A leg through the ceiling: the art collection of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh
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1 Deakin University Art Gallery 2 November – 16 December 2022 A leg through the ceiling: the art collection of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh
It gives me great pleasure to introduce the exhibition A leg through the ceiling: the art collection of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh. This project celebrates the recent gift and long-term loan of artworks from the family of pioneering art collectors Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh to Deakin University. Curated by James Lynch the exhibition highlights the significance of these leading Naarm/ Melbourne collectors of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and their dedication to artists, new ideas, risk taking and the importance of living creative and cultural lives. I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank Irwin Hirsh, Anouk Hulme and Adrian Hirsh for their gifts and loans of the artworks to Deakin University.
For the Deakin University Art Collection to continue to grow we rely on the generosity of donors and collectors. The works that the extended Hirsh family have gifted Deakin have substantially increased the University’s holdings of an important period in Melbourne’s art history and we are deeply grateful to the family for their generosity. Many of the works have been donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh. How wonderful that they are being honoured in this way and celebrated by three generations of the Hirsh family.
I would also like to thank the Hirshes for working with our Curator James Lynch on the development of the exhibition. Thank you to James for your dedicated work in putting the exhibition together, it is well-researched and beautifully presented. My gratitude also extends, in particular, to sculptor Peter Corlett, for his opening remarks to launch the exhibition. I share his observation, expressed so eloquently at the launch, that Etta and Emmanuel were creative, empathetic and trail blazing individuals and we are fortunate to share in the generosity of their endeavours.
Leanne Willis Senior Manager, Art Collection and Galleries
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Foreword
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Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh 1995
Photograph courtesy of the Hirsh family
A leg through the ceiling: the art collection of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh
Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh were both born in Poland in the early 1930s. Before the Second World War, Poland was home to a richly diverse set of Jewish cultures and communities comprising of a population of over 3 million.i Emmanuel Herszkowicz’s parents lived in the bustling city of Lodz, a centre for textile manufacturing in Europe. Etta Kurtz was born in the small village of Ostroleka, joining her older brother Sam and parents. Growing anti-Semitism in Europe was making the lives of both families impossible so they made the difficult decision to leave their homeland in search of safety.ii
The Herszkowicz family had a cousin in Melbourne and migrated to Australia after a time in London, around 1938. Etta’s father arrived in Melbourne around the same time ahead of his family and hoped to raise enough money to relocate them the following year. But as the war escalated their lives were increasingly in danger. Etta’s uncle helped pool together what resources they had and managed to get Etta, Sam and their mother on one of the last ships that left Europe.iii Many family members and the remaining Jewish communities in Poland did not survive following the invasion by German forces in 1939.
Life in Naarm/Melbourne
The Herszkowicz family settled in Carlton, and they were fortunate to bring with them a cloth making machine they had ordered from London. Emmanuel’s father and uncle set up a small factory and began making textiles. After several setbacks they focused on making gloves for women and, around this time, they anglicised their surname to Hirsh. Their new business venture took off and soon expanded.iv Operating as Mary Lyn Lingerie they produced a range of undergarments and nightwear for women that were popular in post-war Melbourne.
The Kurtz family also settled and became part of the Carlton Jewish community. Etta arrived as a young child suffering from malnutrition and spent a great deal of time in the Royal Children’s Hospital. Later as an adult Etta was diagnosed with Coeliac disease.v Etta’s parents had their own successful business making clothing and worked long hours while Etta attended the Princess Hill Primary school where Emmanuel Hirsh also studied.
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Etta had a love of art, cinema and acting but left school early, undertaking secretarial studies at Coburg High School. Etta began working for Donaghy’s Rope and Cordage, spending her lunch hours wandering the lanes and arcades of the city.vi The Primrose Pottery Shop was one of her favourite places to visit and where she purchased her first ceramic artwork in 1956, a large bowl by Hermia and David Boyd.
The Hirsh family moved to East Malvern and Emmanuel attended University High school. He had strong grades and studied business completing a management course at the Gordon Institute in Geelong (now Deakin University). And after graduating, he found work in the textiles industry before he was invited to join the family business in 1953. Around the same time Etta and Emmanuel began dating, they frequented Sully’s Coffee Shop and Il Cappucino in St. Kilda and Mirka’s café on Elizabeth Street – considered ‘it’ places for progressive culture at the time.vii
After marrying in 1957, Etta and Emmanuel moved into a flat in St Kilda. On a driving holiday to Sydney while expecting their first child, they discovered the Aladdin Pottery Shop in Elizabeth Bay and made their first serious purchase together, beginning their lifelong love of collecting. Irwin was born in 1960 and their daughters Mitta and Anouk followed shortly after in 1961 and 1962.
The Melbourne Art Scene
The war years saw a renewed interest in Australian art. Local galleries in Melbourne professionalised and began displaying more serious and specialised exhibitions of local artists. As historian Ann Galbally notes in her online archive of post war Melbourne. ‘By the late 1950s contemporary Australian art was becoming highly marketable and a rush of new commercial galleries were established, this included Australian Galleries (1956) and Gallery A (1959). viii
In the 1960s this interest in new modern art intensified, with each new gallery attempting to be seen as more avant-garde. In 1967 Georges Mora opened Tolarno Gallery and other new galleries were established including Sweeney Reed’s Strines Gallery (1966), Bruce Pollard’s Pinacotheca (1967) and Realities Gallery (1971).
