Cressida Campbell, Journey around my room, 2019. Woodblock, painted in watercolour. Private collection. Courtesy: the artist, Warren Macris, and Geelong Gallery, Geelong.

This Geelong Gallery-curated exhibition will examine the influence of Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) on the famed contemporary Australian painter and printmaker, Cressida Campbell (born 1960), and on the ground-breaking modernist painter and printmaker, Margaret Preston (1875–1963).

This will be the first significant exhibition in Victoria for more than a decade focused on Preston, one of Australia’s most beloved modernist printmakers, and one that will celebrate the remarkable contemporary artist, Campbell. The exhibition presents their work in the context of their love of, and the influence on their work of, the serene aesthetics and sophistication of historical Japanese ukiyo-e woodcut prints.

Cutting Through Time—Cressida Campbell, Margaret Preston, and the Japanese Print, takes its lead from Geelong Gallery’s significant print holdings, chiefly Preston’s dazzlingly beautiful hand-coloured woodcut Fuchsia and balsam (1928), and a suite of prized Japanese ukiyo-e prints from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries (in the Gallery’s collection since the 1950s).

This exclusive Geelong Gallery exhibition will present Campbell’s and Preston’s diverse approaches to painted woodblock and printmaking, and adoption of Japanese ukiyo-e compositional approaches, as part of their wider interest in and respect for diverse cultures. Works will be drawn from the significant holdings of Preston’s works in the National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as many private collectors of Campbell’s highly sought-after prints and painted woodblocks.