Select works from The Landscape Re-presented have been included in Exhume the grave – McCubbin and contemporary art at Geelong Gallery from 14 August – 28 November 2021.

This exhibition situates Frederick McCubbin’s enduringly popular narrative paintings of the Australian bush as the inspiration for post-modernist interpretations by contemporary Australian artists. Drawing largely from the Gallery’s permanent collection, this exhibition brings together works by Juan Davila, Jill Orr, Polixeni Papapetrou and Anne Zahalka that re-interpret key paintings by McCubbin and recurring themes in his work through the lens of cultural diversity and feminism.

The Landscape Re-presented, 1983, draws on representations of the Australian landscape by painters who sought to promote the landscape as the principal determinant of an Australian national identity. Their idealising and romanticising of the bush produced a host of images and stories that celebrate and mythologise its characters and legends.