Art / Figure Drawing: 1901–2023. At National Gallery of Australia. To February 21, 2027. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY

Spanning more than a century of artistic exploration of the human form, this exhibition shows how figure drawing becomes a way of thinking as well as a technical skill.

In the works from Australian and international artists, including videos and drawings that contain classical anatomical accuracy, to modernism, abstraction, and contemporary styles, there’s a bit of everything. Plus, there were concepts of gender and body image that came forward through the medium.

Within this exhibition, visitors can see numerous artworks, from rough sketches to refined studies and completed pieces, each with its own texture and depth. And in each one, there’s a drawing lesson. There are even drawings of people drawing.

Aboriginal artist Joseph (‘Butcher’ Joe) Nangan (1900-1989), has four framed works shown. He is said to have created over 1000 drawings. These tell a Dreaming story where beings shift between human, animal, and various features of Country. They capture what imagination and cultural influences create.

It’s not surprising that the many sketchbooks reveal the most about this art form. The human in all our guises, living and dead, is portrayed as we are, and from imagination, we are turned into something else that can only be caught in a drawing.

One of the most striking is Lovers [II], 1956, by Australian artist Joy Hester. It is a wellspring of life and passion. It captures a moment that humans know well. As the poem on its label says, “when heart penetrates heart.”

The videos of women drawing reveal something else about this medium. Between them, there’s a private language of conscious minds where art becomes an extension of the artists, both expressing varying ideas of connection, and feminism through the one medium. In the Julie Rrap, Drawn out, 2022, installation, where she traces her naked body onto the ground below her where she lies, is more than mesmerising.

In the immediacy of each piece, the life-like expressions capturing a person, vulnerable, ecstatic, athletic, and posing, says much more than words ever can.

The artworks of Sidney Nolan illustrate his talent in drawing and painting, since his drawings can be compared to and sometimes even look like his paintings. Both capturing that something special he had as an artist for portraying the ideas of what it means to be human.

This wonderfully arranged free exhibition reveals how much a drawn figure can hold. The intimacy of a simple line, the cultural knowledge expressed as an image, human desire, all this and more as the artist’s search for truth through drawing in this exhibition.

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