0:00:10 > 0:00:15A place of golden beaches and bodies, barbecues and bikinis,
0:00:15 > 0:00:18endless empty land,
0:00:18 > 0:00:21Sydney Harbour, but art and culture?
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Australia's been my home for over 30 years.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33And I have often thought about the first settlers who landed here
0:00:33 > 0:00:37on this fatal shore over two centuries ago.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40To these strangers,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43this place seemed utterly devoid of civilisation.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Of course, they were wrong.
0:00:49 > 0:00:55But how could these often reluctant arrivals make a new life?
0:00:55 > 0:00:59Let alone come to feel at home in an empty,
0:00:59 > 0:01:01disturbing and distant wilderness?
0:01:03 > 0:01:04I want to explore how art
0:01:04 > 0:01:10and artists played their roles in this unfolding drama.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12From early settlement till today,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16I am taking a trip deep into the art of Australia.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22'This is one of the great icons of Australian art.'
0:01:22 > 0:01:24Hi, Ben.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27'I'll be looking at the work of significant artists,
0:01:27 > 0:01:29'both past and present.'
0:01:29 > 0:01:33What is it with this lurid, lurid yellow?
0:01:33 > 0:01:37'Their work reveals much about Australia's identity
0:01:37 > 0:01:38'and how it's evolved.'
0:01:39 > 0:01:42She's going up, but she's going down.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46'For me, Australian art has always been a big part of the quest
0:01:46 > 0:01:51'to make sense of this vast continent and our place in it.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56'Its haunting landscapes, its ever-present dangers.'
0:01:59 > 0:02:03'Its dramatic and controversial history.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06'And of course its great beauty.'
0:02:12 > 0:02:15'Australian art reflects the development of a unique
0:02:15 > 0:02:17'and incredibly diverse culture.'
0:02:25 > 0:02:27- Holding that.- Who's for an ice cream?
0:02:30 > 0:02:35It's a great story. This is my journey into how it all happened.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38The story of the art of Australia.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11When it comes to honouring its war dead, Australia is unique.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Unlike Europe and America,
0:03:15 > 0:03:19the National Day of Remembrance is April 25th -
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Anzac Day.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28The day in 1915 when the new nation went to war under British command.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36This was just over a decade
0:03:36 > 0:03:40after Australia's separate colonies had unified.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44Artistically, Australia's own brand of impressionism
0:03:44 > 0:03:46had helped define the nation's identity.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50But proving itself as a country
0:03:50 > 0:03:55started with a terrible rite of passage on a faraway battlefield.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01Artist George Lambert produced a massive painting of what happened.
0:04:02 > 0:04:07It takes pride of place here in the Australian War Memorial.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09The landing at Gallipoli.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15Lambert was already a renowned portrait painter.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19But there's a grim sense of the anonymous in this painting.
0:04:21 > 0:04:26Soldiers crawling up these lethal cliffs like ants.
0:04:26 > 0:04:31As one critic noted, it has the "uncanny lack of anything
0:04:31 > 0:04:36"individual or personal in the scrambling, crawling khaki figures."
0:04:38 > 0:04:42It's like these soldiers are being consumed by the landscape.
0:04:46 > 0:04:51This, such a defining moment in Australian history,
0:04:51 > 0:04:55has been captured by Lambert in a curiously objective way.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Even visitors complained on first seeing the painting
0:04:59 > 0:05:02that there was a lack of action and the terror of war.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08I think this is a modern, unheroic image of war.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14Lambert was a flamboyant, theatrical character.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18But now he was under orders to sombrely record
0:05:18 > 0:05:22how Australian troops had scaled precipitous cliffs
0:05:22 > 0:05:24under relentless Turkish gunfire.
0:05:25 > 0:05:31Gallipoli wasted over 8,000 lives for no military advantage.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37It marked Australia's national coming of age.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47Even for such a dramatic, historical moment as Gallipoli,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50Lambert painted a very dispassionate picture.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56Especially when compared to work by soldiers in the trenches.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00One of them was Napier Waller.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05He sketched the war not as an observer, but as a participant.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10In May 1917, his right arm, his painting arm, was blown off.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15Later, using his left hand,
0:06:15 > 0:06:18he drew himself being stretchered from the battlefield.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23It's just one example of an amazing visual record
0:06:23 > 0:06:25from ordinary soldiers.
0:06:31 > 0:06:32This is The Anzac Book.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37It's the most wonderful collection of sketches
0:06:37 > 0:06:42and stories made by the soldiers in the trenches.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48Here, a wonderful drawing, done in 1915.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53Luxuries for the Turks. Here's the luxuries, a box full of bombs.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00These drawings touched people deeply,
0:07:00 > 0:07:05their mischievous humour defined the Australian response to war.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09It helped people deal with the loss of so many.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15Gallipoli, 1915, and underneath, written in pencil,
0:07:15 > 0:07:19"At the landing and here ever since."
0:07:19 > 0:07:23It's a drawing that's full of poignancy and humour.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27A bestseller when it was first published in 1916,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30The Anzac Book's rugged egalitarianism
0:07:30 > 0:07:35and wry stoicism illustrates how war shaped the national character.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40'Australia still has official war artists.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45'And they now have more freedom to explore the realities of war.'
0:07:45 > 0:07:46Hi, Ben.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48Looks great, looks great.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51'Portrait painter Ben Quilty is one of them.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53'A star on the contemporary art scene,
0:07:53 > 0:07:59'he recently joined Australian forces in Afghanistan.'