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As the Hirsh family grew, they moved to a new house in Caulfield and renovated. Etta was entrusted to choose a new painting for their home and decided on a challenging work depicting the difficult lives of First Peoples by Desmond Norman from the Toorak Gallery. Emmanuel was immediately moved by the artwork, and it became one of their first painting purchases. While visiting Gallery A, Etta and Emmanuel were confronted by the hard-edged and abstract artworks by Peter Clarke, Michael Johnson, and others. At the Nicholas Hiedrich Gallery in Healesville they made their second major artwork purchase, Recollections of a Lonely Transvestite (1964) by Gareth Samson. A return visit to Gallery A was spent discovering an appreciation for abstraction and eventually they purchased the large grey painting Through and Beyond (1966) by Peter Clarke.ix
The Hirsh Collection
Within two short years Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh had become dedicated art collectors, acquiring major artworks by Australia’s leading artists of the time. The Hirshes became a significant part of a small yet trailblazing group of individuals and philanthropic families in Melbourne that were instrumental in their support of the emerging art scene. In 1968 the National Gallery of Victoria re-opened in its new premises with the ground-breaking exhibition The Field. The Hirshes prided themselves on lending an artwork by Dale Hickey to the exhibition.
Over the next two decades the Hirshes expanded their collection considerably. At one time the collection consisted of over 600 artworks by around 156 artists. Adding to this, Etta had established a ceramics collection of over 350 pieces by leading Australian post-war potters and ceramic artists. Highlights from the collection included works by Brett Whiteley, Rosalie Gascoigne, John Olsen, Mirka Mora, Peter Booth, Mike Brown, Asher Bilu, Howard Arkley and Charles Blackman, among many others.
Art and artists increasingly became an intrinsic part of Etta, Emmanuel and their families’ lives. When they renovated their next home in South Yarra they employed a young artist, Peter Corlett, to manage the build. Peter worked with an assistant named Les Gilbert. One day when Les was working in the attic he fell, and his leg went right through the ornate plaster ceiling of the dining room. Etta was devasted but Peter was undeterred and the next day he called to say the hole was fixed. He had plugged it with a cast of his leg and with Emmanuel’s encouragement the sculpture became a permanent fixture in their home and a talking point of every dinner party.x Peter Corlett became a life-long friend of Emmanuel and Etta Hirsh.
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The Hirshes didn’t stop at supporting artists strictly through purchases. They also hosted regular dinner parties and many of the artists in their collection enjoyed their company and generosity. In the 1970s Etta and Emmanuel set up an annual fund of $10,000 which they gave directly to artists to help support their artistic careers. Emmanuel also joined the Melbourne University Art Advisory Board and in the 1980s he became a board member of the Australian Print Workshop.
In the 1980s Emmanuel decided to reduce his business activities due to ill health, and in 1991 the clothing manufacturing factory closed to focus on their well-being. With less opportunity and time to spend on art, the Hirshes collecting slowed throughout the 1990s, but they continued acquiring artworks right up until 2007. In their later years, Etta and Emmanuel allocated their collection to family, as well as, donating a significant portion to public institutions across Victoria and Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, La Trobe University, Monash Health, St. Vincent’s Hospital, and the Peter McCallum Cancer Institute. In 2021 thirtynine artworks were donated to the Deakin University Art Collection by Etta and Emmanuel’s son Irwin Hirsh, daughter Anouk Hulme and grandson Adrian Hirsh. This exhibition acknowledges the wonderful generosity of this gift and the continuation of Etta and Emmanuel’s cultural legacy.
James Lynch Curator, Art Collection and Galleries
i https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-population-of-europe-in-1933population-data-by-country [Accessed 10 October 2022]
ii Luba Bilu, An Ordinary Couple: Emmanuel and Etta Hirsh, self-published, 2009, pp.5-7
iii Ibid, p.9
iv Ibid
v Ibid
vi Ibid, p.11
vii Ibid, p.13
viii https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00090b.htm [Accessed 10.10.22]
ix Ibid, p.23
x Peter Corlett in email conversation with the author 25 September 2022
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Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh attending the Melbourne Film Festival (c. 1971)
Photograph courtesy of the Hirsh family
List of works
Notes on the list of works. All artworks are part of the Deakin University Art Collection unless otherwise stated. Artwork texts are written and compiled by James Lynch utilising independent sources and pre-existing texts from the Deakin University Art Collection catalogue. Information is for reference purposes only and may not be accurate.
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Peter CORLETT
b. Australia, 1944.
The leg through the ceiling 1966-67
fibreglass and resin
On loan from the collection of Irwin Hirsh
About the artist and their work:
Peter Corlett grew up in Melbourne and studied Fine Art Sculpture at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. He found success early with commissions and public art projects. His large-scale interactive abstract sculpture Tarax 1969 was on permanent display in the gardens of the National Gallery of Victoria throughout 1970s and 80s. It became an iconic and much-loved example of public sculpture in Melbourne and is now on display at the McClelland Sculpture Park on the Mornington Peninsula.
