Chau Chak Wing Museum

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Ann Stephen

Senior Curator, University Art Collection

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BA (Hons) MA (Hons) PhD QUT

Ann Stephen's curatorial career over four decades has been in public and university museums. She joined Sydney University Museums as the senior curator of the University Art Gallery in 2009, and has been responsible for the University Art Collection and developing the art exhibition and publication program.

As President, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (2011–14), Ann has been a mentor for early career academics as well as many colleagues in art history and art curatorship. She has an established national and international publishing record in modernism and conceptual art and in 2015 was invited to join the Scientific Committee of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies.

She has been awarded two ARC grants and many prizes for her academic work. She was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2009. Since 2014, she has been chair of Art Monthly Australasia.

Research interests

  • Modernism
  • Australian art
  • Conceptual art
  • Contemporary art

  • Kirtika Kain, Penelope Gallery CCWM, 2026
  • Migrating Modernism: The architecture of Harry Seidler, San Marco Art Centre, Venice, 2025
  •  J.W. Power: Art, War and the avant-garde, CCWM, 2025
  • Union Made, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, 2024
  •  Ian Burn, MAMCO, Geneva, 2023
  • Light & Darkness, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, 2022
  • Coastline, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, 2020
  • Daniel Boyd: Contemporary Art Project #1, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, 2020
  • Bauhaus Now!, Buxton Contemporary, The University of Melbourne, 2019
  • Jack Redgate: Mirror Play, University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney, 2015
  • Women in Power, University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney, 2015
  • Abstraction–Création: J.W. Power in Europe 1921–1938 (with A.D.S. Donaldson), National Library of Australia, Canberra and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2014
  • ‘69: Retrieving the black box of Concept art, the University of Sydney with Queensland University of Technology and the Drill Hall, Australian National University, 2013
  • Atelier Power: The Power Studio, University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney, 2013
  • J. W. Power: Abstraction-Création, Paris, 1934, with A.D.S. Donaldson, University Art Gallery, National Library of Australia, Canberra and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2012
  • Narelle Jubelin: Vision in Motion, with Luke Parker, Sydney Festival with University Art Gallery, Monash University Art Gallery and Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, 2012 
  • Kent State: Four Decades Later, with Luke Parker, University Art Gallery, Sydney, 2010
  • Mirror Mirror then and now, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane with University Art Gallery, Sydney and Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, 2009
  • Consuming passions: The collection of Justice Roddy Meagher, University Art Gallery, Sydney, 2009
  • Cannibal tours, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2009
  • Modern times: The untold story of modernism in Australia, with Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, Powerhouse Museum, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne and Queensland State Library, Brisbane, 2008
  • Shanghai Childhood, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2002
  • Vision of a Republic: The work of Lucien Henry, Centenary of Federation exhibition, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2001

  • Gordon Darling Foundation grant, J.W. Power: An Australian avant-gardis, 2023
  • Gordon Darling Foundation grant, Ian Burn: Collected Writings, 2021
  • Australian Institute of Art History/AAANZ research grant, Ian Burn: Collected Writings, 2020
  • Residency, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019
  • Gordon Darling Foundation grant, Light and Darkness, 2019
  • Chancellors’s Committee grant, Light and Darkness, 2018
  • Australia Council grant for Mondspiel with Susan Best, Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, 2018
  • Discovery grant, Australian Research Council, ‘Bauhaus Australia’, with Professor Goad, Professor Edquist, Professor McNamara, Professor Wünsch, 2016
  • University Art Museums Australia (UAMA) catalogue prize 1969: The black box of Conceptual art, 2014
  • Chancellor’s Committee grant, Women in Power, 2014

  • ‘Hirschfeld Mack and the Albers’, in Anni and Josef Albers, National Gallery of Art, Canberra, 2024
  • Bauhaus Now!, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, 2019
  • ‘Robert Hunter: at the southern edge of the great iceberg of Minimalism’ in Space for the unknown: the art of Robert Hunter 1966-2014, National Gallery of Victoria, 2018
  • ‘Grace Cossington Smith Black Mountain, 1931’, Georgia O’Keefe, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith, Heide Museum of Modern Art and Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2016
  • ‘What was Euro Pop?’ From Pop to Popism, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2014
  • 'J. W. Power: Abstraction-Création, Paris, 1934' with A.D.S. Donaldson, University Art Gallery, 2012
  • ‘Ian Burn’, in Less is More: Minimal and Post-Minimal Art in Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2012
  • Narelle Jubelin: Vision in Motion, Sydney Festival with University Art Gallery, Monash University Art Gallery and Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, 2012
  • Mirror mirror then and now, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2010
  • ‘I am torn between white walls and other places’, Peter Cripps: Towards an Elegant Solution, Australia Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2010
  • ‘Walking the Styx’, Raquel Ormella, Artspace, Sydney, 2010
  • ‘Cannibal Tours’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2009
  • ‘Fernand Léger’ and ‘Jacky Redgate’, in Cubism and Australian Art, The Miegunyah Press, 2009
  • ‘Eyes Open’, The University Art Museum Collection, The University of Queensland, 2008
  • ‘Flos Mortis: Flowers of Death’, Michael Callaghan: A Survey 1967-06, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney, 2006
  • ‘Annotations: Narelle Jubelin’, 21st Century Modern, catalogue, Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2006
  • ‘The Conundrum of the Mirror Piece’, Fieldworks, National Gallery of Victoria, 2003
  • ‘Ian Burn’s Blue Variable’, Monash University Museum of Art Collection, 2002
  • ‘Narelle Jubelin’s Old Love’, Monash University Museum of Art Collection, 2002
  • ‘Kunstler denken’, On Dialogue: Zeitgenossische Australische Kunst, Berlin, 1997

