2007.Q1 | artonview 49 Autumn 2007

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N o . 4 9 a u t u m n 2 0 0 7

N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F A U S T R A L I A

symposium

I SSUE

ISSUE No.49 autumn 2007

The 6th Australian print

The story of Australian

printmaking 1801–2005

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

John Lewin Spotted grossbeak 1803–05 from Birds of New South Wales 1813 (detail) hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

nga.gov.au

International Galleries • Australian printmaking • Modern poster

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N o . 4 9 a u t u m n 2 0 0 7

N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F A U S T R A L I A

symposium

I SSUE

ISSUE No.49 autumn 2007

The 6th Australian print

The story of Australian

printmaking 1801–2005

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

John Lewin Spotted grossbeak 1803–05 from Birds of New South Wales 1813 (detail) hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

nga.gov.au

International Galleries • Australian printmaking • Modern poster

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content s 2

Director’s foreword

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Development office

Editor Jeanie Watson

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Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007

Designer MA@D Communication

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International Galleries

Photography Eleni Kypridis Barry Le Lievre Brenton McGeachie Steve Nebauer John Tassie

14 The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005

Publisher National Gallery of Australia nga.gov.au

24 Conservation: print soup 28 Birth of the modern poster

Designed and produced in Australia by the National Gallery of Australia Printed in Australia by Pirion Printers, Canberra

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issn

1323-4552

Published quarterly: Issue no. 49, Autumn 2007 © National Gallery of Australia

34 George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons 37 Travelling exhibitions 38 New acquisitions 50 Children’s gallery: Tools and techniques of printmaking

Print Post Approved pp255003/00078

53 Sculpture Garden Sunday

All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.

54 Faces in view

Submissions and correspondence should be addressed to: The editor, artonview National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 artonview.editor@nga.gov.au Advertising (02) 6240 6557 facsimile (02) 6240 6427 artonview.advertising@nga.gov.au RRP: $8.60 includes GST Free to members of the National Gallery of Australia For further information on National Gallery of Australia Membership contact: Coordinator, Membership GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 (02) 6240 6504 membership@nga.gov.au

front and inside front cover: A provisional concept design developed by Andrew Anderson PTW Architects for the front entrance for stage one of the approved building additions to the National Gallery of Australia building

direc tor’s foreword

A provisional concept design for the building additions, featuring a skyspace by internationally renowned artist James Turrell

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We are extremely excited and grateful that the government at the end of 2006 approved financial support for stage one of our two-stage redevelopment. It means above all that the Gallery will receive its first increase in the permanent collection display space since the building was conceived. Most of this will be appropriately dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art of which the Gallery holds the largest collection. There will be special spaces dedicated to different aspects of Indigenous art, from smaller galleries for the earlier and smaller dot and bark paintings to larger galleries suitable for the larger dot and bark paintings from the 1980s onwards. There will also be a designated space for city-based Indigenous art.

In contrast with these galleries, which will be lit with natural light, there will also be smaller side galleries for light sensitive works, lit artificially. These Indigenous galleries will include areas for the Hermannsburg watercolours, baskets, textiles and prints. They will be the first suite of galleries especially designed around the different needs and scale of Australian Indigenous art.

The Gallery has long flagged the need for a more accessible and compliant entrance and facilities worthy of a national institution. We will now have such an entrance.

The Gallery has also been hampered by a lack of an

national gallery of australia

appropriate space for openings and functions. Stage one includes a large, flexible space for nearly 1000 people to attend stand-up functions, or 320 for seated functions.

The space, which can be divided, will also be used for educational purposes during the day. The area will open out into an Australian garden that will eventually, in stage two, join up with the current Sculpture Garden.

As well as the Australian Indigenous galleries, there will be a new home on the main floor for the Gallery’s most iconic Australian work – the Ned Kelly series by Sidney Nolan. Stage one also includes a street level entrance, shop and facilities, with the Aboriginal Memorial Poles displayed by the entrance as the first work people see when they enter the building.

Construction work on stage one should begin in mid 2007 after the necessary planning approvals are received, and it is anticipated that the new extensions will be completed by 2009. The government has committed $93 million to the building program which includes $20 million for the almost completed refurbishment of the existing building. The extensions have been developed by Andrew Andersons of PTW working in close collaboration with Gallery staff, the Gallery Council and myself. We appreciate the valuable consultation undertaken during

Provisional concept designs showing the interior entrance of the National Gallery of Australia

the design development in 2004 and 2005 by the architect of the original building, Colin Madigan. For a threedimensional fly-through of the proposed building changes visit nga.gov.au.

We continue to receive positive feedback for the new Southeast Asian Galleries (which follow on from the new Indian Gallery) and especially for the radical new-look International Galleries. Visitors are keen to explore the Gallery’s panorama of international art, Impressionism to Pop Art, which investigates the story of modernism from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards.

Impressionism to Pop Art now dominates the entrance level of the Gallery with each of the eight bays designed to reflect the ambience of the artists’ visions and stories.

For the first time, visitors move through chronological themes displayed in separate bays that are organised around a range of art historical movements and interconnected concepts. Work is now progressing on the eagerly anticipated restored Sculpture Gallery, which we expect will open in April.

At the beginning of February Grace Crowley: being modern was formally launched by Daniel Thomas. It has been over thirty years since Daniel Thomas organised the first retrospective of her work at the Art Gallery of

New South Wales, and we are delighted to introduce her remarkable work in this touring exhibition to a new generation of Australians. Many paintings have been especially cleaned for this exhibition and their true original colour can once again be enjoyed. The exhibition includes several recently rediscovered paintings and the largest number of Crowley’s abstract paintings ever assembled, enabling a new appraisal of Crowley’s achievement. While Crowley has long been recognised as one of the most important of the ‘modern Australian women’ who revitalised Australian art during the inter-war period, the later phase of her career is not so well known. Abstraction was slow to gain a foothold in Australia and Crowley’s great achievement has not received due recognition. In her late abstract works we can see her brilliance as a colourist; one of Australia’s finest. In her abstract paintings of the 1950s her own voice stood out, a sophisticated, intelligent and above all joyous expression of her beliefs of what it meant to be an artist.

I believe they are her best works. The exhibition is supported by a range of public programs and events including floortalks, lectures, performances and screenings.

As we begin to celebrate our twenty-fifth birthday it is timely to turn our attention to ourselves with the launch at the end of March of the Gallery’s major twenty-fifth

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credit lines anniversary exhibition, The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005. This exhibition showcases the Gallery’s largest and one of its most impressive collections – the collection of Australian prints, posters and illustrated books. This unparalleled collection of over 36,000 works is the most comprehensive collection of Australian prints held anywhere and is the culmination of twenty-five years of inspired and rigorous collecting by curatorial staff, especially Roger Butler, judicious support by the Gallery’s previous Directors and Council members, and long-standing, generous funding from donors, particularly Gordon Darling. The exhibition coincides with the publication of a series that covers the history of Australian printmaking from its colonial beginnings to the present, told through the Gallery’s collection. The series presented the Gallery with the opportunity to document, rediscover and reveal the riches of its outstanding collection. The exhibition and books are supported by Hindmarsh and the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Despite the wealth of information covered in the series, books cannot encompass the entirety of a collection the size and depth of our Australian prints collection. In 1997 the Gallery initiated its Australian prints and printmaking web presence and, ten years later, the National Gallery of Australia is the nation’s leading institution in providing electronic access to its collection. The sheer quantity and quality of the Australian prints collection can now be accessed through data that has been electronically published at printsandprintmaking.gov.au.

In April the Gallery is hosting the Australian Print Symposium, the sixth symposium held since 1987, which provides a forum to discuss prints and printmaking in the Australasian region. Artists, print curators and art historians will present papers predominantly concerned with contemporary prints and printmaking practice.

In this issue we propose two new acquisitions for the Masterpieces for the Nation appeal. One is a nineteenth-century Indian pichhavai, featuring a scene from the life of Krishna. The second is Jeffrey Smart’s Lovers by house 1956, an enigmatic image in the tradition of metaphysical artists such as Giorgio de Chirico. For more information, see pages 6–7.

There is a particular feeling of elation throughout the Gallery at the moment as we celebrate our silver jubilee and bask in the news of our approved funding for our stage one building redevelopment. We look forward to providing a much improved and more exciting visitor experience.

Ron Radford 4

national gallery of australia

Donations Ross and Florence Adamson Andrew Andersons Robyn Burke Charles Curran, AC and Eva Curran Joan Daley Gifts Philip Bacon, AM George C Baxley Jessie Birch Vincent Bray Peter Burgess Brian Freeman Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund Claudia Hyles Chips Mackinolty The Orde Poynton Bequest Presbyterian Ladies College Gift of the Lax Family in memory of Anthony Walter Lax 2006 Theo Tremblay Gift of Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler in memory of Harry Seidler 2006 Jill White Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2006 Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC, DBE Treasure a Textile Diana E Gregson Sponsorship Casella Wines Forrest Inn and Apartments Gordon Darling Foundation Hindmarsh Saville Park Suites

development of fice

Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund To celebrate the official opening of the Gallery in 1982, Gordon Darling, then Chairman of the Gallery Council, provided a donation which enabled the Gallery to purchase contemporary Australian prints. Further gifts followed, culminating in the establishment of the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund in 1989. This fund has allowed the Gallery to form an unrivalled collection of prints in Australia and within the region. Gordon Darling showed great foresight and understanding, realising that such a collection would require additional resources to maintain and promote it. He therefore allocated funding that provides for a Gordon Darling Fellow and a Gordon Darling Intern to assist in the preservation of the collection, as well as funding to establish the Australian Prints website that further increases access to this extraordinary collection.

Such gestures of generosity assist in encouraging subsequent gifts from other donors. For example, this has led to artists donating complete sets of prints to the Gallery because they know they will be properly maintained and promoted. The forthcoming major exhibition The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 profiles our exemplary collection of prints, many of which were purchased through the Gordon Darling Australiasian Print Fund.

In addition, the Gordon Darling Foundation has provided a grant to assist with the production of a series of publications written by Roger Butler, Senior Curator Australian Prints and Drawing, which will be the first to document the evolution of the print as an artform in Australia.

Hindmarsh The Gallery is delighted to announce that Hindmarsh is the principal sponsor of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005. Hindmarsh was also a major sponsor of Bill Viola: the passions and the National Gallery of Australia is excited at the prospect of again working with this leading construction, development and property company.

Hindmarsh is a locally established company which has expanded its operations both nationally and internationally.

John Hindmarsh (Managing Director of Hindmarsh) and his wife, Rosanna, are also involved in other aspects of the Gallery – John is on the Board of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation and Rosanna has been a volunteer guide at the Gallery since 1984.

Gordon and Marilyn Darling John Hindmarsh and Belinda Wise

Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007 Since the appeal was launched in 2003, through the generosity of our donors, the Gallery has been able to purchase three significant Australian paintings: Creation landscape – fountains of the earth 2002 by William Robinson, Near Liverpool, New South Wales c. 1908 by WC Piguenit and last year’s very popular acquisition Flamingoes c. 1906 by Sydney Long. This year we are delighted to present donors with the opportunity to participate in acquiring two major works for the national collection – Jeffrey Smart’s Lovers by house 1956 and Gopashtami, a nineteenth-century Indian pichhavai.

Please see the following pages for more information about these works. To make a donation towards either work please fill in the enclosed form or phone the Development Office on 02 6240 6454.

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National Galler y of Australia Foundation

Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007

Jeffrey Smart Lovers by house 1956 oil on board 30.5 x 38.0 cm

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Jeffrey Smart’s Lovers by house Jeffrey Smart is a leading Australian painter who has lived in Italy since 1965, but visits Australia regularly. He is known for his stark, modernist depictions of urban vistas which sometimes evoke a sense of menace, as well as for his attention to clean lines, precise composition and geometrics.

