Streeton

Streeton is the first major book on the artist to date. With essays by authors including Tim Bonyhady, Jane Clark and Roger Benjamin, as well as museum curators, the book features his much-loved paintings as well as works from Streeton’s international career with his paintings of Egypt, Venice, England, Italy and the battlefields of First World War France, covering his practice from 1885 to 1940.

Streeton explores the, at times, conflicted drives that underlie the artist’s work, particularly the tension between his youthful embrace of challenging new ideas in art and his later turning to an even earlier interest in the conventions of the academy. Streeton explores the artist’s return to Australia in the 1920s after two decades in London and consider the inclusions and exclusions from the nationalist narratives and conservative commentary which arose around Streeton’s practice, but which was not endorsed by Streeton himself.

A key focus is Streeton’s deep concern about the destruction of our cities, Australia’s forests and the degradation of our waterways, heralding our conservation and climate-change debates today.

Wayne Tunnicliffe is Head Curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and curator of the John Russell exhibition. His previous publications include John Russell: Australia’s French impressionist (2018) and Pop to popsim (2014). He was curatorial advisor and essayist for Australia’s Impressionists (2016) at the National Gallery, London.