Live Breaking News & Updates on Aboriginal Memorial

© Rafael Ben Ari/Dreamstime.com
The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra opened in 1982, and its wide-ranging collection comprises tens of thousands of works, including the world’s most significant collection of art by Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This list focuses on five paintings, mostly contemporary, from the museum’s works of Western art.
Earlier versions of the descriptions of these paintings first appeared in 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
, edited by Stephen Farthing (2018). Writers’ names appear in parentheses.
Blue Poles, Number 11, 1952 (1952)
Born in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of five sons, Jackson Pollock’s childhood was disrupted by the family’s constant moving in search of work. His youth was spent in search of an artistic vocation that he found increasingly elusive and frustrating. Plagued by insecurities, his moods swung between wild, alcohol-fueled, attention-seeking and shy, inarticulate ....

United Kingdom , Republic Of , Bribie Island , Black Rabbit , Western Australia , City Of , Australian Capital Territory , Mount Kosciuszko , New South Wales , United States , Stephen Farthing , Susan Flockhart , Ian Fairweather , Arthur Boyd , Lee Krasner , Claude Lorrain , John Glover , Caspar David Friedrich , James Gleeson , Roger Wilson , Nicolas Poussin , Jackson Pollock , Arthur Merric Boyd , Tony Tuckson , Aruna Vasudevan , School Of Painting ,