From New York to Brisbane: major arts coup for Queensland

In a major arts coup for Queensland, Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) has been named as the exclusive Australian venue for the major exhibition European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York to run from from June 12 to October 17, 2021.

State Minister for the Arts Leeanne Enoch said the exhibition would offer local and visiting audiences a remarkable array of 500 years of European art from The Met’s collection.

"This incredibly exciting exhibition for Queensland, curated by The Met in New York in consultation with QAGOMA, will feature works by some of the greatest painters of all time, including Rembrandt, Turner, van Gogh, Monet and many more," Enoch said.

"The Palaszczuk Government is delivering Queensland’s plan for economic recovery and by bringing this exhibition exclusively to our state, we are boosting our economy and enhancing our reputation as a centre for visual arts events of the highest calibre."

European Masterpieces features 65 paintings charting Western art history’s most iconic movements and will also include works by Titian, Raphael, Goya, Vermeer, Cézanne and others.

QAGOMA director Chris Saines said European Masterpieces would begin in the 1420s, with a drama-filled panel painting, The Crucifixion by Fra Angelico, and end in 1919 with one of Monet’s late Water Lilies, a precursor to abstraction.

"The exhibition traces the development of art and artists from a time when creativity was closely controlled through the patronage of church and state, to a period in which our contemporary idea of the independent artist was born," Saines said.

"It’s a major coup for Brisbane and an extraordinary opportunity for our audiences to experience these important works from one of the finest collections of European painting in the world, the majority of which rarely leave permanent display in New York."

Tickets to the exhibition are now on sale at www.qagoma.qld.gov.au