Sir Leslie Thornton: Castlemaine Art Museum's First Blockbuster

22 March—27 July 2025

Sir Leslie Thornton: Castlemaine Art Museum's First Blockbuster

Stoneman and Benefactor's Galleries, Castlemaine Art Museum

22 March to 30 June, 2025

Imaginative, humorous and subversive, the art of Les Thornton knows many forms. His carefully painted works have a surrealist humour but are also often poignant and unsettling.


This exhibition of paintings, works on paper, and sculpture celebrates one of Castlemaine's most loved artists. Thornton subjects are drawn from the world around him, from his boyhood home in Brisbane to the streets and buildings of Central Victoria. Much of his work involves manipulating objects or documents to surprise and enchant the viewer. Thornton's paintings are meticulously painted and notable for their vivid sense of design and colour. He has an eye for the vernacular in architecture, patterns of brickwork, signage, unlikely angles and arresting juxtapositions. An outstanding feature of the exhibition is a dense wall of images of Castlemaine and district painted over the decades since he arrived in 1972. The exhibition will be accompanied by an exciting range of public programs.


Exhibition supported by an Anonymous Donor


Opening Saturday 22 March, 2.00pm

Womindjika Woorineen willam bit
Willam Dja Dja Wurrung Balug
Wokuk mung gole-bo-turoi
talkoop mooroopook

Welcome to our homeland,
home of the Dja Dja Wurrung people
we offer you people good spirit.
Uncle Rick Nelson

The Jaara people of the Dja Dja Wurrung are the Custodians of the land and waters on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging. We extend these same sentiments to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First Nations peoples.

Enter here

Free entry
Thursday-Saturday
11am–4pm
Sunday
12pm–4pm