The Field

A landmark exhibition in Australian art history, The Field opened the National Gallery of Victoria’s new premises on St Kilda Road in 1968. The inaugural exhibition marked a dramatic shift in the Gallery’s approach to contemporary art. Curated by the NGV’s John Stringer, Exhibition Officer, and Brian Finemore, Curator of Australian Art, the premise of the exhibition was to define an ‘entire direction’ in contemporary Australian art that had received no prior institutional attention, and to study international stylistic tendencies in emerging Australian artists.

Selected for exhibition were seventy-four works by forty artists, around half aged under thirty, who were primarily producing art that was flat, abstract, patterned, geometric or in the colour field style.

The staging of The Field catalysed debate in the late 1960s regarding the course of Australian art – the exhibition was divisive and its reception varied. For many, it seemed odd to open the Gallery’s new premises with such a narrowly focused exhibition, particularly for those who were accustomed to the prevailing style of figuration. Some artists were unhappy that they were not included and felt the inaugural exhibition should have instead highlighted the achievements of Australian art history. However, the NGV’s choice of such a radical exhibition, and the selection of predominantly emerging artists, proposed a new direction for the Gallery, one that was committed to the avant-garde. The Field helped launch the careers of a generation of Australian artists and its significance in Australian art history cannot be overemphasised.