0:07:59 > 0:08:02The idea of a war artist seems, sort of, a bit archaic, doesn't it?
0:08:02 > 0:08:05It's funny, I thought that, too. I thought, "What can I do?
0:08:05 > 0:08:08"What am I going to do? How can I fit in?"
0:08:08 > 0:08:12I was in a navy-blue uniform, so I'd be shot first, I was sure of that.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17And the Lamberts, they took a sort of a view of the heroism of war.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19You've done almost the opposite
0:08:19 > 0:08:22and gone straight into the agonies of war.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27I think we see the heroism through the film footage that news cameramen
0:08:27 > 0:08:30take of men under fire.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32So, I think the role back then was to tell the story
0:08:32 > 0:08:35that a news cameraman tells now.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37Contemporary art's more about the human condition
0:08:37 > 0:08:42and the great big panorama of life, I guess.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Life and death in a war zone.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50You live under constant threat, there is nowhere safe on the base.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54The first night I was there, three rockets came in.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03This is a tortured soul, I mean, what have you done to these people?
0:09:03 > 0:09:06All three of these men have post-traumatic stress disorder.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08I asked them to pick the pose,
0:09:08 > 0:09:10something that summed up their whole experience.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12For Lance Corporal M, he just said,
0:09:12 > 0:09:15"I'm just exhausted." And he just lay down.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20- So, these three...- Yes.- ..they all said, "This is how I feel."- Yes.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21Really?
0:09:22 > 0:09:25'Quilty's work has the brutal honesty
0:09:25 > 0:09:28'first seen in The Anzac Book.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30'Yet after World War I,
0:09:30 > 0:09:35'there was an altogether contrasting artistic response to the suffering.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39'Many craved a return to a world before the mud and death
0:09:39 > 0:09:41'of the trenches.'
0:09:42 > 0:09:45'The heroes in South Australian artist
0:09:45 > 0:09:48'Hans Heysen's work are gum trees.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51'He worked on this painting, Droving Into The Light,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54'throughout the war years.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56'It would have been a comforting vision of home,
0:09:56 > 0:10:00'as tens of thousands were dying in France.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02'People loved Heysen.
0:10:02 > 0:10:07'Reproductions of his work hung in thousands of Australian homes.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11'Ironically, while painting this ode to the bush,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14'the German-born artist was treated with suspicion
0:10:14 > 0:10:15'and racially taunted.'
0:10:17 > 0:10:22'Instead of conflict, artists painted rural scenes.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26'Elioth Gruner made this picture in 1919.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28'He called it Spring Frost.'
0:10:31 > 0:10:37This is an immensely popular painting. Why? It's Arcadian.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43It's unconfronting. It's reaffirming. It takes no risks.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45It's a kind of retreat to certainty.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49'Gruner painted it from life.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51'It was so cold as he worked,
0:10:51 > 0:10:55'he wrapped his legs in sacks to avoid frostbite.'
0:10:56 > 0:11:02'These paintings represent a desire to erase the horrors of the time.
0:11:02 > 0:11:08'But war and the changes it brought would force art to move on.'
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Getting over the war was a time for nation-building.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16For a celebration of our society and for the great and the good.
0:11:25 > 0:11:30This was embodied in the creation of an event in 1921 that would
0:11:30 > 0:11:35become the biggest day in the Australian art calendar -
0:11:35 > 0:11:37the Archibald Prize.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43It's awarded annually for the best new portrait painting
0:11:43 > 0:11:46of a man or woman distinguished in
0:11:46 > 0:11:49the arts, letters, science or politics.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52When it first began, there were a few dozen entries,
0:11:52 > 0:11:54now there are hundreds.
0:12:05 > 0:12:10The prize was founded by an eccentric media proprietor,
0:12:10 > 0:12:12John Feltham Archibald.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19From the 1880s, he published The Bulletin.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22It reflected attitudes to race at the time
0:12:22 > 0:12:27and was quick to lampoon those who became too big for their boots.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32It's ironic then that the prize which bears Archibald's name
0:12:32 > 0:12:37was and still is such an unbridled celebration of Australian success.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42He loved all things French
0:12:42 > 0:12:48and even changed his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53The Archibald Prize lives on.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57These days, it's more about fame.
0:13:00 > 0:13:05But the early winners were, like Australia, conservative.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09George Lambert won the prize in 1927 with this
0:13:09 > 0:13:12picture of Rupert Murdoch's grandmother, Annie.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28What a contrast these portraits of today are
0:13:28 > 0:13:30to those of the early 1920s.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35All of those worthy citizens, so staid, so solid,
0:13:35 > 0:13:37so safe, so reliable.
0:13:39 > 0:13:40It was the reassurance.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45But thankfully change was on the horizon.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54A small band of artists rejected stuffy portraits
0:13:54 > 0:13:58and embraced the European modernist movement.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02In the 1920s, buoyed by a massive new migration scheme
0:14:02 > 0:14:05to bring people from Britain, Australia was growing.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Artists were enthralled by progress brought about by mechanisation
0:14:10 > 0:14:13and mass production.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15But not all change was welcomed.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Foreign influences were viewed with suspicion.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23As was the fact that many of the leading modern artists were women.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Though she came from a highly respectable English family,
0:14:29 > 0:14:33her uncle a private chaplain to Queen Victoria,
0:14:33 > 0:14:36when it came to modern art, Grace Cossington Smith
0:14:36 > 0:14:39was something of a radical innovator.
