A modern turn

Ian Armstrong, Yvonne Atkinson, George Bell, Richard Beck, Barbara Brash, Dorothy Braund, Geoffrey Brown, Lina Bryans, Sybil Craig, Grace Crowley, George Duncan, Ian Fairweather, Hugh Frankland, William Frater, Douglas Green, Kate Janeba, Arthur Lindsay, Lionel Lindsay, Godfrey Miller, John Nixon, Marjorie North, Shona Nunan, Margaret Pestell, Margaret Preston, Guelda Pyke, Klytie Pate, Peter Purves Smith, Elma Roach, Arnold Shore, Wolfgang Sievers, Clive Stephen, Constance Stokes, Alan Sumner, Eric Thake, Albert Tucker, Danila Vassilieff and Marjorie Woolcock.

A modern turn focusses on the post WW2 period when a gentle Modernism was embraced by many Australian artists and seeped into the work of even the most conservative of artists. Featuring works from Castlemaine Art Museum's art and social history collections, A modern turn includes painting, works on paper, sculpture, ceramics, photography and a special appearance of an egg sizer from its museum. The exhibition includes popular artists as well as lesser-known works in the collection, many are exhibited here for the first time. Artists and teachers George Bell and Arnold Shore are included. The influence of Bell in particular permeates throughout the exhibition in the work of his students, including local artist Yvonne Atkinson. The exhibition features some of CAM's extensive holdings of the works of Dorothy Braund whose delicate gouaches celebrate the human body in all its shapes and forms. She was a student of both George Bell and Alan Sumner. Born a generation later, significant Melbourne Artist, John Nixon (1949 - 2020) has been included for his rigorous embrace of early Modernism in particular the work of Kasimir Malevich and the Russian Constructivists.