ABSTRACT
The dawn of the twentieth century brought with it not only Australian Federation (1901) but also new transformative movements in British art. It is perhaps a natural assumption that as Australianism gained an ever tighter grasp on domestic politics an equivalent cultural force would drive Australian national galleries to shift their acquisition strategies away from collecting contemporary art from the UK towards continental European and American artworks.1 This was not, however, the case. In many ways their history of collecting British Modernism, which this chapter explores, is dominated by continuities rather than changes. The UK continued to exert a dominant cultural influence through its exports of exhibitions, publications, and criticisms to Australia, even if these were subjected to increasing scrutiny by independently minded Australians.