0:14:39 > 0:14:44In 1917, she painted soldiers parading through Sydney's streets.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48It's one of Australia's earliest modernist paintings.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54By 1925, Cossington Smith was celebrating the growing city,
0:14:54 > 0:14:56rising up to a luminous blue sky.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02And Margaret Preston made a print of Sydney's bustling Circular Quay,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05with vibrant lines and bold colours.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16In the late 1920s,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19these first modernists were given further inspiration
0:15:19 > 0:15:24with the rise of a man-made structure so modern and so massive,
0:15:24 > 0:15:26it couldn't be ignored.
0:15:28 > 0:15:34Across Sydney Harbour, a giant archway was taking shape.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45I've got to admit, I don't have a great head for heights,
0:15:45 > 0:15:49so I've been avoiding this for ages.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51But it is spectacular.
0:15:51 > 0:15:53It is dramatic.
0:15:53 > 0:15:59And when I think of building this 80 years ago, with these workers,
0:15:59 > 0:16:02the steelworkers sort of flying around up here,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06treading carefully across beams and then swinging from beams,
0:16:06 > 0:16:10and looking at this incredible structure, it is amazing.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15There's 39,000 tonnes of steel in this structure,
0:16:15 > 0:16:18and over six million of these rivets.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23It is one of the great wonders of the modern world.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32Paid for with British loans and built from British steel,
0:16:32 > 0:16:37this was nonetheless the great symbol of a modern Australia.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43You can imagine the impact that the building of this bridge had
0:16:43 > 0:16:46upon the people of Australia.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48At that time, there was a depression,
0:16:48 > 0:16:52and here they were building this great steel leviathan
0:16:52 > 0:16:55reaching across Sydney Harbour, and people looked at this thing
0:16:55 > 0:16:58and they said, "If we can build this, we can do anything."
0:17:05 > 0:17:08So it's not surprising modernists were drawn to it
0:17:08 > 0:17:10like moths to a flame.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18For Grace Cossington Smith, the bridge touched the sublime.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21In the curve of the bridge,
0:17:21 > 0:17:25radiating arcs of light shine like glittering halos.
0:17:27 > 0:17:33In The Bridge In Curve, the same exultant energy can be seen.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37But in 1930, the conservative Sydney Society of Artists
0:17:37 > 0:17:41declined to exhibit this hardly radical work of modern art.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48Her painting is more a picture of the imagination.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52It's bright, it's colourful, it's optimistic, it's modernist.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56I think the real drama of the construction
0:17:56 > 0:18:01of this great bridge was better captured not by painters,
0:18:01 > 0:18:03but by artists in another modernist medium -
0:18:03 > 0:18:05photography.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23French-born Henri Mallard climbed all over the bridge
0:18:23 > 0:18:27to document its progress and revel in its scale.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36His photographs bring alive the drama of construction
0:18:36 > 0:18:40and reveal a real eye for composition.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43There is a dynamic, masculine energy in them.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48Mallard photographed the bridge
0:18:48 > 0:18:52from almost exactly the same spot as Cossington Smith's painting,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55but he came up with a world of heavy industry
0:18:55 > 0:18:57and monumental construction.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10This energy wasn't limited to photography.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13The thrill of progress meant modern design of all kinds
0:19:13 > 0:19:15was increasingly fashionable.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19In the 1930s, new styles, including Art Deco,
0:19:19 > 0:19:24were embraced by advertising and popular culture.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26As memories of the war began to fade,
0:19:26 > 0:19:31the hedonism for which Australia is so well known emerged.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36Of course, the most famous space for this was the beach.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41Bondi. This is an absolute mecca
0:19:41 > 0:19:44for beach bunnies, tourists, surfers and swimmers.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48But way back in the 1930s,
0:19:48 > 0:19:53the modernist photographers came down here for quite another reason.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56They saw these bodies as part of the modern world,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59as components in a great construction,
0:19:59 > 0:20:03a great composition, not unlike the Harbour Bridge.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09George Caddy was a hedonist to the core,
0:20:09 > 0:20:14a prize-winning professional dancer nicknamed The Bondi Jitterbug.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16But he wasn't strictly ballroom.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20When he wasn't dancing, he was hanging out on Bondi Beach,
0:20:20 > 0:20:24capturing on camera the fad of "Beachobatics".
0:20:31 > 0:20:37These amazing pictures were only rediscovered in 2007.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40They reveal the figure as a sort of human Meccano.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48They were a celebration of Australian vitality,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50a show of physical prowess,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53with the beach the primary stage for this display.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00The beach was the literal embodiment of modern Australia,
0:21:00 > 0:21:05and in 1937, Max Dupain symbolised it most famously
0:21:05 > 0:21:07in this photograph.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10Max Dupain's Sunbaker is one of
0:21:10 > 0:21:14the great modernist images of Australian art.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18It all looks very natural, but of course, it isn't.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22It's a very studied composition. It's almost classical,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26with the body shaped like a low pyramid.
0:21:26 > 0:21:33In Sunbaker, Australian physicality is a monument worthy of celebration.
0:21:33 > 0:21:39Strong but relaxed, beautiful, but safely avoiding the overtly erotic.
0:21:46 > 0:21:51Such was the pull of the beach that painting soon followed photography.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Charles Meere's Beach Pattern has a photographic quality.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06People are frozen like statues.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16It's an impressive but strange, almost surreal, painting.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21Grand, statuesque, posed heroic figures.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24And these idealised bodies,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27all marshalled into the intensity of a composition.
