Art Gallery of New South Wales

Today, I made a quick visit to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, located among the giant fig trees of The Domain, a large parkland in the heart of Sydney, with views of one of the most spectacular harbours in the world. It's a must see if you are in this part of Australia, or the world.

Here are some marine-themed works from the AGNSW collection. From what I could see in the limited time available, only the Monet is actually on display. I suspect that marine painting, especially maritime or nautical art, is often seen by curators as too bourgeois - something that businessmen use to decorate their office or study. None of these works are by Australian artists. Marines have not been a major aspect of Australian painting, despite the fact that Australia is an island continent with a vast coastline, and, apart from the indigenous population, our ancestors came here on very long sea voyages. Perhaps we don't like to be reminded of the sea that exiled us from the rest of the world.

Charles Napier Hemy, Smugglers- "To save their necks".
Edward de Martino, Golfo degli Aranci, Sardinia.
John Mogford, Crossing the Bar, Scarborough.
Julius Olsson, The Night Tide, 1915.
Cluade Monet, Port-Goulphar, Belle-ile.

Peter Nahum at Leicester Galleries

Frederic Lord Leighton, St Paul’s Bay, Lindos, Rhodes (Greece, 1867).

Julius Olsson, Seascape, England, c. 1920, St Ives School.

Montague Dawson, Full Sail.

leicester galleries

Albert Julius Olsson

Albert Julius Olsson (1864—1942) was born in London, the son of a Swedish father and English mother, the 'artist was within him' and he was wholly self-taught. A daring yachtsman, some of his marine scenes look back at the coastline from onboard ship. His work was in the late impressionist style of Henry Moore.
From the examples of his paintings I can find on Google image search it seems Olsson was particularly fond of painting the sea in moonlight.