The British Museum celebrates Australia

A new exhibition has just opened at the world famous British Museum as part of their Australian Season. Out of Australia, a print and drawing showcase, features the largest ever display of Australian work on paper that Britain has ever seen.

The collection comprises 126 works by 60 artists, from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas and was put together over the past eight years.

Stephen Coppell, Curator of the Modern Collection, said the catalyst for the collection was a gift of the late Fred Williams’ etchings and drawings from his widow in 2003.

“After that exhibition there was such a strong interest in representing Australian art here in the graphic form, that I was encouraged to go to Australia… to visit artists and their estates.”

A major part of the exhibit are classic works by an Australian artistic group named the ‘Angry Penguins’. The ‘Angry Penguins’ included Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester, and the group are still regarded as the pioneers of the modernist movement in Australia.

The absorbing collection features Nolan’s Ram suspended in tree, 1954, which was painted using brown acrylics as well as one of his iconic Ned Kelly paintings.

“All of these are household names in Australia, and yet are not represented in collections in the United Kingdom,” said Coppell.

“This is really surprising given that these artists spent varying periods of time working here in London… furthering their careers.”

Aboriginal printmaking of the 1990′s is also a feature of the exhibition and consists of a number of striking screenprints and impasto paintings.

The museum’s Australian Season also includes Baskets and Belongings, the largest exhibition of indigenous baskets in the world. Over 90 are on display from across Australia and the remarkable collection features a bicornual basket of woven cane from the early 19th century, as well as a rare water container made of seaweed, the only one known to exist.

Lissant Bolton, Head of the Pacific and Australia section of the British Museum, said the baskets seek to showcase the enormous cultural diversity of indigenous Australia.

“There were more than 300 different language groups in Australia at the point of European settlement, and those groups were completely different to each other,” she said.

“Everybody knows that in America the Navajo and the Sioux are different tribes, from different groups with different practices, but what people don’t appreciate is that kind of difference happened in Australia.”

Unique Australian flora is also on display at the museum, showcasing the rich and unique biodiversity of the country’s landscape. It is part of the Australian Landscape exhibit, which the Governor-General Quentin Bryce visited earlier this year when in London for the royal wedding. The exhibit lets visitors experience an Australian landscape in the heart of London and has been designed and created in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The Australian Season runs until October and admission is free.

For more information visit www.britishmuseum.org

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