Mother: Stories from the NGV Collection

Pauline and I visited this exhibition on the 2nd of July, 2026, just before it closed on the 12th of July 2026. We weren’t sure it met the full advertised brief of an exploration of both universal and culturally specific experiences of motherhood – from private transformation and societal expectation to intergenerational trauma and loss, mythology and religious iconography, storytelling and language and the deep connection between motherhood, nature and Country. But there were some lovely pictures on display – over 200 works from across the NGV collection. This included contemporary and historical Australian and First Nations artists alongside international art. It was nice to see these works depicting mothers and children displayed together.

Religious iconography included these paintings – all quite familiar if not precisely known. This is Corregio, Italian 1489-1434, Madonna and Child with infant Saint John the Baptist.

Flanders, The Virgin and Child mid-late 15th century. Which the Gallery purchased with the Felton Bequest, 1923.

Cornelis de Vos, Duthc/Flemish c. 1584-1651, Mother and child 1624.

Cosimo di Lorenzo Roselli, Italian, studio of, Madonna and Child with three angels c. 1478-80.

Hans Memling, German/Flemish 1430/40-94, The Man of Sorrows in the arms of the Virgin 1475 or 1479.

Identifying those that are culturally specific is a bit tricky but this ivory statuette certainly shows a Japanese image, Mother with child, okimono, Meiji period 1868-1912. A gift to the Gallery in 2018.

Here are some historical Australian works. Inge King, German/Australian, moved to Australia 1951, Mother and child 1942. The Gallery has only had it since 2019 through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. It reminds me of the sculptures by the German artist Käthe Kollwitz.

This is a familiar artist, and painting – being one of Australia’s previously insufficiently recognised women artists and now being shown in a number of exhibitions aimed at redressing that neglect. E. Phillips Fox Australian 1865-1915, lived in France 1887-92, 1901-13. (Mother and child) 1908.

Another cosmopolitan Australian. John Longstaff, Australian 1861-1941, lived in Europe 1887-95. 1901-20. The young mother 1891. It’s his wife and their first child, painted during a period of poverty and isolation in London.

Another peripatetic artist who spent some time in Australia, Eleanor Bell, Irish, worked in Australia 1882-85, lived in the USA 1893-1907. Grandmother’s Bible, c. 1880. According to the accompanying note; the light falling across the little girl and the open page of the bible is similar to Rembrandt’s Two old men disputing which is also held by the NGV. I just think it all looks very Irish!

Here is another painting from one of our hitherto neglected Australian women painters. Iso Rae, Australian 1860-1940, lived in France 1887-1932, England 1932-40. Breton family c. 1892. The note suggests that the little child depicted was of close personal significance to Rae and her sister, Alison, and may have influenced their move to France, where societal attitudes towards single mothers were more lenient compared to Australia. Intriguing.

This is Maurice Denis, French 1870-1943. Visit to the purple room, 1899. Purchased by the Gallery in 2024.

Paintings of nannies and babies are not as common as mothers and babies. But here’s one. John Henry Lorimer, Scottish 1856-1936. A lullaby. The baby is his nephew and the nanny is Joanna Herbert from Demera, the place is a tower in Lorimer’s home at Kellie Castle in Scotland.

David Hockney had just died when we visited the exhibition, so I was compelled to record his etching. David Hockney, English1937-, United States 1964-68,1975-. My mother with a parrot 1973-74.xxxxx

Two other works by English painters. Mary Beale, English 1633-99. Portrait of the artist’s son, Bartholomew Beale, c. 1660. the boy is around five years of age. She was the most successful woman artist working in England in the seventeenth century. Acquired by the Gallery in 2020. Question – is the Gallery playing catch up collecting women artists?

William Strutt, English 1825-62. Maria Elizabeth O’Mullane and her children. c.1854. The family is in Australia, mother and father arriving in 1839 to Port Phillip District. I don’t know how they came to be painted by Strutt.

There were some powerful First Nations works. John Prince Siddon, Walmajarri 1964- Took our children away, 2024 Fitzroy Crossing W.A. It’s a new acquisition for the Gallery.

John Packham, Ngarrindjeri 1966-. Petin – to abduct, steal, 1999 Encounter Bay, Victor Harbour, South Australia. The painting is inspired by the artist’s mother’s grief. She still suffers, along with so m any others, because she was taken, stolen at birth, back in the mid-1900s and institutionalised at Colebrook Home, Eden Hills. The painting depicts the great grief of a mother sending her child away to hide in the bush to evade the white men hunting for children to take.

These last two pictures are from an installation I first saw at the Gallery’s Triennial. It’s wonderful with images celebrating pregnancy, birth, family. Hannah Brontë Wakka Wakka/Yaegi 1991-. EYE HEAR U MAGIK, 2020 Brisbane Queensland.

The artist says this work: explores the mother, the doula, the sister, the twins, the oracle, the orator and the new born. Undersatond that, yes, we inherit grief and sadness through our familial lines but we also inherit joy, skill, Magik, cheekiness, psychic abilities and physical strength. Be worth finding out where this is usually displayd to experience it. Wonderful.

Explores both universal and culturally specific experiences of motherhood – from private transformation and societal expectation to intergenerational trauma and loss, mythology and religious iconograpy, storytelling and language and the deep connection between motherhood, nature and Country.