Artworks from the National Gallery of Australia Collection will be on show at Orange Regional Gallery this summer.
Clarice Beckett: Paintings from the National Collection will be on exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery until 9 March 2025. It presents an intimate, rarely seen group of works by one of the most original artists of early twentieth century Australia.
Deeply sensitive to the effects of colour, light and atmosphere, Beckett painted the life and scenery of her coastal home in south-east Naarm/Melbourne with an eye for the commonplace and fleeting effects of nature. Her work captures a world on the cusp of modernisation, evoking both the natural environment and simple pleasures of suburbia.
Clarice Beckett, Sandringham Beach, c 1933, oil on canvas, 55.8 x 50.9 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1971
In 1972, the artist's sister Hilda Mangan donated a group of Beckett's works to the National Gallery. It is this collection that will be on view for the first time, their freshness and vitality recently restored by extensive conservation treatment.
Clarice Beckett: Paintings from the National Collection is a National Gallery Touring Exhibition supported by The Australian Government through Visions of Australia.
Conversations with Clarice Beckett will be exhibited alongside Clarice Beckett: Paintings from the National Collection. An exhibition of 8 local artists from across the Central West who were invited to visit the National Gallery of Australia to study Clarice Beckett's paintings. This project asked the artists to respond to an element of Beckett's work or life, and reimagine it in their own work.
Artists Linda Chant, Rebecca Dowling, Sally Falkiner, Clare Leeuwin-Clark, Nicola Mason, Colleen Southwell, Joel Tonks and Jane Tonks have playfully responded across painting, photography, sculpture and ceramics. Whether examining Beckett's tonalism, the distinctly moody palette, or having imagined conversations, the artists are in dialogue with Beckett, celebrating her atmospheric, evocative paintings that continue to inspire us today.
Conversations with Clarice Beckett (7 Dec 2024 - 23 March 2025) is supported by Orange Regional Arts Foundation, the National Gallery of Australia and The Australian Government through Visions of Australia.
