Albert Tucker is one of Australia's most significant Modernists. A pioneer of Australian Expressionism, Tucker was a key artistic figure who devoted his art to imaging the struggles, anxieties, trauma and fear of Australian society. Tucker witnessed first-hand the physical horrors and distorted social relations following war and the Depression, drawing from these experiences a wealth of imagery which would recur throughout his career. Largely self-taught, Tucker worked alongside artists such as Danila Vassilief, Yosl Bergner, Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, and was affiliated with the Melbourne-based artists' group the Angry Penguins, who likewise used their art as tool of protest against social complacency. Powerful and evocative, Tucker's later paintings took on a mythic quality, as the Australian landscape and its inhabitants became the focus of his work.
Tucker's work is represented in the Australian National Gallery, all Australian state galleries, various regional galleries, as well as MOMA and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.