Sydney-born painter John Joseph Wardell Power, better known as J.W. Power, was Australia’s most accomplished artist of the interwar years. In London and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, Power’s unique blend of cubism, surrealism and abstraction found an audience in the heart of the avant-garde. Today, he is chiefly remembered as a benefactor whose extraordinary gifts led to the founding of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney in 1968 and the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1991.
Join us to celebrate the launch of the monograph, J.W. Power: An Australian Avant-gardist.
The book, published with NLA Publishing, accompanies the J.W. Power: Art, War and the Avant-garde exhibition at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum, reveals his singular role in Australian art in the 20th century.
The book is co-authored by Dr Ann Stephen, FAHA (Senior Curator, Art, Chau Chak Wing Museum) and ADS Donaldson (artist, art historian and curator).
The evening features presentations by Mark Ledbury (Power Institute, The University of Sydney) and Alison Dellit (National Library of Australia).
Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the evening.
This event will be followed by a reception with light refreshments.
For more details on the publication, visit the National Library of Australia website.
Part of the University of Sydney’s 175th anniversary Community Festival.
Professor Mark Ledbury is Power Professor of Art History and Visual Culture in the Discipline of Art History and Director of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney. His research interests include eighteenth and nineteenth- century European art; questions and definitions of genre in visual art; the relationships between theatre and visual art and methods of art history.
Alison Dellit is currently the Acting Director-General for the National Library of Australia.
In her substantive role, she is the Assistant Director-General for Collaboration, otherwise known as “Head of Trove”. Alison oversees the Trove platform, the provision of the National eDeposit Service and the operations of the Community Heritage Grants scheme as well as digitisation of the National Library’s collections into Trove.
Under Alison’s leadership, Trove has grown to host nearly 900 partner organisations. In 2024/25 Trove had almost 20 million digital visits. Alison commenced with the National Library in 2006 and has been in her current role since 2017. She also has experience working in the public library sector.
Header image: J. W. Power: Art, war and the avant-garde (installation view), Chau Chak Wing Museum, 2025. Photo by David James.
