Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890-1940 Education Resource

This education resource introduces you to the work of trailblazing South Australian women artists in AGSA's collection who belonged to an unprecedented wave of women journeying from Australia through Europe and beyond at the turn of the twentieth century, prevailing against centuries of social constraints to pursue international careers.

The artists featured in this resource are on display in Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe 1890-1940, an exhibition that focuses on the vital role of Australian women in the development of international modernism. Featuring more than 200 works of art, Dangerously Modern invites visitors to embark on a journey of the senses. Artistic explorations of colour, light, form and movement offer moments of contemplation, love, loss and transcendence. Ranging from large public statements to private portrait miniatures, the featured works challenge preexisting notions of ambition and success. They also expand understandings of modern art movements such as realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism and the emergence of abstraction.

Including both celebrated and rediscovered paintings, prints, sculpture and ceramics, Dangerously Modern will be one of the largest multi-lender exhibitions to look at the international art of Australian women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It reclaims the place of these artists and their contribution to the development of European art, and explores their role as catalysts for new ideas travelling back to Australia during a time of rapid social and cultural change.

Join curators Tracey Lock and Elle Freak for a tour of Dangerously Modern, the first major exhibition to focus on the vital role of Australian women in the development of international modernism.

Wed 4 June, 2025

4.30pm for a 5pm start until 7

Book now

Curator talks will be added here over the course of the exhibition. Check back regularly for details or see what's on at AGSA to attend in person.

Tuesday Talks

Modernism is the cultural response to the rapid changes of the Industrial Revolution. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, modernism reflected the dramatic shifts in society that took place in Europe, North America and eventually the world, including Australia. Manufacturing, new modes of transportation, such as the steam engine, the car and the aeroplane, as well as the invention of electricity and telecommunications along with the rise of capitalism transformed formerly agrarian societies into urbanised cities and towns. Modernism is the artistic response to this rapid social and technological change.

In terms of its visual expression, modern art was markedly different from its preceding movements. The previous centuries of Western art had long been occupied with mythological, biblical and historic subjects. Art was understood as an illustrative tool, used on behalf of the church or by those in power. Modern art, however, revolutionised this understanding as it sought to find new expression in response to the changes of the modern world. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the parameters of art and the role of the artist were deeply questioned. Artists began to value art as a form of personal expression and for holding value intrinsic to itself. Art loosened its grip on being illustrative or illusionistic, making a long grand arc towards abstraction in the middle of twentieth century.

Ethel Spowers, born Melbourne 1890, died Melbourne 1947, Harvest, 1932, Melbourne, colour linocut on paper, 18.0 x 28.3 cm (image), 23.0 x 31.8 cm (sheet); South Australian Government Grant 1988, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

Still life is the depiction of natural objects or inanimate objects made by the human hand. The fabled origins of still life painting can be traced back to Ancient Greece, where the artist Zeuxis developed a convincing form of painting. Using paint to render the illusion of a three-dimensional form, Zeuxis painted a bunch of grapes so realistic that birds flew down to take a nibble.

The emergence of still life as a genre of art occurred across Italy, Spain, Flanders and the Netherlands towards the end of the sixteenth century, with the pinnacle of still life accomplishments often considered to have been reached in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Although artists in earlier centuries had depicted inanimate objects as part of frescoes, portraits or historic tableaux, it was during the late Renaissance that still life became a subject in its own right.

Over the following centuries still life evolved as a symbolic genre to be read for its allegorical message. In particular, it became emblematic of vanitas – the brevity and frailty of human life. Flowers, fruits, candles, skulls, feathers and even musical instruments were arranged as reminders of mortality and the impermanence of life. Still life also played a key role during the modernist movement, specifically during cubism.

Margaret Preston, born Port Adelaide, South Australia 1875, died Mosman, New South Wales 1963, Still life, c 1916, Paris, oil on canvas, 48.9 x 48.9 cm; Elder Bequest Fund 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Margaret Preston/ Copyright Agency.