Anne O'Connor

Nasturtiums 1997

watercolour

Private collection
© Anne O’Connor

10 September – 2 November 2008
Drawn from Life
The enchanted eye:
the botanical art of Anne O’Connor
An MPRG exhibition

The enchanted eye highlights the skill and imagination of one of Australia’s most talented botanical artists, Anne O’Connor. Best known for her Vireya Rhododendron paintings, O’Connor has been painting for over fifteen years and in 2000 was awarded a coveted Royal Horticultural Medal in London. Her work combines an eye for detail and a keen sense of experimentation within her chosen watercolour medium. This is first solo public gallery exhibition to be held by this Mornington Peninsula-based artist.

Revealing the body:
20th century drawings from the MPRG collection
An MPRG exhibition

Drawing on the Gallery’s extensive works on paper collection, this exhibition explores approaches to drawing from the human figure and studio models and the ideas and theories on which that drawing is based. Featured artists include Rick Amor, John Brack, Russell Drysdale, Noel Counihan, Godfrey Miller, John Perceval, Constance Stokes and Brett Whiteley. A recently acquired suite of rare life drawings produced by George Bell during the 1930s and 40s will also be on display for the first time.

Danie Mellor

An unsettled vision (the predicament) 2007–08

pastel, pencil, watercolour and glitter pen on paper with Swarovski crystal

Courtesy of the artist

Winner $15,000 John Tallis Acquisitive Award

28 May – 6 July 2008

The Tallis Foundation 2008 National Works on Paper

An MPRG acquisitive exhibition

The MPRG has specialised in collecting Australian works on paper for over three decades through initiatives such as the biennial National Works on Paper exhibition.

NWOP is one of the most prestigious prize exhibitions of its type in Australia. It showcases recent works by innovative artists working in the field of drawing, printmaking, digital prints and paper sculpture. This diverse and exciting exhibition provides a survey of what’s happening in contemporary art across Australia, today.

NWOP 2008 features the largest award for works on paper in Australia – The John Tallis $15,000 Acquisitive Award.

Visit http://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au/nwop

Albert Tucker

Mirka Mora showing off her frilly knickers, Georges Mora, Lucy Beck, Sunday Reed at Aspendale 1961

type C photograph

Heide Museum of Modern Art

Gift of Barbara Tucker, 2001

Reproduced with permission from Barbara Tucker

12 December 2007 – 10 March 2008

Aspendale Beach: an artists’ haven

An MPRG exhibition, curated by Rodney James

Depicted in picture postcards as an idyllic destination, Aspendale Beach on Port Phillip Bay emerged in the 1960s as a haven for two of Melbourne's best known artistic families – the Reeds and the Moras.

Closely associated with the nurturing of progressive art and culture in Melbourne during the 1940s and 1950s, John and Sunday Reed and Georges and Mirka Mora also developed a friendship that extended to and blossomed at Aspendale. Whether as a summer playground or winter retreat, Aspendale was a place of good fun, high adventure and lively experimentation and where, even today, many of Australia's art community gather to share food, wine and company in startling surroundings.

These innovative beach houses built on adjacent blocks on the shore of Port Phillip Bay set the scene for what was to follow. The McGlashan Everist beach pavilion designed for the Reeds and, by comparison, Peter Burns's modest shelter for the Moras, embraced innovative ideas and a vivid sense of communality. Over the years the many visitors to Aspendale – artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers and actors – added their own contributions to these impressive beginnings. The houses became the setting for impromptu parties, never-ending games of chess and countless artworks; including extensive wall and ceiling murals.

The first exhibition to focus on Aspendale Beach as an artists' retreat recreates the unique feel of Aspendale during the 1960s to the 1980s through the display of photographs, paintings, drawings, writing, sculpture and film. The exhibition considers the architectural development and legacy of Aspendale. It incorporates rare photographs by Albert Tucker, Bob Whitaker and Mary Nolan, early films produced by Philippe Mora and features both favourite and other little known works by a diverse range of artists including Charles Blackman, Ivan Durrant, Mirka Mora, John Perceval, Sweeney Reed and Caroline Williams.

Exhibition supported by Friends of Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

30 October – 2 December 2007

Janet Dawson Survey
A Bathurst Regional Art Gallery travelling exhibition

 Janet Dawson Survey examines the career of one of Australia’s most accomplished artists from the 1950s through to the present day.

