Editing Australian art (section)

=== 1920s onwards ===
Among the public, through the 1920s, modified forms of Impressionism were popular, with [[Elioth Gruner]] being considered the last of the Australian Impressionists.<ref name="atoa">{{cite book |last1=Splatt |first1=William |last2=Burton |first2=Barbara |date=1977 |title=A Treasury of Australian Landscape Painting |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1417435/Details |publisher=Rigby |page=36 |isbn=9780859020138}}</ref> The [[Australian tonalism|Australian Tonalist]] movement, originating in the writings and teaching of [[Max Meldrum]], followed a 'scientific' transcription of tonal relations, making 'impressionism' a system, and opposed [[Modernism|Modernist]] art then emerging pre-WW2 in the [[Angry Penguins]] and the [[Heide Circle]] influenced by refugees from Europe, and Australian-born artists' visits to England and France. Conservatives' attitudes to 'modern art' prevailed until the 1960s, institutionalised in the [[Australian Academy of Art]] (1937–1947), opposed by such groups as the [[Contemporary Art Society (Australia)|Contemporary Art Society]] (established 1938 and continuing).<ref name="ReferenceA" />

The 1950s restored an interest in the [[Outback]] as subject matter in Australian art.<ref name="atoa"/> [[Russell Drysdale]] and [[Sidney Nolan]] toured the interior, sponsored by newspapers to document drought.  They and [[Albert Tucker (artist)|Albert Tucker]], in his ''Explorer'' series, sought to capture the ancient strangeness and a cruel infinity of the central Australian landscape.<ref name="atoa"/>

Splatt and Burton (1977) consider the 1960s a period in which public attention was being drawn to urban bushland and that landscape paintings of the 1970s carried through on the themes of environmental preservation and threats of destruction.<ref name="atoa"/>