Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century explores the centrality of drawing to the artistic practice of British and Australian artists, including Stanley Spencer, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale and Frank Auerbach.

Drawn from The State Art Collection, this exhibition brings together significant figurative oil paintings and their preparatory drawings – a number of which have never been shown before. Form and feeling is focused upon technique and process, exploring the differing approaches to line, shape, contour and materiality as these artists progress preliminary sketches into finished works.

This exhibition explores a facet of early twentieth-century British and Australian art history in which teaching institutions in England, in particular the Slade School of Art in London, informed the emergence of a group of ‘radical’ Modern artists that broke with a more academic tradition. As previously taught in academic settings, drawing functioned as a study tool for many British and Australian artists, one stepping stone in a much larger creative endeavour. Drawing from models, or life drawing, in a studio space was common practice and the emphasis of line and contour as a style was passed on from teacher to student. However, in the hands of the artists that emerged under this new paradigm, drawing can be read as the site of creative exploration.

This approach also influenced key figures in Australian Modern art, and informed critical debates about the future of art in Australia in the twentieth century. Form and feeling brings to the fore the politics of collecting in Australian public institutional history, wherein Modern British art was keenly collected – particularly after WWII. This exhibition explores the influence that these artists had upon the Australian art scene at the time and restages this influence for audiences today.

Willy Lenski Life may be seen as a gesture 1987. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on jute, 50.9 cm x 92.2 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1988. © Willy Lenski 1988.