Orientalism

In the 19th and early 20th century, painters and photographers from many countries travelled for inspiration to the Islamic worlds of Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Palestine. Published on the occasion of an exhibition by The Art Gallery of New South Wales, this comprehensive catalogue surveys ways of seeing and representing Orientalist scenes, from Delacroix to Klee. Nineteenth-century photographers and Australian artists such as Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Rupert Bunny offer their perspective on the Orientalism theme. Works by women painter-travellers such as Henriette Browne and Hilda Rix Nicholas, are featured, as are indigenous artists including Turkish-born Osman Hamdy Bey and Algerian-born Azouaou Mammeri. Three essays analyze the fascination for Orientalism themes held by European and Australian artists and 19th-century photographers travelling to the Middle East. The fourth essay is an incisive analysis of the developments of a post-colonial market for this imagery.
Each of the 124 paintings and 50 original 19th-century photographs in the exhibition is illustrated in full colour and critically described, and biographies of the artists are also included.