Australian Impressionists in France explores an overloooked period in our art history. Many Australian artists spent time in France during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, yet this era is often bypassed in favour of examining the work of well-known impressionists landscape painters.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Gallery, London, December 7, 2016-March 26, 2017.

Working in Europe at the end of the 19th century, John Russell (1858-1930) was part of the French avant-garde and the only Australian painter to have been closely associated with some of the most original and influential artists in France. He was a close friend of Van Gogh and Rodin, dined with Monet and taught impressionist colour theory to Matisse. Yet, despite the efforts of fellow Australian artist Thea Proctor, his cousin, he remains little known. This major survey presents the breadth of Russell's art from his studies in London and Paris, through impressionism and experimentation with pure colour, to his later fauve-like luminous watercolours.

As this major contribution to art history shows, Impressionism was far more than a French movement that spread to other countries; rather, it was an approach to art adopted by artists of all nationalities who responded to light and atmospheric conditions, to landscape and cityscape, with an explosion of enthusiasm that was felt around the globe.

In The Work of Art, Anthea Callen analyzes the self-portraits, portraits of fellow artists, photographs, prints, and studio images of prominent nineteenth-century French Impressionist painters, exploring the emergence of modern artistic identity and its relation to the idea of creative work. Landscape painting in general, she argues, and the “plein air” oil sketch in particular were the key drivers of change in artistic practice in the nineteenth century—leading to the Impressionist revolution. Putting the work of artists from Courbet and Cézanne to Pissaro under a microscope, Callen examines modes of self-representation and painting methods, paying particular attention to the painters’ touch and mark-making. Using innovative methods of analysis, she provides new and intriguing ways of understanding material practice within its historical moment and the cultural meanings it generates. Richly illustrated with 180 color and black-and-white images, The Work of Art offers fresh insights into the development of avant-garde French painting and the concept of the modern artist.