In the 1970s and 80s Corlett focused on figurative sculpture and made life-sized sculptural portraits of people with an exacting likeness. Peter became a close friend of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh and several of his sculptures were part of their family life and home, including The leg through the ceiling, which was on permanent display in their dining room. Etta and Emmanuel would later gift Corlett’s Connoisseur II sculpture to the NGV in 1984 and this artwork became one of the iconic works of the NGV collection of Australian Art. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Corlett focused on producing public sculptures and statues of public figures.
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Mike NICHOLLS
b. Australia, 1960.
Samson 2004
carved timber (gum) with iron oxide patina
2021.89
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Artist Mike Nicholls was born in 1960 in Melbourne and graduated from Monash University in 1983 with qualifications in Fine Art. Nicholls was a founding member of Roar Studios in Fitzroy. After exhibiting paintings, prints and sculptures as part of the Roar exhibitions, Nicholls focused on sculpture and has developed a more symbolic visual language. Extensive travels and time spent in Cape York enriched his knowledge of wood carving and iconography. He recently presented the major exhibition The Shield at Bunjil Place, Narre Warren and exhibits regularly with &Gallery Australia in Mornington Peninsula and Federation Square.
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Judy WATSON
b. Australia, 1959.
Language group: Waanyi
Heartwood 2004
colour lithograph
2021.82
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Judy Watson was born in Mundubbera, Queensland in the late 1950s. She studied at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in Toowoomba and at the University of Tasmania (1980–82). In Tasmania she trained in printmaking and became a leading First Nations artist. Watson won the Moët & Chandon Fellowship in 1995 and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997, along with Yvonne Koolmatrie and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Most recently, she presented a two-person exhibition The Red Thread of History with artist Helen Johnson at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and at the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 2022.
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Louis KARADADA
b. Australia, 1940; d. 2009.
Language group: Woonambol
Untitled (Wandjina figure and boomerang)
2000
etching on paper
2021.80
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Louis Karadada was an artist from Kalumburu Country in the Kimberley region of Western Australia between the Prince Regent River and the King Edward River. Louis was part of an extended family of accomplished artists including his wife Rose, daughter Regina, his brother Jack and sister-in-law Lily Karadada. As an initiated elder Louis’ works were known for their depiction of the iconic Wandjina spirit figure that is synonymous with the Kalumburu Country of their ancestors and relate directly to the traditional Rock Art which is abundant in this region. Louis made paintings on bark and canvas and was also an accomplished printmaker.
Emmanuel Hirsh was on the management board and worked to help establish the Australian Print Workshop (APW) in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. This print was gifted to Emmanuel by the APW during his term as board member. From 1995 onwards the APW has made ongoing connections with remote communities of First Nations artists. Importantly, the APW travelled a mobile print workshop to expand and collaborate with First Nations artists based on Country.
This etching by Karadada was produced in Kalumburu with the artist drawing images on the copper plate before it was processed and printed in Fitzroy as a limited edition. Other editions of this print were sold to the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. More recently, Martin King, a master printmaker at the APW, travelled to Kalumburu in 2009 and facilitated the production of etchings by Lily and Regina Karadada.
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b. Australia, 1942
Portrait of Emmanuel Hirsh 1990
oil on canvas
On loan from the collection of Irwin Hirsh
About the artist and their work:
This wonderful portrait of Emmanuel Hirsh by artist Guy Stuart depicts the collector in his home surrounded by an array of objects and possessions. Guy Stuart was a friend of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh and they collected several of his works included in this exhibition. This portrait was included as part of the exhibition Intimate Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra 2002.
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Guy STUART
John HOWLEY
b. Australia, 1931; d. Australia 2020
Portrait of Etta Hirsh 1971
oil on canvas
On loan from the collection of Anouk Hulme
About the artist and their work:
John Howley was born in Melbourne and studied at the National Gallery School (1949–54) under Murray Griffin. His artworks were included as part of important exhibitions in Melbourne in the 1950s, and in the early 1960s he lived and worked in North Africa, Europe and Israel. In 1967 Howley returned to Melbourne and lived with his wife Rachel next door to the Tolarno Gallery in St. Kilda where he also exhibited. There were many works by John Howley in the Hirsh collection and he became a close friend of the family.
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Guy STUART
b. Australia, 1942
Man’s Money Toy I 1966
spray enamel and collage on paper
2021.69
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Artist Guy Stuart was born in Canberra in 1942 and first studied with John Brack at Melbourne Grammar before completing his studies at the Royal Melbourne Insitute of Technology (1961-62). Stuart held several early exhibitions at Gallery A in the mid 1960s. These achieved significant critical appraisal and in 1969 he was chosen to represent Australia at the 10th Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil. Stuart was considered one of Australia’s leading avantgarde artists of the 1960s and 70s. Emmanuel Hirsh remembered an early exhibition at Gallery A where Stuart had constructed a painted timber floor and invited the audience to walk over it, like riding waves.1 This early collage by Stuart was part of the artist’s first exhibition at Gallery A in 1969 and was later acquired by the Hirshes in 1974.
