Like, I suppose, a lot of people, I didn't know much about Brack beyond "Collins St, 5pm" and "The bar", but it turns out there's a lot more to him. The exhibition breaks more or less discretely into two parts, the first covering the earlier half of his career, in the 1950s and 60s, and the second occupied with the period from the 70s onwards, after his 'turn' towards a generally more abstract mode (utensils, playing cards, and writing implements often in massed ranks, like the pencil sieges and battles in pieces like 'The Pros and Cons' and 'Yes, No' from the 80s).
Certain characteristics run throughout, including Brack's sly sense of humour and his penchant for unusual and distorted perspectives and fondness for large spaces in his paintings. Some of the earlier pieces, flatly expressive suburban dreamscapes, reminded me a touch of de Chirico ("The short street", 1953, say), and in places he edges towards a surrealist sensibility (eg, "The fish shop", 1955). I wasn't that interested by the nudes, nor the gymnasts, though the pink-hued ballroom dancers appealed. I did like the school ones, like "The playground", 1959; my favourite in the exhibition was probably 'Still life with self-portrait', a blue-tinted shop window, scissors on display, inside and outside blurring into each other with a face faintly visible in reflection and the whole thoroughly denaturalised.
