COLLAGE THE HEIDE COLLECTION

When in 1912 Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque began to incorporate papier collé or pasted paper elements in their cubist compositions, often the discarded oddments of everyday life, they sparked a new means of engaging with the real in art. Collage was soon adopted by surrealist, constructivist and dada artists, and adapted to three dimensions in assemblages—sculptural forms made from found objects.

Heide protégé Sidney Nolan made some of Australia’s earliest collages in the late 1930s. By the 1960s the technique was widespread, and in more recent years it has come to include digital and conceptual collage in works that use the principles of papier collé in more elaborate ways. This exhibition traces the history of collage in Australia through the Heide collection from the 1930s to the present time. It includes works by Sidney Nolan, James Gleeson, Murray Walker, Robert Rooney, Elizabeth Gower, Helen Johnson, John Nixon, David Rosetsky, Elizabeth Newman and many others.