We've barely had enough of the troubled genius Paul Gauguin, but there's another French master on the horizon.
Works by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti will make their way to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra next May, in an exhibition from the Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
Cezanne to Giacometti will showcase the changes in 20th century European and Australian art, and bring together over 80 works from the Berggruen collection with over 75 works from the NGA's own stash.
The show will illustrate how social connection and networks drove the development of international and Australian modernism, examining the moments of contact and exchange between key European artists and their Australian counterparts.
At the same time as Cezanne and his cohort were creating works in Europe, Australian artists such as Russell Drysdale, Grace Cossington Smith, John Passmore, and Dorrit Black brought their ideas and style back to Australia, transforming Australian art in parallel.
The show is part of the gallery's 2024-2025 program announced on Tuesday, which includes a summer double bill of retrospectives by Australian artists Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar, and the 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial: After the Rain in December, 2025.
The NGA are onto a good thing; most of its most popular exhibitions in its 40-year history have hailed from Europe, with Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond in 2009 selling more tickets than any exhibition in Australia.
Its current blockbuster, Gauguin's World: Tona Iho, Tona Ao is showing until October 7. nga.gov.au
