Until October 7, catch Sydney moderns, art for a new world at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, showcasing art and photography from the 1920s and 1930s.
Featuring the iconic The Bridge in-curve 1930, by Grace Cossington Smith, which is also the cover art of A Distant Prospect, the exhibition captures the mood in the novel, when Sydneysiders watched their city leap towards a hopeful future. Indeed, the Bridge construction would sustain many through the Great Depression, directly through employment, or psychologically through pointing toward better times to come.
The Sydney Moderns exhibition shares another connection to the novel, by including photographs of Sydney life by Harold Cazneaux. In the story, Lucy’s father, Morgan, exhibits his atmospheric photo of a steam train alongside Harold Cazneaux’s photos of Sydney. The novel is available in the gallery shop.
More information at artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/sydney-moderns
Annette Young at Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of NSW, 23 August 2013