2008.Q4 | artonview 56 Summer 2008 by National Gallery of Australia

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ISSUE 56  SUMMER 2008–09

DEGAS: MASTER OF FRENCH ART  AUSTRALIAN PRINT COLLECTIONS

The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

Issue 56, summer 2008–09

published quarterly by National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 nga.gov.au ISSN 1323-4552 Print Post Approved pp255003/00078

Director’s foreword

Foundation and Development

exhibitions and displays

Jane Kinsman

© National Gallery of Australia 2008 Copyright for reproductions of artworks is held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of Artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia. Enquires about permissions should be made in writing to the Rights and Permissions Officer. The opinions expressed in Artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. editor Eric Meredith

Degas: master of French art

Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 Tracy Lock-Weir

Soft sculpture Lisa McDonald

collection focus

Australian prints: four fabulous birthday acquisitions! Sarina Noorduis-Fairfax

designer Kate Brennan, Kristin Thomas photography Eleni Kypridis, Barry Le Lievre, Brenton McGeachie, Steve Nebauer, John Tassie

acquisitions

rights and permissions Nick Nicholson

advertising Erica Seccombe printed in Australia by Blue Star Print, Canberra enquires

Brenda L Croft

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advertising

RRP $8.60 includes GST Free to members of the National Gallery of Australia For further information on National Gallery of Australia Membership: Coordinator, Membership GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 Tel: (02) 6240 6504 membership@nga.gov.au

Frederick McCubbin At the falling of the year Anne Gray

The editor, Artonview National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 artonview.editor@nga.gov.au Tel: (02) 6240 6587 Fax: (02) 6240 6427 artonview.advertising@nga.gov.au

Balang (Mick) Kubarkku’s bark paintings

Hilda Rix Nicholas Snow, Montmartre Anne Gray

Juan Davila and Howard Arkely Interior with built in bar Alexandra Walton

Kevin Gordon Sea urchin I Robert Bell

Raphael & Co Worktable Robert Bell

Heri Dono Flying angels Melanie Eastburn

Solomon Islands Bonito fish Crispin Howarth

(cover) Edgar Degas The dance class c 1873 (detail) oil on canvas 47.6 x 62.2 cm The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC William A Clark Collection, 1926

Travelling exhibitions

James Gleeson: an extraordinary journey

Faces in view

Director’s foreword

Michael Brand, Director, J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and Ron Radford, Director, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, in the Gallery’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gallery

Escape the summer sun to the National Gallery of Australia and experience the superb exhibition Degas: master of French art. Among the most recognised names in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art, Degas was highly influential in the development of modern art. A painter, draftsman, sculptor, printmaker and photographer, Degas’ impact on his contemporaries and successors was as far-reaching and as broad as his art practice. Although he is widely regarded as one of the first and most important Impressionists, he found the term distasteful (sometimes to the point of being anti-Impressionist). He preferred, instead, to be seen as working in the tradition of Realism, from which Impressionism had stemmed in the 1860s and 1870s. His paintings of ballet dancers, the racetrack, café culture, laundry women and prostitutes are no doubt familiar; however, this exhibition delves further to uncover the lesser-known Degas, whose highly innovative practice was perhaps nowhere more evident than in his monotypes.

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From the mid to late 1870s, his experiments with monotypes heavily influenced the way he approached other techniques and mediums as well as his subjects and compositions. Similarly, his experiments in photography in the 1890s led the way to later innovations. All this is explored in the exhibition. An insightful publication accompanies Degas: master of French art and includes texts by the exhibition’s curator, Jane Kinsman, Senior Curator, International Art, as well as a major essay by Michael Pantazzi, a Degas authority and emeritus curator of European art at the National Gallery of Canada. This non-touring exhibition is the first ever Degas exhibition to be held in Australia or, indeed, the Southern Hemisphere so people must make every effort to visit Canberra. To coincide with Degas: master of French art, we are staging a very interesting exhibition of European prints, Degas’ world: the rage for change, curated by

