Major exhibition to celebrate ‘dangerously modern’ trailblazing Australian women artists
A big exhibition of Australia’s pioneering women artists who overcame social constraints is slated for the state art galleries of NSW and South Australia next year.
A major exhibition aiming to reinsert “dangerously modern” trailblazing women artists into the Australian art canon will be presented at the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales next year.
“Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940” will exhibit more than 200 works of art by 50 female artists, who were part of a wave of Australian women who overcame social constraints and travelled to Europe to pursue successful careers as artists at the turn of the twentieth century.
“They had these incredible achievements, they were visible in Europe,” the exhibition’s co-curator Tracey Lock said.
“But where are their names? Where are their names in books on Australian art history?
“They were active and exhibiting their work in Europe, their works were being collected in Europe.”
Ms Lock said the exhibition would reveal the artists’ “vital role in the global story of modernism”.
“It’s really a story that hasn’t been comprehensively told in Australia before,” she said.
“Their work was excellent, it was well-received and it did have a lasting impact.”
The exhibition’s name comes from an article written by artist Thea Proctor, who, upon her return from Europe, was surprised to find that her work was regarded as “dangerously modern” in Australia.
“People were taken aback by the fact it did not look real in a photographic sense,” Ms Lock said.
“But for us as the curators of this exhibition, the great danger was to come, and that was in the postwar period in Australia, the legacies of these women artists were placed in danger.
“These travelling women were at risk of triple obscurity … they were women, they were working outside of Australia, and they were producing subjects that did not align with a national agenda.”
The exhibition will include paintings, prints, sculptures and ceramics, and builds on the AGNSW and AGSA’s strong history of acquiring works by female artists.
It will feature works from Marie Tuck, Gladys Reynell, Margaret Preston, Bessie Davidson, Dorrit Black, Stella Bowen, Anne Dangar and Grace Cossington Smith.
Works from Thea Proctor and Grace Crowley will also be exhibited, including Crowley’s 1930 painting “Miss Gwen Ridley”, which Ms Lock said was “the earliest example of cubism in Australian art”.
The exhibition will premiere at AGSA, where it will be presented from 24 May to 7 September 2025 before moving to the Art Gallery of NSW from 10 October to 1 February 2026.
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