In 1999 he was honoured by a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Although his paintings are sometimes described as surreal, Smart suggests that it is the world that is surreal, rather than his images of it.

national gallery of australia

Lovers by house is an intriguing example of Smart’s early work. It shows a woman standing on a veranda wit outstretched arms; a bird on a post; and two figures seated in the foreground looking at the woman, as if she were a performer on a stage. Strangely, one of these figures (is it a woman or a man?) is naked while the other is dressed, and the whole scene is located under a dark dream-like sky. What does the image mean? To some it might suggest jealousy, to others perhaps the solitude of contemporary life.

National Galler y of Australia Foundation

Gopashtami Over the past two years, the Gallery has focused on Indian narrative paintings to illuminate the history of Asian art through accessible imagery. The most vibrant pichhavai (loosely translated as ‘something at the back’ since they sometimes form the backdrops for sculptures within shrines) are large, almost square, cotton paintings depicting scenes from the life of Krishna, the popular avatar of the great Hindu god Vishnu.

Gopashtami is a painted hanging created in Rajasthan for the late autumn Festival of the Cattle. It marks the promotion of Krishna from herder of calves to full cowherd. The scene features Krishna standing on a lotus, his evocative fluting summoning and entrancing the cattle.

A row of peacocks, a metaphorical allusion to Krishna, can be seen in the foreground, while the heavens are filled

with celestial chariots containing divine couples on each side of the full moon. The gleaming white colour of the cattle emphasises the dazzling image of Krishna, who is weighed down with garlands and jewellery and decked out in characteristically flamboyant dress – a scarf, an ornate layered dancing skirt with horizontal bands of colour, and a decorative turban from which a large peacock feather protrudes.

Aesthetic enjoyment and the ‘pathway of pleasure’ are essential elements of Krishna worship, where poetry, painting, music and dance are considered religious pursuits and keys to spiritual awakening.

This is your chance to make a donation to add to the national collection – please fill in the enclosed donation form or telephone the Development Office on 02 6240 6454. artonview

Gopashtami (Festival of the Cattle) Nathdvara, Rajasthan, India 19th century opaque watercolour on cotton 223.0 x 220.0 cm

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international galleries

Looking (a)new: from Impressionism to Pop Art The 19th century gallery shown at left and right of the panorama; the other three spaces in the Loti and Victor Smorgon Gallery are at centre

[opposite l–r] Pablo Picasso Still life with bottle 1912, drypoint and his untitled pen and ink drawing of 1920 with Louis Marcoussis’ Bar c. 1920, etching and drypoint and his Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire 1912–20, etching, drypoint and aquatint; Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars Prose of the TransSiberian 1913, hand-coloured stencil, letterpress; Vladimir Stenberg KPS no.6 1919–20, steel, glass, lacquer and plaster on wood; Juan Gris Checkerboard and playing cards 1915, oil on canvas

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Jean Tinguely’s Méta-mecanique (Méta-Herbin) 1954 had a special ‘viewing’ on the evening of 20 November 2006.

The quirky contraption of coloured discs, flags, cogs and wheels was set in motion for the opening of the displays in the international galleries. In the recent past the collection spaces changed often, compressed to accommodate a busy temporary exhibition schedule, dictated by the demands of individual works, or reinterpreted into themes. Over time, they gradually lost much of the vibrancy possible with integrated displays. As Council member and donor Roslyn Packer remarked in launching the new display, many works of art now seem more marvellous: the differences between the spaces are remarkable. We now offer visitors an exceptional story of modern art – a combination of old favourites, recent acquisitions and generous loans.

The Loti and Victor Smorgon, and Gordon Darling galleries on the entrance level have been reconfigured, with each gallery now divided into four rooms featuring new walls and showcases. This allows the richness of the collection to be shown to advantage, with long vistas and a range of more intimate spaces. The display walls of these large galleries are painted in a palette of warm greys and dark whites, the texture of the paint providing a sympathetic transition to the bush-hammered concrete of the building’s interior. By lowering the walls, the ceiling structures exist in a separate space and are seen as a sculptural entity. The new lighting system discreetly complements these structures, while allowing greater control of levels and better viewing of individual works. If it were desirable, an oil painting or acrylic on canvas and a

national gallery of australia

more light sensitive mezzotint can now be hung adjacent to each other on the same wall.

The display brings together artists from four ends of the earth. Their works are motivated by a huge variety of factors and reveal many influences: from the impact of portable paint tubes, European migration and colonialism, to urbanisation and city life, modern industrial material and techniques. One of the earliest works on display, a stereo daguerreotype produced c. 1852 by Jules Duboscq, suggests new ways of looking. It shows dual images of a partially clothed woman seated in boudoir-like surrounds.

She soaks her feet and lowers her newspaper, as if to ask the viewer: what prompts this interruption? With the development of photography from the 1840s, art began to relinquish one of its major roles as a record of people, places and things; painters in particular were no longer tied to mimetic representation. Realism, the direct observation of daily life and everyday truths, brought artists into conflict with the Academies, and so the avant-garde was born.

As shown in the panoramic images reproduced here, the new display is a vibrant mix of sculpture, photographs, glass and silver objects, drawings, costume and paintings.

The nineteenth-century gallery (shown at left and right in the first panorama) features Claude Monet’s Waterlilies c. 1914–17, prints and drawings by Vuillard, Degas, Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard and Cézanne, as well as sculptures by Bourdelle, Rosso and Rodin. Impressionist and post-impressionist landscapes by Russell, Sisley, Seurat and Monet are juxtaposed with paintings by Cézanne and Courbet, while the showcase presents art nouveau objects,

international galleries

[above] The African and European sections of the dada and surrealist case [above l–r] Joan Miró Landscape 1927, oil on canvas; Sidney Nolan Boy and the moon c. 1939–40, oil on canvas on composition board; Giorgio de Chirico Costume for a male guest 1929, wool, cotton grosgrain, rayon ribbon, ink; Hannah Höch Imaginary bridge 1926, oil on canvas; Christian Schad Portrait of a woman 1920, painted wood and metal (Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth); James Cant Objects in a landscape 1936, oil on canvas; Jean Arp Shirt-front and fork c. 1922, painted wood; and James Gleeson The attitude of lightning towards a lady mountain 1939, oil on canvas (on loan from the Agapitos/Wilson Collection, Sydney)

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and a selection of fine items produced for domestic use as part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. From the entrance, there are also glimpses of twentieth-century movements such as fauvism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism and constructivism. In the newly acquired Roy de Maistre New Atlantis c. 1933 surrealist, cubist and abstract elements meet.

The view back into the nineteenth-century display is seen in the second panorama; we also look into the room devoted to dada and surrealism. Drypoints and etchings by modern masters – Kandinsky, Braque, Picasso and Marcoussis – hang alongside the joyously coloured ‘travel poem’ Prose of the Trans-Siberian 1913 by Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars. Gris’ Checkerboard and playing cards 1915 and constructivist sculptures produced by the Stenberg brothers, Vladimir and Georgii, are nearby. The fauvism and School of Paris room, as seen in the right half of the second panorama, brings together paintings

by Pechstein, Derain, Matisse, Goncharova, sculptures by Modigliani and Epstein, and selections from Matisse’s Jazz and Picasso’s Vollard Suite. This room leads into a special ‘theatre’ designed to showcase the Gallery’s rich holdings of Ballets Russes costumes.

Standing rather forlornly in the centre of the dada and surrealist room is the Male guest, a costume produced by de Chirico for the 1929 production of The ball. He faces the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ which runs along one entire wall of the gallery. We might conclude the subject of his contemplation is the map of the world according to the surrealists, as published in the Belgium magazine Variétés in 1929. This map also provides the layout for works arranged in an old-style museum case: masks and sculptures made by the Bamana, Baulé, Senufo and Chokwe peoples confront an icon of surrealism, Dali’s

Lobster telephone 1936. The African works, as well as objects from the Pacific region and the Zuñi and Hopi kachinas found elsewhere in this cabinet, were once owned by the German-born surrealist Max Ernst. The five volumes of his book, A week of kindness, are displayed open, stacked vertically like a magazine stand, alongside Duchamp’s Bicycle wheel 1913, Man Ray’s Pain peint 1958 (also known as Blue bread: favourite food for bluebirds) and a 1936 box construction by expatriate English artist Paule Vézelay.

If Tinguely’s ‘machine’ (seen in the third panorama flanking the giant Fernand Léger canvas Trapeze artists 1952) remained switched on, it would eventually collapse and destroy itself, with the motor either burning out or the sprockets becoming so bent that the cogs could no longer turn. Other works remain on the move – either literally, as in the case of Alexander Calder’s mobile, Night and day 1964, or figuratively, as in the photograph by Lisette Model, Running legs, Fifth Avenue, New York 1940–41.

Elsewhere in this sweep of abstraction, Amédée Ozenfant’s pearlescent overlaid painted vessels and a Giorgio Morandi still life hang adjacent to a showcase with highlights of the decorative arts collection such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1912 window, made for the Avery Coonley Playhouse.

Around the corner is Pollock’s Blue poles 1952 and Totem lesson 2 1945, alongside early and late works

by Rothko, while the brass sculpture by Donald Judd features in the display of minimalism and conceptual art.

Cy Twombly’s exquisitely patinated bronze, another new acquisition, has found a temporary home in this bay until the Sculpture Gallery is ready. The monumental base and intriguingly constructed, block-like forms stand in sharp contrast to the work’s attenuated upper half, seemingly anchoring it to the floor. Finally, the pop extravaganza artonview

Several Vollard Suite are visible at the extreme left of the panorama, which also shows the wall of nineteenth-century prints and photographs, a view into the dada and surrealism room, part of the cubism and expressionism display and, at right, fauvism and the School of Paris

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international galleries

[above l–r] Jackson Pollock Blue poles 1952, oil, enamel, aluminium paint and glass on canvas, and Totem lesson 2 1945, oil on canvas, Mark Rothko 1957 #20 1957 (also known as Brown, black on maroon) and Multiform 1948, both oil on canvas; Louise Bourgeois C.O.Y.O.T.E. 1941–48, painted wood, is in the foreground

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[top l–r] Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup 1 1968, screenprints (partially obscured) and Electric chair 1967, synthetic polymer paint on canvas; Claes Oldenburg, Icebag (scale B) 1971, moulded plastic sheet, fabric, electric motor; and three lithographs by Robert Rauschenberg Banner 1969 and two versions of Sky garden 1969 from the series Stoned Moon 1969–70 [bottom l–r] Frank Stella Flin Flon 1970, fluorescent and synthetic polymer paint, pencil on canvas; Sol Lewitt Cubic modular piece no.3 1968, synthetic polymer paint on steel, and Donald Judd Untitled 1974, brass (both partially obscured)

gives the American print collection the opportunity to shine, with the recently purchased Warhol Campbell’s soup cans sharing a wall with his Elvis 1963 and Electric chair 1967.

Another moving sculpture, the Icebag by Oldenburg, puffs quietly away at the centre of the room, expanding and deflating like a disembodied lung.

The permanent collection display encourages visitors to take another look at modern art. Tracing the development of modernism – from Courbet’s painterly realism, Daumier’s political relief sculpture and the early use of photography, to the mechanics of a Warhol screenprint and the teasing austerity of Judd’s boxes – the works of art present a range of subject matter, diverse approaches to tradition, and a wealth of materials and techniques. The display at once demonstrates the breadth of the collection, while providing historical context for the Gallery’s masterpieces and placing key works of art by Australian artists within a global perspective.

