes also reflect the turbulent nature of the period in which it was created. This was an age in which the British Isles were ravaged by Viking raids, and monastic settlements, the cultural heart of the country, up-rooted. Yet, against these odds, the Book of Kells survived. In later times it suffered further disturbances, and in the middle of the 17th century, during Ireland's battles with Cromwell, it was transferred from the ruined parish of Kells to Trinity College, Dublin, where ever since it has had a secure and distinguished home.

An Exhibition Under the Patronage of Mary McAleese, President of Ireland [and] Sir William Deane AC KBE, Governor-General of Australia

The Book of Kells and the Art of Illumination

Alex Selenitsch

"Publication ... coincides with the National Gallery of Australia's twenty-fifth birthday celebration which focus on the Gallery's permanent collection"--P. 3.

Australian Artists Books

Mark Henshaw

Contemporary Artists' Books from Picasso to Clemente

Off the Page

Claude Monet

Published to accompany the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 9 March - 11 June 2001, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 7 July - 16 September 2001.

Monet & Japan

Spowers & Syme celebrates the artistic friendship of Melbourne artists Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme. Their prints, drawings and paintings - remarkable for their expressive energy - capture the zeitgeist of the interwar years. This beautifully illustrated catalogue traces their stories as two women from rival media families who pioneered modern printmaking in Australia. Spowers and Syme were part of a newly independent generation of women artists able to travel widely and study with avant-garde teachers in England and France during the 1920s and 1930s. They brought back to Australia the spirit and knowledge of modern European art movements and techniques, which they shared through the expanding networks of art societies and private women's clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. These remarkable women supported each other's aspiration to become professional artists in a changing world and are now recognised for their significance as progressive artists dedicated to producing art that was truly of its time.

Spowers and Syme

The self-portraits of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo are renowned for their dream-like quality and emotional intensity. A passionate woman endowed with an indomitable spirit, Kahlo overcame injury and personal hardship to become one of the world's most important female artists. Celebrated by the surrealists in her own lifetime, she has attained cult-like status both for her extraordinary art and her tempestuous love-life with her husband, Diego Rivera, Mexico's most prominent modern painter. An outstanding selection of paintings by Kahlo and Rivera form the core of this catalogue, which accompanies the National Gallery of Australia's exhibition. Jacques Gelman, the Russian emigre film producer, and his wife, Natasha, built up their collection over many years of acquaintance and collaboration with Mexico's greatest creative artists. It is now widely regarded as the most significant private holding of twentieth century American art.

The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism

Murray Bail

Andrew Sayers

Sidney Nolan

Sidney Nolan (1917 1992) wove a compelling narrative around the figure of Ned Kelly as the 'wronged' anti-hero who forged his own homemade armour and was pursued by police through the often featureless Australian bush. Though the Kelly myth didn't start with Nolan's paintings, his images remain the most enduring and instantly recognisable evocations of the legend. Kelly's stark black silhouette gave Nolan his most powerful poetic metaphor for Australians' relationship with their land. The text is by Andrew Sayers, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, and Murray Bail, whose novels include the prize-winning Eucalyptus.

The Ned Kelly Paintings in the National Gallery of Australia

Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly

Bringing together works by 30 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across the country, Defying Empire commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum that recognized Aboriginal people as Australians for the first time. It explores the strength and resilience of Australia's Indigenous people since first contact, through the historical fight for recognition and ongoing activism in the present day. This moving and powerful art touches on the issues of identity, racism, displacement, country, nuclear testing, sovereignty and the stolen generations through many media: painting on canvas and bark, weaving and sculpture, new media, prints, photography, metalwork and glasswork. 'We defy: By existing; By determining our identity; By asserting our histories; our culture; our language; By telling our stories, our way; By being one of the oldest continuous living cultures in the world.' - Tina Baum, NGA Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial

Defying Empire

Deborah Clark

Janet Dawson Boddy

The Drawings of Janet Dawson

Pierre Bonnard

Gloria Lynn Groom

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was an influential French painter draughtsman, photographer, printmaker, illustrator and interior designer whose work continues to surprise and delight new generations of art lovers. This book brings together more than 110 paintings, drawings and lithographs from private and public collections. It focuses comprehensively on the evolution of Bonnard's career, from his early Nabis works of 1890-1900 through to his large decorations of 1905-1912 and his nudes, portraits and landscapes of the 1920s and 1930s--closing with his stunning works up to World War II.

