Overview
The National Gallery of Victoria's blockbuster Triennial 2020 exhibition is still in full swing, but, already, the gallery has announced the next fresh dose of artistic goodness heading our way. Today, Monday, March 1, it revealed a jam-packed lineup of exhibitions and programs for 2021. Among them, the international exclusive French Impressionism, featuring more than 100 French impressionist masterpieces on loan from Boston's renowned Museum of Fine Arts.
Yep, overseas trips might still be on hold, but come June 2021, you'll be able to catch iconic works from the likes of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and more, when they hit the NGV for this huge showcase, as part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition series. French Impressionism is set to feature 79 works never before shown in Australia, and will wrap up with a groundbreaking presentation of 16 Monet pieces displayed on curved walls — a nod to the oval gallery at Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris that the artist helped design for his famed Water Lilies paintings.
Camille Henrot, The Pale Fox (2014) installation view. Copyright courtesy of the artist and kamel mennour, Paris/London; König Galerie, Berlin; Metro Pictures, New York. Photographer: Anders Sune Berg.
Turning the lens closer to home, large-scale exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism will feature a huge 270 artworks plucked from major public and private collections across the country. It aims to explore Australia's own position within the impressionist movement, showcasing both recognised and lesser-known works from names like Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Jane Price, Clara Southern and John Russell.
Elsewhere in the program, catch an Aussie-first survey of works by celebrated French-born, New York-based contemporary artist Camille Henrot, showcasing a diverse spread of media created across the last decade. NGV Collection exhibition Big Weather shares a new appreciation for our weather systems, as told through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, while Bark Ladies features two decades of stunning works on bark by masterful Yolngu women artists from Northeast Arnhem Land.
And in groundbreaking show Queer, more than 300 works displayed across five different gallery spaces will mark the most historically expansive thematic presentation of artworks relating to queer stories ever shown in an Australian gallery.
For more details about the just-announced NGV 2021 Season, jump over to the website.
Image one: Claude Monet, Water Lilies (1905). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Edward Jackson Holmes. Photography copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Image two: Alfred Sisley, Waterworks at Marly (1876). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Miss Olive Simes Photography copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Image three: Tom Roberts, Shearing the rams (1890). Courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Felton Bequest, 1932.