While a peep at the Duboscq nude may not be possible next visit and Méta-mecanique is once again silent and stable, the new display will not remain static, with loans returning from overseas, and the prints, drawings, photographs and costumes changing regularly. The opening of any new display or temporary exhibition represents a great deal of work behind the scenes – this time the sigh of relief was almost audible! On that November evening in Canberra, as Tinguely’s mischievous homage to early abstract art flapped happily, shuddering away through each rotation, it seemed a fitting encapsulation of the preceding months of planning. a

Abstraction and modernity are explored in the first bay of the Gordon Darling Gallery, while glimpses of the New York School and the minimalist works are seen at far right

Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

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The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 30 March – 3 June 2007

John Lewin Spotted grossbeak from Birds of New South Wales with their natural history Sydney: G. Howe, printer, 1813 hand-coloured etching printed image 23.6 x 21.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1996

Roger Butler has been very busy. As Senior Curator of

website before moving into the waiting room to await the

Australian Prints and Drawings, he is hosting a reunion

cue for their grand entrance.

of the class of 1801–2005, gathering together old and

new friends from across the Gallery’s extensive collection

glances as costumes and accoutrements are examined

of Australian prints to share with you The story of

and compared. Due to the size of this exhibition, there is

Australian printmaking.

an impressive array of techniques and textures on show,

including glimpses of the fine tracery of copperplate

The celebrations will begin on 30 March and there will

While they gather, there are surreptitious sidelong

be many familiar faces amongst the crowd – John Brack’s

engravings and the stately rich blacks of the mezzotint;

stormy-faced Third daughter, armfuls of Margaret Preston

the characteristic burred line of the drypoints and the soft

bouquets and frog-chorused Olsen waterholes – along

sweep of the lithographic crayon.

with some guests of honour that many of you will not

have met before as they have only recently moved into the Gallery or have previously been too fragile to attend such events. But a get-together like this only occurs every so often, and this one has been twenty-five years in the making – with the guest list showing the extent of the journey the Gallery has taken since Roger began in 1981 filled with an enthusiastic vision for the future of the nation’s collection. Over the years, with the support of different directors and the Gallery Council, and assisted with generous funding from philanthropist Gordon Darling, he has worked steadily to fill the gallery with historical rarities and works by overlooked artists, expanding the collection to over 36,000 prints, posters and illustrated books. With so many significant prints to choose from for this exhibition, Roger has focused on a shortlist of almost 600 individuals who have played significant roles in this (hi)story – and has invited them to tell you their tales of exploration and adventure, of innovation and desperation, of fears well founded and hopes realised.

Caught up in the excitement and whirl of activity

Gathered together, the works begin to talk among

themselves, with the tales of the colonial works drawing an instant audience. These prints were made during a time of discovery and hardship, and they document the beginnings of settlement – of strangers in a faraway land – often commemorating the achievements and, with hindsight, revealing devastating failings. Despite their significance, some of the early prints are a little nervous as they have not been seen in public for almost 200 years and are easily recognised in the huddle of men tugging at their starched collars and women conferring behind their fans. This is in marked contrast to many of the works made towards the end of the nineteenth century, when artists such as Tom Roberts and Lionel Lindsay began to make prints as an adjunct art form to painting and drawing. This shift in the intention moved printmaking from being a functional tool for recording and reproducing information to an inventive approach to translating personal experience into images.

This change is easily appreciated in the flattened designs of modernist works during the 1920s, such as the self-

associated with such an undertaking, the prints have been

assured relief prints of Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor and

busy preparing for their social debut. Many have been in

Dorrit Black. Preston’s 1936 woodcut Banksia and fungus

Conservation, soaking a century or two of dirt and grime

strides confidently into the room and shakes your hand

from their papery skin, having age spots lightened or small

firmly as you take in the boldly outlined banksia candles

tears in their fabric mended. With their colours revived

and the branch enveloped in the luminous orange brackets

and their garments freshly pressed, they are wheeled

of fungi. The candour and strength of the work stems

downstairs to have their measurements recorded and

from the artist’s unerring eye for the possibilities within the

are fitted for their framing. Then it’s off to have their

organic forms of the local vegetation, and openness to the

photographs taken for a series of publications and the

beauty that is contained within imperfection.

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Walter Preston engraver print after John Eyre Absalom West publisher Port Jackson Harbour, with a distant view of the Blue Mountains, taken from South Head from Views in New South Wales Sydney: West, 1813 engraving plate-mark 27.4 x 40.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2005 Walter Preston engraver print after John Eyre Absalom West publisher Botany Bay Harbour, with a view of the Heads from Views in New South Wales Sydney: West, 1813 engraving plate-mark 27.2 x 39.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2005

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Preston’s use of native flora catches the attention of the small group of nineteenth-century flower books by watercolorists including Fanny de Mole, Annie Walker and Marian Ellis Rowan. The earlier entrance of these lithographed beauties had drawn gasps of admiration at their corsage-like sprays of delicate wildflowers, with each botanical species sensitively hand-coloured. These ornamental lithographed gift books combined the demure feminine pastimes of flower arranging with watercolour drawing, but due to the inclusion of Latin nomenclature these books also became aligned with the emerging science of botany. They are also anxious to make the acquaintance of the works by the natural historian John Lewin and the appearance of the 1813 edition of his pioneer publication – Birds of New South Wales and their natural history – causes a flurry of excitement with everyone jostling to catch a glimpse of this rare attraction.

It was the first illustrated book to be published in Australia, and contains proofs from the 1803 edition, the first etchings printed in Sydney. Inside are detailed etchings of eighteen species of birds encountered by Lewin following his arrival in 1800, including the three-toed kingfisher, the warty-face honeysucker and a pair of spotted grosbeaks – with each hand-coloured etching singing from the page.

Fanny de Mole Gum wattle and silver wattle from Wild flowers of South Australia Adelaide: Paul Jerrard & Son, 1861 hand-coloured lithograph printed image 28.0 x 22.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2006 Margaret Preston Banksia and fungus 1936 hand-coloured woodcut printed image 19.0 x 25.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1976

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William Nicholas William Baker publisher The flying pieman (William Francis King) from Heads of the people Sydney: Baker, 1847–48 lithograph printed image 21.4 x 11.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2006 Shane Cotton Martin King printer Kikorangi 2004 lithograph printed image 47.3 x 58.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2005

This work begins an unexpected conversation with

tales of his unusual feats of pedestrianism, including his

a series of allegorical lithographs produced in 2004

signature act in which he would sell pies to passengers

by Aotearoa New Zealand artist, Shane Cotton, at the

boarding the steamer at Circular Quay in Sydney, before

Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne. Their animated

walking eighteen miles at speed to meet them as they

discussion reveals that both use birds as an intermediary

alighted at Parramatta.

to show the meeting of two cultures, with the English-

born Lewin documenting the unfamiliar native Australian

area, the atmosphere becomes one of expectation as

bird life around the settlement in the name of science, and Cotton creating a dialogue between Maori and Pakeha (non-indigenous New Zealander) perspectives using the shared spiritual symbolism of birds including the goldfinch and the swallow. In Kikorangi, which translates as ‘firmament’, a pair of these tiny birds appears either side of a mokomokai – sacred shrunken heads of the Maori that were later traded with the colonists for muskets in the eighteenth century.

The tale of this practice causes worried expressions to

appear on the portraits within the 1847 illustrated journal, Heads of the People, sending a wave of laughter rippling

As more and more prints are wheeled into the waiting

Views in New South Wales (the first set of views printed in Australia) is rumoured to make a rare appearance. Its story begins with its publication in 1812–13 by pardoned entrepreneur Absalom West, and has the added curiosity of the twenty-four cloud-laden panoramas having been meticulously engraved by convicts Philip Slager and Walter Preston. These inauspicious beginnings cause a stir as the Views enter the room, and those gathered press forward eagerly to inspect the finely engraved landscapes, which show some of the earliest images of the Indigenous population interacting with the new settlers.

through the crowd. The publication contains numerous

The prints detail the beginnings of the Port Jackson

skilful lithographs by William Nicholas of notable men

colony, with Botany Bay Harbour, with a view of the Heads

of the day, including The governor (Sir C.A. Fitz Roy),

capturing the event as the English ships sail through the

and The inspector of nuisances (T.Stubbs). A crowd has

Heads towards local aborigines hunting and fishing by

gathered around The flying pieman (William Francis King).

the foreshore, while Port Jackson Harbour shows the

The celebrated long-distance walker strikes a pose in his

Indigenous population separated from the fast-expanding

customary outfit of knee breeches and staff, and recounts

colony sited across the bay.

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Dennis Nona Kala Lagaw Ya people Theo Tremblay printer Awai Thithuiyil (Badu Island Story) 2004 hand-coloured linocut printed image 125.6 x 106.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2005 John Carmichael engraver print after Thomas Mitchell Chart of the Zodiac, Including the Stars of the 4th Magnitude, Between the Parallels of 24°½ Declination North & South c. 1831 mezzotint plate-mark 40.0 x 60.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2004

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The details within these scenes momentarily fill the air with memories of salt spray, wood smoke and sweat causing a succession of stories to start up about the scarcity of materials in the early days of printmaking. West’s Views speak of being printed on a wooden press built by workmen in the colony, then Lewin’s Birds of New South Wales pipe up with a chorus of anecdotes about the days of printing with copper plates salvaged from the hulls of sailing ships and Lewin’s own printing ink being made from charcoal mixed with gum and shark oil. This is quickly answered by etchings by Lionel Lindsay who describe how the artist made a press from a recycled knife-sharpening machine during the early 1900s. These tales of ‘making do’ with humble materials are joined by a group of works produced during the Second World War in internment camps in Hay, Orange and Tatura by German and Italian-born artists including Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, Erwin Fabian and Bruno Simon. The Bauhaus-trained artist Hirschfeld Mack taught some of his fellow detainees the technique of monotype printing, using old windowpanes or discarded Masonite, and printing ink made from black shoe polish.

The shortage of materials in these barren surroundings made woodcuts another popular technique, and Mack’s 1941 print, Desolation, Internment Camp, Hay, is one of the simplest but strongest statements made in this medium. In this eloquent print, the silhouette of a solitary figure is seen at night looking at the Southern Cross through the barbed wire fence of the camp. Made by an artist far from home, there is a palpable sense of despair and isolation beneath the alien night sky.

The sight of the stars gives rise to many different associations among those assembled. For Badu Island printmaker Dennis Nona, they tell the story of his homeland, and his large 2004 linocut print, Awai Thithuiyil, is named after the western Torres Strait Island name for the Pelican constellation. This intricate work shows the position of the stars during the turtle-mating season. Above the hand-coloured turtles stands the spirit figure, Zugubau Mabaig, who is the custodian of the stars. He is teaching the story to the next generation, represented by the five human figures below him. This rich narrative is part of Nona’s cultural heritage, with the intricate details cut from a large roll of linoleum using the traditional wood-carving skills taught to Nona as a young boy.

This southern sky was mapped almost two centuries earlier by Thomas Mitchell in his Chart of the Zodiac and expertly engraved by the deaf and mute artist John Carmichael in 1831. The pinpricks of light shine out from the deep black of the mezzotint, showing the position of the stars used as markers to guide the travels of the new settlers. Astronomy was a practical navigational skill that helped men voyage across the inky black sea or find their way through miles of shadowy bushland at nightfall. The unfamiliarity of the terrain kept early settlers clinging to the coastline until explorers such as Burke and Wills ventured into the unknown interior – terra incognita.

Henry Sadd’s sombre mezzotint portraits of these iconic figures were produced as commemorative works in 1861 from earlier daguerreotypes by Thomas A Hill. They were

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Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Desolation, Internment camp, Orange, N.S.W. 1941 woodcut printed image 21.8 x 13.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Olive Hirschfeld 1979 Mike Parr John Loane printer LAMD [Lamella, Australopithecus, ManicDepression] 2001 carborundum and woodblock printed image (overall) 268.0 x 726.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2006

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conser vation

etched the year after the explorer Robert O’Hara Burke and his surveyor, astronomer William John Wills, set off on their ill-fated expedition from Melbourne to cross the inland deserts of Australia. The deep funereal blacks afforded by the mezzotint technique lend a poignancy to the images, which show Burke sitting with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully off to one side while the younger Wills stares directly out of the oval frame.

