The Adelaide Art Scene: Becoming contemporary 1939-2000
Margot Osborne
published by Wakefield Press, Adelaide 2023
in association with Guildhouse and Carrick Hill, with financial support of the South Australian Government’s Department of Premier and Cabinet through Arts South Australia.
Hardback
744 pages, 325 illustrations
ISBN 9781923042025
265 x 225mm
RRP $120
This landmark anthology of new and archival writing on the Adelaide art scene across six decades is a compelling, multi-faceted account of the milieu in which progressive art evolved in Adelaide — through the roles of key artists and of landmark exhibitions, through bursts of maverick art criticism and art activism, through the competitive roles of art societies, the rise and fall of key art galleries, and the changing role of the city’s flagship art museum, the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Across more than 700 pages, lavishly illustrated with more than 300 images of artworks and artists, The Adelaide Art Scene: Becoming contemporary 1939–2000 documents and analyses the particular dynamics of Adelaide’s vibrant and regionally distinctive art world and examines its contribution to the national history of Australian art.
Adelaide-based art specialists, curators and historians who have contributed to the book’s chapters are:
Catherine Speck (consulting editor), Tracey Lock, Richard Heathcote, Dr Adam Dutkiewicz, Dr Georgina Downey, Maria Zagala, Jude Adams, John Neylon, Christopher Reid, Dr Sera Waters, Rebecca Freezer, Dr Philip Jones, Dr Michael Newall, Robert Reason, Doreen Mellor and Nici Cumpston OAM.
This specially commissioned new writing is complemented by ‘From the archives’, comprising some 100 pages of selected writing from across the period 1939 to 2000 – by Daniel Thomas, Max Harris, Ivor Francis, Robert Hughes, Donald Brook, Peter Ward, Stephanie Britton, Timothy Morrell, John Neylon and Ken Bolton, amongst many others.