The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed with her back facing the viewer, and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
The Joseph Brown Collection comprises works of art donated to the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004 by the collector and art dealer Joseph Brown. The collection is displayed in the Ian Potter Centre, part of the NGV. More than 150 works are on display at the centre.
John Brack was an Australian painter, and a member of the Antipodeans group. According to one critic, Brack's early works captured the idiosyncrasies of their time "more powerfully and succinctly than any Australian artist before or since. Brack forged the iconography of a decade on canvas as sharply as Barry Humphries did on stage."
The Bar is a 1954 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The subject of the painting directly references Édouard Manet's 1882 work A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. It depicts a barmaid working in an Australian pub at the time of the "six o'clock swill". As in Manet's work, the patrons of the bar are shown in a reflection behind the barmaid. The work is considered a companion piece to Brack's 1955 work Collins St., 5 pm.
Venus Anadyomene is one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus (Aphrodite), made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny's Natural History, with the anecdote that the great Apelles employed Campaspe, a mistress of Alexander the Great, for his model. According to Athenaeus, the idea of Aphrodite rising from the sea was inspired by the courtesan Phryne, who, during the time of the festivals of the Eleusinia and Poseidonia, often swam nude in the sea. A scallop shell, often found in Venus Anadyomenes, is a symbol of the female vulva.
Howard Arkley was an Australian artist, born in Melbourne, known for his airbrushed paintings of houses, architecture, and suburbia. His parents were Australian and had British ancestry.
Émilie Charmy was an artist in France's early avant-garde. She worked closely with Fauve artists like Henri Matisse, and was active in exhibiting her artworks in Paris, particularly with Berthe Weill.
Gareth Sansom is an Australian artist, painter, printmaker and collagist and winner of the 2008 John McCaughey Memorial Prize of $100,000.
Collins St., 5 pm is a 1955 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts office workers walking along busy Collins Street in Melbourne after finishing work for the day—"Blank-faced office workers hurry by like sleep-walkers, thinking only of the pubs or their homes in the suburbs". Brack conceived the work after reading T. S. Eliot's 1922 poem The Waste Land. It is considered a companion piece to Brack's earlier work The Bar.
Tony Lloyd is an Australian contemporary artist from Melbourne.
Michael Cinco is a Filipino fashion designer based in Dubai. He launched his eponymous fashion line in 2003.
The Car is a 1955 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts a family in a car on a drive in a rural area. The painting shows the father looking at the road ahead while the mother and children look towards the viewer. While the whole car cannot be seen, the car itself is identifiable as a Triumph Mayflower. The landscape, seen through the windows of the car, has been said to be inspired by the work of his contemporary Fred Williams.
First Daughter is a 1955 Modernist painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts his daughter Clara as a young girl kneeling on the floor drawing a person on a piece of paper. The subject is seen from above - from the viewpoint of a father.
Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, occasionally formerly known as The Imprudence of Candaules, is a 45.1 by 55.9 cm oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830. It shows a scene from the Histories by Herodotus, in which Candaules, king of Lydia, invites his bodyguard Gyges to hide in the couple's bedroom and watch his wife Nyssia undress, to prove to him her beauty. Nyssia notices Gyges spying and challenges him to either accept his own execution or to kill Candaules as a punishment. Gyges chooses to kill Candaules and take his place as king. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia, still unaware that she is being watched by anyone other than her husband, removes the last of her clothes.
The Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy.
The Boucher Nude is a 1957 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting is a nude, depicting a woman lying on a sofa. Sasha Grishin, the William Dobell Professor of Art History at the Australian National University claimed that "The Boucher Nude can be justly regarded as one of the great masterpieces in Australian art."
Stephen Eastaugh is an Australian contemporary artist from Melbourne, Australia. He is known for producing semi-abstract, mixed media art, and his work is often informed by his experiences traveling.
The Block is a 1954 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts the interior of an empty butcher's shop, including the eponymous butcher's block. It is one of a series of paintings—including The Barber's Shop (1952), The Fish Shop (1955) and Men's Wear (1955)—of small high street businesses.
The tools of the trade – choppers, knives and meathooks – hang from the rails. The butcher’s block, centrally placed and painted in a darker tone, dominates the composition. Despite the rather grisly subject matter, Brack has achieved a small, perfectly contained and beautifully painted jewel-like interior. The detail of the brushwork, with its meticulous lines and opaque passages of thin paint in the background, the fine scratches incised into the block to indicate its use, and the artist’s handmade wooden frame, all converge in an exquisite synthesis
The Wheel of Fortune is an oil painting on canvas by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, made from 1875 to 1883. The painting combines classical and medieval themes to present an allegory of the vagaries of life, a vanitas, with individual lives elevated or cast down as the wheel of fortune turns. Burne-Jones commented: "My wheel of Fortune is a true-to-life image; it comes to fetch each of us in turn, then it crushes us." The prime version has been in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1980.
Laughing Child is a 1958 Modernist portrait painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts his daughter Charlotte as a young girl, in a dress and with messy hair, laughing.
