AGSA Presents CLAIRE BECKETT: THE PRESENT MOMENT

Major exhibition of national significance featuring paintings not seen publicly for decades by pioneering woman artist will open at the Art Gallery of South Australia

Arranged to chronicle a single day, the exhibition will take visitors on a sensory journey that transitions from sunrise vistas, afternoon scapes, to twilight city scenes through the 130 works of art on display.

Associated with a legendary story of rediscovery, Clarice Beckett is today celebrated as a major force in defining Australian modernist painting. In 1935, Clarice Beckett died at the age of forty-eight, and for the next thirty-five years her work vanished from history before being rediscovered by Dr Rosalind Hollinrake, who salvaged 369 of the artist's neglected canvases from a remote open-sided shed in rural Victoria.

Clarice Beckett: The present moment includes many of the salvaged paintings, as well as works drawn from national public collections as well as private collections including Russell Crowe and Ben Quilty.

Internationally acclaimed Australian musicians Simone Slattery and Gabriella Smart will perform live in the Gallery at the preview, inviting audiences to step further into Beckett's world. Clarice Beckett: The present moment, will open this weekend as part of the Adelaide Festival.