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1. Luba Bilu, An Ordinary Couple: Emmanuel and Etta Hirsh, self-published, 2009, p. 83
Peter CLARKE
b. Australia, 1935
Untitled 1966
synthetic polymer paint and PVC on canvas
2021.67
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Born in Deloraine, Tasmania, painter Peter Clarke studied art at Prahran Technical College from 1951–52, followed by further studies at the Royal Melbourne Technical College from 1953–54. He began teaching at RMIT in 1963 and during the 1960s he travelled extensively in Europe, living for a time in Spain where he was influenced by the material paintings of Antonio Tapies. During the 1960s and 70s Clarke exhibited with Gallery A, Melbourne and with the Powell Street Gallery, South Yarra. This small abstract painting by Clarke was one of the early acquisitions by Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh for their collection.
Peter Clarke became a highly influential artist in Melbourne and in 1981 he was made Head of the Fine Art Department at RMIT, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. Clarke participated in the major exhibitions Contemporary Australian Painting, Los Angeles and San Francisco, USA (1966); Australian Art Today (1968), touring Southeast Asia; and 12 Australian Painters (1983–4), Art Gallery of Western Australia.
The Deakin University Art Collection is home to an earlier work by Clarke from 1957 and is also home to a significant painting by his lifelong colleague and friend William Ferguson. Clarke continues to paint and make artwork based in the inner eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
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Geoffrey PROUD
b. Australia, 1946; d. Australia, 2022
Nadine and Geoffrey 1967
charcoal and oil on paper on composition board
2021.63
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Geoffrey Proud was born and grew up in Adelaide, and without attending art school became an award-winning Australian artist. Proud held his first exhibition at the influential Watters Gallery, Sydney in 1967 followed by important exhibitions in Melbourne in the late 1960s. This painting by Proud was purchased in 1968 and was part of several early acquisitions by Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh for their growing collection.
By the 1970s Proud was well known across Australia for his Pop-inspired stylised figurative paintings behind glass and Perspex. In the 1980s Proud started working in a more fluid painterly style and in 1990 he won the Archibald Prize, Australia’s most prestigious art prize, for his portrait of writer Dorothy Hewett. Proud would later move to Tasmania where he continued to live and paint until his death.
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Janet DAWSON
b. Australia, 1935
Untitled 1972
charcoal on paper
2021.72
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
by Anouk Hulme
in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Janet Dawson is one of Australia’s most respected and celebrated artists. Dawson was born in Melbourne in 1935 and at age 11 began attending Saturday art classes with H. Septimus Power. Dawson studied formally at the National Gallery School Melbourne (1951-56) under Alan Sumner followed by further study at the Slade School London (1957-58). After travelling across Europe, Dawson was influenced by the International style of abstraction and returned to Melbourne in 1960. She exhibited and was a director at Gallery A, helping to establish the print workshop. Dawson was a key artist in the development of abstraction and hard-edged painting in Australia.
She met playwright Michael Boddy designing the sets for the Emerald Theatre and they married in 1968. That same year Dawson became one of few women included in The Field exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1968). Dawson and Boddy moved to Binalong in central New South Wales in the early 1970s. Dawson’s portrait of Boddy won the Archibald Prize in 1973. In the 1980s Dawson and Boddy moved to Canberra where they helped to establish the ACT Theatre and youth theatre groups as well as establishing Bugle Press. Dawson continued to paint and hold regular exhibitions in Canberra and Melbourne. Dawson has been the subject of numerous survey exhibitions including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1979) and at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1996). After Boddy’s passing Dawson moved back to Victoria to live with family in Ocean Grove. She was recently featured in the major exhibition Know my name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021).
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Robert JACKS
b. Australia, 1943; d. Australia, 2014
Untitled 1968 Untitled 1968
watercolour and pencil on paper
2021.74.1-2
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work: Robert Jacks was an Australian painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Melbourne in 1943 and first studied sculpture at the Prahran Technical College, Melbourne (1958-60), followed by studies in painting at the Melbourne State Technological College (now RMIT University) (1961-62). Jacks held his first solo exhibition at Gallery A (1966) to much acclaim, and his work was included in the landmark exhibition, The Field, at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1969).
Jacks left Melbourne for New York in 1968 and the new works he created, such as these drawings, were influenced by minimalism and conceptual art. Jacks spent ten years living and working in Canada and the United States. He held regular exhibitions at Realities Gallery, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney and Australian Galleries, Melbourne, throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He was the subject of major survey exhibitions: Robert Jacks: Order and Variation, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015); Melbourne/ New York, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria (2004); On Paper 1958-1990, Ian Potter Gallery, The University of Melbourne and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1990) and Works from New York 1969-1978, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne (1991). Other significant early exhibitions include projects at Art Projects, Melbourne (1979); Stempelplaats, Amsterdam (1978); A Space, Toronto (1972) and at the Whitney Museum Artists Resource Centre, New York (1971).
