The Divers Clothes Lying Empty

Domenico DeClario A Survey 1966-96

18 April - 24 May 1998

A large proportion of the exhibition programme at the Monash University Museum of Art is internally generated and at least one thematic exhibition of works from the collection is held annually. Exhibition are accompanied by catalogues which document and make a fresh contribution to the fields of knowledge addressed by the exhibition.

The presentation of comprehensive surveys of the careers of individual artists are central to the role of the Museum as an informative and educational resource. Artists whose work and career has been reviewed in this manner include Alan Leach-Jones (1976), Micky Allan (1987), Russell Drysdale (1987), Robert Hunter (1989), Robert Rooney (1990), Edwin Tanner (1990), Howard Arkley (1991), Philip Hunter (1992) and Jonas Balsaitis (1993). the Museum has also presented the work of the architects William W. Wardell (1983) and Walter Burley Griffin (1988).

The Museum also originates exhibitions addressing a particular theme or period important in the development of Australian visual art. Informative exhibitions across a broad range of issues have included Irreverent Sculpture (1985), Here and There: Overseas Residency and Recent Australian Artists (1987), The Blake Prize for Religious Art - the First 25 Years (1984), Body and Soul (1988), Andy Warhol in Australia (1989), Art With Text (1990), Re:Creation/Re- creation (1989), "Defective Models" Australian Portraiture in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1990), Trading Places: Australian Travel Posters 1909 - 1990 (1991), Off the Wall/In the Air: A Seventies Selection (1991), The Angelic Space: A Celebration of Piero Della Francesca (1992), Nuclear (R)age (1993), Luminaries (1993), Passage (1994) and Faciality (1994).

New Additions displayed the University's commitment to developing a pre-eminent collection of post 1960s Australian art. During 1995, acquisitions included key early works by now senior artists (Robert Owen and Elizabeth Gower), and a major body of work by the first Moët & Chandon Award winner, Susan Norrie.