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“Portrait in the Mirror” by Margaret Olley (Australian) - Oil on cardboard / 1948 - Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) #WomenInArt #MargaretOlley #Olley #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #art #artText #arte #AustralianArtist #AustralianArt #SelfPortrait #ArtGalleryOfNewSouthWales
Painted in 1948, this early self-portrait shows Australian artist Margaret Olley placing herself literally “in the picture,” surrounded by the everyday objects and studio clutter that would shape her lifelong practice. She painted herself as a young woman with long brown hair, tanned skin, calm face and wide eyes reflected in a mirror behind a crowded tabletop. She wears a casual patterned top and a round pearl necklace that catches the light. Her gaze is steady, directed just past us. In front of her, a narrow shelf and green wall frame an arrangement of postcards, shells, and a small photograph. The table in the foreground is draped with a pale yellow-green cloth, its surface packed with oranges, lemons, limes, apples, and a russet pear. At left, a jar brims with creamy strawflowers and red berries, beside a white sculpted head in profile and a conch seashell. Muted greens and browns enclose the scene, while the fruits and flowers glow in warm reds, oranges, and whites, turning this reflective “still life” into a layered self-portrait. The fruits, flowers, carved head, shell, and postcards transform the table into a stage where domestic life, travel souvenirs, and art history coexist. Reproductions of earlier masterpieces on the postcards hint at her study of European painting and quietly claim a place for a young Australian woman among those “great masters.” Created around the time of her first solo exhibition at Sydney’s Macquarie Galleries (when both the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria acquired her work), this painting catches Olley on the threshold of an international career. Soon after, she would become famous as the subject of William Dobell’s Archibald Prize portrait and leave for Europe. Here, though, she is still and self-possessed, using mirror, objects, and memory to declare that her own life, rooms, and relationships are worthy subjects for modern art.
December 11, 2025 at 4:04 PM
mdstamper.bsky.social
“Javanese in blue” by Mary Edwell-Burke (Australian) - Oil on canvas on hardboard / 1936 - Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #MaryEdwell-Burke #AustralianArtist #womanartist #femaleartist #Edwell-Burke #ArtGalleryofNewSouthWales #ArtGalleryofNSW #womensart #beauty
Australian artist Mary Edwell-Burke depicts a woman from Java seated in a three-quarter pose, facing slightly to the right of the viewer. Her gaze is directed off to the side, giving the impression she is in thought or looking at something beyond the frame. An indistinct background of earth tones suggests an outdoor setting, with hints of foliage, but the focus is clearly on the subject. The woman is wearing a sheer violet-blue top with a floral pink cold shoulder undergarment. Her clothes and background hues draw our eyes in to her warm brown skin tone with subtle variations in color to capture light and shadow. The woman's hair is dark and pulled back into a simple updo, giving her a neat and composed appearance. Her lips are slightly pursed, and her brow is slightly furrowed, suggesting a thoughtful mood. Her features are delicate, with high cheekbones and well-defined jawline. The eyes are expressive and actually the focal point of the painting. Edwell-Burke was born June 29, 1894 in Sydney. To avoid scandal because of her mother Rose Burke’s liaison with the married Henry Edwell, mother and daughter assumed the surname Edwards. She studied at the East Sydney Technical College and by the 1920s exhibited with the Royal Art Society (as Mary Edwards). She was a finalist for the Archibald Prize in 1921 and 1922. From 1935-1945, she exhibited with the Australian Watercolour Institute (as Mary Edwards). In 1945, her portrait of Dame Enid Lyons, was rejected as “unsatisfactory” by the Federal Government’s Historic Memorials Committee. She subsequently moved to Fiji and changed her name from Mary Edwards to Mary Edwell-Burke. Always a flamboyant character, Mary maintained a dramatic and eccentric presence late in life, invariably dressing in 'black cloaks and large hats’, described by friends as “an apparition from the Bible.” Apart from one brief sojourn in Sydney, she stayed in Fiji where she passed away January 19, 1988, aged ninety-three.
April 12, 2025 at 4:38 AM
awkwalisa.bsky.social
splashes of color and pops of yellow 🎨🎈
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#artgallery #AGNSW #artgalleryofnewsouthwales #sydney #australia #artlovers #photography
February 20, 2025 at 7:24 PM
stpit1975.bsky.social
This is also Art….. Art is in the eye of the beholder…

