BRISBANE.- Following a successful showing at the Queensland Art Gallery earlier this year, the Gallery recently announced ‘Transparent: Watercolour in Queensland 1850s-1980s’ will tour regionally.

QAGOMA Director, Chris Saines said ‘Transparent’, was the Gallery’s most-comprehensive survey of watercolours to date, and would travel to twelve venues from 25 October 2014 through to late 2016.

‘With the regional tour of ‘Transparent’ we continue the Gallery’s long-standing commitment to making art from the Collection accessible to all Queenslanders.

‘For more than a century and a half watercolour painting has been an energetic aspect of artistic life in Queensland. ‘Transparent’ reveals the considerable talent and achievements of Queensland’s great watercolour artists including Conrad Martens, Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe, J.J. Hilder, Kenneth Macqueen, Isaac Walter Jenner and many others who occupy a significant place in the history of Australian art,’ said Mr Saines.

Arts Minister Ian Walker said the regional tour will visit venues including Bundaberg, Mackay, Stanthorpe, Winton and Ingham and was a great example of the Queensland Government delivering the arts for all Queenslanders by touring popular works throughout the state.

‘‘Transparent’ demonstrates the significant role watercolours have played in Queensland’s art history, and after a popular season at Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, it’s only fitting that these important works are enjoyed by regional audiences,’ he said.

‘We’re working hard to get more visual art tours into the regions to ensure all Queenslanders can enjoy a fulfilling cultural life.’

Works on tour include Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe’s 1884 watercolour sketch Breakfast, Alpha depicting a scene from rural life at Alpha Station. Paintings such as this were never intended for public viewing, yet are today important social documents - ‘snapshots’ of colonial life.

Also on tour will be many important paintings showing the flat landscapes of the Darling Downs and Atherton Tablelands including Kenneth Macqueen’s Contour ploughing c.1945 and Morning ride c.1946.

The regional tour of ‘Transparent: Watercolour in Queensland 1850s–1980s’ also includes works including Forest Cunningham's Gap 1856 by Conrad Martens, one of the most significant artists to paint the landscape of colonial Queensland and the first pastoral holdings on the Darling Downs.

Also featured in 'Transparent' are works illustrating the impact of the Second World War by Douglas Annand, Douglas Green and James Wieneke, and images from the late 1940s by senior Queensland artist, WG Grant.

Works from the 1960s reveal the emergence of a local school of Expressionism in Queensland. The freely executed watercolours of Joy Roggenkamp mark her as one of the most important artists working in the medium in the 1960s and 1970s and this expressionist vein continued in the work of Robyn Mountcastle and Tom Pilgrim in the 1980s.