The National Gallery of Australia will mark its renewed focus on Australian art with a summer blockbuster exhibition featuring the works of painter Tom Roberts.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In what's been described as a "fundamental" change, the gallery is rehanging its entire national collection, to be unveiled when the Roberts show opens on Friday, December 4.
The exhibition will bring together 133 major works from public and private collections, from Roberts' early days studying at London's Royal Academy in 1883 until 1931.
Director Gerard Vaughan said the "ambitious" rehanging project would transform the experience at the NGA with the entire Australian collection moved downstairs and international art, including Jackson Pollock's iconic Blue Poles, moved upstairs into refurbished gallery spaces.
The rehang is intended to bring back visitors who think they've seen it all before and display more of the collection in a gallery which is quickly running out of room.
"When we open the rehang just over 50 per cent will have not been on display for a long time, there are some things bought years ago that have never been on display," Dr Vaughan said.
"Every time you visit the gallery there will be new discoveries as we constantly revitalise the galleries dedicated to the permanent collection."
Dr Vaughan said plans to expand the gallery with a "huge space" for Australian art and 2500 square metres for contemporary global art were ready, but the "political decision" needed the right moment for the go-ahead.
The departure from past blockbuster exhibitions focusing on European masters or international art superstars was a way of giving "blockbuster status to our own heroes", Dr Vaughan said, flagging a continuation of the Australian focus in future summer shows.
"The Tom Roberts exhibition, which explores the idea of truly Australian imagery in the lead-up to Federation – from Shearing the Rams to A Break Away! – is a must-see for all Australians, and especially school students," he said.
Dr Vaughan acknowledged the Roberts' retrospective was unlikely to attract big crowds like the international shows brought to Canberra.
"We'll hope for 100,000 to 150,000, we believe it's not a numbers game," he said.
The exhibition, Dr Vaughan's first summer blockbuster, will include Roberts' painting the Big Picture, which captured the portraits of 265 dignitaries at the opening of the first Australian Parliament in Melbourne on May 9, 1901.
The three-by-five-metre work will be moved to the gallery from Parliament House for the first time since it was hung in 1988.
Tom Roberts helped define Australia's visual culture with his recognisable paintings.
He was among the first to promote outdoor landscape painting and his Impressionist landscapes set the tone for much that was to follow.
The 133 works in the exhibition include paintings, pastels, drawings, prints and sculpture; 53 portraits, 53 landscapes, his famous national narratives, still lifes, nudes and figures in landscape.
"Roberts strongly believed that a great painting of one time and place could be an expression for all time and of all places – and this could not be truer of any other Australian artist's work," the exhibition's curator Anna Gray said.
The gallery departed from past summer blockbusters with last year's James Turrell retrospective, the first featuring a living artist.
Arts Minister George Brandis said the Roberts exhibition was "a chance for every Australian to see some of the greatest art ever produced in this country".
"The NGA is very much the heart of Australian art and come December, visitors will have a chance to engage with our whole visual arts culture in new ways, through the NGA's extensive rehang," he said.
Dr Vaughan said the gallery was hoping a copy of the show's catalogue would be in every school library.
Tom Roberts opens on December 4 until March 28, 2016. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketek.