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Jan SENBERGS
b. Latvia, 1939
Diagram for Orderly Living 1975
oil and silscreen on canvas
LT2021.92
On long term loan from the collection of Anouk Hulme
About the artist and their work:
Jan Senbergs is an Australian artist and printmaker of Latvian origin. Arriving in Melbourne in 1950 Senbergs studied at Richmond Technical School, where he learnt drawing and trades. After leaving school he completed an apprenticeship as a silkscreen printer, a new medium that would become an integral part of his artistic practice. Senbergs first began exhibiting in the early 1960s at places such as Argus Gallery, Melbourne and regularly with Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney. Senbergs’ early works were ground-breaking in their combination of screenprinting techniques with oil painting to create apocalyptic images of urban environments and the landscape in mostly shades of black, grey and white. By the end of the 1960s Senbergs was one of Australia’s most prominent young artists. He held a major exhibition at Gallery A, Sydney in 1972 and the following year represented Australia at the São Paulo Art Biennial in Brazil. Etta and Emmanuel became friends of Senbergs through his first wife Rhonda, who was also a photographer and hosted slide nights. The Hirshes purchased Senbergs’ first painting using colour, Monument and loose skyscrapers (1973), as well as other paintings throughout his career.
Senbergs’ practice continued to develop as he embraced large-scale oil painting and print mediums featuring industrial city scapes and environmental subjects. In 1980 he was commissioned to create a large-scale site-specific mural for the newly constructed High Court of Australia, Canberra. Senbergs has held over 50 solo exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally. He has been the subject of numerous survey exhibitions at state and national public galleries, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Senbergs made numerous paintings inspired by the rugged coastline of western Victoria. In 2010 Deakin University acquired his major painting Geelong Capriccio, which reimagines Hobsons Bay and Geelong as the main urban centre of the region. This painting is displayed prominently in the Chancellery at Deakin University’s Waterfront campus in Geelong.
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Joel ELENBERG
b. Australia, 1948; d. Australia 1980
Untitled 1977
watercolour and pencil on paper
2021.55
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin
Hirsh
in memory of Etta and Emmanuel
Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Born in 1948, Melbourne artist Joel Elenberg had no formal training in fine art but took up painting after finishing high school. Elenberg travelled extensively in the Middle East in the 1960s and after returning to Melbourne held his first solo exhibition with Australian Galleries in 1969.
Elenberg discovered a passion for sculpture early in his career and went on to create iconic African-inspired abstract sculptures of masks and faces. He exhibited extensively throughout the 1970s with regular exhibitions across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. In the mid-1970s Elenberg lived in Carrara, Italy, home of the marble industry. He created this watercolour whilst living in the Italian village. The drawing has the strict formal qualities of his sculptures and conveys a sense of longing for home.
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Alberr SHOMALY
b. Palestine, 1950
Untitled 1971
Untitled 1971
Untitled 1972-73
Colour Chart 1973
Untitled not dated
silkscreen, lithograph and colour photographic prints on paper paint and collage on paper
2021.75-79
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
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Alberr SHOMALY
b. Palestine, 1950
About the artist and their work:
Born Bethlehem, Palestine in 1950, Alberr Shomaly arrived in Australia as a 14-year-old. His love of art and sculpture already evident, he took night classes and immersed himself in art. Shomaly won a scholarship to study at the National Gallery School led by John Brack and became a highly awarded student, studying under Murray Walker and Bea Maddock. He focused on life drawing and attended classes both day and night and was also a life model through which he met fellow artists Godwin Bradbeer and Warren Breninger. Shomaly moved to London in 1971 and then to Yorkshire where he painted, worked and completed etchings and engravings. Returning to Australia in 1974 Shomaly received an Australia Council grant to live and work in Western Australia for a number of years. In 1975 he was part of the major exhibition 3 Printmakers with Bea Maddock and George Baldessin at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.4
As a Palestinian/Australian living and working in Melbourne in the 1960s and 70s Shomaly was used to finding his own path. His works were collected and exhibited extensively throughout the 1970s. He held two solo exhibitions at Tolarno Gallery and held numerous exhibitions with Chandler Coventry Gallery in Paddington, Sydney. Twenty works on paper by Shomaly were purchased by Emmanuel Hirsh from Tolarno Gallery in 1974.5
Shomaly’s early works were distinguished for their ambitious and creative use of screenprinting technology which at the time had been largely used for commercial purposes only. Shomaly’s printmaking and painting practice utilised his own image as forms of self-portraiture, and it is evident they expanded on traditional representations of Australian masculinity for the era. Shomaly’s friendship with Bea Maddock continued and he assisted with the setup of the printmaking studio at the National Gallery School when she became the Dean. Since the 1990s Shomaly has been based in the Otways in regional Victoria. Whilst opportunities for exhibitions have become less frequent, he continues to paint, draw and work on large scale prints including etchings and linocuts.
4. Alberr Shomaly in a telephone conversation with the author 5 September 2022
5. Luba Bilu, An Ordinary Couple: Emmanuel and Etta Hirsh, self-published, 2009, p. 99
Image: From left to right, Alberr Shomaly with unknown person, Godwin Bradbeer and Mark Bradbeer at Brummels gallery, Melbourne 1975. Photograph by Warren Breninger and courtesy of Warren Breninger.
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Untitled 1978 Untitled 1978 Untitled 1978
all works watercolour on paper
2021.70.1-3
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Guy Stuart lived and worked in Geelong throughout the later 1970s and 80s. Deakin University first commissioned the design of an ambitious tapestry by Stuart in 1979 for the University Conference Room at the newly built Waurn Ponds campus. In the composition, three sculptural forms create an interplay between drawing, painting, form, light and space. This series of three watercolour drawings were purchased by the Hirsh family in 1983 and they directly reference the scultpural forms depicted in the Deakin Tapestry.
