Through Artists' Eyes

The iconic image of Australia is the outback: gums and kangaroos against red soil and piercing blue sky. The reality of Australia is that the vast majority of its population live and work in suburbs and their cities. Between 1919 and 1939, this disjunction defined Australian art. John Slater explores how, at a time when most images produced by Australian artists were of rural or bush subjects, some instead turned their attention to their surroundings, and painted, drew or photographed the busy life of the metropolis. This beautifully illustrated book shows how artists recorded the coming of Modernity, the tearing down and rebuilding of city centres and the lives of ordinary people at work and at leisure.