Australia Contemporary art
William Merric Boyd, known more as Merric Boyd, was an Australian artist, active as a ceramicist, sculptor, and extensive chronicling of his family and environs in pencil drawing.
Boyd established a studio workshop at Murrumbeena and pottery kilns were established there in 1911 with the support of his family. He studied under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery School and where he took up ceramics as a path to sculpture, but settled on pottery as his medium. He held his first exhibition of stoneware in Melbourne in 1912 and his second exhibition at Besant Lodge soon afterwards.
Boyd's best works were produced between 1920 and 1930; mostly pieces for domestic use, often decorated by his wife Doris, and some pottery sculptures. He and Doris often used Australian flora and fauna as decorative motifs.
Lawrence W. Carroll was an Australian-born American painter who established a career on both sides of the Atlantic. In his early career Carroll worked as an illustrator for The Progressive, The Village Voice, The New York Times, and other periodicals drawing political illustrations. However it is Carroll's career as a painter that is most significant. His approach to materials, to the scale and structure of the objects is highly distinctive.
Ray Austin Crooke was an Australian artist known for for serene views of Islander people and ocean landscapes, many of which are based on the art of Paul Gauguin. He won the Archibald Prize in 1969 with a portrait of George Johnston. His painting The Offering (1971) is in the Vatican Museum collection. Many of his works are in Australian galleries. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1993 Australia Day Honours, "in recognition of service to the arts, particularly as a landscape artist".
Sir William Dobell was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour.
John Stuart Dowie was an Australian painter, sculptor and teacher.
His work includes over 50 public sculpture commissions, including the "Three Rivers" fountain in Victoria Square, "Alice" in Rymill Park, the "Victor Richardson Gates" at Adelaide Oval and the "Sir Ross & Sir Keith Smith Memorial" at Adelaide Airport. He was nominated for Senior Australian of the Year in 2005, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1981 in recognition of service to the arts as a sculptor and painter.
Bill Henson is an Australian photographer. He is known for his moody and atmospheric photographs of the human form, as well as landscapes and architectural interiors.
Henson began his career as a photographer in the 1970s and gained recognition in the 1980s for his moody and enigmatic images of teenagers. His work often explores themes of sexuality, desire, and the subconscious.
Throughout his career, Henson has continued to produce striking photographic works that push the boundaries of conventional portraiture and landscape photography. He has exhibited widely both in Australia and internationally and his work is included in the collections of many major museums, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Henson has also been the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his photography, including the Centenary Medal from the Australian government in 2001 and the Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019.
Eileen Rosemary Mayo was an English artist and designer who worked in England, Australia and New Zealand in almost every available medium — drawings, woodcuts, lithographs on stone and tempera, tapestry and silk screening. In addition to being a printmaker, illustrator, calligrapher and muralist, she designed coins, stamps, tapestry and posters, and wrote and illustrated eight books on natural science.
Helmut Newton (born Helmut Neustädter) was a German-Australian photographer. The New York Times described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."
Sidney Nolan was an influential Australian artist known for his diverse body of work and pioneering contributions to modern art. His most famous work centers on the Ned Kelly series, which depicts the life of the legendary Australian bushranger and outlaw. This series became iconic for its unique depiction of Kelly's armor and for symbolizing Australian history and identity.
Sidney Nolan was deeply interested in Australian history and mythology, often exploring themes of bush life and historical figures such as the Kelly Gang, shipwreck victim Eliza Fraser, and the explorers Burke and Wills. He was inspired by various modernist artists, such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, and his work often incorporated bold colors and simplified forms.
Despite lacking extensive formal art training, Sidney Nolan's approach to art was innovative and experimental. His techniques drew from diverse influences, including children's art and modernist styles, while his use of color and texture gave his work a striking visual impact. This diversity in approach led him to explore various media, ensuring his body of work remained varied and vibrant.
Sidney Nolan's legacy lives on through his paintings, which can be found in museums and galleries worldwide. He painted in series, creating visual poems with a significant emotional punch. His work's emotional expression and ability to engage the viewer on an emotional level are part of what makes his art so compelling and enduring.
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David Noonan is an Australian artist. He is known for his work in sculpture, installation and painting.
Noonan often uses found images and materials in his work, which he combines with his own photographs, drawings and other materials to create collages, assemblages and installations. He is particularly interested in how images can be transformed and re-contextualised through different mediums and forms.
Noonan has exhibited his work in many major art institutions and galleries around the world. In 2016, he was awarded an Australian Visual Arts Council Award.
His notable works include a series of large-scale silkscreened linen panels displaying monochrome photographic representations of artists, landscapes and still lifes; sculptures and installations, often referencing theatre and film.
Christina Puth is a German and Australian photographer.
She studied at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, then spent many years in Australia, which became her second homeland.
Puth combines photography, painting and printmaking in her work. She combines motifs from Australia with those from Germany, creating entirely new spaces, detached from place and time. These are mostly acrylic-painted photographs of her own that allow the viewer to be immersed in fictional worlds, in mysterious places that perhaps exist only in memory.
Jörg Schmeisser (Schmeißer) was a German artist who became particularly famous as a graphic artist and engraver. He studied at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts, 1962-67, and Kyoto, 1969-72. While studying in Hamburg he studied etching with Paul Wunderlich.
In the 1960s and 1970s he also participated in excavations in Israel and Greece as a draughtsman and travelled to many countries. From 1978 to 1997 he worked at the Canberra School of Art, part of the Australian National University. Jörg Schmeisser was head of the engraving department there.
In 1998 he travelled to Antarctica and stayed at the Australian research stations of Mawson and Davies. The etchings, drawings and paintings he created during this trip have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Australia, Japan, the USA and Germany.
After teaching and working in Jerusalem, Hangzhou, Angkor, Ladakh and Princeton, Jörg Schmeisser took up a professorship at Kyoto City Art University.
Terry Taylor is an Australian artist, painter and drawer. "I am a painter of death, life and theater," Taylor says of herself. Her classical portraits and figurative compositions follow the ancient tradition of Memento Mori ("Remember Death") and 16th century Dutch Vanitas art; they are a story of life and death, humor and tragedy, truth and lies.
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists. His paintings are held in galleries and collections in Australia and elsewhere, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the Kelton Foundation and the Royal Collection.
