For over 200 years, painters, printmakers and photographers have been in a creative conversation with the built environment. Reflecting progress, social ideas, understanding of the world and how we have changed over time, the exhibition Australian Dreams: Picturing our Built World shows how, through images, these artists have documented, interpreted, and celebrated a variety of buildings from the Opera House and Flinders Street Station to the inner city terrace and the humble bush cottage.
Sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, these buildings are the backdrops to life. They reflect a sense of identity, hopes and dreams, rendered in bricks and mortar.
Drawing exclusively from the collections of the National Library, the exhibition features photographs, prints, drawings and paintings by Augustus Earle, Conrad Martens, S T Gill, Eugene von Guérard, Lionel Lindsay, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, Mark Strizic, David Moore, Max Dupain, Jeff Carter, Ruth Maddison, Wolfgang Sievers and John Gollings.
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