Inaugural Salon des Refusés

The Salon des Refusés is generally an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of official awards, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.

As early as the 1830s, Paris art galleries had mounted small-scale, private exhibitions of works rejected by the Salon jurors. The glamorous event of 1863 was actually sponsored by the French government. In that year, artists protested the Salon jury’s rejection of more than 3,000 works, far more than usual. “Wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints,” said an official notice, Emperor Napoléon III decreed that the rejected artists could exhibit their works in an annex to the regular Salon.

Matt Ward from Outstation Gallery and Paul Johnstone (of Paul Johnstone Gallery) – “the most exciting gallerists in Darwin” – are thrilled  to present the inaugural Salon des Refusés Darwin, 2013, as a similar event for all of the artists who did not make the final selection into the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) this year.