#artgalleryofnewsouthwales #australia #sydney #travel #fashion #kunst #art #gay #lgbt #loveislove #gaycouples #enjoy
January 14, 2025 at 4:07 AM
awkwalisa.bsky.social
Exploring the surreal world of René Magritte 🎨✨

26 October 2024 – 9 February 2025
Art Gallery of New South Wales

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#ReneMagritte #Magritte #SydneyArt #Australia #SonyA7III #Museum #ArtGalleryofNewSouthWales #AGNSW #Photography #PhotographersUnited
A large exhibition wall at the Art Gallery of New South Wales displaying a photograph of René Magritte A gallery visitor examining the painting 'Empire of Light' by René Magritte A gallery visitor observing René Magritte’s surreal painting 'Golconda,' featuring a scene of men in bowler hats floating in midair A person admiring René Magritte’s surreal painting 'Le Contenu pictural' in an art gallery
February 10, 2025 at 11:22 PM
mdstamper.bsky.social
Grand-mère (Grandmother) by Hilda Rix Nicholas (Australian) - Oil on canvas / c. 1914 - Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #HildaRixNicholas #RixNicholas #womensart #womanartist #femaleartist #AustralianArtist #ArtGalleryofNSW #ArtGalleryofNewSouthWales
"Grand mère" was painted by Australian artist Hilda Rix Nicholas in Étaples, Northern France. Executed in the open air, the artwork depicts an elderly fair-skinned peasant woman, wearing a black dress, brown apron, and white bonnet, in a blossoming garden of red and pink flowers. Rix Nicholas sets the subject of the painting firmly in the frontal plane of a luminously colorful background, an influence of post-impressionist Paris. Short brushstrokes of thickly applied paint animate the pictorial surface and showcase the artist's skill. Though she was born and passed away in Australia, Rix Nicholas's works during time in France and Morocco were acquired by the French government, exhibited in the Salon and the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français, and she was elected an Associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1926. Hilda Rix Nicholas made a significant contribution to Australian art in the period between the First and Second World Wars with her nationalist landscapes and spirited portraits of soldiers. In France she also achieved a remarkable level of success and recognition for an Australian artist, particularly for her "orientalist" and pastoral subject paintings and drawings. In 1928, Rix Nicholas returned to Australia an international success story. She resumed painting landscapes, which were met with mixed reviews in Australia; her work was criticized as ‘pseudo masculine’ in Home magazine. In 1928, she remarried and moved to Knockalong Cottage in the Monaro district of New South Wales. Distance from major cities, along with gender barriers in the art world, and the challenge of balancing roles of wife, mother and artist, made it difficult for Rix Nicholas to continue her career in Australia. Neither conservative nor modernist in an avant-garde sense, she fell out of favor with the contemporary art scene in the 1930s and 40s. Her eyesight also began to deteriorate and she last exhibited in 1947. She died August 3, 1961 at the age of 77.
April 21, 2025 at 5:04 AM
stpit1975.bsky.social
Kunst kann alles…. Art can do anything …..

#artgalleryofnewsouthwales #australia #sydney #travel #fashion #kunst #art #gay #lgbt #loveislove #gaycouples #enjoy
January 9, 2025 at 9:33 PM
“Postcard from Bloomfield Beach.” Destiny Deacon (Australian; 1957–2024). Color laser print from Polaroid, 1998. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

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June 28, 2024 at 4:18 PM
robisok.bsky.social
Japanese Ghosts
Suzuki Kason
1860-1919
JAPANESE SUPERNATURAL
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
#Ghosts, #JapaneseSupernatural, #Art, #JapaneseArt, #ArtGalleryOfNewSouthWales
April 27, 2025 at 2:25 AM