Dawson was an important pioneer of the international style of colourfield painting in Australia in the 1960s and went on to become a leading exponent of abstract and figurative art. Her work is notable for its range in size, shape, medium, technique and subject. She has moved between abstraction and figuration, formalism and realism, not being afraid to explore new directions in style and subject. She has been a painter, printer, teacher and stage designer.

This is the first retrospective exhibition to be mounted on Dawson and includes over seventy paintings and drawings. It confirms Dawson’s place as one of our country’s greatest colourists and a painter of consummate skill. Curated by respected historian Dr Christine France, the works in the exhibition come from public galleries and private collections across the country, including twenty-two works from the National Gallery of Australia.

James Smeaton, G. W. Bot (kneeling), Stephen Gascoyne and Rosie Weiss
Devilbend Reserve, June 2006
Photographer: Daryl Gordon

30 October – 2 December 2007

Devilbend 2007
An MPRG exhibition

To acknowledge and celebrate the unique qualities of the newly-created Devilbend Reserve, Moorooduc, seven artists present new works based on their interaction and interpretation of the site.

The participating artists – G.W. Bot, Stephen Gascoyne, Chaco Kato, Suzanne Kepert, James Smeaton, Birra-li Ward and Rosie Weiss – include a mixture of established and emerging artists working with a variety of mediums and approaches. The majority either lives on the Peninsula or has links with it. Importantly, each artist chosen has a strong environmental conscience. Their works explore different ways of responding to the environment: ‘they look to the ground’ rather than seek to capture the grand vista or the conventionally beautiful aspect of nature.

John Blogg
Spider with gum leaves 1923
Private collection

29 August – 21 October 2007 

Drawing with chisels: The wood carvings of John K. Blogg
(1851–1936)
An MPRG exhibition 

For the first time, this exhibition brings together over thirty works by John Kendrick Blogg. Drawing with chisels showcases Blogg’s skill with a chisel, innate understanding of good design and his sensitivity to unique Australian flora. Blogg’s furniture and carvings will be contextualised by relevant examples from other artists influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement in Australia, the fervour of Federation and the impact of The Great War. 

The exhibition will also look at the life of an energetic man with many interests. An industrial chemist by trade, and emigrating from Canada in 1877, Blogg embraced life in Australia. During the late 1800s his pharmaceutical business expanded and he settled into community life in Surrey Hills, Melbourne. Blogg combined business acumen and the technicalities of chemistry, developing unique Australian perfumes and cosmetics and he expressed himself artistically by writing poetry and composing hymns as well as creating remarkable high-relief wood carvings.

David Keeling
Early morning 2003
oil on linen
Private collection, Melbourne
Image courtesy the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Criss Canning
Gumnuts 2003
oil on canvas
Private collection

4 July - 19 August 2007 

Kalianthi: the art of Criss Canning
A Ballarat Fine Art Gallery touring exhibition

This major retrospective exhibition explores Criss Canning's career, spanning more than three decades, and includes a wide range of works from different genres such as portraiture and landscape as well as her more easily-recognised floral works. The title of the show means 'beautiful flower' in ancient Greek - an allusion not just to the subject matter of many of the most memorable works, but also an important period of time spent by the artist in the Greek islands in the mid 1980s - a sojourn that she regards as pivotal in her career.

For Canning her paintings are unashamed celebrations of beauty as well as being explorations of colour as manifested by the natural world in flowers and fruits as well as man-made objects such as exquisite textiles, glass and lacquer.  Despite all the trends and movements in contemporary art, clearly this artist is concerned with the timeless pursuit of beauty.
 

Matthew Sleeth
Untitled #25 from Rosebud, 2003
type C print
Courtesy of Josef Lebovic Gallery (Sydney), Sophie Gannon Gallery (Melbourne) and Jan Manton Art (Brisbane)

4 July - 19 August 2007 

Rosebud: Matthew Sleeth
An MPRG exhibition

Matthew Sleeth spent his summers at the same caravan site, with the same neighbours, in the seaside town of Rosebud every year until he was about thirteen. He recently returned to Rosebud and found, 'Teenagers were still having awkward first kisses, families were returning year after year, recreating their suburban comforts on a miniature scale, albeit with a modern twist - transistor radios had given way to DVD players, station wagons to four-wheel drives. A sense of community and continuity remained and I remembered these with great affection, but the underlying currents of boredom and slight menace were also familiar.'  

