Melbourne has one. Sydney and Canberra have one. And now, Adelaide joins the ‘big’ galleries launching its own Winter Art Series – those international blockbuster exhibitions aimed at driving cultural tourism and engagement.
Today (1 October), the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) has announced its coup in snaring the exhibition, Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition, which will travel from America’s Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) next year, bringing prized works from their collection that are leaving the US for the first time.
It’s all thanks to a massive building renovation, and a shared ambition to aim high.
‘It’s not New York, and it’s not Chicago, but what an incredible collection in a Midwest town, that most tourists wouldn’t get to,’ Tansy Curtin tells ArtsHub.
AGSA’s Curator of International Art Pre-1980, and co-curator of the exhibition’s Adelaide leg, continues: ‘I think this exhibition shows you the riches that can be in museums and galleries that are perhaps not the mainstream ones we all know. So there’s a kind of synergy with Adelaide, not being the capital city, but still having a really extraordinary collection – and it’s a great opportunity to put that in context.’
Read ahead:
Monet to Matisse: what’s in the show
This exhibition isn’t just a roll call of European 19th and 20th century masters – and while, yes, it includes all the greats (Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso) – it also offers a counterpoint to that moment with a suite of incredible works by American abstractionists who equally had a seismic impact on art history – Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ad Reinhardt, for example.
Some 57 paintings will be travelling from Ohio to Adelaide next July, and it is the first time this Midwest collection is going on the road, ‘probably the only time’, says Curtin, adding that ‘it was an opportunity we had to take up’.
Among the works will be one of Claude Monet’s iconic Water Lilies (c1922) paintings, a Self-portrait by the celebrated surrealist Giorgio de Chirico, and a cracker painting by Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow Black and Grey (describes it in one) – also painted in 1922, offering an interesting point of discussion for viewers.
It is also the first time that a painting by Vincent van Gogh will be shown in South Australia, a classic scene of reapers in a golden wheat field painted in 1890.
‘There’s such a diversity. You will get a chance to see those well-known French works that people travel for, but then artists who they probably don’t know so well, but are really significant, obviously Frankenthaler being one, but also Richard Diebenkorn, which help reveal parts of Western art history more generally.’
Monet to Matisse: slow looking and one-degree of separation
While many of us are lucky to have viewed masterworks on our travels to Europe and America, it is usually with the pace of a tourist’s itinerary. Curtin says she hopes the exhibition, in a quieter environment like Adelaide, will encourage people to slow down.
‘One of the things that I love about welcoming really special paintings, is that you get to stand in front of an exceptional work of art, and kind of commune with it – but also with the artist. You’re just one degree of separation from the artist!’
‘I think we see so many digital, or printed renditions of Monet’s work or van Gogh’s work, that I really want to highlight to people that there’s such a different experience when you see the real thing – and having that wonderful moment to pause and have some really slow looking at works of art,’ she continues.
The works are drawn from the Edward and Libby Drummond Collection, who’s generous endowment allows not only the acquisition of these masterworks, but financial support of the gallery’s operations, ensuring that it maintains free entry.
‘I love the idea that Edward Drummond and his wife, were great industrialists, but also felt the need to acquire works of art, to celebrate art and to make it accessible to their community. It was really forward thinking,’ says Curtin.
‘And, Toledo Museum of Art specialises in glass making and have a glass prize. So another lovely synergy here with Adelaide, of course, as home to the JamFactory. I love that idea of how some smaller cities can have such important arts communities around them.’
Monet to Matisse: finding connections with the fly-in blockbuster
Fly in superstars – fine – but it was also key for Curtin to ‘extrapolate on some of those stories,’ and be able to share what’s in the extraordinary collection, adding about 45 works on paper by artists Manet, Matisse, Picasso and Whistler. ‘And there’s a remarkable drawing by Edouard Vuillard, says Curtin, adding that these additions ‘highlight the international significance of AGSA’s collection.’
‘I really wanted to be able to complement the incredible paintings from Toledo, and use that opportunity to say, “hey, we’ve got a really fabulous collection here in Adelaide”. But I wanted to differentiate from the medium of painting, and our works on paper from this period hold their own.’
Read: Cartier’s largest Australian display to land at the NGV for 2026 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces
Monet to Matisse: why we need another Art Series
The exhibition is supported through special events funding via the South Australian Tourism Commission, and follows the gallery’s success with its exhibition Frida and Diego: Love and Revolution (2024).
‘That was sort of testing ground for this funding,’ Curtin tells ArtsHub. ‘And it’s really proven to be so successful for us and, I guess, shows trust in us to deliver four years of exceptional programming.’
She continues: ‘Having the capacity to negotiate big international loans and collections is challenging, and having the support from the government means that we can have those big conversations, build some excellent international relationships, and to bring incredible collections to Adelaide – that’s what’s so important about the Winter Art Series – those opportunities to share exceptional works of art with broader audiences.’
‘While today we’re announcing our first one, we are busily working on the next three, as we work far in advance on these kinds of exhibitions,’ adds Curtin. ‘It is really exciting for us to have the commitment of four years, and it makes a huge difference in our ability to plan our programming, and gives us that capacity to have that negotiating power.’
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition will open at the Art Gallery of South Australia in July 2026.
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