  • JW Power: An Australian avant-gardist, co-authored with A.D.S. Donaldson, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2025
  • Ian Burn: Collected Writings 1966-1993, contributing editor, Power Publications, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter und Franz König, 2024
  • Light & Darkness: Late Modernism and the JW Power Collection, contributing editor Power Publications, Sydney, 2021
  • Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Architecture, with Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara, Harriet Edquist and Isabel Wunsche, Power Publications and Miegunyah, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2019
  • Jacky Redgate: Mirrors, with Robert Leonard, Power Publications, Sydney, 2016
  • Into the Light: The Cultural Collections of the University of Sydney, with Michael Turner and Jude Philp, The Miegunyah Press, 2010
  • On Looking at Looking: The art and politics of Ian Burn, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2006
  • The Necessity of Australian Art, with Ian Burn, Charles Merewether, Nigel Lendon, Power Publications, Sydney, 1988
  • Badges of Labour Banners of Pride, with Andrew Reeves, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1985

  • Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Architecture, with Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara, Harriet Edquist, Isabel Wunsche, The Miegunyah Press and Power, Melbourne, 2019
  • Into the Light: The Cultural Collections of The University of Sydney, with Michael Turner and Jude Philp, The Miegunyah Press, 2010
  • Modern times: The untold story of modernism in Australia, with Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, The Miegunyah Press and Powerhouse Publishing, Melbourne, 2008
  • Modernism & Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967, with Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2006
  • Visions of a Republic: The work of Lucien Henry, Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2001

  • ‘The Antipodes through “Native Eyes”’, in The Savage Hits Back Revisited. Art and Alterity in the Colonial Encounter, Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 2025
  • ‘Mapping a dialogue between the possible origins of IBMR and Art & Language’, 2023
  •  Charting Space: The cartographies of Conceptual Art, Manchester Uni. Press‘The Antipodes through “Native Eyes”’, in The Savage Hits Back Revisited. Art and Alterity in the Colonial Encounter, Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 2020
  • ‘Dear Tom … About Banners’, in Tom Nicholson: Lines towards Another, eds., Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2018
  • ‘A Cartography of Desires and Taboos: The Modern Primitive and the Antipodes’ Andrew McNamara and Ann Stephen, ed., Pam Meecham, Companion to Modern Art, Wiley, London, 2017
  • ‘Bernard Smith as curator’, The Legacies of Bernard Smith: Essays in Australian Art, History and Cultural Politics, Power Publications, Sydney, 2016
  • ‘The modern primitive and the Antipodes: the visual arts and Oceania’ with Andrew McNamara, The Modernist World, eds., Allana Lindgren and Stephen Rose, Victoria University, Canada: Routledge, 2015
  • ‘Lucien Henry’, The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, eds. Philip Goad and Julie Willis, Cambridge University Press, 2012
  • ‘The story of the Sixties … a pile-up on the freeway of advanced art’, with Andrew McNamara, The Cambridge Companion to Australian Art, ed., Jaynie Anderson, Cambridge University Press, 2011 
  • ‘Modernists and Black-fellows: Not just black and white’, Pacific Rim Modernisms, co-eds., Helen Sword and Steven Yao, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009
  • ‘Soft-Tape: Hard Talk: The early collaborations of Burn and Ramsden’, Conceptual Art, Theory, Myth and Practice ed. Michael Corris, Cambridge University Press, 2005
  • ‘Reclaiming Wailwan culture’, Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2000

 

  • ‘An Indigenous Intervention: Richard Bell’s Salon des refuses at the 2019 venice Biennale’, Discipline No. 5, 2019
  • ‘Richard Bell @ Venice: “We don’t really need this…” or do we?’ Third Text online, 2018
  • “Distel-bild’ ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE, no. 4, 2017
  • ‘The Oceanic Primitivism of Len Lye’s animation Tusalava, 1929’ Art History, Vol. 40, 2017
  • ‘Portrait of the artist as an ex-war surgeon’, History of Education Review: ‘Universities, expertise and the First World War special issue, 2016
  • ‘The local presence of Sol LeWitt’, Australian and NZ Journal of Art, Vol 8, 2008
  • ‘Review: Modernism’, Australian and NZ Journal of Art, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2006
  • ‘Designing for the World of Tomorrow: Australia at the New York World’s Fair’, reCollections, National Museum of Australia Journal, Vol.1, 2006

Ann Stephen

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Phone: +61 2 9351 4004
Email: ann.stephen@sydney.edu.au