Their reflective mood is echoed in Mike Parr’s introspective woodcut, LAMD [Lamella, Australopithecus, Manic-Depression]. This massive print of 2001 continues the artist’s ongoing self-portrait project, which turns his unflinching gaze upon himself. He carved his likeness into twelve large woodblocks, later assembled as six mirrored identities. Lamella refers to the plate-like structures found in nature, which is repeated in the horizontal grid, whilst Australopithecus was a distant primate ancestor that roamed the earth millions of years ago. The allusion to manic depression is underscored in the deeply gouged marks that contain an intensity of emotion within their gestural line work. Printed in dark, impassive black on an algal-coloured background, this work is at once huge and quiet – in marked contrast with the confrontational aspects of Parr’s performance pieces. His politically questioning art is in good company with a mass demonstration of socially orientated posters that have gathered in a rowdy group to the left. These screenprints were produced in print workshops such as Redback Graphix and the Earthworks

Poster Collective during the 1980s, using feisty Day-Glo inks to shout protestations about issues including Indigenous health, land rights, nuclear disarmament and AIDS awareness. Exhibited in plain sight – pinned up in community centres, stapled onto telegraph poles and glued onto hoardings – the intensity and passion of these voluble posters remains undiminished more than twenty years later.

Their infectious energy has caused the volume in the waiting area to rise, with the air thickly woven with assorted threads drawn from a roomful of stories.

When Roger arrives he has to shout to make himself heard above the hubbub. ‘It’s time’, he bellows, pausing his guests mid-sentence. And like old friends who need no telling, they begin to move towards the waiting gallery, falling into chronological order like clockwork.

They take their places, whispering with their neighbours in anticipation of the conversations ahead – the sharing of experiences that leads to connections being formed between old ideas and new possibilities.

Suddenly everyone is hushed and there is no more fidgeting; Roger nods his encouragement as the doors open; and as the exhibition begins his guests smile a warm welcome as they move forward to greet you.

Henry Samuel Sadd print after Thomas A Hill R O’Hara Burke 1861 mezzotint plate-mark 40.1 x 30.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2006 Henry Samuel Sadd print after Thomas A Hill William John Wills 1861 mezzotint plate-mark 40.1 x 30.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Puchased 2006 Marie McMahon Peter Curtis printer Redback Graphix print workshop Empty kids 1987 colour screenprint printed image 49.0 x 73.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Fund 1989

Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax Gordon Darling Intern, Australian Prints and Drawings Further information at nga.gov.au/AustralianPrintmaking artonview

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conser vation

Print soup Water and works on paper, given the right circumstances,

of the framing process. The discolouration resisted washing

can be an unexpectedly good combination. A feature of

in cold water and bleaching. However, after being floated

paper conservation treatments which constantly surprises

on a hot water bath, the coating solubilised and rinsed out,

is the extent to which water can be used, often producing

leaving a chemically stable and visually unified work.

tremendous positive changes both visually and physically.

As part of exhibition preparations for The story of Australian

required other forms of stain reduction. This large

printmaking 1801–2005 the paper conservation section examined hundreds of prints, many of which required attention before they could be displayed. Each work was condition checked and tested to establish whether the support or media would be adversely affected by the proposed techniques, particularly sensitivity to water.

A high level of acidity is the single most damaging

factor for works on paper such as prints. In this state paper becomes brittle and darker and the image is

lithograph on machine-made paper was created using a combination of printed black ink, printed colour and hand-applied watercolour. The darkening of the paper support together with loss in vibrancy of the pigments resulted in a complete lack of contrast in the image.

Artificial light bleaching, which can be used with great success for monochromatic prints, was not an option due to the potential for fading. As an alternative, two different

increasingly obscured, peppered with brown spots known

diluted chemical solutions were applied in sequence to

as foxing. Poor quality fibres and chemicals used in paper

the back of the work to avoid alteration to the pigments.

manufacture are the main causes of inherent acidity, but it

One of these solutions, which visually enhances the image,

can also be attributed to inadequate mounting and framing,

also improves strength and flexibility in degraded paper

compounded by a poor environment. Fortunately much of

by repairing broken molecular bonds in the cellulose.

the discolouration and staining associated with acidity is

Chemical residues were removed by further rinsing and the

water soluble and can be removed through the application

original colours now shine through.

of various washing techniques.

present different challenges. The engraved views of Sydney

Depending on the severity and type of staining, washing

Previous unsympathetic restoration treatments can

may take several days using a series of slightly alkaline

commissioned and published by Absalom West from 1812

solutions of deionised water. This treatment achieves a

onwards were sold individually and never issued in bound

cosmetic enhancement but, more importantly, it improves

book form. As a result they have been more susceptible

chemical and physical stability in the paper in the long term George Rowe View of the city of Melbourne 1858 lithograph printed image 23.0 x 71.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

by returning it to an alkaline state. WS Percy’s Hollyhocks

Thomas Balcombe The Five Dock Grand Steeple Chase 1844.

No 1 the first leap 1844 lithograph printed image 32.0 x 46.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

uneven so a gentle form of bleaching with artificial light

Absalom West View of part of the river in Sydney. Taken from St Phillip’s churchyard 1813 intaglio plate-mark 28.7 x 35.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

George Rowe’s 1858 View of the city of Melbourne

1922, an etching in brown ink on machine made paper, was visibly discoloured around the edges and on the reverse.

After an initial washing the colour in Hollyhocks remained was used to reduce the stains and allow restoration of the original soft cream colour of the paper.

There are occasions when warm water can be used to

to damage and subsequent restoration. A group of twenty-four of these prints were treated for the exhibition to alleviate a range of damage which included disfiguring white, chalky deposits on the black ink surface. The prints had also been lined, a technique which involves adhering an extra layer of paper to the back of the work. Unfortunately this treatment had flattened the plate marks and destroyed the characteristic texture of the original paper. To revitalise

great effect, particularly for materials containing proteins

the ink surface, the white chalky deposits were removed

such as some glues. The extreme discolouration in the

using a chelate. This chemical targets and binds specific

hand-coloured lithograph, The Five Dock Grand Steeple

compounds (in this case calcium carbonate), allowing them

Chase (one of a pair by Thomas Balcombe) was due to the

to be safely extracted. The additional paper linings were

edges of the paper having been folded and coated with an

removed and, after washing, the texture and colour of the

animal glue as part

original supports were greatly improved.

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Conservator Fiona Kemp working on Frederick Schoenfeld’s Reptiles and fishes 1878

Image reintegration is a technique used by conservators

Conservator James Ward supervising the float washing of prints for the upcoming exhibition

original is shaped to match the missing area and is then

to replace missing sections of the support and image.

Repair paper of a similar weight and texture to the adhered. Sometimes the infill is toned with media such as watercolour or pencil to restore coherence to the image. An example of this type of treatment can be seen in the printed colour engraving by Frederick Schoenfeld Reptiles and fishes 1878. Localised retouching may also be necessary but this is always carried out in a medium that can be removed in the future.

The aim of the conservator is to prevent or slow down

deterioration in works of art as well as to make the image more accessible to the viewer. Not every image in The story of Australian printmaking is pristine. Regardless of the treatment undertaken, many works have an inherent patina of age which remains as an acknowledgement of accumulated history and as testament to the surprisingly enduring nature of paper.

Andrea Wise, Caitlin Granowski, James Ward and Fiona Kemp Paper Conservation

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THE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN PRINTMAKING 1801–2005 T H E

H I S T O R Y

O F

A

N A T I O N

C A P T U R E D

I N

P R I N T

Thea Proctor The rose 1927 woodcut © Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

Hindmarsh is a privately-owned group of companies which is passionate about Australia’s future and committed to the preservation of our national heritage – through its contribution to the built environment, its investment in clever, young Australian companies and its commitment to creativity and the arts.

Hindmarsh is delighted to be associated with the National Gallery of Australia as principal sponsor of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 (30 March – 3 June 2007).

Canberra | Sydney | Melbourne | Adelaide | Shanghai | Beijing

www.hindmarsh.com.au artonview

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Birth of the modern poster 10 February – 13 May 2007

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Jane Avril 1893 lithograph 125.0 x 92.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1996

Born in 1836, Jules Chéret is widely regarded as the ‘father’ of the modern poster. Chéret began studying lithography at the age of thirteen and at sixteen was taking classes at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin [National School of Art] in Paris. He made his first black-and-white posters in 1855 and from 1859 to 1866 studied colour lithography in London. It was largely through Chéret that lithography, which had fallen into disrepute among artists of the mid nineteenth century, was revived in the 1890s in a spectacular renaissance that would become known as the ‘colour revolution’. Without lithography, and without Chéret, posters as we know them would simply not exist.

In addition to being a technical innovator, Chéret was a poster designer of great genius, producing more than 1000 of them over his very long career. Among his most well known works are the posters he designed for the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris (including the posters advertising its opening in 1889) and for the Folies Bergère. In 1893 the American dancer Loïe Fuller made her debut at the Folies and commissioned Chéret to design the posters to advertise the event. These, and the subsequent designs he did for her, were to become some of Chéret’s most famous and best-loved works.

Fuller’s repertoire at the Folies Bergère comprised four dances: the Serpent Dance, the Violet Dance, the Butterfly Dance and the White Dance. Each had its own lighting and Chéret’s poster, Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller 1897, perfectly captures the mood of diaphanous light and swirling movement of Fuller’s performances, and is rightly considered one of the masterpieces of the form.

While Chéret produced posters for a wide variety of contexts – for publishers, milliners, entertainments and to advertise lamp oil – he did so using a very limited range of figurative forms. His posters invariably feature a ‘chérette’ – a pretty, blond, rosebud-lipped young woman whose association with the product she advertises is, as is often still the case, tenuous at best. Today, Chéret’s generic, cartoonlike women strike our modern sensibilities as cloyingly sentimental, adolescent and naively saccharine. Despite this, his posters have an undeniable presence, a sense of

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flamboyant energy that is uniquely, identifiably his own.

Indeed, without Chéret we would not have Pierre Bonnard as a poster artist – the debt to Chéret of Bonnard’s first poster, France-Champagne 1891, for example, is obvious. And without Bonnard, we would not have the poster masterpieces of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

While only ever producing approximately thirty posters in the period 1891–1901, Toulouse-Lautrec’s works are some of the most brilliant in the medium. They are also vastly more human than Chéret’s work. Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster of Jane Avril (a dancer at the Moulin Rouge), for example, while displaying the sense of caricature common to much of his work, has about it an indisputable aura of individuated character. We have the impression that this is Jane Avril dancing, Toulouse-Lautrec perfectly capturing, in a work of considerable compositional sophistication, her coquettish, mid-stepped, black-stockinged sensuality.

And yet the barely articulated features of her face reveal an underlying melancholy. Avril, who was in fact small, pale and unusually shy, was one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s great friends and Jane Avril, his homage to her, was his penultimate poster. He would produce only one other poster, in 1900, and die in 1901.

For all of Chéret’s technical brilliance, his flamboyant use of colour and the formal eloquence of his work, the women in his posters, as indicated above, remain ciphers, mere empty reflections of the false and superficial gaiety of fin-de-siècle Paris. Chéret was imprisoned by a view of women that was the product of a particular historical mind-set. By way of comparison, one only has to look at Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster La passagère du 54 – promenade en yacht 1896 to see what real, human insight is. On a cruise he undertook in 1895 in France from Le Havre to Bordeaux, Toulouse-Lautrec became infatuated with the beautiful young occupant of cabin 54, so much so that he refused to get off at Bordeaux despite the exhortations of his friends. Instead, he sailed on to Lisbon, Portugal, hoping all the while – but failing – to be introduced to her. La passagère du 54, which advertised the Salon des Cent exhibition of 1896, recalls this incident.

