No-one will complain about dazzling ranks of smartly paced exhibits by Streeton, Tom Roberts, George Lambert, Grace Cossington Smith, Preston, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Nolan, John Passmore, Arthur Boyd, Lloyd Rees, John Olsen and so on. Each is given treatment befitting a modest career retrospective. Edmund Capon could do worse than take Australian Icons as a model for the expansion of the Australian hang. Let's keep the 20, but add to them. Where Australian Icons fails is in ignoring the complexities of inter-relation between artists and schools of art, between artistic philosophies.
Some artists make only two or three important works in a lifetime, others make hundreds.
Yet both can slip through the curatorial net for reasons beyond their control, or that of the institution. When they do, essaying a stellar show such as this one rubs salt in the wound of their exclusion. Significantly, Pearce includes formidable groupings of works by Mawalan Marika and Munggerrawuy Yunupingu, acknowledging the gallery's early, inspired commitment to gathering the traditional painting and sculpture of the most northerly communities of the Northern Territory, a policy that liberated Aboriginal material culture from the limits of mere ethnology. But largely, Australian Icons is a Sydney-centric show. Artists associated with the city, especially painters, are showcased.