The recent construction of the new Law Building LC at the Burwood campus provided conservation of this strikingly modern tapestry ensuring its longevity.
P44-45
Guy STUART and the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (est. 1976)
Interpretation by Sara Lindsay with weavers Sara Lindsay, Kathryn L. Hope and Mary Coughlan
Untitled Tapestry 1979 wool, viscose, linen and cotton 1980.13 Commissioned by Deakin University, 1979
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Guy STUART b. Australia, 1942
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Bob JENYNS
b. Australia, 1944; d. Australia 2015
Sculpture Design 1979
coloured pencil on paper
1979.33-41
Purchased, 1979
About the artist and their work:
In 1979 artist Bob Jenyns was commissioned by Deakin University to create a series of sculptural works for a stairwell of a building at the Waurn Ponds campus. Unfortunately, the commission did not go ahead, but the University acquired Jenyns’ design drawings, which featured a humorous series of colour pencil drawings depicting comical characters from Australian society at the time. They share a wonderful similarity to Jenyns’ sculptural portrait of Robert Ryan.
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Bob JENYNS
b. Australia, 1944; d. Australia 2015
Last Fellow (Ronald Ryan) 1988
painted timber
2021.61
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Artist Robert ‘Bob’ Jenyns grew up in Victoria and gained his Diploma in Fine Art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology (1964) and took night classes at the National Gallery School under John Brack. From 1967 he lived in Daylesford with his wife, the sculptor Lorraine Jenyns. Later, they moved to Tasmania, where he taught at the University of Tasmania until 2004. Jenyns exhibited with Watters Gallery, Sydney throughout the 1970s and his drawings, paintings and sculptures had a naïve simplified style and graphic sensibility. His life-sized sculpture The Wedding (c. 1975) was gifted by novelist Sir Patrick White to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and became one of their collection’s iconic works of the 1970s.
Jenyns’ artworks were included in many significant national exhibitions including: the first Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales (1973); the Mildura Sculpture Triennials (1973, 1975 and 1978); the Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1981); the 2nd and 4th Australian Sculpture Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1985 and 1990). In 2007 he won the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award at Werribee Park, Victoria.
This sculpture is a depiction of Ronald Ryan, the last man to be sentenced to death in Australia. He was executed at Pentridge Prison, Melbourne in 1967.
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Tom FANTL
b. Czech Republic, 1947
Untitled 1981
colour litograph
2021.58
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Born in 1947 in Prague, in the former Czechoslovakia, Fantl arrived in Melbourne as a two-year-old. After his schooling Fantl attended the Prahran College of Advanced Education from 1967-70 studying painting and printmaking. After graduating he held early exhibitions at Levenson’s Gallery which were highly successful, and the National Gallery of Australia acquired a number of his early works from this period. Fantl taught life drawing at Prahran before beginning his various travels. He was based in Antwerp, Brussels from 1972 and lived in London in the mid-1970s working as an assistant to Sir Henry Moore. Throughout the 1980s and 90s Fantl lived and worked in Melbourne as a teacher whilst travelling regularly. He was lecturer in art at Swinburne University of Technology from 2009 -2011. His most recent exhibition in Melbourne was at Mars Gallery, Port Melbourne in 2011 and the following year he completed a residency and exhibition in Beijing. He is currently based in Prague and continues to make paintings and collages.
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David WIGGS
b. Australia, unknown
Apprentice 1985
paint on tin, timber and electrical components mounted on ply
2021.64
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Adrian Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
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John SCURRY
b. Australia, 1947
After the Party 1982
gouache and pencil on paper
2021.56
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
John Scurry was born in the late 1940s in Melbourne and is a master printmaker and artist. After studies at the Prahran College of Advanced Education, he gained a Tertiary Training Certificate from Hawthorn Institute of Education and taught printmaking at the Preston Institute of Technology and Prahran College of Advanced Education. This led to teaching at the Victorian College of the Arts where he was Head of Printmaking (1991-2003). Scurry has exhibited across Australia. Selected exhibitions include Snap Freeze, Still Life Now, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, (2007); Desire, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, (2001); The Real Thing, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Bulleen, Victoria (1999); Melbourne Printmakers, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney (1986); and Aspects of Realism, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1981).
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Jim LAWRENCE
b. United States of America, 1944
Sigmund Freud 1982
carved timber and paint
2021.62
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Irwin Hirsh in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
After studying at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, Jim Lawrence became a prominent California-based artist of the 1970s and 80s. His hand-carved timber and roughly painted figurative sculptures of high profile literary and historical figures were featured in exhibitions in Europe and America. Lawrence exhibited with the Cirrus Gallery throughout the 1980s. Cirrus was a prominent Los Angeles-based gallery that presented the first generation of post-conceptual, post-modern and largely California-based artists including John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Chris Burden, Judy Chicago and Vija Celmins.
In 1984 Lawrence was invited by George Mora to present an exhibition of his painted figures at Tolarno Gallery in St. Kilda. This project was highly successful with a number of Lawrence’s works entering prominent collections included the National Gallery of Victoria. Lawrence fondly recalls this exhibition and his time in Melbourne, when he witnessed the Melbourne Cup and discovered the works of Australian artists such as Charles Blackman and Mirka Mora.