0:22:28 > 0:22:33I often think of it as some kind of modernist beach utopia.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35Certainly, there is nothing natural about it.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39And apparently, Meere, when he was painting this,
0:22:39 > 0:22:42never actually went near the beach.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46Beach Pattern turned going for a swim
0:22:46 > 0:22:48into something almost heroic.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53It embodied how Australians saw themselves by the end of the 1930s.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56Confident, optimistic, white.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02Everyone ready, and...action.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05This was a time when the immigration of anyone
0:23:05 > 0:23:09not white or British was heavily restricted.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12The era of the White Australia policy.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16It turned Beach Pattern into a potent symbol
0:23:16 > 0:23:18of the ideal Australian.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22Over time, as Australia's make-up changed,
0:23:22 > 0:23:26Meere's vision became open to parody and subversion.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29The work of leading contemporary photographer
0:23:29 > 0:23:31Anne Zahalka echoes this change.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37She first reinvented Meere's picture in 1989,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41to comment on the changing ethnic make-up of Australia,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45and as this continues with wave after wave of migration,
0:23:45 > 0:23:48she returns to it. In this latest version,
0:23:48 > 0:23:52an ever more diverse group embrace the beach.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54Holding that...
0:23:54 > 0:23:56Excellent.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00People were not being represented
0:24:00 > 0:24:05within these dominant popular images of Australia,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08so I wanted to inject kind of the new breed
0:24:08 > 0:24:11and blood into a scene like this.
0:24:11 > 0:24:12Hold that.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14Good.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19That now is a very democratic, egalitarian image.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21- It's terrific.- Yeah.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Well, I think the beach is a great leveller.
0:24:24 > 0:24:32I think it does allow us to kind of be equal and to share a space.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34Eve, leaning back a bit more.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38And Angel, you can come forward a little bit more this way.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42It is one of the most popular images
0:24:42 > 0:24:44at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, I understand,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47so people do somehow identify with it.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49It's an image that strikes a chord with people.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52It's sort of how Australians want to see themselves,
0:24:52 > 0:24:54and yet it doesn't represent.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56- I always think of that as a very Aryan picture.- Yeah, totally.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58I think Hitler would have loved it.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Well, it's sort of almost, you know, just before the war,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05so it's kind of... It is of that time.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07- Who's for an ice cream? - Come on, Edmund. Perform for me.
0:25:07 > 0:25:09Perform for the camera.
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Nice. Very nice.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15Brilliant. Thanks. Thank you.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26The Aryan flavour of Beach Pattern
0:25:26 > 0:25:30points to the contrast in 1930s Australia.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33There was the thrill of progress, fun in the sun,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37but also xenophobia, extremism and the Depression.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42Australian modernism, so far pretty safe and decorative,
0:25:42 > 0:25:45failed to confront these contradictions.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48This was about to change.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51The turning point came when modern artists began to arrive
0:25:51 > 0:25:56from Europe, where the dark clouds of war were gathering again.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59These artists, who had seen
0:25:59 > 0:26:02the worst of war and its aftermath in Europe,
0:26:02 > 0:26:07went out into the streets to paint the darker side of urban life.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13And they inspired and encouraged other local artists to do the same.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18Leaving Warsaw to escape anti-Semitism,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22Yosl Bergner arrived in 1937, aged just 17.
0:26:25 > 0:26:30He instantly related to the plight of an urban underclass.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Bergner painted the most challenging picture from this era,
0:26:37 > 0:26:39Aborigines In Fitzroy.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43This painting was among the very few
0:26:43 > 0:26:47to depict indigenous people since the 1860s.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50But works of this kind didn't sell.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56Even more influential was a charismatic refugee
0:26:56 > 0:26:59from Soviet Russia, Danila Vassilieff.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Instead of bronzed bodies, he painted this picture,
0:27:04 > 0:27:07Poverty And Prostitution.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12Instead of sun and sand, he painted darkness and depression.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17This encouraged a new generation of Australian artists
0:27:17 > 0:27:22to make social comment, beginning a trend that's alive and well.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30Today, Melbourne is well known for its street art,
0:27:30 > 0:27:32which is often dismissed as mere vandalism.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37But that's nothing compared to the violent row
0:27:37 > 0:27:42that erupted in 1939 over what counted as art.
0:27:46 > 0:27:48It began when a media baron
0:27:48 > 0:27:52challenged the conservative art establishment head on.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00Rupert Murdoch's father Keith
0:28:00 > 0:28:04staged an exhibition of 217 paintings
0:28:04 > 0:28:07by the great European modernists.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11The exhibition opened here, at the Melbourne Town Hall.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16It was Australia's first blockbuster art exhibition.
0:28:16 > 0:28:18The impact was electrifying.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28Imagine walking around down here in 1939
0:28:28 > 0:28:32and seeing on the walls of this very room
0:28:32 > 0:28:34paintings by Van Gogh,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37Matisse, Picasso, Dali.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40Little wonder that the younger generation of artists
0:28:40 > 0:28:42flocked to see these paintings.
0:28:42 > 0:28:47On the first day, 2,000 people were turned away,
0:28:47 > 0:28:52and a staggering 30,000 saw it in the first week.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55Seeing these now famous works of art in the flesh
0:28:55 > 0:28:58had a powerful impact on young artists,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01and further jolted Australian art from its complacency.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04But there was a fiery backlash.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10JS MacDonald, the director of the National Gallery of Victoria,
0:29:10 > 0:29:15dismissed artists like Picasso as "perverts and degenerates".
