In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia led to the flight of some two million Jewish people from the Russian Empire.

Laurie Benson, Curator, International Art, shares a story of hidden identities and dual personalities revealed in the NGV’s first acquisition of a German Expressionist paintin

The NGV Collection of British eighteenth-century paintings has long been recognised as one of its greatest strengths.

Danielle Whitfield, Curator, Fashion and Textiles, and Susan van Wyk, Senior Curator, Photography, share their perspectives of a dress that first found its way into the NGV Collection via a…

In 2017 the National Gallery of Victoria acquired an important portrait from the French Romantic period by a recently rediscovered artist, Louise Bouteiller.

To speak of magic as a distinct sphere of activity, divorced from other aspects of life, both spiritual and practical, is to impose a modern construct over what, to the…

In 1908, English-born, Paris-based artist Gwen John took a job as an artist model for the Swiss-German painter Ottilie Roederstein.

Although Sonia Delaunay and Harriet Whitney Frishmuth never met, if they had they would have found much in common. Both artists were highly educated, multilingual and visually astute.

The works of contemporary Australian artist TextaQueen tackle questions of identity, particularly around ancestry and gender, which are unpacked in drawings in texta (felt-tipped pens).

Women in Britain had long used visual and material culture to make statements about social injustice.1 Deborah Cherry, Beyond the Frame: Feminism and Visual Culture, Britain, 1850–1900, Routledge, London, 2000…

This essay was originally published in the 2019 July/August edition of NGV Magazine.

In his 1956 autobiography, Christian Dior reflected on ‘the miracle of fashion’, commenting that ‘in the world today haute couture is one of the last repositories of the marvellous and…

Florence Ada Fuller is an artist scarcely recognised today.

In 2019 the National Gallery of Victoria acquired a fascinating portrait by the unheralded eighteenth-century Scottish portrait painter Anne Forbes (1745-1834).

It is an enchanting scene.