Observing Nature

Roy Lichtenstein

Jaklyn Babington

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is drawn from the extensive collection of the artist's prints at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra -- Gallery website.

Pop Remix

Melanie Eastburn

Roger Leong

This book is the first in-depth study of printmaking in Papua New Guinea from its beginnings in the late 1960s to the present. It explores the National Gallery of Australia's exceptional collection of over 600 prints and drawings from Papua New Guinea, including the earliest known contemporary prints. The book is the result of research undertaken by the author while the inaugural recipient of the Gordon Darling Fellowship for the study of prints and printmaking in Australia and the Australasian region.

Costumes for the Ballets Russes 1909-1933

From Russia with Love

Pauline Green

On 12 October 1982 the nation's new cultural flagship on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, opened to the public. The collection seemed to have been born in full form. In the short period between the late 1960s, when the National Gallery project received the go-ahead from government, and its opening in 1982 the national collection of art took shape. Twenty years on, this book of essays tells how the various collections which make up the national collection came into being - and the ways in which these collections continue to evolve. Time enough to be able to tap first-hand accounts and to source valuable documentation before it disappears into archival oblivion.

Building the Collection

Bruce James

Brian Kennedy

Jackie Cooper

Susan Cohn

Susan Cohn pushes the limits of the definition of jewelry yet preserves its core role of adornment by making objects that can be worn on the body. Her work, with its stark functionalist aesthetic and fastidious detailing, is strongly motivated by pleasure in the play of form, material, and color. Materials are juxtaposed unexpectedly and ideas collide to release humor and irony. Essays include an examination of Susan Cohn's work and workshop practice, and an appreciation by a long-time admirer. These are set alongside full-color images of her jewelry that invariably surprise.

The Work of Susan Cohn 1980 to 2000

Techno Craft

This is a selection of essays published in collaboration with the National AIDS Campaign, and in association with the largest exhibition on the subject of HIV/AIDS to be staged in Australia. Contributors include William Yang, Dennis Altman, Lynn Sloan, Richard Coles, Carole S Vance, Jan Zita Grover and others.

Art in the Age of AIDS

Don't Leave Me this Way

Lucina A. Ward

James Turrell's Skyspace, Within Without is site-specific, its location chosen by the artist to complement and accord with the Australian Garden on the southern perimeter of the grounds of the National Gallery of Australia. Because the structure is partly subterranean, only a small part of the stupa is visible from outside. Not only does this establish the sculpture as an integral part of the landscape, its placement also muffles extraneous sounds and reduces light pollution. This publication includes images of the Skyspace from both inside and out, a series of the light-cycle and a visual development of the five and a half year construction process.

Within Without

James Turrell

Simeran Maxwell

Jane Kinsman

Marianne Mathieu

Géraldine Lefebvre

This publication traces the story of the artistic influences on Monet leading up to the creation of his groundbreaking painting Impression, sunrise in 1872. Centred around this key work that gave Impressionism its name, for the first time Australian audiences will see Monet's paintings in the context of works that shaped the fledgling artist into the leader of Impressionism. The exhibition demonstrates the influence of English landscapists such as JMW Turner and Richard Parkes Bonington, the French Barbizon School and Realist artists working in the decades before Monet, including Charles Daubigny, Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet, as well as Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, who worked directly with Monet, mentoring him and encouraging him to broaden his artistic approach.

Impression Sunrise

Monet

To encounter a work by American artist James Turrell is to enter another world—a realm where eye and mind meet. The artist engages us, the viewers, in order to make us witnesses of his focus on nature through scientific means. By making us watch and contemplate for extended periods, Turrell also makes us part of his artistic practice. Turrell is unusual among contemporary artists in that his environments construct spaces, leaving their workings largely unseen. Skyspaces, outside or inside, veil their lighting so that only its effects, and not its cause, are visible. The areas that audiences enter, singly or in groups, are built so that viewers are liberated from normal perceptions. Perceptual cell, for instance, may remind us initially of medical imaging for diagnosis, but instead of closing down our senses, it opens them to new experiences.Turrell strives to go beyond the conventional by naturalizing technology for aesthetic purposes, allowing his grasp of science to suggest the ineffable. As well as showing the variety of his means, such as bright color and white light, neon, LED and other forms of light, and individual and communal encounters inside and out, the exhibition underlines the unique vision that has led him through the last decades in pursuit of light, space and time. This publication includes an interview with James Turrell by Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and an essay by EC Krupp, astronomer and Director of the Griffin Observatory, Los Angeles.

National Gallery of Australia

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