Cubism was a movement that changed fundamentally the course of twentieth-century art. "Cubism and Australian Art" shows the impact of this revolutionary and transformative movement on Australian painting from the early twentieth century to the present day. The book traces the first manifestations of Cubism in Australian art in the 1920s, when artists studying overseas under leading cubist artists began to transform their art. By the 1940s, artists working within the canon of modernism referred to Cubism as part of their evolutionary process, and following World War II Cubism's reverberations were being felt as part of the abstraction movement. Cubism continues to have an influence on contemporary art by giving the geometric basis from which to seek an inner meaning beneath surface appearances, the exploration of the spiritual dimension of painting and a key to understanding modernism. More than eighty international and Australian artists are showcased with over 200 works featuring Alexander Archipenko, George Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Leger and Pablo Picasso as well as Margaret Preston, Roy de Maistre, Dorrit Black, Sam Atyeo, Grace Crowley and Adrian Lawlor.

About the Author

Lesley Harding joined Heide Museum of Modern Art as Curator in 2005. She has curatorial experience spanning fifteen years and is an art historian specialising in Australian modernism. She has a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts and English Literature, Postgraduate diploma in Art Curatorial Studies, and MA in Art History from the University of Melbourne. She is completing a PhD in the University's School of Culture & Communication which examines modernist mural painting in Australia and its socio-political context, for which she received an Australian Postgraduate Award. Lesley has also worked as a freelance curator and writer and regularly publishes and lectures on modernist and contemporary Australian art. Sue Cramer joined Heide Museum of Modern Art as Public Programs Co-ordinator in 2005 and in January 2009 took up the position of Curator.