Under a Modern Sun

Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s

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English

Qld Art Gallery
16 August 2025

Exhibition catalogues & specific collections; Arts & Architecture - Australian

Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s-1950s celebrates a transformative period during which artists introduced new forms of expression to what was then a conservative state. Featuring more than 140 paintings, sculptures, photographs and works of decorative art from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection, this publication showcases a vibrant era of artistic evolution when Queensland's creative landscape began to shift to accommodate fresh approaches. Highlights include artworks by renowned Queensland artists Vida Lahey, Kenneth Macqueen, Daphne Mayo, Margaret Olley and Joe Rootsey, among many others, as well as works by artists from interstate, such as Jon Molvig, Sidney Nolan and Charles Blackman, who travelled north and brought a modernist sensibility to Queensland audiences.

The Under a Modern Sun publication and exhibition of the same name underscore the important role that women artists, including Margaret Cilento, Gwendolyn Grant, Betty Quelhurst, Rose Simmonds and Kathleen Shillam played in fostering artistic practice in Queensland. While many artists chose to illuminate the natural features of Australia's most decentralised state, others focused on symbols of modernity and public infrastructure such as the building of the Grey Street Bridge.

This handsome publication features a curatorial essay by Samantha Littley, Curator, Australian Art, QAGOMA; a contemporary sociopolitical history of Queensland by Peter Spearritt, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Queensland, Brisbane; a list of further reading; and full-colour illustrations of all the artworks in the exhibition.

Imprint: Qld Art Gallery
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 278mm, Width: 236mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 1.690kg
ISBN: 9781925922202
ISBN 10: 1925922200
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 16 August 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Samantha Littley is Curator, Australian Art at QAGOMA, and curator of 'Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s-1950s' and the career retrospective 'eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness' (2023, QAGOMA). Peter Spearritt is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, author of Where History Happened (2018) and co-curator of the University of Queensland Art Museum exhibitions 'Triumph in the Tropics: Selling Queensland' (2009, with Dr Marion Stell) and 'Defending the North: Queensland in the Pacific War' (2005, with Michele Helmrich and Ross Searle).