0:29:16 > 0:29:19The big galleries overlooked the opportunity
0:29:19 > 0:29:23to buy many pictures, today worth millions.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Australia could have had one of the great collections of modern art,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32but for a young country on the brink of another war,
0:29:32 > 0:29:35it was the wrong time and the wrong place
0:29:35 > 0:29:37for this so-called radical art.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41But the cat was out of the bag.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44It increased the public's acceptance of modern art.
0:29:47 > 0:29:52This gave artists the inspiration to be bolder, just as war began,
0:29:52 > 0:29:55a war that would see the bright optimism
0:29:55 > 0:29:57of the earlier modernists eclipsed.
0:30:08 > 0:30:13Australia followed Britain into battle once again in 1939,
0:30:13 > 0:30:17but this time there was an enemy on the doorstep - Japan.
0:30:21 > 0:30:25And, after the fall of Singapore in 1942,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28Britain would not be there to protect Australia.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34At this time, the Australian War Memorial was building
0:30:34 > 0:30:38its central shrine, commemorating the sacrifice of the first war.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44The sacred space decorated by none other than Napier Waller,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47the soldier-artist who, after losing his arm,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50had turned to mosaics and stained glass.
0:30:51 > 0:30:56But, if World War I had led to a retreat to safety and conservatism
0:30:56 > 0:31:02in art, World War II was about to have the very opposite effect.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05A new generation of artists were deeply affected by it.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07Not in any patriotic sense -
0:31:07 > 0:31:11they were drawn directly into the terror and anxiety of war.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17Albert Tucker was a follower of Vassilieff.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22In 1941, he painted a bleak vision of urban poverty,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25ironically titled Spring In Fitzroy.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34A year later, Tucker was stationed at a local military hospital...
0:31:36 > 0:31:38..where he drew and painted
0:31:38 > 0:31:41the appalling wounds of injured soldiers.
0:31:54 > 0:31:59Following his discharge, he returned to Melbourne, deeply affected.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04He saw ugly moral decay all around him, and neither his paintings
0:32:04 > 0:32:07nor his view of wartime Australia were a pretty sight.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13Tucker's paintings, like Victory Girls,
0:32:13 > 0:32:16attacked the moral collapse he saw war bring.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22Drunken American GIs with pig-like faces, groping women.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27Caricatures of prostitution, wrapped in patriotic colours.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32Never had Australian art been so angry, so sarcastic,
0:32:32 > 0:32:34so openly sexual.
0:32:42 > 0:32:48It was hard to ignore, especially for an unconventional couple,
0:32:48 > 0:32:50John and Sunday Reed.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54Heirs to great wealth, they had the money to nurture
0:32:54 > 0:32:59the first new art movement since Australian Impressionism,
0:32:59 > 0:33:04throwing open their home, making it a space where creativity was king.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06This was Heide.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09This beautiful, tranquil,
0:33:09 > 0:33:13benign house that was once a dairy farm, this was to become
0:33:13 > 0:33:18an absolute hotbed of radical politics and radical art.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21The passions and feelings and debates
0:33:21 > 0:33:26that were aroused in that house shaped modern Australian art.
0:33:34 > 0:33:39They called Heide an open house of table and mind.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41In these rooms, artists like Vassilieff,
0:33:41 > 0:33:44Albert Tucker and his wife Joy Hester
0:33:44 > 0:33:49immersed themselves in the cultural and intellectual trends of Europe.
0:33:49 > 0:33:52They were Australia's home-grown Bloomsbury Set.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58Sunday's best friend, the vivacious Joy Hester,
0:33:58 > 0:34:00was the only other woman in the group.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06Her husband, Albert Tucker, photographed both Joy
0:34:06 > 0:34:09and the vitality of the Heide group in their prime.
0:34:18 > 0:34:23The energy unleashed was always intense and often dark.
0:34:23 > 0:34:28Joy Hester expressed it in her evocative series of human faces.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33Her style was strongly influenced by Vassilieff's
0:34:33 > 0:34:35quick-fire methods of working.
0:34:35 > 0:34:40She painted these on Heide's living room floor as the group socialised.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43Her work is about emotion -
0:34:43 > 0:34:46the face a metaphor for the human condition.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Heide was no place for the faint-hearted.
0:34:51 > 0:34:55It was not only a breeding ground for new ideas, but also
0:34:55 > 0:35:01a sexually-charged atmosphere where the status quo was challenged.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05This was no place for voyeurs. It was a place for participants.
0:35:08 > 0:35:14One participant, Sidney Nolan, was just 21 and newly married
0:35:14 > 0:35:15when he met Sunday Reed.
0:35:18 > 0:35:23He already had a reputation for pushing boundaries.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27In 1940, his painting Boy In The Moon had been
0:35:27 > 0:35:32blasted by the conservative gallery director JS MacDonald.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35He dismissed it as "foreign,
0:35:35 > 0:35:39"a painting that fails to shock or amuse."
0:35:41 > 0:35:47Nolan was agonising over what direction his creativity would take.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50When we became friends, years later, it amazed me
0:35:50 > 0:35:53to learn that Sid might never have become an artist.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58In fact, I remember Sid telling me once that he nearly became a poet
0:35:58 > 0:36:00and not a painter.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03And it was here in the kitchen at Heide
0:36:03 > 0:36:05that he and Sunday would share their love of poetry.
