The new rehang of the Australian art collection at the National Gallery of Victoria in the Federation Square appears fresh and inventive. It still includes the old favourites, such as von Guérard, Streeton, McCubbin, Roberts, etc., but also introduces hitherto rarely seen works from the gallery’s collections and new acquisitions, bringing to light outstanding works by lesser-known artists. The resulting display is fresh and buoyant, offering new insights into more obscure areas and themes within Australian painting, sculpture, and decorative arts.
One is still met upon the entrance with the charmingly awkward portraits by Augustus Earle; idyllic early depictions of Aborigines by John Glover; and the meticulous “portraits” of Victorian 19th-Century homesteads by Eugène von Guérard. The careful integration of old indigenous artefacts is done thoughtfully and tastefully. The proliferation of decorative art objects – gold, silver, and jewellery – rounds off the visitor’s appreciation of the country’s 19th-Century art and culture.
Further, the display traces the development of Australian art from the early influences of émigré artists, such as Louis Buvelot, Eugène von Guérard, and Nicholas Chevalier, to the emergence of the national school. The inclusion of large-scale copies after Jacques-Louis David and Diego Velasquez by James Quinn, however, is quite baffling. They are included to illustrate the achievements of the National Gallery School of Art and the rewards of its Travelling Scholarship. One would have thought that a display of high quality original compositions by the School’s pupils and Award recipients would have been a better tribute, a more fitting testament to how well the new generation of Australian artists could paint, as opposed to how well they could to copy.
All the luminaries of the Heidelberg School are displayed en force: Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Fred McCubbin, Charles Conder, and others. The new installation steps away from the vision of Australian art as being predominantly landscape-based by inclusion of playful nudes and decorative allegorical paintings by Aby Altson, Arthur Loureiro, and C. Douglas Richardson. It’s a welcome relief from the hitherto dominating themes of pioneering struggles and heroic pathos of the late 19th-Century Australian art.
The displays of the early modern 20th-century paintings, which feature such old favourites as Rupert Bunny, Emanuel Phillips Fox, and Grace Cossington Smith, are enlivened by a fresh inclusion of paintings by Herbert Badham and James Colquhoun. Alongside the predictable staple of the 1940s – 1960s works – Yosl Bergner, John Brack, Russell Drysdale, Sid Nolan, Arthur Boyd, and Fred Williams – it is refreshing to see Edwin Tanner and Ian Fairweather. A line-up of small-scale works by Albert Tucker, James Gleeson, and Ivor Francis presents new facets of Australian surrealism.
I hoped that the plans for the Federation Square building would take into account the shortcomings of the installations of the permanent collection of Australian art in St Kilda Road. Those who still remember it would recall that the display inexplicably ended with the 1960s art, with a token work or three to represent the artistic developments between 1960s and the present. Unfortunately, the new building in the Federation Square suffers from the same problem; and it seems to be in a desperate need of another floor. While Australian art from 1780s to 1960s is represented in depth, the installations of the modern and contemporary works from the permanent collection still seem like an incidental afterthought. The matters were not helped with permanent installation of the Joseph Brown Collection, which further reduced the exhibition space for the modern and contemporary art collection, which now jostles for space with temporary exhibitions on the second and third levels of the gallery.
The securing of the Joseph Brown Collection for the National Gallery of Victoria was a major PR coup. Unfortunately, it can hardly compare to the Camondo gift to the Musée d’Orsay; or the Paul Mellon gift to the Yale Center for British Art, etc. It arrived at the NGV with ‘its eyes picked out’: a number of major works have been sold, retained by Joseph Brown’s family, or given away to other public institutions. Apart, perhaps, from Fred McCubbin’s Autumn Memories, Margaret Preston’s Flannel Flowers, and John Passmore’s Shag on Scratch, it does not improve on the display of the permanent collection. Instead, it presents smaller and second-rate versions of the works by the artists in the adjoining pavilions. One of the few redeeming features of the display is in the inclusion of the art from the 1970s, such as Brett Whiteley, Peter Upward, and Howard Taylor.
At present, Australian modern and contemporary art occupies a small space in the upstairs galleries. It is a very modest and disappointing affair, consisting of token works by a small number of artists, working in a variety of stylistic directions and media. A large section of this gallery is occupied by Fred Williams’ Pilbara Series; otherwise, the last forty years are represented by Peter Booth, Jan Senbergs, Robert Hunter, Sally Smart, Hany Armanious, and a few lesser known Australian photographic artists. The development of contemporary art is thus represented as haphazard and disjointed, and one needs to travel either to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, or to the Queensland Art Gallery, to see a more coherent display of Australian art post 1960s in a museum setting.
BvR Art Projects 