Lawrence continued to exhibit with prominent galleries across Germany, Europe and America throughout the 1980s and 90s. In recent times he has been based in Chicago and has worked as an interior designer and editor. He continues to make art on a daily basis, producing smaller carved figures, assemblages and collages inspired by folk stories and are full of wit and humour.
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Murray WALKER
b. Australia, 1937
Untitled 1988
found timber and epoxy resin
2021.66
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Born in the late 1930s, Murray Walker is a distinguished Australian artist who specialises in printmaking, assemblage, collage and tapestry making. Upon completion of his studies at the Ballarat Miners College, Walker attended the National Gallery School (1958-59) and after being awarded a scholarship to attend the Academia della Belle Arti, Perugia, Italy (1961), Walker studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London (1961-62). Returning to Melbourne, Walker exhibited widely and was part of important early exhibitions at the Arwgus Gallery. Walker began his teaching career in the printmaking department at the National Gallery School and was widely known as a master printmaker and technician. Walker exhibited etchings at the Powell Street Gallery, South Yarra in the early 1970s. Works by Sue and Murray Walker were first purchased by Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh for their collection in 1974.
Walker has been the subject of numerous survey style exhibitions including the major exhibition of found objects and assemblages at the National Gallery of Victoria (1978). In 2000 Walker was commissioned to curate and design The Federation Tapestry for Museum’s Victoria. Completed by the Australian Tapestry Workshop this 41-meter-long woven artwork has sections designed by artists Ginger Riley, William Barak, Reg Mombassa, Mirka Mora, Martin Sharp, Celia Rosser and many more. Murray continues to paint and draw, and continues to exhibit regularly with Fox Galleries, Melbourne.
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Domenico DE CLARIO
b. Italy, 1947
A snowy light filled room 1987
colour litograph
2021.85
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk Hulme in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Domenico de Clario is an interdisciplinary artist, academic, writer and musician. He was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1947 and migrated to Australia in 1956. He studied architecture and town planning at Melbourne University, painting at Milan’s Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and at the Preston Institute of Technology (1973-75). De Clario presented early exhibitions at Pinacotheca Gallery throughout the 1970s and went onto to become a highly awarded artist who had exhibited and performed extensively throughout the world.
After seeing numerous exhibitions by de Clario throughout the 1980s the Hirshes purchased five paintings directly from the artist’s studio around 1988. Two of these larger paintings by de Clario were gifted by Anouk Hulme to Deakin University in 2021.
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Anne HALL
b. Australia, 1935
Untitled (Two figures) 1977
oil pastel on paper
2021.60
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
by
Irwin Hirsh
in memory of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Born in Melbourne in 1945, artist Anne Hall studied painting at RMIT (1960-63). After graduating Hall set up her studio and immersed herself in the emerging art scene of Melbourne. Her first solo exhibition was held at South Yarra Gallery in 1968. Hall first met John Perceval in 1967 and the two immediately struck up a friendship. Whilst establishing her career, Hall became part of the wider circle of Antipodean artists in Melbourne. Exhibitions followed at Sydney’s Holdsworth Gallery in 1970, the Bonython Art Gallery, Adelaide in 1971 and again in that same year at South Yarra Gallery, which were well received with critical attention. In 1972 she married John Perceval and became his partner, collaborator and carer. Perceval suffered from alcoholism and schizophrenia and was admitted to hospital for mental health in 1977. Hall would later be acknowledged for her support of Perceval in this difficult time and has also been acknowledged as his artistic collaborator on several of his significant paintings from this period. In 1975 a retrospective of Hall’s work was mounted at Avant Galleries, Melbourne.
Hall’s divorce from Perceval was finalized in 1982 and she continued in the studio with renewed energy, producing paintings, drawings and ceramics in the loose figurative tradition. She exhibited at Powell Street Gallery in 1981, with exhibitions becoming less frequent in the 1980s and 1990s. There is less information about Hall in recent times. Hall participated in the major exhibition The National Women’s Art Exhibition which toured Australia in 1995. Leonard Joel Melbourne hosted a major auction from her studio in 2016.
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b. Germany, 1928; d. Australia 2012
The Peripatetic Theme 1972
colour photograph
2021.83
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk
Hulme
in memory of Etta and Emmanuel
Hirsh, 2021
About the artist and their work:
Mark Strizic (1928-2012) was born in Berlin and migrated to Australia via Croatia in 1950. His early interests were in painting and science, but in 1957 he took up photography as a career and documented life in Melbourne through the lens of his camera. Strizic is widely known for his iconic images of Melbourne after World War II, depicting the city as it shifted from its Victorian past towards modernity.
Strizic was the first photographic artist to be given a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (1968) and was also the first photographer to be acquired by the newly formed National Gallery of Australia in 1973. Strizic had a strong interest in both art and architecture and took portraits of the leading artists of the time. In his career Strizic undertook industrial, advertising, architectural and portrait photography, with commissions for government, companies, and private individuals as well as the United Nations. Strizic taught alongside artists such as John Cato and later at the Preston Institute of Technology and the Melbourne College of Advanced Education. He held his first exhibition at Gryphon Gallery, Melbourne University and a major exhibition at Realities Gallery, Toorak (1974). In the 1970s Strizic moved towards fine art practice and began manipulating his images through colourisation, cropping and embraced installation. Using bold colour saturation, he transformed images of urban ugliness into something more. Mark Strizic: A Journey in Photography, a retrospective exhibition organised by Monash Gallery of Art, showcased 50 years of his work and in 2007 the State Library of Victoria acquired Strizic’s entire archive of over 5,000 photographic negatives and slides.
