British Art for Australia 1860-1953 ― The Acquisition of Artworks from the United Kingdom by Australian National Galleries

Traditional post-colonial scholarship on art and imperialism emphasizes tensions between colonizing cores and subjugated peripheries, while the ties between London and British white settler colonies have been comparatively neglected. Artworks not only reveal the controlling intentions of imperialist artists but also in their afterlives were used by others to contest cultural identity within the British ranks frequently assumed to be homogeneous. British Art for Australia, 1860-1953: The Acquisition of Artworks from the United Kingdom by Australian National Galleries represents the first systematic and comparative study of collecting British art in Australia between 1860 and 1953 using the archives of the Australian National Galleries and key British institutions. Multiple readerships in the disciplines of art history, cultural history and museology are addressed by analyzing how Australians used British art to carve a distinct identity, which artworks were desirable, economically attainable, and why, and how the acquisition of British art fits into a broader cultural context of the British world. It considers the often competing roles of the British Old Masters (e.g. Romney and Constable), Victorian (e.g. Madox Brown and Millais) and Modern artists (e.g. Nash and Spencer) alongside political and economic factors, including the developing global art market, imperial commerce, Australian Federation, the First World War and the coming of age of the Commonwealth.

Matthew C. Potter is a senior lecturer in art and design history at Northumbria University, UK.