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A WRITER GRAPPLES WITH AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST UNSOLVED ART HEIST – AND THE CIRCULAR NATURE OF THIS WHOLE MODERN ART THING.

Writer Sam West

ONE AFTERNOON THIS SPRING, I VISITED THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA (NGV) TO SEE ONE OF PICASSO’S FAMOUS WEEPING WOMEN. He painted around half a dozen of them in 1937. The last time I saw one was in Madrid. She was in the left-hand corner of Guernica, fleeing German explosions with a dead baby in her arms. Her face was literally warped with fear. I remember standing among the crowds at the Reina Sofía Museum and thinking, “How long are you supposed to look at a masterpiece before you’ve really seen it?” This isn’t a particularly original thought – in a way, the NGV has been priming me for this kind of thinking from an early age. The building itself is a big stone monolith, but the front entrance is made of…

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Smith Journal (Digital) - 1 Issue, Summer 2019

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