ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.- The Art Gallery of South Australia will lift the fog from one of the most influential but forgotten movements of 20th century Australian art in a ground-breaking new national touring exhibition opening in Adelaide in August.

Misty Moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915-1950 is the first major exhibition to tell the story of Australian Tonalism; a movement championed by the influential and often controversial Melbourne painter Max Meldrum (1875-1955), which took place during the inter-war period.

“Tonalism is probably the most misunderstood, underestimated and underappreciated movement in Australian art history and yet it was hugely important to the development of 20th century art in this country” states Tracey Lock-Weir, the Gallery’s Curator of Australian Art and Curator of Misty Moderns.

“Max Meldrum was a pioneer but he was also terribly divisive. There was a certain stigma attached to him and his followers which still remains today … even some of the most beautiful Tonalist paintings have often been ignored or dismissed by the art world – until now” says Lock-Weir.

Australian Tonalist painting is characterised by a particular ‘misty’ or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building ‘tone on tone’. Around 80 works by Max Meldrum and 17 of his followers have been brought together from public and private collections around Australia for the first time for Misty Moderns. Included in the exhibition are works by Meldrum’s best-known pupils Clarice Beckett, Percy Leason and Colin Colahan, and formative works by Australian Modernists Roy de Maistre, Roland Wakelin, Lloyd Rees, Arnold Shore and William Frater, who were all heavily influenced by Meldrum’s theories.

Tonalism developed from Max Meldrum’s ‘Scientific theory of Impressions’ and flourished in Melbourne and Sydney. Controversially, it opposed post-Impressionism and Modernism, and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and Conceptualism.

“Traditionally Meldrum has been associated with conservatism, however it is surprising to realise that his theories influenced many of Australia’s most innovative Modernists” says Lock-Weir.

And his influence endured for generations: “Meldrum’s student A.D. Colquhoun taught William Dargie, who in turn passed on the theories to his pupils, including John Brack and Fred Williams” she explains.

Well-known curator and writer, Rosalind Hollinrake, who effectively re-discovered the work of Meldrum’s star pupil, Clarice Beckett, in 1971, will officially open Misty Moderns at the Art Gallery of South Australia before it goes on show to the public from Friday 15 August to Sunday 19 October.

The exhibition’s public program includes talks and lectures by Tracey Lock-Weir, Rosalind Hollinrake and Peter Perry, Director of Castlemaine Art Gallery and author of Max Meldrum & Associates. There are also regular guided tours, children’s activities and a tonal painting workshop for adults.

Following the exhibition’s opening season in Adelaide, Misty Moderns will tour nationally to venues in Victoria, ACT, New South Wales and Queensland in 2009 and 2010, made possible with the support of Visions of Australia; an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia.