From colonial neglect to radical reinvention – the untold story of Australia’s most daring women artists.
A new exhibition, Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940, brings their stories to light, featuring 50 artists.
From Kong Sing’s delicate watercolour miniatures to Agnes Goodsir’s intimate portraits of her partner, Rachel ‘Cherry’ Dunn—the show reveals how these women traded Australia’s conservatism for the radical freedom of European modernism.
When Justine Kong Sing stepped off a steamship into Edwardian London, the Nundle-born artist finally escaped the colonial gaze that had dogged her in Australia.
In Europe, she thrived – studying at the Westminster School of Art and exhibiting at the Royal Academy and Paris Salon.
Yet, like many of her expatriate peers, her legacy was nearly erased.
Many of these artists faced indifference – or outright hostility – back home.
Art historian Bernard Smith dismissed them as mere “messenger girls,” while Edith Collier’s father burned her boundary-pushing nudes.
Yet their work persisted: Bessie Davidson became a vice-president of Paris’s Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes, and Margaret Preston’s Irish summer classes inspired a generation.
The exhibition traces their movements – from Chelsea studios to Moroccan markets—and rescues forgotten masterpieces, like Kong Sing’s tiny self-portrait Me.
As curator Elle Freak notes, some artists left behind only a single surviving work.
Now, a century later, Dangerously Modern ensures they’re finally seen.
The show runs at AGSA until 7 September, then travels to AGNSW.
