Australian Art - Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century

The early twentieth century saw some Australian artists making their careers in Europe. These include impressionist John Peter Russell, bohemian painters like Hugh Ramsay, Rupert Bunny (known for his sensual and allegorical portraits) and Agnes Goodsir, printmaker Hall Thorpe, a religious man who intended to make spiritually uplifting work, and sculptor Bertram Mackennal, who is particularly well known for his rendition of Circe the Greek magic goddess.

Arthur Streeton was a plein air painter who continued to be highly successful in the first part of the twentieth century. The romanticist view of Australian rural scenes was shared with Hans Heysen (1877–1968), an artist famous for his luminous watercolour paintings of River Red Gums, won the Wynne Prize nine times from 1904 to 1932.

Leading up to World War I, the decorative arts, including miniature, watercolour painting, and functional objects such as vases, became more prominent in the Australian arts scene. Norman Lindsay's (1879–1969) watercolours of baccanalian nudes caused considerable scandal around the turn of the century. One famous drawing, Pollice Verso (1904), caused his first scandal, as it depicted Romans giving the thumbs down to Christ on the Cross. There were the fashionable artists such as J.W. Tristram, who did misty Corot-influenced watercolors of the bush and beach.

George Washington Lambert was a prominent painter and sculptor of early-twentieth-century Australia who moved between decorative arts and portraiture, and is a notable war artist (World War I).

1921 saw the founding of the Archibald Prize, Australia's most famous art prize, for portraiture, though defining portraiture has always caused controversy - most notably in 1943 when William Dobell's semi caraciture portrait of an artist friend won the prize and was challenged in court on the basis that it was a caricature, not a portrait.

Art deco made its mark in advertising posters, architecture and consumer goods, as well as fine art. In 1934 the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park was built and featured the sculpture "The Sacrifice" by Rayner Hoff (1894–1937). The decorative art deco arches of the Sydney Harbour Bridge embody Australian fondness for the fashionable modernist style. Australian Beach Pattern, Australia's most iconic art deco painting, was completed by Charles Meere in 1940. Modernism in the fine arts, however, continued to be a fledgling movement in the 1930s.

Olive Cotton and Max Dupain went onto successful photography careers after studying with the early modernist photographer Harold Cazneaux. George Caddy documented "beachobatics" and other aspects of Sydney beach culture.

Australian art pottery makers of the thirties were Newtone Pottery, McHugh Brothers, John Campbell and Sons, L.J. Harvey and his students, Braemore Pottery of Waitara, Marguerite Mahood, John Castle Harris, Bendigo pottery, Gwen Watson, Una Deerbon, Klytie Pate, Reg Preston.

After World War I, early proponents of modernist art in Australia were cubist influenced Roy de Maistre (1894–1968). and Margaret Preston, and the post-impressionist Grace Cossington Smith. European Modernist art had fierce critics such as Norman Lindsay, who wrote for the nationalist publication The Bulletin, and the idiosyncratic teacher Max Meldrum. Ironically the Max Meldrum-led Australian Tonalism movement, which rejected modernist art and promoted a unique form of painting in accordance with Meldrum's theories of art, has since been recognized as a precursor to Modernist forms of art, including Minimalism, and art historian Bernard William Smith noted that Meldrum is perhaps the only Australian artist to develop and practice his own fully formulated theory of painting. Meldrum's student Clarice Beckett was rediscovered in the 2000s.

Popular illustrators of children's books were May Gibbs, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Peg Maltby (1899-1984), and Dorothy Wall (1894–1942) (the creator of Blinky Bill the Koala).