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).

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).

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.