Exhibitions

Max Martin - Exhibition & Book Launch

November 14, 2023 - December 4, 2023

Jeremy Hill will give a Floor Talk on Max Martin in the gallery on Tuesday 21st November at 5 pm

"Enjoying the warmth of the early English summer of 1922 was a little-known Australian artist whose painting was hanging on the line at the Royal Academy Exhibition. Deemed by the art critics to be the picture of the year, Portrait Group (now in the NGV collection), was seen to be 'the most astonishing thing in the Academy'. Frank Rutter, Sunday Times 1922. Lavish again in their praise in 1924, the critics proclaimed Melbourne-born Max Martin’s latest painting ‘that strangely mysterious and remarkably painted work Witchcraft which...

Modern Australian Painters 2023

September 21, 2023 - October 21, 2023

Highlights include:

three important early works by Charles Blackman;

landscapes and portraits from the Boyd and Perceval families;

paintings by Douglas Dundas and John D. Moore from the estate of Sir Howard and Lady Beale; 

Francis Lymburner paintings from an estate in London where they were acquired in the 1950s;

three important drawings by Noel Counihan; and

other attractive modern works by Ludmilla Meillerts, Roland Wakelin, Frank Medworth, George Duncan, Sidney Nolan, Vic O'Connor and Clifford Bayliss.

Nick Botting & The English Summer

July 1, 2023 - July 31, 2023
Ah the English Summer!
The only thing keeping us going at home at the moment is watching the cricket on very late night TV and soaking up some of the warmth of the English Summer!
For anyone else who is hankering for a bit of that summer spirit and carefree atmosphere, here are some paintings by Nick Botting, one of the leading Plein Air painters in Britain.
He is always there to catch the heartbeat of the place and predictably, as caught by CNN, he was painting "The Queue" on the Lambeth Bridge waiting to file past the Queen's coffin while she lay in state. (no, I haven't...

Peter Trusler - Australian Birds

April 28, 2023 - May 20, 2023

It is fair to say that Peter Trusler's paintings for the book Birds of Australian Gardens are revolutionary, and rank among the finest Australian natural history paintings ever done. He cleverly placed his subjects in urban, domestic and occasionally mundane environments, exactly where many of our native birds now live. 

These are the original watercolours for Birds of Australian Gardens and were part of the National Bank Collection of Modern Art from 1980 until 2022. 

We have joined forces with Andrew Isles Natural History Books in the promotion of these paintings

illustrated   Laughing Kookaburra, Watercolour, 23 x 31 cm

Celia Perceval Paintings and Drawings

March 5, 2023 - April 12, 2023

“In the modern world, technological change has brought about disaffiliation. In the case of Australia’s most visible artistic clan, one sees continuity instead of a generation gap, apprenticeships within the family group instead of submission to an impersonal institution... When Australia’s disaffiliated youth were returning to rural life in places like Nimbin in the early seventies, ‘Boyds’ of the postwar baby-boom generation found themselves in the midst of an extended family whose link with the pre-industrial world had never been cut. That is why Tessa and Celia Perceval can work unselfconsciously in the landscape tradition, producing canvases close in inspiration to those...

Recent Acquisitions

Thursday November 3, 2022 6:00 PM - November 19, 2022

3-19 November 2022

Julian R. Ashton, Percy Bremer, Margaret Coen, Alfred H. Cook, Noel Counihan, Frank Crozier,
George Duncan, Douglas Dundas, John Eldershaw, A.H Fullwood, Thomas Friedensen, 
Herbert Gallop, Mary Hammond, Albert Hanson, Robert Johnson, Norman Lindsay, Percy Lindsay, 
Francis Lymburner, Vic O'Connor, Arthur E. Read, Lloyd Rees, John Rowell, Jessie Traill,
Hayward Veal, Edward Warner, J.S Watkins, Harry J. Weston and William Young

Gallery hours   Tues-Fri: 11-5pm, Sat: 12-5pm

All works are for sale

 

Jeff Ferris Recent Paintings

August 11, 2022 - August 31, 2022

Jeff Ferris’ sharp-focus realist works have been remarkably popular at the Gallery ever since our first show back in 2008. Fans of fellow Australian artist, the late Jeffrey Smart, often remark that the striking style of Ferris’ pieces is reminiscent of Smart’s.  In fact, the pair used to share correspondence, and Smart was a great admirer of Ferris’, imploring in a 1983 letter that Ferris was “far too modest about [his] work.  The landscape is splendid with a marvelous mood to it and a really good sky…”.

As you'll appreciate from the following explanation by Ferris of his motivation for producing...

Modern Australian Paintings

May 25, 2022 - June 24, 2022

Modern Australian Paintings

A carefully selected exhibition of fine paintings, drawings and sculpture by Australian artists including Jan Senbergs, Peter Clarke, Celia Perceval, Lucy Boyd, Clifford Bayliss, Peter Trusler, Barry Dickins and others.  All works are owned by the artist or their estate unless otherwise stated. 

Peter Brown: Off the Beaten Track

November 12, 2021 - December 4, 2021

Photographs  1972-2021

Peter Brown only ever uses a fixed lens and composes the image before he takes the shot. He doesn’t like cropping or excessive editing.  

From 1972 to 2000 he used a Nikkorrmat camera he bought in Singapore in 1972.  He switched to a Nikon FM2 with a 55 mm lens. In 2015 he changed to a Nikon D600.

They are all stamped and numbered 1/10 on reverse. The photographer will print additional images as required. Maximum 10.  

So Hurry!

Peter Brown adopts the philosophy that his art is a ‘journey of discovery’ taking him to all corners of the...

Sydney Moderns

September 2, 2021 - September 18, 2021

Sydney Modern Artists  

This is a selection of artists working in Sydney between 1930s -1960s. These artists have all appeared in our Modern catalogues over the last 38 years.

Illustrated: George DuncanBavaria  1936

Features include two Canberra landscapes painted just before the flooding of Lake Burley Griffin; an early Nude drawing by Frank Hinder shortly after his return from study in America

Small Wall - August 2021

August 13, 2021 - August 28, 2021

I hope this Lockdown is not proving too distressing.

Despite Covid, Spring is in the air and I have had a burst of energy and thought you might enjoy this small wall of works new to the Gallery.

Artists include Ethel Spowers, Mary Hammond, Jan Senbergs, Nick Botting, Kevin Foley, Brian Dunlop, Barry Dickins, Brigid Cole-Adams, Lucy Boyd, Brian Pieper, Glenda Fell Jones, Phillipa Bayliss and Sarah Gabriel

Early Australian Watercolours and Drawings

April 17, 2021

Gallery hours: Tues - Fri 11- 5 pm,

Sat & Sun 12 - 5 pm during the exhibition

Among the important works still available are a terrific drawing by George Lambert of his 16 year old son Maurice wearing boxing gloves - Maurice went on to become a famous English sculptor.  Another family portrait is the woodcut by Ethel Spowers whose niece Cora was the model for After Dark 1927 which is inscribed as an invitation.  

There are two, almost life-size National Gallery School model drawings by Jean Sutherland. 

Among the Maritime works in our exhibition are Frederick Garling's depiction of the Schooner Eclipse, which was involved in...

Summer

December 24, 2020

The gallery is open Tuesday and Thursdays, 10-5 pm, and intermittently at other times while we prepare our next exhibition which will be Early Australian Watercolour and Drawings.

Contact Bridget on 0419 306593 or email the gallery for an appointment at other times.

Barry Dickins - Recent Works

September 28, 2020 - October 10, 2020

When I was a child my contented father showed me the mystery of painting with water-colors. It was revelatory the way in which he swished the red sable Windsor and Newton purest camel-hair or red sable brushes into a freshly rinsed Pura milk bottle and diluted my holiest colors such as Veridian Green and Alizaron Crimson and the most remarkable one of the whole spectrum - French Ultra Marine.

I sat so peacefully with him wherever I went, which was everywhere there was to go in Whittlesea, and I, at ten years of age would watch him blend in the...

Russian Oil Sketches

September 8, 2020 - September 25, 2020

"... At the end of the Soviet system the professional artists were given ownership of their apartments, and those with studios got them as well, and although they no longer had the State support, they retained the studio contents ...however, their work was completely out of fashion. The lifeline was interest from abroad.  The studios were full of preparatory sketches. These immediate impressions of life by these highly trained artists were a revelation. They were certainly the basis of the interest I have maintained over the last twenty eight years of buying them."  extract from "Art in Russia",   John Barkes, London

 

Mary Hammond - Unseen Drawings

August 20, 2020 - September 5, 2020

I visited Mary recently and was rewarded with the opportunity to look through a box of drawings I hadn't seen before. Delighted, It took me an hour to select a collection to take away. Here they are.

25 unframed watercolours and drawings from between 1971-2015 depicting Melbourne life as observed by Mary Hammond while shopping in Richmond, Northcote or Fairfield and while watching the local golfers.

Bridget McDonnell 2020

 

Small Wall - Contemporary

July 27, 2020 - August 1, 2020

Continuing our theme of the Small Wall, here is a collection of pictures by our contemporary artists.  Included are new works by Jan Senbergs, Glenda Fell Jones, Kevin Foley and Peter Brown and some we found hidden away by Peter Trusler, Nick Botting, Lucy Boyd and Mary Hammond. Also some favourites by Jeff Ferris, Celia Perceval, Barry Dickins, Don Heron and John Gollings.

 

Small Pictures

July 9, 2020 - July 31, 2020

After watching a Masterclass by American interior decorator, Kelly Wearstler, we were inspired to put together a wall of small pictures. We have at least 300 in stock ....

In this selection there are 26 paintings, watercolours, drawings and etchings - a mosaic of colour, texture and subject. All favourites of ours.  If you don't want a whole collection of pictures, each of these would be just as happy on its own small wall.

Paintings from St Petersburg 2011

December 6, 2011 - December 23, 2011

An exhibition of paintings and oil sketches from Russia in association with John Barkes, London  

 

Including works by; Faizrakhman Aminov, Sergei Baikov, Saniya Bakhtiyariva, Vladimir Damarad, Anatoli Ivasenko, Evgeni Kazmin, Valentina Kharaborina, A. M. Kor, Irena Kovaleva, Georgi Kovenchuk, Valeria Larina, Girsu Li, Nikolai Lyadovski, Konstantin Molteninov, Margarita Ruban, Vasili Rudnev, Valentina Savelieva, Petr Smukrovich, Elena Tabakova, Nikita Tsytsin, Anatoli Vasiliev, Edvard Vasiliev, Vladimir Yarkin, Boris Zaozerski