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John CATO
b. Australia, 1926; d. Australia 2011
Drift 1990
black and white silver gelatin photograph
1991.11
Gift of the artist, 1991
About the artist and their work:
John Cato was a distinguished Australian photographer and teacher. He started his career early as the son of Jack Cato, who was also a renowned portrait and theatre photographer. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned to Australia and worked at the Argus newspaper as a photojournalist and then as a commercial photographer. He was first an assistant and then later went into a business partnership with Athol Shmith. Cato was deeply moved after seeing the Museum of Modern Art photographic touring exhibition The Family of Man at the National Gallery of Victoria and was inspired by its humanist themes. In the 1960s, Cato began pursuing the artistic side of his photographic practice and focused solely on his artistic and teaching work in the early 1970s. In 1975 Cato began his teaching career at Prahran College of Advanced Education and later held the position of Department Head of Photography until his retirement in 1991. He was a passionate, generous teacher and was highly regarded by his students and peers.
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Bill HENSON
b. Australia, 1955
Untitled (from the Kindertotenlieder series) 1976
colour photograph
LT2021.90.1-16
On long term loan from the collection of Anouk Hulme
About the artist and their work:
Bill Henson is one of Australia’s leading contemporary photographic artists. Henson was born in 1955 and studied visual arts under Louis Athol Shmith and John Cato at the Prahran College of Advanced Education (one of Deakin’s antecedent institutions). Although Henson did not complete his studies, Shmith showed his works to the curator of photography at the National Gallery of Victoria, which led to first solo exhibition there in 1975.
Henson exhibited widely both within Australia and internationally. This includes the recent solo exhibitions Bill Henson, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2017); Oneiroi, Hellenic Museum, Melbourne (2016); Cloud Landscapes, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2013); Bill Henson, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2012); Bill Henson, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2007); Bill Henson: Three Decades of Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2005); Bill Henson, Centro de Fotografia, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain (2003); and Bill Henson, 46th Venice Biennale, Australian Pavilion, Venice (1995).
Henson’s untitled photographic images Kindertotenlieder are an ongoing series of works inspired by the poems of German poet Friedrich Rückert that reflect on feelings of loss and grief. In the 1830s Rückert wrote over four hundred poems after the death of his children to scarlet fever. Seventy years later the 21st century German composer Gustav Mahler created a song cycle of classical musical compositions dedicated to Rückert’s poems. Henson’s series captures dream-like images of Mahler’s family home in Maiernigg, Austria and the surrounding forest and lake. The series was first exhibited at Realities Gallery, Melbourne in 1987 and continued as a project by Henson over several decades. In 2017 this series was reproduced in entirety as a limited-edition artist book.
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Acknowledgments
I wish to share my sincere gratitude to the extended Hirsh family for your generosity and openness in the development and presentation of this exhibition. In particular, I would like to thank Irwin and Wendy Hirsh and Anouk Hulme and Mitta Hirsh for your thoughts and energies in developing the ideas around the exhibition and for the loan of various artworks which added greatly to the exhibition. I would also like to thank artist Peter Corlett for sharing his thoughts to open the exhibition and in the exhibition’s development. I also wished to thank the various artists in assisting the research including Godwin Bradbeer, Warren Breninger, Murray Walker, Domenico de Clario, Alberr Shomaly, Guy Stuart and Charles and Kate Nodrum.
I also wanted to thank my colleagues in the Art Collection and Galleries team here at Deakin: Cindy Seeberger, Claire Muir and Senior Manager, Leanne Willis for their assistance with the exhibition development and installation. A further thank you to designer Jasmin Tulk and photographer Ross Coulter for your incredible work and service.
James Lynch
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right: Table set for lunch. Andrew Southall installation (c.1985)
Photograph courtesy of the Hirsh family
A leg through the ceiling: the art collection of Etta and Emanuel Hirsh
Deakin University Art Gallery
2 November to 16 December 2022
Exhibition Curator: James Lynch
All works are © copyright and courtesy of the artists. Photography is by Ross Coulter unless otherwise stated.
Image measurements are height x width x depth.
Published by Deakin University 978-0-6486747-7-1
200 copies
Catalogue design: Jasmin Tulk
Deakin University Art Gallery
Deakin University Melbourne Campus at Burwood
221 Burwood Highway Burwood 3125
T +61 3 9244 5344
E artgallery@deakin.edu.au www.deakin.edu.au/art-collection
Gallery hours
Monday – Friday 11 am – 5 pm
Free Entry
cover image: black and white photograph
Peter Corlett
The leg through the ceiling
1966-67
fibreglass and resin
installed in the dining room ceiling of Hirsh family home 1974 image © copyright and courtesy of Peter Corlett
© 2023 the artists, the authors and publisher. Copyright to the works is retained by the artists and his/her descendants. No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher and the individual copyright holder(s).
The views expressed within are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views held by Deakin University. Unless otherwise indicated all images are reproduced courtesy the artists.
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