In this self-guided online course, NGV curators and subject specialists will guide you through the history of Surrealism through research and stories behind important works in the NGV Collection. Surrealism remains one of the most influential art movements of the twentieth century, and its influence on art and visual culture remains strong today.
Starting with the birth of the movement in Europe in the 1920s, the course introduces the key techniques and processes used by the Surrealists, its arrival in Australia in the 1930s and the ways that it continues to influence artists, filmmakers and advertisers working today.
Week 1 – Surrealism in Europe
Learn how the unprecedented violence of the First World War, and the political and psychological theories of the 1920s, led to the founding of the Surrealist movement in 1924 with the publication of the first Surrealist Manifesto. Through engaging essays and videos fro NGV Curators, learn who the key artirsts were, how it rose to prominence, and how it spread to Australia in the 1930s and 40s.
Week 2 – Surrealist Techniques
Surrealist poets and artists developed an array of unconventional techniques and processes, tapping into the subconscious realm as well as experiments that overturned the notion of individual authorship and intentionality. Explore a selection of Surrealist techniques in detail through a study of key artists including Man Ray, Max Ernst, Claude Cahun and more.
Week 3 – Sex and Violence in Surrealism
While many are familiar with the more popular and well-known aspects of Surrealism, what is less well-known is the darker elements that underpinned the movement. Why did the Surrealists have an obsession with sex and violence, and how was this reflected in their art? Please note this section of the course includes content that some people may find confronting. Parental guidance is recommended for learners under 18 years of age.
Week 5 – The Surrealist Future
How and why do contemporary artists employ and adapt the concepts, techniques and methods of Surrealism? How is Surrealism continuing to influence contemporary visual culture, from film-makers to advertisers and fashion houses? Learn about the ongoing influence of the movement with examples of works in the NGV Collection and case studies of advertising and film.
Through engagement with this course and works in the NGV Collection, participants will be able to:
- Gain an understanding of the political, geographical and cultural contexts that surround the birth and evolution of Surrealism.
- Through engagement with important works in the NGV Collection, identify and recognise key Surrealist artists, including the themes, techniques and characteristics of their work.
- Understand and identify the influence of Surrealism on contemporary art and visual culture, including in cinema and advertising.
- Identify and analyse Surrealism’s relationship to Western cultures and taboos.
The course is accessible from 10am on Friday 11 July.
You can complete the course in your own time.
Access will expire at midnight on Sunday 7 September.
This is a self-guided course and can be completed at your own pace. Each module contains readings, videos, activities and other materials that will take approximately 1 hour to complete. We recommend completing one module per week over five weeks.
A prescribed reading and resources list will be provided to course participants as part of the course materials, providing links to a curated selection of books, articles and videos to extend your learning.
$70 Members / $80 Adult / $75 Concession, Student & Educator
Includes 8-week access to learning materials from the course start date (Friday 11 July).
Enrol in more than one course to receive a 10% discount.
NGV Members, educators and students receive discounted enrolment to all NGV Art School courses.
Premium Members enjoy complimentary standard enrolment to NGV Online Courses. To enrol, email premiummembers@ngv.vic.gov.au
Adam Ferrier is a multi-award winning advertising creative and founder of the agency Thinkerbell. He is also a leading Australian consumer psychologist, an expert brand strategist and an authority on Behavioural Economics.
Dr Anna Dzenis lectures in the Screen Studies program. She teaches introductory screen literacy, screen criticism, world cinema, film history and theories of visuality. She has studied photography and cinema and brings these two disciplines together in her teaching.
Cathy Leahy is Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the NGV. Cathy has curated numerous exhibitions at the NGV including William Blake, 2014; John Wolseley – Heartlands and Headwaters, 2015; Luminous: Australian Watercolours 1900–2000, 2016 and Colony: Australia 1770–1861 / Frontier Wars, 2018. In 2018 she curated the NGV blockbuster exhibition Escher x nendo: Between Two Worlds and most recently curated Fred Williams: The London Drawings, 2022.
Laurie Benson is Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). He has been at the NGV since 1999 and has worked on a number of major exhibitions including, Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire; Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado; Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great; Medieval Moderns: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and The Horse. Laurie has published extensively on the collection of the NGV. He is co-curator of the exhibition Cats & Dogs at the NGV.
Dr Maria Quirk is Assistant Curator, Collections and Research at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). A historian of women’s and art history, she has previously held academic positions at the University of Queensland and Deakin University, and is a former State Library of Queensland research fellow. Maria’s research has previously appeared in Woman’s Art Journal, The Journal of Victorian Culture and Visual Culture in Britain. Her first monograph, Women, Art and Money in Late Victorian and Edwardian England: The Hustle and the Scramble was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.
Sophie Gerhard is Curator of Australian Art and First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Her curatorial practice and research centres around unpacking colonial Australia’s contemporary identity through art and exhibitions. Sophie has written extensively around this topic, and has presented numerous public programs nationally and internationally. Her recent exhibitions have included Watercolour Country: 100 works from Hermannsburg, WHO ARE YOU: Australian Portraiture and She-oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism.
Dr Ted Gott is Senior Curator, International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and one of the co-curators of QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection. He has curated and co-curated more than 25 exhibitions, including Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire and Napoleon: Revolution to Empire. He has published widely on Australian, British and French art, and in 2013 co-authored a cultural history of the gorilla in nineteenth and twentieth century art, literature, scientific discourse and cinema (Gorilla, Reaktion Press, London).
Claire Lambe was born in Macclesfield, UK and is currently based in Melbourne. She received a Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, London and is represented by Sarah Scout Presents. Lambe was a Gertrude Studio Artist between 2014 and 2016, a residency which saw the beginning of a collaboration with contemporary dancer and choreographer Atlanta Elke, with whom Lambe worked with on Miss Universal, 2015 at Chunky Move and on Mother Holding Something Horrific, 2017 at ACCA.
Maggie Finch is Curator, Photography at National Gallery of Victoria. She curated Darren Sylvester: Carve a Future, Devour Everything, Become Something (2019); Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition (2017); Transmission: Legacies of the Television Age (2015); and Sue Ford (2014). She was a contributing curator for Melbourne Now (2023 and 2013) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ touring exhibition The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 1910–1937 (2011); and co-curator of Endless Present: Robert Rooney and Conceptual Art (2010), with Cathy Leahy.
Beckett Rozentals, Curator, Australian Art, NGV
Michael Gentle is Curator of First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Curatorially, Michael is interested in Australian historical collections and their contemporary resonances. Revisiting the ways in which ‘Australian’ art-history has been constructed, Michael’s writing and research focuses in on the interconnections between First Nations and non-Indigenous arts practice. Michael has recently curated the upcoming exhibition, Bark Salon (2024) situated within the permanent First Nations Gallery, Wurrdha Marra.
Edwina Green is Curator of First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Her curatorial practice focuses on cross-cultural dialogue.
Anna Honan, Curatorial Project Officer, Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, NGV
Information for Teachers & Educators
Surrealism – 1920s to Now offers an inspiring and creative professional learning opportunity for teachers of all levels and subjects. This online course meets the following AITSL standards:
A certificate of professional learning is available on request.
This course is part of NGV Art School – your one-stop resource for inspiration, creative skill-building and immersion in art and art history. Join us for in-Gallery and online courses, practical artist-led classes, and tailored learning experiences led by curators and specialist educators.