Shepparton Art Museum’s blockbuster winter exhibition opens on Saturday, May 23 and brings a collection of works by iconic international artists to Australia for the first time.
Facing Modernity: Degas to Picasso features 37 artworks that helped change how we see the world around us, and how the world values artists and the work they produce.
Whether or not this unique collection, on loan from the Auckland Art Gallery, actually busts Shepparton’s blocks is uncertain, but it certainly deserves to.
Today, it is difficult to imagine the explosive power these works had on the viewing public and the art establishment when they first appeared more than a century ago.
Monet’s paintings of windy summer days and golden pastoral evenings are now seen as exquisitely beautiful, but they were laughed at when they first appeared because they were deemed unfinished — you could actually see the brushstrokes.
Monet was also one of the first painters to see beauty in ordinary scenes around him: beaches, streets and hay bales.
Bold splashes of colour from Matisse and others similarly outraged everyone — newspapers said they were ugly, insane or the work of wild beasts.
Today, the Fauvists are revered as vivid, energetic and even joyful.
Similarly, the works of surrealists such as Salvador Dali were initially met with shock and bewilderment when they first appeared in the 1920s.
Nevertheless, surrealist exhibitions drew huge crowds — maybe because everyone could see something familiar in the works.
Even if they were unsettling, they were also a bit thrilling.
Today, we have our own resident Shepparton surrealist, Tank, who stands on the shoulders of these pioneers of subject and colour.
The only artist in this collection who still packs a revolutionary punch is Picasso, whose distorted faces and early cubist fragmentation of the human figure still creates confusion and secret derision by people who think their kids could do better.
So here we have 37 works of art that outraged people, and which eventually became accepted and changed the world around us.
Without these works, there would be no Jackson Pollock, Brett Whiteley or Ben Quilty, and the world would be an infinitely duller place.
You could draw the bow further and say these works have changed the way we dress, decorate our homes, watch films and design our social media campaigns.
The miracle of all this is that these historic game-changers are not housed in a grand sandstone metropolitan gallery a bus, plane and train ride away — they are here on the shores of our own lake and available to be seen by the people of Shepparton and surrounds from schoolchildren to pensioners.
Apart from being the first time these works have been seen in Australia, Facing Modernity also represents another milestone.
For the first time, SAM is charging the public to see an exhibition.
This will undoubtedly draw fire from the haters, and those not engaged in art.
But when the cost of transportation and insurance for these artworks, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is considered — a low charge of $19 for locals is entirely appropriate.
Such is the iconic power of this rare, condensed collection, it could draw visitors not only from across Australia, but also from overseas.
With the exclusively regional visit of the Archibald Prize due in September, SAM is increasing its cultural footprint to Bigfoot levels.
And here’s something even more worthy of applause — it’s doing this without help from Elvis or Marilyn.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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