The story that emerges is tantalising, beginning with the popular drawings of natural science by John Lewin, the first free artist to come to the colony, and continuing via the great landscape painters, the Heidleberg artists, the expatriates of the early twentieth century, to the cosmopolitan modernists of later decades – Fairweather, Cossington Smith, Purves Smith, Drysdale and finishing with bold works from Brack, Williams, Whiteley and Olsen. It tells the story of the famous – four works from Tom Roberts, two striking works from Arthur Streeton and also tells of the lives of the not-so-famous, but before-their-time and the little seen: from the simple, understated work arising out of Iso Rae, landscapes by Rupert Bunny. From the post-cubist nudes of Dorrit Black and flower paintings of Margaret Preston to the chaotic immediacy of the thirties’ and forties’ social realists, Vassilieff, Bergner and Tucker.” pp. 294 illusts First Edition #0218