I love and adore the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra. Its Aboriginal art is unsurpassed. But its modern international collection is also stunning. There are examples of the best of the best. One of my favourites is this one by David Hockney - A diver.
The NGA's website says this about this work:
"In the late 1970s Hockney was intrigued by the expressive qualities of paper pulp which prompted him to embrace colour and scale. Taking the swimming pool as his subject, he explored the ripples of reflection on the steps, the diving board, and the effect of light and shadow on the water at different times of day by painting with liquid paper pulp. The pinnacle of the series is A diver, which depicts the splash of water created by the body as it enters the pool."It is made from twelve abutted sheets of handcrafted sheets of hand-coloured pressed paper pulp.
(To the left of this painting is another Hockney - A Bigger Grand Canyon. Nearby is Lucien Freud's After Cezanne and Andy Warhol's undisputed masterpiece, Blue Poles. There's works by William de Kooning, Francis bacon, one of the world's largest collections of Roy Lichtenstein's works, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet....and of course, great Australian, Pacific and Asian art.
No comments:
Post a Comment