John Olsen’s Sydney Sun, 1965, on display in the “Australia” show © DACS 2013
Australian art used to be well known and widely collected in Britain. As long ago as 1898 the Grafton Galleries could put on a show of Australian painting without apology or explanation. In 1923 the painter Elioth Gruner curated an exhibition of Australian art at Burlington House. In 1961 the Whitechapel Gallery hosted an exhibition called “Recent Australian Painting” with works by Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, John Brack, Russell Drysdale, Ian Fairweather, ST Gill, John Olsen, Jeffrey Smart, Arthur Streeton, Albert Tucker and Brett Whiteley. The Tate bought Whiteley’s Red Painting from that show and mounted its own exhibition of Australian painting two years later. In the 1960s and 70s Boyd, Nolan, Whiteley, Colin Lanceley, Charles Blackman and Barbara Hanrahan were familiar figures on the London art scene and so successful that the most prestigious galleries were happy to represent them. Collectors understood what was different about the Australians, which was only possible because they could also see what they shared with the European tradition. The artists, too, learned how to represent Australia by positioning it against the dim green country around them. Nolan’s vision of Australia roared into incandescent life against the rolling hills of Herefordshire.
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