Jules Chéret Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller 1897 lithograph 119.6 x 82.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1996 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec La passagère du 54 – promenade en yacht [Passenger from (cabin) 54 – on a cruise] 1896 lithograph 60.8 x 40.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1992

It shows us the partially obscured object of the artist’s

desire. She is neither particularly attractive nor young,

known at the time as macaroni or vermicelli, served as an

and sits, prosaically, in a deckchair; serenely absent and

essential decorative component while also reinforcing the

quietly oblivious to Toulouse-Lautrec’s tortured longing,

sensuousness and eroticism of the woman and therefore

his crippled inability to approach her. In a work of supreme,

the poster. Closer examination of Job, however, reveals

self-ironic understatement, Toulouse-Lautrec documents

several coded sexual references, such as the curled up toe

for us all our own idiosyncratic perceptions of beauty, our

that peeps from beneath the woman’s flowing gown –

failures of courage, our nostalgia for opportunities missed, for futures untold, irretrievably lost.

The other great artist of the 1890s to feature

women as an integral part of his poster designs was Alphonse Mucha. Born in Moravia in 1860, Mucha moved to Paris in his twenties and went on to become one of the greatest exponents of the Art Nouveau style, of which Job 1894 is a superb example. Job displays all of Mucha’s trademark symbols and design characteristics.

The poster, which advertises Job cigarette papers, shows a

In Job, Mucha’s extravagantly stylised depiction of hair,

a symbol of female sexual arousal – and the raised tip of her cigarette. Job intentionally pursues a subliminal link between cigarettes and oral fixation; circles and aureoles featured in all of Mucha’s designs. A detail often overlooked in the poster is the repeated use of the interconnected letters spelling out the name Job. The brand name Job developed from the initials of the French craftsman Jean Bardou who invented the idea of a booklet of rolling papers made from rice paper. Originally the initials ‘JB’ were separated by a diamond, and as the brand grew in popularity people began to refer to it as Job. In the

woman sensually involved in the act of smoking. Although

poster Mucha uses the letters as the background pattern,

‘respectable’ women did not smoke at the turn of the

as well as in the shape of the clasp which holds the

century, there was a popular custom in France of linking

woman’s dress together, drawing the eye to her breasts.

l’amour, le vin et le tabac [love, wine and tobacco] and of

Job exemplifies a very identifiable characteristic of Mucha’s

using images of women to advertise tobacco in order to

work: what at first appears to be a rather sweet and

give the product a sense of illicit glamour.

innocent image is, in fact, a very sexually charged one.

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Of a completely different order to Chéret, Mucha or Toulouse-Lautrec is the work of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1859, Steinlen moved to Montmartre, Paris, when he was twenty-one and stayed there for the rest of his life. He had initially studied philosophy and literature, and this informed many of his depictions of the everyday life of Montmartre. Like the work of Honoré Daumier, much of Steinlen’s art is concerned with the underlying social realities of the day. He was an overtly political artist and had a great sympathy for the ‘socialrealist’ works of the writer Emile Zola.

Steinlen’s huge poster Le locataire [The tenant] of 1913, with its sombre, low-key, unglamorous text which simply states, ‘Appearing on 1 October against the privileges of landlords “The Tenant”, a publication of the Union of Tenants under the direction of G. Cochon’, has a sense of immediacy that is reinforced by Steinlen’s depiction of the desperate poverty and despair of the working classes in turn-of-the-century Paris.

With the start of the twentieth century, however, came a time of growing upheaval – social, political, economic and aesthetic. This upheaval found its expression in the many

breakaway art movements which characterise the age, the most significant being the Secessionists in Germany and Austria. With these movements came a new, if short-lived, idealism which was exemplified by the many references to Ancient Greece in the posters produced to advertise the exhibitions of the artists associated with them.

In Franz von Stuck’s poster of 1897 advertising the Seventh International Art Exhibition in Munich, for example, he shows Athena, the multi-portfolio-ed goddess of wisdom, war and the arts and crafts, holding Nike, the goddess of victory, in one hand, and the staff of judgment in the other. A helmeted Athena – an image that reappears in Stuck’s poster advertising the Sixty-first Exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1921 – looks on from the right-hand panel, while on the left we see the classically influenced emblem of the Künstler Genossenschaft [Artist’s Cooperative]. Similarly, Stuck’s poster advertising the Munich International Exhibition of 1913 features an Apollonian horse-drawn chariot. The message is clear: the tinsel-andglitter fake gaiety of fin-de-siècle Paris is finished with, and a new, more rigorous, more ambitious and revolutionary age is being heralded – in Germany and Austria at least.

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Alphonse Mucha Job 1894 lithograph 141.0 x 93.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1971 E. McKnight Kauffer Soaring to success! Daily Herald – the early bird 1919 lithograph 76.4 x 39.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the estate of Garry Anderson 1997

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Back in France, however, the first decade of the

twentieth century was to see its own revolution in poster design with the arrival in Paris in 1898 of the Italian-born Leonetto Cappiello. Cappiello’s work became so influential that he is often referred to as the ‘father’ of modern advertising. His revolutionary insight into the art, an insight which remains a staple of advertising today, was based on the psychological phenomenon of image association.

He was the first to deliberately unite a product with an instantly recognisable icon or image. Thus, when a viewer saw the icon they remembered the product.

In Maurin Quina 1906, a poster advertising a French

aperitif of the same name, Cappiello has depicted a devilish green figure sneakily uncorking a bottle of the advertised beverage while grinning at the viewer. It is said that there is a little devilry in any alcoholic drink and Cappiello became known for using infernal imagery in a number of his liquor-advertising posters. In Maurin Quina the cheeky green sprite recalls the nickname and effects of that most infamous beverage of the Belle Époque, la fée verte [the green fairy] or absinthe.

Cappiello was also the first poster artist to realise that

modern transport had fundamentally changed the way people perceived the visual world and that something fleetingly seen while in transit could be used in an associative way. Having registered and deciphered an image close up – as a pedestrian might – the advertising message and product could be instantly re-invoked by the mere glimpse of the image from a moving bus or train, hence his use of bright and easily recognisable forms and colours.

Maurin Quina is Cappiello’s most famous poster. It is also the finest example of his manipulation of brand identity, and of his adaptation of poster art to meet the demands of a new and modern era.

Cappiello’s work was continually evolving – see, for

example, the re-emergence of the ‘devil’ motif in his beautifully stylised Becuwe poster of 1927. This poster echoes in its modernity the work of another artist included in this exhibition, that of the American born, Londonbased E McKnight Kauffer. His Soaring to success! Daily Herald – the early bird of 1919, with its flock of birds in the extreme upper reaches of the picture plane, seemed at the time, and perhaps it still does today, to embody something quintessentially modern about the age. It was an image, like many of the images in the posters on display here, that would have a long advertising shelf-life. The remarkable thing about it, however, is that when we compare it to

a work by Chéret, such as Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller, which was made little more than twenty years earlier, we seem to be looking back across an historical abyss. On one side we have an age of trivial innocence; on the other we have the beginnings of a vastly more complex, modern era, the aspirations of which, in defiance of the cataclysms of the First World War, Soaring to success! seems no less innocently to articulate.

There are many other fine examples of the emerging art of advertising in this exhibition, from Jean Carlu’s famous poster advertising Peugeot bicycles, which he designed as a young man in 1922 before embracing the geometric abstraction for which he would become famous; Jean Cocteau’s monumental homage to the Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky of 1911; John Hassall’s brilliant, fat-man, comic-ironic take on Chéret’s dancing figures, Skegness is SO bracing 1908, which became one of the most successful advertising posters ever; and the simpler, yet equally memorable, images published by the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee in support of the First World War effort.

Birth of the modern poster takes us, then, on a journey from one age to another, with each of the more than forty works in the exhibition, all originally conceived as ephemeral posters, representing a step along the way.

The exhibition is the precursor to a much larger show scheduled for 2010 at the National Gallery of Australia which will be devoted to the past 100 hundred years of the art of the poster.

Leonetto Cappiello Maurin Quina 1906 lithograph 150.2 x 108.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The Poynton Bequest 2005 John Hassall Skegness is SO bracing 1908 lithograph 97.8 x 123.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1981

Mark Henshaw Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books Simeran Maxwell Intern, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books Further information at nga.gov.au/ModernPoster

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for thcoming exhibition

George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons 29 June – 16 September 2007

George Lambert Chesham Street 1910 oil on canvas 62.0 x 51.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

George Lambert (1873–1930) was one of Australia’s

Australian. Some suggested that Lambert’s posing was a

most brilliant, witty and influential artists. The exhibtion

shield against his sensitive nature, and others maintained

George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons is the

he had two personalities, one for his friends (gentle, kindly

most comprehensive showing of Lambert’s work for over

and sympathetic) and another for his acquaintances and

fifty years. It will present the diverse range of Lambert’s

the public (brilliant, witty and flamboyant). His wife, Amy,

work – from his Australian bush subjects to his Edwardian

agreed that Lambert’s theatricality and love of laughter

portraits and figure groups, from his sparkling oil sketches

was a mask behind which he hid his sadness.

to his major battle paintings and large sculpture. It will

show the full breadth of Lambert’s approaches to image

and considerable finesse, a more broad-ranging artist

making and the variety of his handling of pencil, pen and

than any other in Australia at this time. George Lambert

paint. It will demonstrate his sure draughtsmanship and the

retrospective is the result of generous inter-gallery

seductive glamour and sensual appeal of his paint surfaces.

cooperation. It will selectively draw together around 110

works by Lambert that are scattered throughout major art

But who was George Lambert and what was he like?

Lambert was a versatile artist, with great audacity

That is a difficult question to answer. His stunning image

museums and collections in Australia, as well as private

of himself baring his chest, Chesham Street 1910, like the

collections in Britain. It will present us with the opportunity

man himself, is an enigma. It appears to have a meaning

to look at the full scope of his work, including three of

but is not strictly narrative. It invites us to provide our own

Lambert’s large-scale battle paintings, kindly lent by the

interpretation. He sits boldly in front of the viewer, holding

Australian War Memorial, and viewed for the first time in

up his shirt and revealing his entire torso. The painting is a

many years alongside other icons such as The squatter’s

metaphor: this man seems to have nothing to hide, to be

daughter and A sergeant of Light Horse in Palestine.

literally and metaphorically baring his chest, exposing his heart and soul to the world. But was he?

Many writers have referred to Lambert’s extrovert

personality, characterising him as an entertaining raconteur and mimic, with a keen sense of humour.

Some found Lambert’s flamboyance appealing, while

others objected to it or sought to explain it away as if it were something disagreeable – frivolous and effete, a divergence from the typical easygoing, hardy, resolute

34 national gallery of australia

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art Together with the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery of Australia is presenting a symposium on the life, work and times of George Lambert on 29 June 2007. This will coincide with George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons (National Gallery of Australia, 29 June – 16 September 2007) and the focus exhibition George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine landscapes (Australian War Memorial, 30 March – 29 July 2007).

AWM ART02741

George

From Gallipoli to Gaza, this exhibition

LAMBERT

provides a unique insight into two very different, yet powerfully evocative, battlefield landscapes that moulded the experience of Australians in the First World War.

Gallipoli Palestine & LANDSCAPES

A U S T R A L I A N WA R M E M O R I A L

3 0 M A R C H — 2 9 J U LY 2 0 0 7 Free admission

A N

A U S T R A L I A N

WA R

M E M O R I A L

T R AV E L L I N G

www.awm.gov.au

E X H I B I T I O N

travelling exhibitions autumn 20 07

James McNeill Whistler Portrait of Whistler 1859 (detail) etching and drypoint National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

An artist abroad: the prints of James McNeill Whistler James McNeill Whistler was a key figure in the European art world of the 19th century. Influenced by the French Realists, the Dutch, Venetian and Japanese masters, Whistler’s prints are sublime visions of people and the places they inhabit. nga.gov.au/Whistler Geelong Gallery, Geelong Vic., 7 June – 19 August 2007 Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston Tas., 1 September – 4 November 2007

Michael Riley: sights unseen Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia

Michael riley untitled from the series cloud [cow] 2000 (detail) printed 2005 chromogenic pigment photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Courtesy of the Michael Riley Foundation and Viscopy, Australia

Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo NSW, 12 May – 8 July 2007, and concurrently

Stage fright: the art of theatre (Focus Exhibition)

Moree Plains Gallery, Moree NSW, 19 May – 15 July 2007

In partnership with Australian Theatre for Young People

Loundon Sainthill Costume design for the ugly sister from Cinderella 1958 (detail) gouache, pencil and watercolour on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia

Stage fright: the art of theatre raises the curtain on the world of theatre and dance through works of art, interactives and a program of workshops conducted by educators from the National Gallery and Australian Theatre for Young People.

