Janet Dawson: Faraway, So Close celebrates the work of Janet Dawson, a pioneer of abstraction and an artist with a distinct realist style. Born in Sydney in 1935, Dawson has moved between abstraction and figuration, formalism and realism over seven decades. Consistent to her practice is her investigative vision: her art derives from an immense curiosity about material existence and states of the natural world.

The first major monograph on Dawson, this book features an essay by the curator Denise Mimmocchi, as well as new scholarship by Australian art critic Jennifer Higgie and assistant curator Monique Watson. A selection of archival texts and images intersperse the book, including an essay by Australian art critic Virginia Spate on Dawson’s first solo exhibition at Gallery A in 1961.

Published in association with a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Faraway, So Close features over 80 artworks from 1951 to 2018, as well as archival and recent photographs.

Published in association with the exhibition of the same name at the Art Gallery of New South Wales 19 July 2025 – 18 January 2026.

Edited by Denise Mimmocchi
with essays by Jennifer Higgie, Denise Mimmocchi and Monique Watkins, and an archival text by Virginia Spate
Paperback
198 pages
29 x 22cm