Fifteen large-format photographic images of Rosebud are featured in this exhibition by Melbourne artist Matthew Sleeth as he explores the underbelly of a place we only thought we knew .

Anthony Van Dyck (after)
Head of St Monica in ecstasy, possibly early 1640s
black and red chalk
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bequest of Howard Spensley, 1939

Catalogue

20 April - 24 June 2007 

Masters of emotion
Exploring the emotions from the old masters to the present
An MPRG exhibition, curated by Irena Zdanowicz 

The portrayal of the emotions has motivated artists since classical antiquity. This ambitious exhibition explores some of the ways in which Western artists have represented human emotions and draws extensively upon the internationally recognised collections of Australia's premier state and national galleries. Masters of emotion uncovers how certain attitudes and traditions of representation have persisted while others have undergone radical change. The exhibition ranges widely and encompasses European, Australian and American art from the Renaissance to the present and includes major paintings, sculpture, rare drawings, prints, photographs, and artist books. 

Over 100 works of art have been specially selected for the exhibition ranging from the old masters, such as Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Blake and Munch, through to works of art from contemporary artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Moffatt, Jenny Holzer and Bill Henson.

Sidney Nolan
Antarctic explorer 1964
oil on hardboard
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Purchased 1965
© AGNSW
Reproduced with the kind permission of the Trustees of the Sidney Nolan Trust

Catalogue

Gerald McCraith
McCraith House 1958
35mm slide
Courtesy of the McCraith family

Barbara Brash
Peacock c.1958
colour linocut on Japanese paper on colour screenprint paper, ed. 4/20
Purchased, 1958
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
 

Catalogue

25 July - 24 September 2006

From Tuesday to Tuesday:
Barbara Brash, Nancy Clifton, Mary Macqueen, Lesbia Thorpe
An MPRG exhibition

From Tuesday to Tuesday considers the personal and professional relationships which developed between these four artists, the resurgence of interest in printmaking in the 1950s and 60s in Melbourne, the role of Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT) in the development of their work and their individual contribution to printmaking in Australia.

Rosie Weiss
Unidentified root structure 2006
pencil and ink on arches
Courtesy of the artist

 

25 July - 24 September 2006

Rosie Weiss: Pulse
An MPRG exhibition 

Pulse is an exhibition of exciting new works by Mornington Peninsula-based artist Rosie Weiss comprising detailed drawings of plants floating over liquid landscapes of ink. Weiss concentrates on found or discarded plant specimens and their connection to the environment and psychological states.

Gareth Sansom
Life after Bacon 2006
watercolour, pencil, synthetic polymer paint, ink, biro, enamel, gouache and collage on paper, 12 sheets
133.0 x 125.0 cm
Courtesy of John Buckley Fine Art, Melbourne

6 June - 16 July 2006

The Tallis Foundation
2006 National Works on Paper
An MPRG exhibition

National Works on Paper is one of the longest running and most prestigious prize exhibitions of its type in Australia. NWOP brings together the finest collection of contemporary works on paper by artists across the country, from rising stars to the most established artists. Showcasing the work of 46 artists, this year's exhibition reveals the exciting and often surprising ways in which artists are engaging with paper, using traditional methods to the latest computer imaging technologies.

Visit the online catalogue ...

Gunter Christmann
Smoke Ozkar 2001
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Courtesy the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Catalogue

4 April - 28 May 2006

WARNING: SMOKING has been linked to some of the most powerful images of the twentieth century
An MPRG exhibition

This exhibition explores the role of Australian and international artists in the formation and critique of a visual culture of smoking.

Transformed into a global obsession since the Europeans first imported tobacco from the New World more than 500 years ago, smoking has been a major source of investigation and inspiration for artists, writers and filmmakers. Drawing on major public and private collections throughout Australia, this is the first large-scale exhibition to examine the relationship between artists, smoking and modern life and will include paintings, prints and drawings, photographs, video, installations and sculptures.

Click here for more information...
 

Michael Leunig
Curly Car 1993
oil on canvas
Private collection
 

9 November 2005 - 12 February 2006

Michael Leunig - Personal and Peculiar
An MPRG Exhibition

One of Australia's foremost cartoonists and social commentators, Michael Leunig is also an accomplished painter, printmaker and illustrator. This exhibition highlights some of the many connections which exist between Leunig's art, life and aesthetic interests. Favourite objects, works of art and new writings will combine to produce an effect likened to that of the Wunderkammer: a curiosity cabinet full of wonder and intrigue, in which subtle dialogues are created and fresh resonances emerge.

