Overview
Jackson Pollock's Blue poles (1952), Sol LeWitt's Wall drawing No. 380 a-d (1982) and Jon Schueler's The first day (1956), as well as works by Andy Warhol, James Turrell, Yoko Ono and Mark Rothko will all be available for your viewing pleasure this spring. The world-famous works will take over Canberra's National Gallery of Australia for American Masters 1940–1980, a free blockbuster exhibition showing more than 150 works by over 70 artists.
Every piece comes from within the NGA, which impressively holds one of biggest collections of post-war American art outside of the US. Most purchases were made back in the 1970s and 80s, under inaugural director James Mollison — before the gallery's 1982 opening — and, at the time, were considered rather controversial.
The show takes you on a chronological journey, beginning with abstract expressionism, which spawned Pollock, Rothko, Willem De Kooning and Frank Stella, before moving onto its many progeny, from colour field and pop to photo-realism and conceptual art.
Images: Jackson Pollock, 'Blue poles' (1952), oil, enamel, aluminium paint, glass on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, © Pollock-Krasner Foundation; Installation view.