Shearing the Rams - Iconic Work of Australian Impressionism Turns 130

The work by Australian painter Tom Roberts will be part of the National Gallery of Victoria's Australian Impressionism exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight

One of Australia's most iconic and recognisable paintings, Tom Roberts' Shearing the Rams, 1890, will celebrate its 130th anniversary as part of the upcoming National Gallery of Victoria's exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight (2 April- 22 August 2021). ​
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​The Iconic painting depicts sheep shearers plying their trade in a timber shearing shed and ​ has come to be known as a celebration of a rise of the wool industry in Australia.

She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism is a large-scale exhibition of more than 250 artworks drawn from major public and private collections around Australia, including the NGV Collection. The exhibition charts the creative exchanges between the movement’s leading figures in Australia, by presenting artworks in thought provoking groups and pairings. The exhibition also considers the broader global context, personal relationships and artistic synergies of Australian Impressionists and those working internationally, juxtaposing Australian artworks with those by Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and others drawn from the NGV Collection. ​
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​From 4 June - 3 October 2021 the NGV will also host an exclusive and major exhibition of more than 100 masterworks of French Impressionism in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), an institution renowned world-wide for its rich holdings of Impressionist paintings.
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​Featuring some of the most widely recognisable and celebrated works by Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Jane Sutherland, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Clara Southern, John Russell and E. Phillips Fox, the exhibition also brings to light lesser-known paintings by Iso Rae, May Vale, Jane Price and Ina Gregory. She-Oak and Sunlight presents these works in new and surprising contexts, exploring the impact of personal relationships, international influences and the importance of place on the trajectory of the movement.

She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism is guest curated by Dr Anne Gray AM with the NGV Australian Art Department.
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​You can learn more about the painting and artist Tom Roberts in the NGV Points of View film below:

NGV 2021 EXHIBITIONS.pdf

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Sarah Ferrall

Associate Director, Camron PR

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About National Gallery of Victoria

About NGV

Founded in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is the most visited and oldest public art institution in Australia. The NGV is one of the top 20 most visited museum complexes in the world with more than 3 million visitors recorded in 2019. The organisation currently spans across two venues in the City of Melbourne – NGV International on St Kilda Road and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square. NGV Contemporary, once completed, will from the third site for the organisation, enabling the NGV to present a dynamic schedule traversing contemporary, historic, national and international art and design.

Housing a vast treasury of more than 83,000 works, the NGV holds one of the most significant collections of art and design in the region and the largest in Australia. The NGV Collection spans thousands of years – from antiquity to the present day – and covers a wealth of ideas, disciplines and styles from Australia and around the world. The NGV holds one of the leading collections of Indigenous Australian art in the world.

NGV attendance has more than doubled its growth in recent years, with 1.57 million visitors in 2012 to about 3 million visitors per year in 2019. With more than 1.23 million visitors, the inaugural NGV Triennial, held in 2017, remains the NGV’s highest attended exhibition to date. Occurring every three years, the NGV Triennial is a large-scale exhibition of art, design and architecture, featuring the work of leading contemporary artists and designers from countries across the globe. 

 In late 2020, the Ian Potter Foundation pledged the single biggest grant in the foundation’s history – towards the build of NGV Contemporary, launching an ambitious and ongoing fundraising campaign for the new building.