Brett Whiteley
The blossom tree 1971 - 1982
oil, silk flowers, branch, wood, canvas, nails and electricity on board
186 x 194.5 x 25.6 cm
Private collection
© Whiteley Estate
Photograph: AGNSW

Catalogue

6 September - 30 October 2005 

after Van Gogh: Australian artists in homage to Vincent
An MPRG exhibition 

The exhibition after Van Gogh: Australian artists in homage to Vincent reveals the profound influence this infamous Dutch master has had on Australian art. Showcasing over 66 works by 25 Australian artists, after Van Gogh includes major works by Brett Whiteley, John Perceval, Grace Cossington Smith, Yosl Bergner, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Martin Sharp, Asher Bilu, Peter Callas and Gordon Bennett.

The exhibition features the National Gallery of Victoria's much-loved portrait by Van Gogh Head of a man 1886.  This painting was the first by Van Gogh to enter a public collection in Australia. Included in the controversial 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art - dubbed as degenerates and perverts by the then director of the National Gallery - it is one of his many paintings that have inspired generations of artists and gallery visitors.

Clarice Beckett
Winter   c. 1926
oil on board
285 x 385cm
Collection: Ruth Prowse
 

12 July - 28 August 2005

Clarice Beckett: A collector's passion
The Ruth Prowse collection
An MPRG exhibition

This exhibition showcases the work of a major Australian artist, a passionate Australian collector and the relationship between the two.

Comprising close to forty paintings, the exhibition includes many well known works by Clarice Beckett including pictures of Beaumaris, Ricketts Point and Port Phillip Bay. The Prowse collection is dominated by works by Clarice Beckett - some eighty works by the artist at one stage - and Ruth's favourite painting remains Wet night, St Kilda Road, a work which provides a special focus for the exhibition.

Albert Tucker
Back beach rock pool c.1980s
(Blairgowrie series)
mixed media on cardboard
Gift of Barbara Tucker, 2003
Collection: Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

17 May - 3 July 2005

Albert Tucker: Blairgowrie
Works from the MPRG Collection

In 1980, Albert Tucker and his wife Barbara purchased a holiday home at Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula. Over the next decade, Tucker sketched and painted there over the holiday periods, often returning to favourite spots and landmarks adjacent to the local ocean beach.  

Now part of the MPRG permanent collection, this is the first time Tucker's Blairgowrie pictures have been on display at the Gallery. The collection of seven paintings were specially selected from the artist's estate and gifted to the Gallery through the generosity of Barbara Tucker. They are marked by the variety of media employed by the artist (including watercolour, gouache, pencil, pastel and even poly-filler) and the interesting tools and techniques used such as brush, spatula, fingers and combs.

11 December 2004 - 6 March 2005

Arthur Streeton and the Australian Coast
An MPRG Exhibition

Arthur Streeton and the Australian Coast is the first survey of this much admired artist's lifelong preoccupation with the Australian coastline.

The exhibition includes close to 70 paintings from public, corporate and private collections throughout Australia. These include coastal views of Sydney, as well as paintings of the Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmanian coasts. Many of these works remain in private collections and a highlight of the exhibition will be reassembling the individual series of paintings of Portsea, Sorrento, Lorne, Palm Beach, and Port Campbell, which have not been seen together since their initial various exhibitions approximately seventy years ago. The exhibition explores Arthur Streeton's interest in poetry and literature and the physical and psychological properties of the ocean which remained a constant source of inspiration and became the subject of many of his most revered images. 

Guest-curators for Arthur Streeton and the Australian Coast are Geoffrey Smith, Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria and the artist's grandson, Oliver Streeton.
 

Arthur Streeton
Near Streeton's camp at Sirius Cove  1892
oil on canvas on cardboard
Bequest of Howard Hinton  1948
The Howard Hinton Collection
New England Regional Art Museum
Armidale, NSW

 

Catalogue

26 October - 5 December 2004

Emma Minnie Boyd: 1858 - 1936
An MPRG Exhibition
 

Best known for her exquisite, delicate watercolours, this exhibition provides the first major survey of Emma Minnie Boyd's career, with over 90 works from private and public collections, many of which have rarely been publicly displayed. 

Emma Minnie Boyd 1858 - 1936 is curated by Jane Alexander and continues the MPRG'S innovative Boyds on the Mornington Peninsula series of exhibitions, highlighting the Boyd family's longstanding association with the region.

