French actress Sarah Bernhardt was arguably the world’s first global celebrity, and this beautiful starlet was also key to the renown of one of the world’s most influential and enduringly popular artists. Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) was propelled to sudden fame by a poster commission depicting Bernhardt. The Czech artist’s radically styled posters created for the ‘Divine Sarah’ (who visited Sydney in 1891 to wild acclaim) became ubiquitous in Paris, and were ripped from the streets by artists and collectors as soon as they were pasted up. (Celebrity fever, it seems, has been sweeping cities long before our city succumbed to the fervour of the Taylor Swift effect.) In a Sydney exclusive, Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau is coming to the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) this winter. Showing from June 15 to September 22, it will be the most comprehensive exhibition of the pioneering artist’s work ever seen in Australia.
Sydney scores a major Alphonse Mucha exhibition
Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau is a big deal for the Art Gallery in more ways than one. Supported by Destination NSW, it will be the first exhibition of historical art presented in the expansive North Building (which opened towards the end of 2022 as part of the Sydney Modern project). Realised in close cooperation with the Mucha Foundation, Prague, the exhibition is drawn from the Mucha Family Collection and brings together a range of works (some of which you'll likely recognise) from the artist’s five-decade career – including posters, illustrations, jewellery, interior decoration, photographs and an immersive digital experience of his late great painting cycle the ‘Slav Epic’, created between 1912 and 1926.
Mucha’s depictions of superstar client Sarah Bernhardt, and the other modern women he featured in advertising and decorative work, helped emphasise art nouveau as a movement propelled by a spirit of liberation and experimentation. With seductive, bold compositions, Mucha created a new language that defined the look of late 19th-century Paris and led him to develop some of the most recognisable work in modern European art.
This major winter blockbuster showcasing the life and work of one of art’s great stylistic innovators leads AGNSW’s 2024 exhibition program, which brings the human figure to the fore, alongside Australia’s favourite portrait award.
More exciting exhibitions to come from AGNSW in 2024
Alphonse Mucha is one of four major ticketed exhibitions to be presented at the Art Gallery in 2024, with two more 2024–25 international blockbuster exhibitions later this year. The art nouveau moment coincides with the annual Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes (winners will be announced on June 7, and on display to the public from June 8) which is always a big moment in the Aussie art calendar.
But there’s so much more in store when it comes to free exhibitions. In March, AGNSW is one of several venues for the 24th Biennale of Sydney titled Ten Thousand Suns (from March 9), which features new work from some of the most exciting artists working today. Opening simultaneously, What Does the Jukebox Dream Of? (from March 9) is a new exhibition showcasing some of the most intriguing works from the Art Gallery’s time-based art collection.
Abstraction will be under the spotlight in two distinct and exciting exhibitions – the first major art museum survey of Australian abstract painting pioneer Lesley Dumbrell (Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum opens July 20), and the first solo exhibition in Sydney of one of the world’s most significant and influential contemporary minimalist painters and sculptors, South Korea’s Lee Ufan (titled Lee Ufan, the exhibition opens August 31).
Igniting Sydney’s winter will be the second iteration of Volume (dates to be announced). Last year the experimental festival of “live music and sound” was headlined by an intriguing set from Solange Knowles (yes, of the Beyoncé bloodline). We’re still light on details for this round, we are being promised some of the globe’s most inspiring and experimental pop, hip-hop, R’n’B, alternative and electronic artists pushing the limits of sound and live music performance in The Tank and across the Art Gallery’s two buildings.
Visitors will get an insight into how an artist thinks and works with Wendy Sharpe: Spellbound (from May 28), a sumptuous aesthetic journey into the nature of creativity, which features drawings, sketchbooks, artist-made books, paintings, ceramics, sculptural forms and site-specific wall murals by a much-admired, Archibald Prize-winning Australian artist. Sharpe herself will also regularly be in residence, creating art within a special space in the Art Gallery’s South Building that partially reconstructs her own Sydney studio.
From September 21, a major new site-specific commission, Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When, will see one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists take over the Art Gallery’s iconic Tank to present a rich visual and sonic experience. Also opening in September, the 2024 edition of the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial will showcase the work of 10 artists from around Australia, focussing on the compelling and allusive languages of abstraction.
There is even more than all the above to come this year, which only adds to our argument that Sydney is the true culture capital. For full details of current and upcoming exhibitions and events, visit the Art Gallery website.