Motherhood does not begin with a birth cry. It begins in fragments: a half-formed thought, a bodily shift, a quiet recognition that something – someone – is on the way. It is fitting, then, that MOTHER: Stories from the NGV Collection – the latest exhibition opening at Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) – did not emerge from a single decisive moment, but from a shared, lived experience.
“Sophie Gerhard, Curator of Australian and First Nations Art, and I were on maternity leave with our daughters (now four years old) at the same time when we started thinking about this exhibition concept," Katharina Prugger – Curator, Contemporary Art at NGV – tells RUSSH. "As we returned to work, we begun deep diving into the NGV collection and were inspired by the breadth of works we found that related to motherhood.”
That sense of immersion – into both archive and experience – shapes an exhibition that spans centuries, geographies and mediums. With more than 200+ works on display, the show positions motherhood not as a fixed identity, but as a shifting, often contradictory human condition.
“There were many fascinating historical works we found during our research,” Prugger reflects, pointing to two feeding bottles separated by millennia – one from 4th century BCE Greece, and another from 1850s England. "Baby feeding bottles have been used for centuries, evolving as people sought safer ways to nourish infants," Prugger continues. "In antiquity, gutti were used to feed young children a variety of liquids, including animal milk, diluted wine or porridge-like mixtures. In ancient Greece, gutti also functioned as an early form of the modern breast pump. By the nineteenth century, ceramic feeding bottles were used when breastfeeding was not possible and wet nurses were unavailable, although hand-feeding at this time was still associated with poorer health outcomes for infants."
Rather than imposing a rigid framework for the flow of the exhibition, its structure into three chapters emerged intuitively. “The chapters – Creating, Giving and Leaving – and idea of the exhibition journey mirroring a life cycle, shaped up quite organically as we came up with the ten exhibition themes," Prugger says, "which in turn were inspired both by our own experiences and by the range of works in the Collection.” This cyclical logic resists linear storytelling, instead allowing visitors to move through phases of becoming, sustaining and letting go.
"We were so lucky to have many conversations with mother artists from different generations who generously shared their own stories of motherhood."
But Prugger tells RUSSH the curatorial process extended beyond objects into conversation. “Beyond the insights that came through curatorial research – for example learning much about the history of infant feeding – we were so lucky to have many conversations with mother artists from different generations who generously shared their own stories of motherhood.”
The exhibition brings together a wide range of artists, from historical figures like Rembrandt van Rijn to contemporary voices such as Tracey Emin and Patricia Piccinini, all exploring the complexities of motherhood across time and cultures. Notable works include David Hockney’s My mother sleeping (1982), a fragmented photographic collage that reimagines maternal intimacy through a Cubist lens, and Ruth O’Leary’s Flinders Street (2017), which reflects how motherhood reshaped her artistic practice. The exhibition also highlights powerful contemporary pieces like Gunditjmara and Djabwurrung artist Hayley Millar Baker’s film Entr’acte (2023) – a 12-minute-long silent moving image work that Prugger says she'd recommend lingering on a little longer. "The more time I spend with it, the more I’m drawn into her protagonist Clothilde Bullen’s performance."
“The nature of MOTHER being an exhibition drawn exclusively from the NGV Collection meant that there were some stories we weren’t able to tell as well – for example artists creating work about adoption, non-heteronormative families or pregnancy loss..."
Yet absence is also part of the story. “The nature of MOTHER being an exhibition drawn exclusively from the NGV Collection meant that there were some stories we weren’t able to tell as well – for example artists creating work about adoption, non-heteronormative families or pregnancy loss – but just as with previous thematic collection shows like Queer and Cats & Dogs there was some scope for targeted acquisitions, so we were able to bring in works that added those perspectives.”
Still, Prugger admits she would have loved to expand the exhibition with one further dream acquisition. “There are many important and groundbreaking artworks on motherhood created by artist from across centuries and geographies," she says, "but if I had to nominate one, it would probably be Self-portrait on the 6th wedding anniversary by German Expressionist artist Paula Modersohn-Becker from 1906 – the first known self-portrait of a nude pregnant woman in Western art history the painting is a radical act of self-representation."
MOTHER: Stories from the NGV Collection will be on view at the National Gallery of Victoria from 7 March to 5 October 2025.