Worlds from mythology, fairytales and fantasy characters intended for the ballet, opera and stage are shown in exquisitely rendered finished drawings alongside others that have been quickly executed capturing the essence of an idea, posture, movement or character. nga.gov.au/StageFright

Sri Lanka Seated Ganesha 9th–10th century (detail) from Red case: myths and rituals National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

For further details and bookings telephone 02 6240 6432 or email: travex@nga.gov.au

Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, Port Pirie SA, 2 April – 6 May 2007 Blue case: technology Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst NSW, 3 February – 24 March 2007

Walter Nicholls Memorial Gallery, Port Lincoln SA, 5 May – 3 June 2007

Merriwa Central School, Merriwa NSW, 2 April – 26 May 2007

Imagining Papua New Guinea: prints from the national collection

Mathias Kauage Independence celebration I 1975 (detail) stencil National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Elaine & Jim Wolfensohn Gift Travelling Exhibitions Three suitcases of works of art: Red case: myths and rituals includes works that reflect the spiritual beliefs of different cultures; Yellow case: form, space, design reflects a range of art making processes; and Blue case: technology. These suitcases thematically present a selection of art and design objects that may be borrowed free-of-charge for the enjoyment of children and adults in regional, remote and metropolitan centres. nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn

Red case: myths and rituals and Yellow case: form, space and design Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst NSW, 3 February – 24 March 2007

The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston Tas., 9 February – 1 April 2007

Imagining Papua New Guinea is an exhibition of prints from the national collection that celebrates Papua New Guinea’s independence and surveys its rich history of printmaking. Artists whose works are in the exhibition include Timothy Akis, Mathias Kauage, David Lasisi, John Man and Martin Morububuna. nga.gov.au/Imagining

Michael Riley (1960–2004) was one of the most important contemporary Indigenous visual artists of the past two decades. His contribution to the contemporary Indigenous and broader Australian visual arts industry was substantial and his film and video work challenged non-Indigenous perceptions of Indigenous experience, particularly among the most disenfranchised communities in the eastern region of Australia. nga.gov.au/Riley

Karl Lawrence Millard Lizard grinder 2000 (detail) brass, bronze, copper, sterling silver, money metal, Peugeot mechanism, stainless steel screws National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Exhibition venues and dates are subject to change.

Please contact the gallery or venue before your visit. For more information please phone +61 2 6240 6556 or email travex@nga.gov.au

Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Geraldton WA, 14 April – 17 June 2007

The National Gallery of Australia Travelling Exhibitions Program is generously supported by Australian airExpress.

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new acquisition International Print s, Drawings and Illustrated Book s

Soup can mania Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup 1 a series of 10 colour screenprints each sheet 91.8 x 61.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The Poynton Bequest, 2006

Andy Warhol (born Andy Warhola) became a significant

and Roy Lichtenstein. During a visit to Castelli’s Warhol was

figure in the American Pop Art movement, which emerged

dismayed to see Lichtenstein’s comic strip paintings –

in the 1950s and came to prominence in the 1960s and

subjects which Warhol himself had explored. Warhol was

1970s. Pop was notable for its subject matter, which was

devastated, particularly as his cartoon paintings preceded

drawn from popular culture, including film, television,

Lichtenstein’s by about a year. What was equally distressing

advertisements, newspapers and pulp magazines, and the

for the artist was that Castelli rejected Warhol’s overtures.

adoption of mass production techniques in the making.

This included screen printing, a printing process frequently used in the commercial world.

Warhol was to become one of the most talented

exponents of Pop Art, becoming a contemporary artist of ‘everyday life’. Warhol’s subjects resonated because of their familiar origins. Celebrities were a favourite – Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Mick Jagger, Chairman Mao and

A distraught and frustrated Warhol lamented that ‘It’s too late for the cartoons. I’ve got to do something that will have a lot of impact, that will be different from Lichtenstein and Rosenquist’.

When Warhol asked gallery owner Muriel Latow what

subject he should choose (as he often did with friends) she proposed that Warhol should choose a subject ‘that everybody sees every day that everybody recognises … like a can of soup’. In late 1961 Warhol began his images

Muhammad Ali all appeared and reappeared in his art

of Campbell’s Soup cans, sometimes as individual cans

in single or multiple images. So too, the ever-present

and sometimes in series, and explored the entire range of

products in our daily lives, such as the ubiquitous humble

Campbell’s Soup.

can of Campbell’s Soup. The repetitive nature of many of

his compositions and series suggests an art of the assembly

everybody. Although he had been previously rejected by

line, and Warhol’s expressed ideal to make use of mass

the New York art gallery scene, Warhol gained instant

production techniques such as screen-printing for his

notoriety as an artist and received an offer of an exhibition

canvases and prints.

by the art dealer Irving Blum at his Ferus Gallery in Los

Angeles. He became an instant success because of the

From 1960 Warhol began painting cartoon characters

in a deadpan manner, enlarging comic imagery and consumer products onto unstretched canvases using a projector. From these projections he usually painted directly onto the canvas or sometimes used photostats of the projections as the preliminary drawing. Initially, Warhol had worked in a painterly, gestural manner. As his work evolved, however, Warhol wished to distance himself from the methods of the Abstract Expressionists and sought

That a soup can could be the subject of art astonished

sheer bravura of his choice of subject matter. Warhol continued to develop this theme in his paintings and later in two series of prints produced during 1968 and 1969 that featured different soup flavours. The series Campbell Soup 1, recently acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, is notable for its brilliance of colour and banal subject and has become a key icon for Pop Art. Many years later, in 1977, when interviewed in High Times, Warhol reflected that the Campbell’s Soup cans remained his favourites of

initially to conceal the human touch in his art.

all his work.

Warhol originally made his name as a commercial artist,

Warhol’s art was never simply a reproduction of a

which became a significant drawback in his career as many

commercial product, which was a criticism made of his work

failed to consider him a legitimate artist. In order to be

during his lifetime. Years later we can consider Warhol’s

considered an artist in his own right, he would frequent

art as one with a distinct style and radical choice of subject

the New York galleries in the hope his own work might

matter – and one which has withstood the test of time.

be accepted. In particular, he courted Leo Castelli, whose gallery was the stable for many of the young emerging Pop artists, including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg

38 national gallery of australia

Jane Kinsman Senior Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

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new acquisition Australian Ar t

John Glover John Glover Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833 oil on canvas 72.5 x 111.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

John Glover is undoubtedly Australia’s most important

further inward and extending the distant headland. He also

colonial artist before 1850. In 1767 he was born at

changed the shape and number of clouds and rearranged

Houghton-on-the Hill, Leicestershire, and developed an

the trees, foliage and animals. Moreover, he brought Claude

early love of pastoral landscape. During the first two

into the nineteenth century by introducing the figure of a

John Glover Rural landscape with herdsman, milkmaid and cattle c. 1810 oil on canvas 51.5 x 71.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of JRC Smiley, 2006

decades of the nineteenth century he painted mostly in

Regency gentleman in a blue frock coat.

watercolour, contributing to the popularity of this medium,

and achieving considerable critical and financial success.

c. 1810 is a characteristic example of Glover’s English work,

After 1812, when the watercolour boom subsided, Glover

reflecting his admiration of Claude and demonstrating how

returned to working regularly in oils, painting in a more

he saw English subjects through a Claudian framework.

realistic manner. He emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land,

The idealised, Arcadian scene, framed by trees with curving

arriving in Hobart in 1831, aged sixty-four.

limbs on the left, has similarities with Claude’s Landscape

with piping shepherd – and, consequently, Glover’s own

In the last eighteen months the Gallery has significantly

Rural landscape with herdsman, milkmaid and cattle

improved its holdings of Glover’s work, adding three

interpretations of this painting. The Claudian aspect is

important oil paintings to the national collection. These

enhanced by Glover’s depiction of the setting sun glowing

are the magical Mr Robinson’s House on the Derwent,

over the tranquil landscape. In its domestic and pastoral

Van Diemen’s Land c. 1838 bought from the auction of the

subject it provides a link between his English imagery and

Foster’s collection in May 2005 (and discussed in artonview

his rural views of Australia. Glover probably painted it in

no. 43), the English Rural landscape with herdsman, milkmaid and cattle c. 1810 generously gifted to the Gallery by JRC Smiley in June 2006 and, more recently, the purchase of Glover’s re-interpretation of a Claude painting, Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833.

Glover responded to the work of the seventeenth-

century French landscape painter Claude Lorrain, and particularly to his mastery of light. He sought to capture this atmosphere in many of his paintings, including Australian works such as Mr Robinson’s House on the Derwent, Van Diemen’s Land. He was known by many during his lifetime as an ‘English Claude’. Glover made two ‘variations’ on a painting by Claude which he owned, of which Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833 is one.

In this painting, Glover borrowed from Claude to make his own statement, adopting a more horizontal composition than that of the Claude original, moving the tree on the left

40 national gallery of australia

1810, before he made his first (exact-size) copy of Claude’s Landscape with piping shepherd. However, despite its Claudian structure, there is something distinctly cosy and English about the view, the herdsman, milkmaid and cattle quietly inhabiting the grass in the middle distance.

Glover’s accomplishments as an artist after his

arrival in Australia are significant, and his oil paintings of Tasmanian landscapes are painted with a new confidence.

Nonetheless, his career as a painter in watercolours and oils in London was also important. Any significant collection of his paintings must reflect the breadth and diversity of his output. These new additions to the National Gallery’s Glover collection enable us to better demonstrate his remarkable achievements.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

Roy de Maistre New Atlantis Roy de Maistre New Atlantis c. 1933 oil on canvas 135.5 x 153.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Roy de Maistre’s New Atlantis is an exceptional work in its

painterly and conceptual daring and sophistication. It is one

most likely the one that appears so prominently in

of the largest oil paintings by de Maistre and indeed by

New Atlantis. The mirror reflects the interplay of smooth

artists of his generation such as Roland Wakelin and

and rough textures. It is the circle that we complete in our

Grace Cossington Smith (and their British counterparts).

mind’s eye. The vertical divide of the doorway anchors

Painted after he migrated from Australia to England in

the animated composition, while the dark space adds

1930, this is an ambitious extension of his earlier work

a mysterious dimension to the stage-like arena.

and conveys his broad, ongoing interest in modernism.

The painting has affinities with aspects of British abstraction (including works by artists such as Paul Nash and Ben Nicholson) and with the European surrealism (including the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico). There are also echoes of spare, linear drawings by Picasso and Matisse – in the fine outline of a figure etched into the dark aperture of the studio doorway.

In the early 1930s de Maistre shared his interests in

modernist ideas – in painting and in design – with the young British artist Francis Bacon, whose studio provided the basis for New Atlantis. He painted numerous versions

In 1932 Bacon designed a large round mirror that is

The subtleties of colour, tone and luminosity in New Atlantis call to mind de Maistre’s long-held interest in the spiritual, psychological effects of colour, revealed in his ‘colour music’ paintings shown in a famous exhibition Colour in Art with Roland Wakelin in Sydney in 1919. In the catalogue for the show he drew directly on Beatrice Irwin’s New science of colour, first published in Britain in 1916. Irwin outlined parallels between colour and states of mind, noting for example that tones of grey, puce, russet, green or brown were physical sedatives while night blue is a spiritual sedative.

