28 October 2005 - 5 February 2006
Spanning the first 50 years of European settlement, this delightful exhibition of 117 works of art chronicles the growth of Adelaide from a fledgling colony to a sophisticated city. It reveals early Adelaide as a lively centre of cultural, social, sporting, civic and industrial activity. From an idea of pencil on paper, to bricks and mortar, the city’s unique history is viewed through the eyes of its earliest artists.
The life of the colony was recorded within days of the first
landing in December 1836. By 1840,
Adelaide had a progressive arts community attracting amateurs as
well as some of the finest
artists working in colonial Australia. Thirty-three artists are
represented in Visions of Adelaide
including S.T. Gill, John Michael Skipper, George Fife Angas,
Alexander Schramm and Eugene
von Guérard. The state’s first professional woman artist, Martha
Berkeley features alongside the
work of Mary Hindmarsh, youngest daughter of the colony’s first
Governor, John Hindmarsh.
Rare watercolour paintings by Adelaide’s Surveyor-General
Colonel William Light are a highlight.
These early pictures of Adelaide are valued not only for their
aesthetic qualities but also as
historic records of social and environmental change. Images of
splendid new sandstone
buildings, bustling street scenes and a thriving Port Adelaide
point to South Australia’s civic pride
and rapid industrial growth during the first decades. Other
works show the changing relations
between European settlers and the Kaurna and Njarrindjeri
People, and the devastating impact
of settlement on the richly-vegetated open woodland and
forests.
Works have been drawn principally from the collection of the Art
Gallery of South Australia, with
loans from the Adelaide City Council Archives, State Library of
South Australia, South Australian
Museum and the University of Adelaide as well as from private
collections. Many works are new
acquisitions or works not seen before in Adelaide, selected from
other major public collections
such as the National Library of Australia, Canberra and the
Mitchell Library, Sydney.
Visions of Adelaide is proudly sponsored by BankSA. It has
been curated by Tracey Lock-Weir,
the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Curator of Australian Art
who is also author of the
accompanying exhibition book. Lock-Weir has undertaken extensive
research in preparation for
this exhibition, uncovering some of the earliest depictions of
the city and locating the sites of
many of the images in the exhibition.
Visions of Adelaide brings a new focus to these rare
and
early images of the city, and recognises the substantial
artistic legacy of the early history of
Adelaide.
Major sponsor
