As Vincent van Gogh once famously said: “For one’s health, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing.”
And as Spring is blooming in our gardens around the shire, this timely topic is the theme for ArtsNational Narrabri’s next event.
‘Painting the Modern Garden’ is the illustrated talk to be presented by Polish-born art historian Lydia Bauman in cinema one at The Crossing Theatre on Monday, September 22.
Monet, perhaps the most important painter of gardens, once said he owed his painting ‘to flowers’.
But so many other artists not only created gardens but made them the subject of their work – such as Pissarro, Sargent, Tissot, Kandinsky, Klee, Van Gogh, Klimt and Matisse.
The modern garden, transformed by 19th century innovations such as hybridisation, glasshouses and foreign exploration, was part of a great social change to which artists responded from the 1860s onwards.
This talk traces the appearance of the garden as a modern phenomenon and the development of new art movements adopting it as their subject.
Lydia was born in Poland and moved and studied in the UK, attaining a BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (John Christie Scholarship and the Hatton Award), and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art, London, (19th-20th century art – Distinction for thesis on Matisse’s Illustrations to Poetry).
She has since divided her time between painting and exhibiting as well as lecturing widely to adult audiences.
She has taught at London’s National Gallery for more than 35 years, and intermittently at Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery as well as collections such as Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the latter as a guest speaker for travel companies.
During the pandemic lockdowns, Lydia devised and delivered a program of upwards of 180 online lectures to her own group ‘Art For The Uninitiated.’
ArtsNational Narrabri is part of a volunteer-led organisation offering a wide spectrum of arts-related topics to 36 societies across Australia.
The talks last for approximately one hour, followed by complimentary drinks and canapés with an opportunity to chat with our guest speaker.
