In consideration of these qualities, I chose to structure the exhibition around the chronology of a single day in order to emphasise Clarice Beckett’s interest in broader, universal themes such as the cosmos, and the eternal and the ephemeral. In this way, her paintings appear to have universal qualities, being both timeless and placeless. The precise locations of her landscape subjects are also difficult to identify. Her paintings suggest that she was more preoccupied with diurnal time (the course of the day) and the shifting effects of light throughout the day. That she never dated her work was not unusual, but it does indicate that ‘clock or date’ time was a secondary concern for the artist. For example, it is often hard to know if a painting is from 1922 or 1935. Beckett never dated her paintings and this has made the dating of her work very difficult for art historians and curators. Across this period, she created only oil paintings and the changes in her painting approach and subject matter are very subtle. Spanning sixteen years, Clarice Beckett’s active professional career was relatively brief for a major artist. The curator may choose to include drawings, photographs, prints and oil paintings, along with other interpretative material including music, video etc. In some instances different genres may also be included, such as still life, portraiture or landscape.

Sometimes the curator may give greater emphasis to a particular period in the artist’s career or highlight certain processes, ideas or media. They usually follow a chronology to demonstrate the shifts and developments that evolve across an artist’s body of work. These are also called monographic exhibitions. Retrospective and survey exhibitions assess a large body of work by a single artist.

The Chords of Memory by David Beckett