0:36:13 > 0:36:16Sunday and Nolan were drawn together.
0:36:16 > 0:36:22He to the charismatic older woman, she to a singular young talent.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25They began an affair in open view of the others.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28Nolan's marriage collapsed.
0:36:28 > 0:36:32He was desperate for Sunday to leave John, but she wouldn't.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36Reluctantly, John Reed endured the affair.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40However, the war forced Nolan away from Heide and Sunday.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Joining the Home Defence Force, Nolan was stationed
0:36:44 > 0:36:49hundreds of miles inland from Melbourne, in the north of Victoria.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53Nolan wrote, "Being in the Army, I forgot about Paris
0:36:53 > 0:36:57"and Picasso and completely identified with
0:36:57 > 0:36:59"what I was looking at."
0:36:59 > 0:37:03He was surrounded by flat, dry farming country,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07its endless skies pierced only by grain silos
0:37:07 > 0:37:11and, in it, Nolan produced pictures like Wimmera,
0:37:11 > 0:37:15one of the first modernist paintings of the Australian landscape.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25Kiata is another of my favourites.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29In it, Nolan's innovative way of imagining the land
0:37:29 > 0:37:32evokes the feel of the place perfectly.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35But this was just the start.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39Nolan's response to the landscape, to his bittersweet love affair,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43and the war, would drive his creative journey onward.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55The Second World War was more directly experienced than the first.
0:37:57 > 0:37:58Darwin was attacked
0:37:58 > 0:38:03and thousands were conscripted into bloody jungle conflict.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06And Britain was in no position to offer support.
0:38:15 > 0:38:16In 1944,
0:38:16 > 0:38:20fearing he would be sent to the front line in Papua New Guinea,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Nolan left his post.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26First, he laid low in Melbourne.
0:38:26 > 0:38:30In early 1945, he reappeared at Heide.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34This period proved as much of a turning point for Nolan
0:38:34 > 0:38:36as it did for Australia as a whole,
0:38:36 > 0:38:41which emerged from war needing to redefine its place in the world.
0:38:45 > 0:38:50In a burst of intense creative energy, Nolan painted 27 works
0:38:50 > 0:38:53on a single theme that addressed Australian identity head-on.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57He reinvented the art of Australia.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04He chose the story of Ned Kelly,
0:39:04 > 0:39:08the outlaw who fought his last stand with the police
0:39:08 > 0:39:10in his home-made helmet and armour.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15As early as 1906, it was the subject of the world's
0:39:15 > 0:39:20first feature-length film - The Story Of The Kelly Gang.
0:39:21 > 0:39:26Nolan was forever curious and inventive, and the outlaw
0:39:26 > 0:39:32Ned Kelly was the perfect metaphor for him and his mischievous spirit.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35His Kelly has become one of the most powerful symbols
0:39:35 > 0:39:38in Australian art and identity.
0:39:40 > 0:39:45Nolan took Kelly's helmet and framed it into an unforgettable symbol.
0:39:45 > 0:39:50He said he got the idea from modern art in Europe.
0:39:50 > 0:39:55But his earlier painting, Boy In The Moon, had also been a prototype.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57He placed it into the landscape
0:39:57 > 0:40:00because it symbolised Kelly's alienation.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09For Nolan, the ubiquitous Australian landscape was not the objective.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12For him, it was the human drama.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16Nolan's great achievement was to use the Australian landscape
0:40:16 > 0:40:21not as the subject but as the stage, the backdrop for the human story.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26This was unprecedented.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29The paintings take us through the main events of the story.
0:40:29 > 0:40:30Among the many scenes,
0:40:30 > 0:40:34he depicts Constable Fitzpatrick abusing Ned's sister Kate...
0:40:36 > 0:40:41..the Kelly Gang shooting police at Stringybark Creek...
0:40:42 > 0:40:46..and the murder trial which ended in Ned being sentenced to hang.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Why did Nolan choose Kelly as his subject?
0:40:57 > 0:41:01He wanted to interrogate what being Australian really meant.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05Set against the bush, the flat cut-out shape of Kelly
0:41:05 > 0:41:09represents being in the place but not entirely part of it.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14It speaks of harmony with and alienation from the land.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19Nolan perhaps identified with Kelly.
0:41:19 > 0:41:25He, too, was a fugitive from the law until an amnesty in 1948.
0:41:26 > 0:41:30The creation of the Kelly paintings was also intertwined
0:41:30 > 0:41:34with his return to the emotional turmoil of Heide.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44The paintings were made here at the dining room table at Heide.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48Nolan painted them with Sunday virtually in his arms.
0:41:48 > 0:41:49They were that close.
0:41:51 > 0:41:57The menage a trois had, by this stage, been going on for six years.
0:41:57 > 0:41:59The tensions at Heide became too much to bear
0:41:59 > 0:42:03and, after the war, the scene imploded.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09Diagnosed with cancer, and in love with another man,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12Joy Hester left her husband Albert Tucker.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18Their young son was adopted by the Reeds.
0:42:18 > 0:42:23But Sid Nolan still wanted them to split up. Sunday refused.
0:42:26 > 0:42:32Nolan quit Heide. His sudden departure devastated everyone.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36He left Sunday and all his Kelly paintings behind.
0:42:41 > 0:42:44When the Reeds exhibited the 27 Kelly paintings in Melbourne
0:42:44 > 0:42:48soon after, the response was muted.
0:42:48 > 0:42:49Only one sold.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55Never a fan, JS MacDonald said,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00"Nolan has a second-rate boogie-woogie notion of depiction,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03"especially in these Kelly daubs."
0:43:03 > 0:43:06Attacked by the critics, painted by a fugitive,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10it seemed unlikely that Nolan's Kelly paintings would ever
0:43:10 > 0:43:13become the acclaimed works they are today.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27The story of how Australia came to embrace Nolan
0:43:27 > 0:43:32and modern art began when he and other artists turned their attention
0:43:32 > 0:43:36to a place so remote few white people had ever experienced it.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44In 1948, Nolan married John Reed's sister Cynthia.
0:43:48 > 0:43:51The newlyweds embarked on a life-changing journey.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56By now, it was possible to take a train deep inland to
0:43:56 > 0:44:00Alice Springs, gateway to the remote Outback.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10Thanks to this train, artists could now
0:44:10 > 0:44:13leave the cities and the coastal fringe
0:44:13 > 0:44:15and travel inland
0:44:15 > 0:44:19to the real interior, the Red Desert, the Outback.
0:44:20 > 0:44:24And what they saw there would change the soul of Australian art.
0:44:26 > 0:44:30They entered a place of haunting beauty,
0:44:30 > 0:44:34captivating and unsettling in equal measure.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40Nolan began to photograph what he saw.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05He wasn't the only one.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08Painter Russell Drysdale came here
0:45:08 > 0:45:11to record the stark realities of Outback life.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27Sent out by the Sydney Morning Herald to cover the severe drought
0:45:27 > 0:45:33in New South Wales in 1944, his drawings of dead animals and eroded
0:45:33 > 0:45:39landscapes ended up on the breakfast tables of thousands of Australians.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44Drysdale's drawings inspired his painted landscapes.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11His was a surreal and desolate vision of the Outback,
0:46:11 > 0:46:15a land populated by hardy and stoic survivors.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24The Drover's Wife stands impassive against the desiccated landscape,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27accepting the inhospitable surroundings.
0:46:30 > 0:46:35Drysdale said, "Surviving the far regions of the centre
0:46:35 > 0:46:38"demanded a different set of values."
0:46:41 > 0:46:45Sofala is among his most famous works,
0:46:45 > 0:46:49with its melancholic evocation of the heat in the stillness
0:46:49 > 0:46:51of an Outback town.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55But however remote the places depicted
0:46:55 > 0:46:58in these Outback country scenes,
0:46:58 > 0:47:01these artists had only scratched the surface.
0:47:17 > 0:47:22From Alice Springs, Sid and Cynthia Nolan boarded a mail plane.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27It flew over the MacDonnell mountain ranges and, for the first time,
0:47:27 > 0:47:31Nolan saw the vastness of the dry interior from high above.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37The aerial viewpoint made him think hard about this land,
0:47:37 > 0:47:41about its scale and its ancient spirit.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43He raised the horizon line,
0:47:43 > 0:47:46thus emphasising its vast and unending range.
0:47:49 > 0:47:53He said he wanted to know more about the true nature
0:47:53 > 0:47:56of the otherness into which he'd been born.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02Cynthia Nolan recalled,
0:48:02 > 0:48:05"Our foreheads pressed against the glass windows.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08"We found our own land and heard its voice alone."
0:48:10 > 0:48:13Works like Inland Australia were the result.
0:48:13 > 0:48:18The intense colour and eerie shapes evoke this otherness.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21Nolan painted it quickly on a tabletop,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24using photographs he took from the plane.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29But it's not an actual place. It's a fusion of memories -
0:48:29 > 0:48:31what Nolan called a composite picture.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35And there was something else inspiring all this.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38For Nolan and Drysdale, being immersed in the Outback meant
0:48:38 > 0:48:42more than painting the landscape or its white settlers.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45It meant an encounter with Australia's original people
0:48:45 > 0:48:48that was to have profound consequences.
0:48:58 > 0:49:02Nolan took hundreds of photographs of the Aboriginal people
0:49:02 > 0:49:05who lived and worked on the cattle stations he visited.
0:49:06 > 0:49:11At this time, the late '40s, they weren't citizens.
0:49:11 > 0:49:16Officially, they were wards of the state, with few, if any, rights.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22Aboriginal people couldn't vote, couldn't hold office,
0:49:22 > 0:49:25couldn't marry or travel without official permission.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30Their children were routinely taken from them
0:49:30 > 0:49:33and placed in institutions or with white families.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38Permanent separation was rigorously enforced.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Nolan and Cynthia became acutely aware of the yawning gulf
0:49:48 > 0:49:52between the white and indigenous worlds.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02Nolan's view about white culture's place in Australia changed as he
0:50:02 > 0:50:06became more and more impressed with what he saw of indigenous culture.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11He wrote to his friend Albert Tucker, saying of Aboriginal
0:50:11 > 0:50:16people, "They inform the landscape in an extraordinary way.
0:50:16 > 0:50:21"The barrenness and harshness is all in our European eyes and demands."
0:50:23 > 0:50:27This was also true for Russell Drysdale.
0:50:27 > 0:50:33He painted indigenous people with individuality and dignity.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37Shopping Day speaks of alienation
0:50:37 > 0:50:39and society's demand for assimilation.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45But Drysdale doesn't pity his subjects.
