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.