The first version of New Atlantis was owned by the

of different studios that Bacon inhabited around this time,

reflecting a crisply delineated modernist aesthetic (so

Irish-born collector Gladys MacDermot (a great supporter

different from Bacon’s grunge-filled later studios).

of modernist artists, including de Maistre and Cossington

To repeatedly paint another artist’s studio is to paint their

Smith). The work, destroyed in the bombings in the Second

intimate world – not only its physicality but also the ideas

World War, was reproduced in the journal New Atlantis,

that inform it. It is a way of metaphorically joining hands; of

edited by Dimitrije Mitrinovic who commissioned the

establishing reciprocal viewpoints.

present painting for himself. In de Maistre’s New Atlantis,

the title, along with an implicit sense of mystery – of things

When de Maistre arrived in London at around

thirty-six years of age Bacon was twenty-one and had been

partially revealed and concealed – corresponds with the

painting for only a short while. He had been working as

notion of a new world beyond the one we immediately

an interior designer, an interest shared by de Maistre, whose

perceive. As a complex amalgamation of many aspects,

designs of ‘furniture for a man’s bedroom’ had appeared

New Atlantis is testimony to a spirit of the times, to a close

in The Home magazine in Australia in December 1929.

artistic friendship and to the dynamic interactions between

Photographs of Bacon’s studio showing circular rugs as well

works of this Australian-born artist and those of his English

as glass and tubular steel tables he designed inspired by Le Corbusier (among others) appeared in the August edition of the British journal Studio. An invitation for a show in November 1930 in Bacon’s Queensberry Mews studio notes the inclusion of Bacon’s furniture and rugs, de Maistre’s paintings and Jean Shepheard’s watercolours and drawings.

42 national gallery of australia

and European peers. It is fitting that it should now be displayed so prominently in the National Gallery’s displays of international modernism.

Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture

new acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ar t

John Martin Tipungwuti Tuitini

John Martin Tipungwuti is a skilled carver and artisan of the Tiwi people. He is from Melville Island, about 60 kilometres north-west of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

Tipungwuti’s Tuitini, or Pukumani pole, is an artistic and cultural expression of the Pukumani ceremony – a ritual mourning to mark the death of a loved one. Many months or years after the deceased person is buried, the family commission the in-laws to carve and decorate an elaborate tutini for the deceased. These are traditionally made from bloodwood but cured ironwood is the preferred timber for commercial carvings because of its durability. The pole is placed at the gravesite during an elaborate song and dance performance and then painted and decorated with ornate tunga (bark bags) which are placed upside down on top of the poles to signify the end of life. The tutini is then left to the elements to decay. As Melville Island is in the tropics, Pukumani ceremonies are only performed in the dry season from May to November of each year.

The current practice of carving Pukumani poles is an expression of the artist’s cultural heritage through contemporary art. Although Tipungwuti’s Tuitini was made for the art market its significance and power as a cultural object is evident, acting as a marker to help share his knowledge and the art of the Tiwi people.

Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

John Martin Tipungwuti Tiwi people Tuitini [Pukumani pole] 2006 natural earth pigments on ironwood 260.0 cm (h) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

44 national gallery of australia

new acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ar t

Djambawa Marawili Baraltja, Baykuldji, Munurru Djambawa Marawili Mardarrpa people Baraltja, Baykuldji, Munurru 2005 natural earth pigments on bark 220.0 x 81.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Djambawa Marawili lives at Baniyala, an outstation three hours drive from Yirrkala which is 800 kilometres east of Darwin in the Northern Territory. He is a senior law man and ceremonial leader for the Mardappa people from Blue Mud Bay in north-east Arnhem Land. In his early life, Marawili learnt to paint from his father, Wakuthi, and his uncle, the renowned bark painter, Narritjin Maymuru.

Marawili is now a senior artist who has experienced huge success in mainstream society. In 1996 he won the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for best bark painting.

The underlying themes of Marawili’s paintings are associated with ancestral narratives and the creation of the land. Using geometric designs and intricate rarrk (cross-hatching) this painting describes the physical landscape adjacent to Blue Mud Bay at the outlet of the watercourse known as Baraltja which extends from Munurru (the open ocean) depicted at the top of the painting. This painting is about the journey of fresh water through country to the sea, and the mixing of fresh water into salt water. During the torrential wet monsoons fresh water enters the tidal mud flats of Baraltja and floods it.

Baraltja, which is fed by two spiritually significant river systems – the Koolatong River (known as Baykuldji) and the Gangan River – is also the sacred place of residence for the Lightning Snake, Burrutji.

The Lightning Snake can be seen in the painting, awakened, facing upstream and tasting the incoming fresh water. After provoking the lightning, the brackish waters become salt water at the horizon where Wangupini, the feminine wet season thunderhead, takes up the water, to rain it back over the hinterland in a cyclical rebirth.

Thus the water traces the spiritual kinship connections of the artist’s identity, and leaves a metaphor for the cycle of life. The painting records both of these aspects as well as the political and physical geography of this area.

Acknowledgments to Djambawa Marawili and the Buku - Larrngay Mulka Art Centre, Yirrkala, Northern Territory.

Chantelle Woods Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

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new acquisition Australasian Photography

Peter Peryer Datura

Peter Peryer Datura 2002 gelatin silver photograph 41.0 x 30.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

46 national gallery of australia

This image, an exquisitely observed image of the seed capsule of a datura plant, illustrates Peter Peryer’s continuing interest in formal qualities in his photographs.

Comparing it to an image of a tomato made in 2006, one with very similar composition, Peryer commented: ‘What interests me most is that they are in terms of their shapes, identical images. It seems that I have templates that I try to fit over existing subject matter.’ During the 1980s in particular, Peryer’s interest in photographing plants was intense, in terms of formal considerations as well as focusing on those species unique to New Zealand. Peryer’s oeuvre has developed that way; areas of interest often continuing to evolve over many years.

It does have a quality of being like a very unusual, very personal photo album of his life. As Peryer has observed: ‘My photographs are self-portraits. The photographs are somehow related to my past. I don’t know why or how’.

There is certainly little doubt that they are manifestations of his subconscious, of memories and feelings explored intuitively.

Other images by Peryer may have a greater sense of foreboding and immediate strangeness than this image and yet Datura represents his photographic style well, seemingly straightforward and displaying a precise balance of content and form. And yet onto this, as with everything he photographs, Peryer unexpectedly and unobtrusively overlays himself: idiosyncratic, sometimes humorous, often melancholic. You could almost say that his photographs are emotionally time-bombed.

It may seem like a contradiction but there is a quality that you find in the work of the great modernist photographer Edward Weston as well, a photographer Peryer admires greatly: a detached and yet at the same time a powerfully passionate view of the world. Peryer imbues talismanic weight and significance into everything he photographs. This strange, enigmatic and otherworldly intensity of his vision that has been distilled through contemplation makes careful observation of his imagery a rewarding and often surprising experience.

Anne O’Hehir Curator, Photography

new acquisition International Photography

Lionel Wendt Still life

Modernist art photographer Lionel Wendt was born in

1900 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to a prominent family of

Pacific region parallels the surrealist work of Australian

Dutch and Sinhalese origin. He qualified as a barrister in

modernist Max Dupain in Sydney during the 1930s and

England in 1924 where he also trained as a classical concert

1940s. Wendt’s image of a classical statue and what

pianist. By 1928 Wendt had abandoned law for music,

appears to be the head of a bodhisattva is similar to works

developing an interest in modern art as well as avant garde

by Dupain in its strange counterpoints of objects. The

music. However, by 1932, while still giving piano concert

image, however, also seems to refer to Wendt’s European

recitals, Wendt had turned to photography as his major

and Sinhalese heritage.

medium of artistic expression. (His father was a judge but

also an amateur photographer and had taught his son the craft.) Wendt exhibited his work in many international photography salons and had several solo exhibitions.

Artistically Wendt was influenced in particular by

surrealism and experimented with various techniques and processes, including montage and solarisation.

He is principally a figurative artist and even his still-life studies have a human interest character.

Wendt’s work as a regional modernist in the Asia–

Lionel Wendt Still life 1942 gelatin silver photograph 30.4 x 20.1 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Wendt died prematurely in 1944. A memorial

publication on his work was published in the 1950s and a relatively small number of his prints survive. Wendt’s negatives were destroyed by an executor. In 1963 the Lionel Wendt Art Centre was established in Colombo.

It is dedicated to the performing arts, painting, sculpture and photography.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography artonview

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new acquisition A sian Ar t

Ganesha

Ganesha is the Hindu god of wisdom and intellect, the remover of obstacles and the bearer of good fortune.

He is worshipped before important undertakings and is one of the most popular Indian divinities. The son of Shiva and Parvati (also called Uma), Ganesha is said to have been modelled by Parvati using sandalwood or turmeric paste scraped from her body. In one of many stories explaining his appearance, Ganesha began his life as a little boy.

Parvati asked the child to stand guard while she took a bath. At that time, Shiva, who had not yet met Ganesha, returned home and demanded to be let in. When Ganesha refused, an enraged Shiva decapitated him. Parvati was devastated and, in remorse, Shiva replaced Ganesha’s head with that of the next creature to pass – an elephant.

In the form of a stele, this dynamic sculpture was carved during the medieval period (700–1200) in northern India, probably in Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh. Temple architecture and sculpture at that time were intimately connected and this work would once have filled a niche in a temple dedicated to Shiva. It shows a corpulent eight-armed Ganesha dancing on a lotus above a tiny image of his vehicle, the rat.

Richly adorned with jewellery, Ganesha appears to hold round modaka sweets in two of his hands – one sweet is about to be popped into the deity’s mouth, while the other is being snaffled by his spiralling trunk. He holds an axe in another of his hands and is depicted surrounded by representations of celestial beings, musicians, dancers and elephants, as well as a pair of rampant vyala, mythical creatures with lion bodies and composite heads, and what may be legendary makara water monsters.

This delightful image joins another important recent acquisition, a twelfth-century Chola period sculpture from southern India of Ganesha’s six-headed brother Skanda (also known as Karttikeya) seated astride a peacock.

Ganesha possibly Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh, India 10th–11th century sandstone 108.3 x 61.0 x 25.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

48 national gallery of australia

Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art

new acquisition A sian Ar t

Li textiles

Woman’s skirt Run Li people late 19th – early 20th century cotton, silk, dyes supplementary weft weaving 37.0 x 28.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

A group of rare nineteenth and early twentieth-century textiles from the Li people was recently added to the Gallery’s impressive collections of Southeast Asian textiles.

The Li peoples are from Hainan Island, off the south coast of China in the South China Sea, and are related culturally and linguistically to the various Tai groups of Laos, Thailand, north Vietnam and southern China.

The collection of thirty-four traditional items of costume and textiles includes tunics, skirts, loincloths and ceremonial hangings. Li women are skilled weavers and design complex patterning in supplementary weft weaving. Other textiles are decorated with warp ikat. The women weave narrow bands of cloth, the widths of which are generally narrower than the maximum stretch of the weavers’ arms.

Traditionally, the patterning is produced using a quill to pick out the combinations of the warp yarns through which supplementary wefts are inserted.

The traditional Li woman’s dress comprises a dark indigo jacket emblazoned with elaborately woven or embroidered panels and insets, sometimes incorporating frogs, humans and dragon-serpents, and a small tubular skirt (known as rin or lin), made of wild hemp or cotton. This skirt is covered with intricate supplementary brocade designs, combining geometric shapes with anthropomorphic figures in the lower border. The motifs in the central band possibly depict ships manned by little figures. The traditional religious practice of the Li peoples centres on ancestral worship and animism.

Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

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autumn 2007

49

children’s galler y

Tools and techniques of printmaking 14 April – 1 July 2007

George Baldessin Personage and window II 1972 intaglio plate-mark 91.0 x 70.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of George Baldessin 1975

The word ‘print’ has many meanings – from a handprint

Techniques of printmaking can be divided into

on a cave wall to the written word. Photographs and

four categories:

posters are also often called prints. However in connection

° relief processes in which the ink is applied to raised surfaces

with fine art the word ‘print’ has a special meaning.

Artists’ prints are handmade multiple images produced using a variety of printing techniques, usually on paper.

