Sep 16, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
Join Curator of Contemporary Art, Leigh Robb as she discusses the shift of the modern art world from Paris to New York and the beginnings of Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting featured…
Leigh RobbHost
Thank you for listening to this talk, produced by the Art Gallery of South Australia.
I'd like to acknowledge that we're gathered here on the unceded lands of the Kaurna people and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and recognise their connection to country and thank them for their ongoing custodianship of the earth, land and skies around us.
But it's maybe interesting to know that many years ago, before I came here, I worked in London, studied at the Courtauld, and for six years I worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
It's a house museum on the Grand Canal and it holds textbook modernist masterpieces.
So many of the artists and the trailblazing developments of modern artists during the tumultuous time of the 1940s, during and in the wake of the Second World War, you know, spending that time with those artists in that collection and... and with Peggy's vision also inspired me to want to become a curator and also to work with contemporary artists.
I think this, you know, so while we have the Winter Masterpiece Series, the Extraordinary Monet to Matisse Defying Tradition Exhibition here at the Gallery from Toledo, it really presents a great opportunity for us to look at this particular period of incredible transition in the world and we're going to look at the art world.
So today I'm going to It will be quite a whistle-stop tour through exploring the context of how and why the centre of the art world moved from Paris to New York, and we'll trace those developments, the trajectory of abstraction in Europe to the United States, from the 40s to the 60s and track a few major artists' diverse approach to materiality and to gesture, you know, from the fervent intensity of the action painters of the abstract expressionism to the pores and the planes of the colour field paintings.
Read the full transcript.
Create an account to read the whole episode, search across every transcript, and follow the shows you care about.
Thank you for listening to this talk, produced by the Art Gallery of South Australia.
I'd like to acknowledge that we're gathered here on the unceded lands of the Kaurna people and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and recognise their connection to country and thank them for their ongoing custodianship of the earth, land and skies around us.
But it's maybe interesting to know that many years ago, before I came here, I worked in London, studied at the Courtauld, and for six years I worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
It's a house museum on the Grand Canal and it holds textbook modernist masterpieces.
So many of the artists and the trailblazing developments of modern artists during the tumultuous time of the 1940s, during and in the wake of the Second World War, you know, spending that time with those artists in that collection and... and with Peggy's vision also inspired me to want to become a curator and also to work with contemporary artists.
I think this, you know, so while we have the Winter Masterpiece Series, the Extraordinary Monet to Matisse Defying Tradition Exhibition here at the Gallery from Toledo, it really presents a great opportunity for us to look at this particular period of incredible transition in the world and we're going to look at the art world.
So today I'm going to It will be quite a whistle-stop tour through exploring the context of how and why the centre of the art world moved from Paris to New York, and we'll trace those developments, the trajectory of abstraction in Europe to the United States, from the 40s to the 60s and track a few major artists' diverse approach to materiality and to gesture, you know, from the fervent intensity of the action painters of the abstract expressionism to the pores and the planes of the colour field paintings.
