The Art of Attribution: The Catalogue Raisonne in the 21st Century

Date: Saturday, 15th July 2017
Venue: National Gallery of Australia
FREE | Registration essential: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-art-of-attribution-the-catalogue-raisonne-in-the-21st-century-tickets-34786859433

The NGA and the Australian Institute of Art History at the University of Melbourne are co-hosting a one-day symposium on the significance and challenges of compiling a catalogue raisonné.

The catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive listing of the known works by an artist or group, and may be limited in its scope to a particular medium or date range. In Australia, a number of key catalogues raisonnés have been published on artists such as Tom Roberts, George Lambert, Margaret Preston, Bea Maddock, John Brack, and most recently Rupert Bunny. Dialogue around such projects, and their role in the 21st century, provides a meeting point for academia, the museum sector and the wider art world.

As the first forum solely focused on the catalogue raisonné to be held in Australia, this event will be relevant to curators, art historians and other scholars, and representatives of artist estates. Eminent speakers who have either completed a catalogue raisonné or are working towards publication will provide compelling insights into the issues and practicalities of these vast projects, and their management from development to publication. Presenters will address a range of issues, including the merits of digital versus printed publications, how to manage contested or altered/lost works, and the role of living artists and artist estates.

The keynote address will be given by Diana Dethloff, who is working on a catalogue raisonné and forthcoming exhibition of seventeenth-century British portraitist Peter Lely (1618-1680) with the National Portrait Gallery in London. Other confirmed speakers include Roger Butler, Daniel Thomas, David Thomas, Irena Zdanowicz, Anne Gray, Sasha Grishin, Martin Gascoigne and Emma Kindred. The discussion will reveal scholarship around artists from different periods, including contemporary artists working across diverse media.

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