The Bendigo Art Gallery is thrilled to announce that it will be exhibiting 100 of the 'finest examples of British art' from the Royal Academy in London in 2014.
The title of the exhibition is not Britain.
The title is Ambition and Genius.
The works are dated from 1868 - 1918 and include Gainsborough, Reynolds, Sargent, Fuseli.
This is irritating. Of course British painters between 1868-1918 will be presented as ambitious geniuses to an Australian audience, whereas Australian painters in that period exhibited for a London audience
(if included) are perceived as derivative and didactic (ok not all...). But do you get the irony that I can see in the naming and framing of this work going from RA to Bendigo in the light of the NGA work being shown here in London which claims to show all of Australia just through its singular title.
More to say here but have to cool off first...
Bendigo Advertiser article
Link to Bendigo Art Gallery website here
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