Gallery-going
Regional galleries worth the drive
Why Australia's regional public galleries reward a road trip, seven well-established ones to plan around, and how to fit a gallery into a weekend away.
Looking closelyTen slow minutes in front of one painting
The long essayJohn Olsen and how to look at his landscapes
First worksBuying, framing and carrying home a first originalLook longer, hang it well, buy with your eyes open
The Hanging Wall is writing about Australian painting and the people who stand in front of it. The notes cover how to look at a canvas without rushing, how commercial and public galleries work, what to ask before buying a first original work, and how to frame, hang and care for it once it is home.
Alongside the notes sit longer pieces on painters: an essay on John Olsen, short artist notes and a guide to visiting gallery exhibitions in Sydney.
Newly hung
Latest wall notes
Books and learning
Teaching yourself art history online, one week at a time
Free collection websites, museum courses, structured reading and a weekly looking habit: a practical plan for teaching yourself art history online at home.
Framing and care
Caring for a canvas painting at home
Light, humidity, dust, carrying, slack canvas and storage: the everyday care that keeps an oil or acrylic painting on canvas sound, and what to leave alone.
Books and learning
Art books on Australian painting worth keeping on the shelf
Survey histories, gallery catalogues and monographs on Australian painting: which books to start with, how to judge a catalogue, and where to find them cheaply.
First works
Collecting photographs as art without getting lost in the jargon
Editions and sizes, silver gelatin, chromogenic and pigment prints, signatures and labels, light and framing: a plain guide to living with fine art photography.
Gallery-going
Visiting the Archibald Prize and its room full of faces
Where the Archibald came from, what its rules ask of a portrait, how the Wynne, Sulman, Packing Room and People's Choice fit in, and how to look at the walls.
Artist notes
Painters worth a longer look
- Rhys LeeRhys Lee came to painting through graffiti and graphic design. A plain guide to his strange, quick, colour-led figures and how to spend time with them.
- Guy MaestriFrom a celebrated Archibald portrait to roadside scrub, river floods and a volcanic sea stack: a plain guide to Guy Maestri's painting and how to read it.
- Tamara DeanTamara Dean moved from newspaper photojournalism to staged pictures of people in the natural world. A guide to her series, her methods and how to look.
- Jo BertiniJo Bertini spent a decade walking with camel expeditions in Australia's deserts, then took her sketchbook to India and New Mexico. How to read her paintings.
- Philip HunterPhilip Hunter spent forty years drawing and painting the Wimmera and other Australian terrains. How his layered pictures were made and how to read them.
- Vera MöllerVera Möller trained as a biologist before she became a painter and sculptor. A note on her invented hybrid species, her reef paintings and how to look at them.
- Anthony ListerA note on Anthony Lister's 2013 Sydney show The Beautiful Misery: what was in it, how his street painting fed his canvases, and how to look at work like this.