Printmaking differs from painting and drawing because the image can be produced in multiple copies and, unlike photography, the image is made from the delivery of pigment to a surface rather than as a result of a chemical reaction on a light sensitive surface.

Tools and techniques of printmaking is an educational

exhibition which displays the tools and explains the techniques that have been used by printmakers both recently and in the past. Designed to support the major

° intaglio processes in which the ink is held in grooves and hollows ° planographic (or lithographic) processes in which the inked surface is level with the un-inked areas using the natural repulsion of grease and water ° stencil processes in which the ink is applied through a barrier rather than from another surface.

Relief printing is one of the earliest print techniques in

western art, dating from the fourteenth century. Blocks of either wood or lino are normally used but recently artists have experimented with polystyrene and other contemporary materials to create a surface of different

survey exhibition The story of Australian printmaking

levels. The areas to be printed stand higher than the

1801–2005, this didactic exhibition displays many of the

background and the print is created either by rubbing a

materials and tools from the Gallery’s collection of over

sheet of paper over the inked surface or by placing the

1000 artists’ plates, blocks and stencils.

paper and block under vertical pressure in a press.

50 national gallery of australia

Intaglio techniques rely on an incised line in a metal

plate holding ink and releasing it to soft damp paper under pressure. Engraving, drypoint, mezzotint, etching, soft-ground, aquatint and lift-ground are all intaglio methods. In some cases, such as etching, acid is used to bite into the plate. Aquatint is chiefly used to create tone and was created in the late eighteenth century to capture the effects of watercolour wash. Resin particles, usually too tiny to be visible, are dusted and fused onto the plate creating minute channels. These are eroded by the acid creating a fine rough surface that holds the ink, leaving a subtle tone when printed.

The two prints by George Baldessin, in which large

areas of aquatint were used, show the same image in different colours.

Planographic printing was invented at the end of the

eighteenth century. The image is not cut or incised but Will Dyson The grooms, Happy Valley, Franvilliers 1918 lithograph printed image 43.2 x 60.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the Australian War Memorial 1989

depends on the antipathy of grease and water. A greasy liquid drawing medium called tusche (also available in a solid crayon form) is applied to a thick slab of limestone or, more commonly today, specially prepared metal plates.

During the printing process the stone or plate is dampened

Alan Sumner Church School, Carlton 1948 stencil printed image 26.2 x 29.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the artist 1993

with water so that when the oil-based ink is applied it adheres only to the drawn image and is repelled by the rest of the stone or plate. Lithography is a very flexible medium and the exhibition displays a number of prints that vary from the intricate graphic style seen in this print by Will Dyson to prints that are bright, hard edged and abstract.

Stencil techniques are the oldest forms of printing.

Colour is applied through an area cut out of a metal or oiled paper mask. During the twentieth century screenprinting or serigraphy was developed. Initially it was a commercial process but artists soon experimented with a wide variety of stencil materials from cut paper to photography to create innovative prints. The stencil is fixed to a fine mesh stretched within a frame and the ink is pushed through the stencil with a squeegee onto the paper beneath.

These two prints by Alan Sumner demonstrate the

difference between a print from two stencils and one from four stencils. Each stencil adds another overlay of colour to the image.

The exhibition introduces these four main printmaking

techniques alongside examples of blocks, plates and tools used by artists. Some prints are exhibited with the matrix the artist used; others have been selected in order to demonstrate traditional or innovative use of the medium.

Jenny Manning Project Coordinator, Education artonview

autumn 2007

51

A Film Australia National Interest Program in association with Early Works. Produced with the assistance of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

SCREENING ON ABC TV THURSDAYS AT 6.50PM FROM 22 FEBRUARY 2007

HIDDEN TREASURES with Betty Churcher [15 x 5 mins]

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To purchase the DVD, please contact Film Australia Sales on (02) 9413 8634 or visit our website www.ďŹ lmaust.com.au

Sculpture Garden Sunday

Children enjoying Sculpture Garden Sunday 2006

Sunday 4 March 2007

This year the Gallery is hosting the third Sculpture Garden Sunday family event, which celebrates creativity and the arts. Sculpture Garden Sunday encourages visitors to look at, think about and make art, with workshops held for various age groups, particularly children aged 12 years and under. The beautiful setting of the Sculpture Garden provides inspiration throughout the day as well as an excellent opportunity to use a wide variety of media, some of which cannot be used in indoor gallery spaces for art conservation reasons.

Art making workshops such as junk sculpture, clay, drawing and painting are held during the morning, from 10.30 am until 12.30 pm, using quality art materials and methods. These workshops are facilitated by artists, educators, conservation staff and voluntary guides who also facilitate various demonstrations and sculptural installations throughout the day. The involvement of artists in these workshops and demonstrations is central to the event. One of the highlights of the day is artists and visitors working together to create an installation piece.

Other activities include a Sculpture Garden children’s trail which enable families to explore the sculptures in the garden, and a workshop with Gallery conservators to educate children and families about how the Gallery cares for its outdoor sculptures.

In the afternoon visitors can relax and enjoy lunch under the trees by the lake and listen to local band The Cashews and various performances by children’s musical groups. Families are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch or to make the most of the coffee cart and sausage sizzle.

Sculpture Garden Sunday is hosted by the Education and Public Programs Department and the hard work and dedication of voluntary guides and other Gallery staff help make the day a success. It’s a fantastic opportunity for families to explore and enjoy art together.

Further details about the Sculpture Garden Sunday event can be found on the National Gallery of Australia website nga.gov.au. It is free of charge and subject to weather conditions.

Joanna Krabman Educator, Family and School Programs

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autumn 2007

53

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faces in view 1 A student from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 2 Deborah Jones and Dr Robert Edwards AO at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 3 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 4 & 5 Visitors at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 6 Esther and Sophie Constable at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 7 NGA Director Ron Radford AM, MusĂŠe du Louvre Director M Henri Loyrette, and Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 8 Joe and Silvana Colucciello and Bob Powell at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 9 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 10 Roslyn Packer, Ray Strange and Chris Lane at the media preview for Impressionism to Pop Art 11 Brian McIntyre and George Sexton at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 12 Andrew Andersons and NGA Director Ron Radford AM at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 13 His Excellency Muhammad Taufik, Egyptian Ambassador, and Sarah McKay at the dinner for Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 14 Roslyn Packer at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 15 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 16 Robijn Alexandra and Sheena Parkinson at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 17 Andy Busuttil and John Robinson from Blue Mountain Sound performing at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre

16

17

Convenor Roger Butler, Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings; Keynote speaker eX de Medici This symposium brings together artists, art critics and curators to present papers on printmaking in Australia and the region.

It coincides with the major exhibition The story of Australian printmaking 1801â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2005 (30 March â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 3 June 2007) and the publication of Printed images in Colonial Australia 1801â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1901.

Held over three days, the symposium includes formal papers and informal discussions as well as the viewing of associated exhibitions and events at local print workshops and galleries. $250; $190 members/concession; $110 students (includes all sessions, exhibition entry, lunch and morning and afternoon tea) Bookings essential For more information updates & online bookings visit printsandprintmaking.gov.au Supported by the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund

Principal sponsor

eX de Medici United spectre #3 2006 (detail) etching printed by Ros Atkins at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne Private collection

Printed images in colonial Australia 1801â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1901 -1%+)7v-2v'3032-%0v 9786%0-%vx wxYxÂ&#x20AC;wx

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Printed images in colonial Australia 1801â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1901 reveals some of the remarkable colonial works that form the cornerstones of the National Gallery of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection of Australian prints. Inspired collecting over the past twenty-five years has culminated in an unparalleled collection of more than 36,000 works. The 377 images reproduced in this publication, many of them exceedingly rare or long overlooked, are presented alongside Roger Butlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original research and information not previously assembled in order to give full weight to the important role of the printed image in Australian art and culture.

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4HISĂŚBOOKĂŚREVEALSĂŚSOMEĂŚOFĂŚTHEĂŚREMARKABLEĂŚCOLONIALĂŚWORKSĂŚTHATĂŚFORMĂŚTHEĂŚ CORNERSTONESĂŚOFĂŚTHEĂŚ.ATIONALĂŚ'ALLERYĂŚOFĂŚ!USTRALIA SĂŚCOLLECTIONĂŚOFĂŚ!USTRALIANĂŚ PRINTS ĂŚ)NSPIREDĂŚCOLLECTINGĂŚOVERĂŚTHEĂŚPASTĂŚTWENTY lVEĂŚYEARSĂŚHASĂŚCULMINATEDĂŚ INĂŚANĂŚUNPARALLELEDĂŚCOLLECTIONĂŚOFĂŚMOREĂŚTHANĂŚ ĂŚWORKS ĂŚ

RRP A$89 To purchase National Gallery of Australia publications, please contact the Gallery Shop on 02 6240 6420.

VIPS: photofocus forum Saturday 26 May 11 am – 6 pm Collecting: just what makes a photograph so important, so valuable?

International and Australian curators and appraisers discuss the commercial and personal value of photography. The forum includes talks on the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Photography and mortality, and the National Gallery of Australia’s VIPS. $25; $15 members/concession Includes afternoon refreshments Bookings essential

Max Dupain Sunbaker 1937 gelatin silver photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1976

JANET DAWSON SURVEY a Bathurst Regional Art Gallery travelling exhibition This exhibition examines Janet Dawson’s remarkable career from 1953 to 2006 and confirms her place as one of Australia’s most accomplished living artists.

Curated by art historian Christine France, the exhibition will tour nationally in 2007: Drill Hall Gallery ANU, Canberra 15 February–25 March S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney 30 April–10 June Queensland University Art Museum, Brisbane 7 July–19 August Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart 6 September–21 October Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery 30 October-2 December Image: Janet Dawson, Moon at dawn through telescope January 2000, oil on canvas, 122.0 diameter, collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Janet Dawson.

Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia 2006.

Publication sponsor

No Limits Saturday 24th March, 2007 to Friday 20th April, 2007 Thursday to Monday 10am to 5pm

This is a unique opportunity to see the work of Southern Highlands based artist, John Kirton on display in the cellar door at Bou-saada Vineyard & Wines. This exhibition is based upon John’s belief that creatively there are “no limits” - if you work from your heart and imagination all manner of revelations are possible.

Bou-saada has wines for tasting and purchase, with lunch available Saturday and Sunday.

Why not take the time to view this exciting exhibition, taste some wine and stay for lunch?

Inspired by Wood, Water, Rock & Rhythm A joint exhibition of artworks by John Kirton & Margie Mullins 1 May to 31 May, 2007

Bookings available for small groups.

Sydney Antique Centre

KELLS CREEK ROAD, MITTAGONG Off Wombeyan Caves Road

TEL: 4878-5399

www.bousaada.com - www.johnkirton.com.au

531 South Dowling St Surry Hills NSW 2010 Tel: 02 9361 3244

DM_NGAJan07

25/1/07

1:22 PM

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THE LEADING AUSTRALIAN OWNED ART AUCTIONEERS AND VALUERS

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ENTRIES NOW INVITED MAJOR FINE ART AUCTION

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S y d n ey

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Melbourne

John Keats Tim Abdallah Veronica Angelatos tel 03 9822 1911 artauctions@deutschermenzies.com

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23 December 2006 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 6 May 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Grace Crowley Painting 1951 oil on composition board National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1969

nga.gov.au

29 June â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 16 September 2007

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW

nga.gov.au

artonview artonview

N o . 4 9 a u t u m n 2 0 0 7

N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F A U S T R A L I A

symposium

I SSUE

ISSUE No.49 autumn 2007

The 6th Australian print

The story of Australian

printmaking 1801–2005

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

John Lewin Spotted grossbeak 1803–05 from Birds of New South Wales 1813 (detail) hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

nga.gov.au

International Galleries • Australian printmaking • Modern poster

23 December 2006 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 6 May 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Grace Crowley Painting 1951 oil on composition board National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1969

nga.gov.au

29 June â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 16 September 2007

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW

nga.gov.au