From Freda Kahlo to Arthur Boyd: Narratives in 20th Century

Join us for this 2 part art history course.

Many contemporary artists claim that their art has its own internal narrative but, throughout history, many arts have chosen to tell visual stories illustrating cause driven themes. This term, in the first session the artists chosen will be Diego Rivera, Freda Kahlo, Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd.

Session One: Rivera and Kahlo are seen as a volatile couple, who together and individually created images which convey Mexican culture and history in ways that stimulate the senses and remain in the imagination as unforgettable.

Session Two: Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd are two Australian painters who set out to create settler folk stories. Although abstract painting in the fifties and sixties was favoured by many of their contemporaries, Nolan and Boyd remained figurative narrative painters.

If McCahon claimed New Zealand was 'a land with too few lovers', these Australian painters felt Australia was a land with too few heroes. If Nolan is best known for his Ned Kelly series, he also tells the story of a spectacular but unforgiving landscape. Boyd, on the other hand, ventures into encounters between disoriented settlers and the indigenous people of Australia and his legends arise out of the spirit of the land.