Emma Minnie Boyd
Afternoon tea  1888
oil on canvas
Collection: Bendigo Art Gallery
 

7 September - 17 October 2004

2004 National Works on Paper
An MPRG Exhibition
 

Initiated in 1973, the gallery's prestigious annual works on paper award offers artists and the public one of the major exhibition showcases in Australia for contemporary prints and drawings. Each year works from this prestigious exhibition are purchased for the MPRG's specialist collection of works on paper, regarded as one of the foremost collections in the country.

Paul Boston
Gathering  2002
charcoal on paper
Courtesy of Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Catalogue

7 September - 17 October  2004

John Perceval: Painting Down the Bay
An MPRG Exhibition
 

John Perceval: Painting down the Bay highlights the painterly achievements of one of Australia's most celebrated and significant twentieth century artists. Perceval's Williamstown and Port Melbourne series of paintings are universally known and much enjoyed; this exhibition, in contrast, explores his links with an equally impressive body of work drawn from areas situated further on down the Bay - from the distinctive bluffs of Beaumaris, creeks at Mordialloc, sweeping beaches of Rye and Sorrento, rugged back beaches near the Heads, hinterland of Tyabb and Merricks, through to the distinctive tidal creeks and inlets of Tooradin at the far reaches of  the adjacent Western Port Bay.

Close to twenty major paintings from a range of early, mid and late series or bodies of work undertaken by Perceval are included in the exhibition, celebrating John Perceval's achievements as an artist in some of his most productive periods and explores his specific association with the Mornington Peninsula through his links with particular places and with well-known Melbourne artists, families and patrons.


John Perceval painting at Fisherman's Inlet, Tooradin 1967
Courtesy of Gould Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney
 

13 July - 29 August 2004

The Painted Self:
Rick Amor, Peter Churcher, Kevin Lincoln, Stewart MacFarlane and Lewis Miller
An MPRG Exhibition

Self-portraits are not simply transcriptions of what the artist sees in the mirror; they are self dramatisations through which the artist can tell stories about him or herself on both a personal and professional level.

This compelling exhibition will focus on the work of five contemporary artists who have consistently painted self-images throughout their career. The group of selected works by each painted will highlight the importance of self-portraiture within their practice and represent the continuing evolution of their work and ideas from early in their career to the present.

Rick Amor
Self-portrait in winter 2002, oil on canvas, Private Collection, Courtesy of Niagara Galleries, Melbourne.

10 April - 23 May 2004

eX de Medici @ MPRG
An MPRG Exhibition

A background in experimental installation, performance, drawing and tattooing have influenced the work of Canberra-based artist, eX de Medici. Drawing on three decades of the artist's work, this exhibition includes works related to Medici's tattooing practice; oversize digital images of Canberra's deserted highways; exquisitely detailed watercolour drawings of microlepidoptera (tiny moths) undertaken during a residency with the Australian National Insect Collection; monumental inks and watercolours depicting weaponry, household debris and cloud formations; large, intricately worked drawings in pencil or biro; and sumptuous oil paintings inspired by Mathias Grünewald's famous 16^th century altarpiece.

This exhibition includes a collaborative website created by eX de medici and the MPRG;
http://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au/exdemedici

eX de Medici
Dagger for Ted (drawing for tattoo) 1997, coloured pencil and fibre-tipped pen on paper, Private collection, Melbourne, Photograph courtesy of the artist

14 December 2003 - 22 February 2004

The artists' journey
Discovering the Victorian Coastline 1840 - 1910
An MPRG Exhibition

Tracing 70 years of Victoria's coastal history, The Artists' Journey provides a rare opportunity to take part in an artistic voyage around Victoria's magnificent coastline between 1840-1910. Ranging from images of the ragged and the remote to seaside holidays, this exhibition promises to spark the memories of old, reminding us of how vastly the Victorian coastline has changed over the last century.

The exhibition will be comprehensive and wide-ranging in its scope, comprising over 60 works including many of the now familiar and much-loved paintings by artists such as Eugene von Guérard, S T Gill, Tom Roberts and Walter Withers as well as supporting engravings, drawings and photographs. Significantly, it will be the first occasion on which many of these iconic works will have been exhibited together, and provides viewers with a unique opportunity to see their favourite parts of the Victorian coast as seen through the eyes of this highly respected artists.

Emanuel Phillips Fox
Bathing hour c.1909, oil on canvas, Collection: Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum
 

22 July – 24 August 2003

2003 National Works on Paper
An MPRG Exhibition

National Works on Paper (NWOP) is one of Australia’s most prestigious award and acquisitive exhibitions. Its role is to support and promote contemporary Australian artists working on or with paper. Acquisitions from NWOP enter the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery’s (MPRG) nationally renowned collection of works on paper. Works are selected for exhibition from both open entry artists and invited artists.

Short listed artists include: Greg ADES Benjamin ARMSTRONG Raymond ARNOLD Yvonne BOAG Gavin BROWN Stephen BUSH Daniel BUTTERWORTH Laila Marie COSTA Jon CAMPBELL Jazmina CININAS Marieke DENCH Tommaso DURANTE Caroline DURRÉ Stephen EASTAUGH Franz EHMANN Philip FAULKS Graham FRANSELLA Elizabeth GOWER Rona GREEN Mandy GUNN David HARLEY Gail HASTINGS Katherine HATTAM Kristin HEADLAM Christopher HODGES Anna HOYLE Troy INNOCENT Megan KEATING Anita KOCSIS Nick MANGAN Jennifer MILLS Daniel MOYNIHAN David PALLISER Stieg PERSSON Elizabeth POZEGA John PRATT Louise RIPPERT Andrea ROBINSON Lisa ROET Jacqueline ROSE John RYRIE Elissa SADGROVE Sangeeta SANDRASEGAR Heather SHIMMEN Julia SILVESTER Stephen SPURRIER Guy STUART Ben TAYLOR Kathy TEMIN David Hugh THOMAS David WADELTON Peter WALSH Rosie WEISS Stephen WICKHAM Deborah WILLIAMS Gary WILSON

BELEURA – THE TALLIS FOUNDATION
$4,000 ACQUISITIVE AWARD
One work will be selected for this award and will enter the MPRG’s collection.
ACQUISITION FUND
For the purchase of works up to $16,000 which will enter the MPRG’s collection.

Stephen Bush
Spice 2001, enamel on paper, Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

27 May - 13 July 2003

Janet Cumbrae Stewart
The Perfect Touch
An MPRG Exhibition

Janet Cumbrae Stewart was regarded as one of the finest pastellists of her generation; however, this is the first exhibition to consider the achievements of this important Australian artist from a contemporary perspective. The exhibition will include up to fifty drawings from major state and private collections throughout Australia including the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia.

This significant exhibition will feature a number of rarely seen works, including a recent donation to the Gallery of early 20th century pastel drawings through the Mary Quinlan Gift. The Mary Quinlan Gift comprises a collection of thirteen works including pastels by Janet Cumbrae Stewart and Dora Wilson and watercolours by Norah Gurdon and Duddie Gregory.

Janet Cumbrae Stewart
Susie Gregory in a blue dress c.1918, pastel on paper. Collection: Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

Rick Amor
The Sea
 

This exhibition focused on the significance of the sea in Rick Amor's art, with particular reference to works drawn between 1991 - 2001. The sea has been a central preoccupation for Rick Amor from his earliest beginnings as an artist. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the artist refocused his attention on boyhood memories, related to the period spent growing up in the Melbourne bay-side suburb of Frankston. The many resultant drawings, etchings and paintings fused biographical elements, including real observations and incidents, with Amor's development of a mature style of painting versed in the romantic and the metaphysical.

Nick Cave: The Good Son

Nick Cave was a central figure in the Melbourne punk scene of the 1970s, a milieu that included artists, writers, photographers, filmmakers and fashion designers. Nick Cave: The Good Son used as its starting point the MPRG's own portraits of Cave's first band, The Boys Next Door, by Jenny Watson, to examine and place Nick Cave within a broader Melbourne arts context from the 1970s to the present day. Artists’ work included in the exhibition were by Nick Cave, Jenny Watson, Tony Clark, Howard Arkley, Jenny Bannister, Polly Borland, Bill Henson, Ross Waterman and Peter Milne.

June - July 2002

The National Works on Paper (NWOP) is one of Australia’s most prestigious award and acquisitive exhibitions. Its role is to support and promote contemporary Australian artists working on or with paper. Acquisitions from the NWOP enter the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery’s (MPRG) nationally renowned collection of works on paper. Works are selected for exhibition from both open entry artists and invited artists.

Acquisitions made by the MPRG in 2002 were by: Ex de medici, Andrew Browne, Gareth Sansom, Kate Cotching, Fiona McMonagle and Sharon Goodwin.

April - June 2002

Nocturne, the MPRG's premier exhibition for 2002, featured paintings, photographs and works on paper produced by artists who have taken the idea of night imagery as a subject for their work from the early 1800s to the present. The exhibition drew upon two main themes - firstly, the ways in which artists have incorporated natural and artificial light within their work and secondly, how the transition from light to dark sets the scene for different individual and social responses to the night.
Artists represented include Joseph Lycett, David Davies, Jane R. Price, JJ Hilder, Charles Blackman, Herbert Badham, Fred Williams, Peter Booth, Gareth Sansom, Louise Hearman, Bill Henson, Andrew Browne, and Domenico de Clario. This exhibition was curated by John Buckley.

December 2001 – February 2002

Arthur Streeton remains one of Australia's most celebrated artists and this outstanding exhibition brought together approximately forty major paintings examining for the first time the remarkable still life and garden paintings produced by Streeton during his career.
From the 1920s, Streeton divided his time between his properties in Toorak and Olinda, where he lovingly nurtured and tendered his expanding gardens. His obsession with gardening led him to comment that he was often too busy planting bulbs to take up his brush to paint. Streeton was an authority on roses and a keen conservationist. The passionate gardener acknowledged and reinstated the significance of still life and garden subjects in terms of Streeton's intimate knowledge of the natural world, as well as celebrating his technical virtuosity as a painter.

This exhibition was curated by Geoffrey Smith, Curator, Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria, and Oliver Streeton.

September – October 2001

Arthur Boyd: The emerging artist focused on Arthur Boyd’s formative experiences and provided the first comprehensive documentation of Boyd’s residences on the Peninsula, his associations and friendships, and the motifs, observations and experiences which were to become important points of reference throughout his long and distinguished career.

Centred around several distinct themes, the exhibition covered the idyllic time spent by the young artist at his grandfather’s Rosebud cottage and the weekends spent at the makeshift artists’ camp at Gunnamatta prior to the war. Other themes looked at the dramatic forms he adopted in response to the Second World War, the collaborations and friendships he maintained on the Mornington Peninsula and the artist’s nostalgic visions of the region in his later years.

June - July 2001

The Australian coastline was the site of many of Williams’ major innovations as an artist. Fred Williams: Coastal strip focused on some of the most intriguing of these innovations – including the development of a strip format for his work and the incorporation of multiple viewpoints within the one picture. Developed throughout the 1960s and 1970s, this strip style provided a unique and enduring perspective on the Australian landscape.

Fred Williams: Coastal strip included thirty-six paintings – the earliest 1959 and latest 1979 – demonstrating Williams’ development as an artist over a twenty-year period. The exhibition traced his movements around the Victorian coastline reaching from Lorne on the West Coast, to the Mornington Peninsula and beyond to Wilsons Promontory and Bass Strait.

June - July 2000

Penleigh Boyd was renowned for his lyrical and poetic interpretations of the Australian landscape. The son of Arthur Merric and Emma Minnie Boyd, Penleigh’s considerable artistic achievements during his short life forged his reputation as successor to the Australian landscape painters of the 1880s and 1890s. His wattles, gum trees, panoramic landscapes and seascapes display his fascination with light and colour and can be linked to famous sites on the Mornington Peninsula where he lived and holidayed with his family as a child. This exhibition comprised paintings, watercolours and drawings from major public and private collections throughout Australia.

April - May 1999

This was the first major survey exhibition of art to be mounted in relation to the cultural and artistic history of the Mornington Peninsula. Many of Australia's leading artists have either visited or lived on the Mornington Peninsula, producing memorable works of the scenery, the people and the way of life that is characteristic of the area.

The exhibition covered the period from early European settlement in the 1850s through to the development of the Mornington Peninsula as a popular tourist destination in the mid to late 20th century. Salon paintings of Eugène von Guérard, Nicholas Chevalier and Louis Buvelot, and en plein air paintings of the 1890s formed a major part of the exhibition. Arthur Boyd, Arthur Streeton, Rupert Bunny, Georgiana McCrae, Fred Williams and Albert Tucker through to contemporary artists, Rick Amor and Kim Westcott were represented.

Beach culture and historical and geographical features were explored through the themes of the exhibition: Around the Bays, Communities and Sojourns, Artists' Camps and The Popular Image.