'Emu Island' was the nickname give to the area in Penrith where artists Margo and Gerald Lewers built their home and studio in the early 1940s. Why? Because of the many emus that inhabited the nearby mountain.
The Lewers' home – now the site of Penrith Regional Gallery – also became an island of modernism within the suburbs: a beacon to which other artists and writers would flock, often to be part of elaborate, themed dinner parties.
Emu Island: Modernism in Place showcases the works of Lewers and their contemporaries across roughly four decades from the 1940s to the 1970s – including Frank and Margel Hinder, Judy Cassab, John Olsen, Tony Tuckson, Carl Plate and Robert Klippel.
The concurrent exhibition Young Moderns, housed in the Lewers House gallery, features eight contemporary artists influenced by modernism: Emma Beer, Terrence Combos, Sanne Koelemij, Mason Kimber, Nadia Odlum, Helen Shelley, Kael Stasce and Kate Tucker.