Sunday 30 December 2007

ART SUNDAY - ART GALERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA


We took the bus back to the city and as it was extremely hot we decided to spend the afternoon in the Art Gallery of South Australia. We always visit this wonderful gallery when we are in Adelaide and the art on display is truly magnificent. The Gallery collects and displays art from Australia, Europe, North America and Asia. The Gallery has one of the largest art museum collections in Australia, numbering around 35,000 works. The collections span the period from Ancient Rome to the present day, and include paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery, and furniture. The collections are displayed by both culture and medium, providing visitors with a historical and cultural framework with which to view them.

The Australian collection presents a comprehensive survey of Australian art from around 1800 to the present and showcases the nation’s art history through paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and photographs and decorative arts, with a strong commitment to Australia’s Indigenous art. The European collection ranges from the late fifteenth century to the present and also includes a wide-ranging and representative collection of British art. The Asian collections represent countries from throughout the region, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Our favourite works are those by the Australian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the “Australian Impressionists”. Noteworthy amongst them are Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Walter Withers, but also, Hans Heysen, an artist with German roots who spent most of his life around Hahndorf. The gallery has significant canvasses by many of the Australian Impressionist painters of the “Heidelberg School”, and two magnificent works by Heysen.

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