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.

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