Charlotte Perriand & Fernand Léger

Great artistic strides have often accompanied the tumult of societal upheaval and the 1930s were no exception. A financial catastrophe of age-defining magnitude ignited a burgeoning of nationalistic sentiment, the terrifying rise of multiple populist cults of personality, the gradual erosion of international treaties and ultimately, a second world war. (Minus the war, this also sounds a lot like the past decade.)

This breakdown of events pushed the great creative minds of the day to reconsider what was at stake in their art and its importance in shaping a better world. Here in Australia, where the word ‘Arts’ was recently