An expansive exhibition of more than 140 paintings, sculptures, photographs and works of decorative art by Queensland-born artists and those who travelled here in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) presents Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s.
QAGOMA Director Chris Saines said the free exhibition included significant works by Brisbane-based artists William Bustard, WG Grant, Vida Lahey, Daphne Mayo, Carl McConnell, Margaret Olley and Leonard and Kathleen Shillam as well as luminaries from the regions such as Kenneth Macqueen on the Darling Downs and Joe Alimindjin Rootsey (Barrow Point people, Ama Wuriingu clan) who captured his Country in North Queensland.
“In developing the exhibition, Samantha Littley, Curator, Australian Art, QAGOMA has drawn from the Gallery’s extensive holdings of work by Queensland artists, and included seminal artworks by Charles Blackman, Sidney Nolan and Max Dupain who made significant contributions to the development of a modernist sensibility in the state,” said Mr Saines.
The exhibition celebrates a transformative period in Queensland’s cultural and artistic evolution, during which artists introduced new creative approaches to what was then a very conservative climate. It presents a light-filled vision of Queensland and reveals the beginnings of more experimental means of expression here.”
Minister for the Arts John-Paul Langbroek said Under a Modern Sun shares works from the State collection to offer gallery visitors new insights and stories about Queensland as it was experienced last century. “This free exhibition offers a compelling glimpse into a defining era in Queensland’s creative history, sharing the perspectives of some of Australia’s most revered artists,” said Minister Langbroek.
“Under a Modern Sun underscored the vital role that women artists played in fostering art in Queensland, as they worked to introduce the concepts they had encountered In Europe,” said Exhibition curator Samantha Littley.
“Vida Lahey’s paintings of Brisbane’s Central Station and the Grey Street Bridge under construction foreground their subjects as symbols of a rapidly modernising city; while her highly coloured and patterned still lifes were a vehicle through which Lahey similarly expressed modernist ideas.”
“Both Lahey and sculptor Daphne Mayo made extraordinary contributions to art in Queensland through their work, and advocacy for contemporary practice. Their artworks feature alongside works by their peers, including painters Gwendolyn Grant, Betty Quelhurst and Joy Roggenkamp; photographer Rose Simmonds; textile designer Olive Ashworth and women ceramicists from the Harvey School.”
“A later group of paintings by Margaret Olley and Margaret Cilento, who returned to Brisbane in the 1950s, and Jon Molvig, who moved to the capital in 1955 and became a leading light in the city’s art scene, point to the expressive directions that art in Queensland followed in succeeding decades,’” said Ms Littley.
Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Stanley Place, South Brisbane
Exhibition continues to 26 January 2026
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.qagoma.qld.gov.au for details.
Images: Margaret Olley, Australia 1923–2011, Allamandas I c.1955–58. Oil on canvas, 75 x 92.3cm. Purchased 1961. Collection: QAGOMA, Brisbane © QAGOMA | Olive Ashworth (Artist), Australia 1915–2000, Stoddarts Fabrics Australia Ltd (Commissioner). Textile sample: Great Barrier Reef c.1956. Commercially printed cotton cloth / 67 x 122.5cm (irreg.). Purchased 1996. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation. Collection: QAGOMA, Brisbane © Estate of Olive Ashworth | Margaret Cilento, Australia/United States/England 1923–2006, The immigrants 1951, reworked 1952. Oil on board, 98 x 120cm. Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 1993. Collection: QAGOMA, Brisbane © QAGOMA