0:50:45 > 0:50:51In Group Of Aborigines, they stare back, firmly holding our gaze.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55Drysdale and Nolan championed both the Outback and its people.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03It inspired a huge outpouring of work, which, at long last,
0:51:03 > 0:51:05found favour back in the cities.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09In 1949, a predecessor of mine
0:51:09 > 0:51:14at the Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired this painting,
0:51:14 > 0:51:16Pretty Polly Mine -
0:51:16 > 0:51:20the first public gallery to purchase a Nolan.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24The board of trustees was so shocked, they banned him
0:51:24 > 0:51:27from buying any more pictures without their prior approval.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39But the tide was turning.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43Art reflected how post-war Australia was changing.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54The British Australian monoculture began to broaden.
0:51:54 > 0:51:56The glaring inequalities
0:51:56 > 0:52:01and lack of Aboriginal civil rights began to be questioned.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05The work of another artist would embody these changing attitudes.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08He united the Outback landscape, its people
0:52:08 > 0:52:12and the moral and political issues facing Australia,
0:52:12 > 0:52:15inspired by what he'd witness on this remote track.
0:52:22 > 0:52:27Painter Arthur Boyd had been associated with the Heide scene.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36In 1951, he travelled to a mining town at Arltunga,
0:52:36 > 0:52:40over 100km east of Alice Springs.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51The scenery here is remote and spectacular.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56But what captured Boyd's attention was, in fact,
0:52:56 > 0:52:58the plight of the Aboriginal people.
0:52:59 > 0:53:05On this road, he saw a truck go by, carrying a wedding party.
0:53:07 > 0:53:09The white dresses
0:53:09 > 0:53:12in bizarre contrast to the truck that usually carried cattle.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17It was an image that was to remain with Boyd
0:53:17 > 0:53:20and out of it came his famous Bride paintings.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27The Bride series is among the most bewitching of Australian paintings.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31Today, they fetch record-breaking prices.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34It is because they are both beautiful and incendiary.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41These pictures brought the most taboo of subjects
0:53:41 > 0:53:47glaringly into the light - interracial love and violence.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49But the genius of Boyd is that he did so
0:53:49 > 0:53:54in a hauntingly poetic fashion that went way beyond social comment.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59There are 31 in the series,
0:53:59 > 0:54:03telling moments from a tragic story of the courtship, marriage
0:54:03 > 0:54:08and death of a mixed-race Aboriginal man and his white bride.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16Boyd lends the theme a surreal air.
0:54:16 > 0:54:19Reflected Bride is a memorable image -
0:54:19 > 0:54:24the groom entranced by the reflection of his wife,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27a spectre in a haunting Outback setting.
0:54:36 > 0:54:40The power of these paintings lies in their compassion.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43The depths of feelings - of love, of lust and anguish -
0:54:43 > 0:54:46are almost palpable.
0:54:46 > 0:54:51Boyd instils the human experience with an almost mythic dimension.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02Boyd, Nolan and Drysdale's art
0:55:02 > 0:55:06changed Australia's relationship to itself.
0:55:08 > 0:55:13They not only changed perceptions at home, but overseas.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17Boyd's Bride paintings made his international reputation,
0:55:17 > 0:55:21and in the late '50s he moved to London where Sid Nolan
0:55:21 > 0:55:25and Russell Drysdale already had studios,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28their work well received by critics and audiences.
0:55:33 > 0:55:37Modern art in Australia was finally recognised,
0:55:37 > 0:55:39but decades after Europe.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50The agony of the war, the comfort of tradition,
0:55:50 > 0:55:55and the suspicion modernism aroused restrained its initial promise.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08More radical urges, greater darkness and maturity,
0:56:08 > 0:56:13finally enabled Australian modernism to find an independent voice.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18By 1960, in response to the great otherness of the Outback
0:56:18 > 0:56:22modern art in Australia had come of age.
0:56:29 > 0:56:34It's ironic that having discovered the heart of this continent, three
0:56:34 > 0:56:37of the brightest stars of Australian art were so keen to leave.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41They had a real regard for the indigenous world
0:56:41 > 0:56:44and its culture that they had encountered.
0:56:45 > 0:56:49But there remained a vast gulf between those two worlds.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03Artists had helped to open Australian minds.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06By uncovering what lay at its heart
0:57:06 > 0:57:09they had expanded Australian identity.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16Modern art was a white thing, but that couldn't last.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20Sid Nolan was among the first to grasp
0:57:20 > 0:57:22that there was no turning back.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26In 1949, after seeing some Aboriginal rock art
0:57:26 > 0:57:30on his trip to the Outback, he made a bold prediction.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32He said,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35"I feel sure that in the future the works of many other
0:57:35 > 0:57:38"Australian artists will be hailed in Europe.
0:57:38 > 0:57:43"But I'm of the opinion that the Australian Aborigine is
0:57:43 > 0:57:46"probably the best artist in Australia."
0:57:52 > 0:57:56In the heart of the continent lay an artistic tradition
0:57:56 > 0:57:58that while incredibly ancient,
0:57:58 > 0:58:01to Western eyes looked utterly abstract,
0:58:01 > 0:58:03and therefore stunningly modern.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06Soon the art of Australia would be
0:58:06 > 0:58:11transformed by the revolutionary impact of the abstract
0:58:11 > 0:58:14from both the Red Centre and from overseas.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18The next chapter would allow the art of Australia
0:58:18 > 0:58:23and the country itself not only to shed the baggage of the past,
0:58:23 > 0:58:26but also to reach to the world.
0:58:44 > 0:58:48Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd