Modernism and Australia

Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967

Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, Philip Goad (eds)

This first anthology of modernist art, design and architecture in Australia reveals the raw nerves that modernism exposed.

Awards

Winner of the 2007 AAANZ Power Institute Prize for Best Book

Opinion

'An essential continuation from Bernard Smith's classic Documents on Art and Taste in Australia of 1975, but much bigger and broader, this anthology includes architects and designers, and even an experimental filmmaker and the composer Percy Grainger. Architects Walter Burley Griffin, Robin Boyd and Harry Seidler, designers Frances Burke, Grant Featherston and Marion Best join artists Norman Lindsay, Margaret Preston, Sidney Nolan, John Brack and Clement Meadmore and critics Gertrude Langer and Robert Hughes. This book is enthralling and essential.'
-Daniel Thomas AM, Emeritus Director Art Gallery of South Australia, formerly inaugural Head of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia

'This monumental effort is a worthy successor to Bernard Smith's pioneering
Documents on Art and Taste in Australia (1975), and it is a new publication which
will long remain an essential tool of trade for students, teachers and early
researchers in the fields of art, architecture and design history.'--Art and Australia 1/7/2007

'Modern Art is a hornet's nest in Australia.' (1941)
-Theodor Sizer

'Such is the geography of hell.' (1958) (in reference to early modernism in Australia)
-Barrie Reid

'The rise of the modern movement in Australian art is a subject on which documentation hardly exists.' (1958)
-Barrie Reid (again)

'I represent a class of people which will, in the next 100 years, determine the permanent place to be occupied in the world of art by those painting today.' (1937)
-Robert Menzies

'I horror the world-masterpieces of 2037, could I but see them at this moment.' (1937)
-Adrian Lawlor

About this Title

This first anthology of modernist art, design and architecture in Australia reveals the raw nerves that modernism exposed and highlights the role of migrants, expatriates, travel and mass reproduction in the reception of modernism in Australia.

In more than two hundred documents--talks, letters, fiery debates, public manifestoes and private diaries--the main players of the time (1917-67) convey in their own words the tensions, aspirations and paradoxes behind the reception of modernism. Each document is put in context and accompanied by expert commentaries from the editors.

The collection overturns many key assumptions about Australian culture, revealing not a 'time-lag' in reception, but an up-to-date engagement with the latest overseas trends and developments. It shows a surprising acceptance of modernism in the commercial realms (design, fashion, interior decoration), yet chronicles the dogged institutional resistance that greeted modernism, particularly in the fine arts.

www.ausmodernism.ci.qut.edu.au

About the Author

Between 2003 and 2006 the editors, working on an Australia Research Council grant, produced and co-edited Modernism and Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967 (Miegunyah Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006; 2nd edn, 2007), which was awarded Best Art History Book, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, 2008.

Dr Ann Stephen is an art historian and curator at the Powerhouse Museum. She is the author of On Looking at Looking: The Art and Politics of Ian Burn (Miegunyah Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006); co-author of The Necessity of Australian Art (Power Publications, Sydney, 1988); editor and co-author of Pirating the Pacific: Images of Travel, Trade and Tourism (Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 1993) and Visions of a Republic: The Work of Lucien Henry (Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2001). Stephen is principal curator of Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia exhibition.

Philip Goad is Professor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. Internationally known for his research and publications on modernism and Australian architecture, he is the author of Melbourne Architecture (Watermark Press, Sydney, 1999), New Directions in Australian Architecture (Pesaro Publishing, Sydney, 2001), editor and co-author of Bates Smart: 150 Years of Australian Architecture (Craftsman House, Sydney, 2004) and co-author of Australian Modern: The Architecture of Stephenson & Turner (Miegunyah Press, Carlton, Vic., 2004).

Dr Andrew McNamara is Associate Professor, Art and Design, Queensland University of Technology. He is the coordinator of a new research grouping at QUT: the Arts, Media, Design and Modernity (AMDM) research group. He is also an editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. Recent publications appear in The Dreams of Interpretation (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007) and Image and Narrative, Belgium (2008).