Mark Henshaw, Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books. This exhibition, which opens on 23 January, explores the prints of Degas’ major contemporaries, their influence on him and his influence on them. Together, these exhibitions provide an exciting opportunity for visitors to expand their understanding of the developments in art in Europe during a highly innovative time. Our exhibition Gods, ghosts and men, which showcases the Gallery’s Pacific arts collection and has already pleasantly surprised a large audience, continues until 11 January 2009 (see issue no 55 for more information). The exhibition draws on our finest and most interesting examples of sculpture and objects from Melanesia and Polynesia, some of which are the finest of their kind in any Australian public collection and many of which have not been exhibited before. This is a rare display of traditional art from the Pacific, and one not to be missed. It has been curated by the Gallery’s Curator of Pacific Arts, Crispin Howarth, who is now joined by our first Senior Curator of Pacific Arts, Michael Gunn, recently arrived from the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri, to take up the position. The Art Gallery of South Australia’s exhibition Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950, curated by Tracy Lock-Weir, arrives in Canberra in February. It sheds light on the often misunderstood early twentieth-century art movement of Max Meldrum’s Australian Tonalism, the theory behind it and its followers. The driving force behind the Tonalist movement, Max Meldrum was seen in some circles as divisive within the conventional art scene in Melbourne at the time. Tracy Lock-Weir’s catalogue brings this interesting and complex history into focus and, as well as works by Medrum, includes excellent works by Clarice Beckett, Colin Colahan, Percy Leason and many others. This year the Gallery has added a number of major Australian works to the national collection. We have been fortunate to acquire another key work by Frederick McCubbin—this time, an early work—At the falling of the year 1886. This intimate sketch of the Australian bush soon led McCubbin to his more famous figures-ina-landscape subjects such as Lost 1886. At the falling of the year was last shown in 2007 in the popular exhibition Australian Impressionism at the National Gallery of Victoria. The acquisition has been generously funded by Terry and Christine Campbell. Australian painter Hilda Rix Nicholas’s magnificent Snow, Montmartre c 1914 is another recent acquisition and shows the influence of French Impressionism. In 1918,

after living in Europe for over a decade and developing an international reputation, Rix Nicholas returned to Australia and married a NSW grazier. She became the ‘Grand Duchess’ of the Monaro district and could almost be considered a Canberra artist. Eighteen stunning bark paintings by the late Balang (Mick) Kubarkku have joined the Gallery’s existing small holdings by this artist. Kubarkku’s traditional yet distinctive figures of ancestral beings are extraordinarily arresting. A selection of these works is on display in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gallery on our entrance level. This year, with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, the Gallery acquired over 2000 prints from four of Australia’s major contemporary print workshops: Larry Rawling Fine Art Prints, Cicada Press, Franck Gohier and Viridian Press. These four collections, spanning just over four decades, are significant additions to the Gallery’s substantial holdings of Australian printmaking and provide significant insights into the history and development of contemporary Australian printmaking. They include prints by major Australian artists such Bea Maddock, Charles Blackman, Juan Davila, Brook Andrew, Mike Parr, Aida Tomescu, Imants Tillers, Judith Wright, Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Rover Thomas, Queenie Mckenzie, Paddy Carlton, Elisabeth Cummings, John Peart, Reg Mombassa, Adam Cullen and Ben Quilty. Much-needed behind-the-scenes facilities have been added to the Gallery with the newly completed Stage 1A of our current building project. The new space includes new loading docks, staff entrance, registration space, quarantine, mountcutting space and exhibition storage. The larger Stage 1B—the new visitor entrance, gallery shop, function hall and, most importantly, Australian Indigenous galleries—is on track and will open in about 16 months. The Gallery will be a hive of activity this holiday season with the important Degas exhibition and other exhibitions, new acquisitions, new displays and exciting public programs.

Ron Radford, AM

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credit lines

Donations Noel Birchall Robert Brennan Ruth Burgess Kathy Davis Winifred Davson, MBE Dimity Davy Anthony Eastaway Peter Eddington and Joy Williams David Franks Louise and Robert Goldsmith Aileen W Hall Narelle Hillsdon Elspeth Humphries C and J Hurlstone Dr Anthea Hyslop Pamela V Kenny Dr Peter Kenny Valerie Kirk Robyn Long Robyn McAdam Simon McGill Dr Stephen McNamara Stephen Miles Joahanne Mulholland and David Rivers Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, AC, DBE Donald W Nairn Prof Brian O’Keeffe, AO, and Bridget O’Keeffe, AM Oliver Michael Pracy Michael Proud Judy Richmond Dr Lyn Riddett Alan and Helen Rose Dr Michael Slee Spectrum Consultancy Pty Ltd Elizabeth G Ward Peter Webster Muriel Wilkinson We would also like to thank the numerous anonymous donors who have donated to the National Gallery of Australia. Gifts and Bequests Barbara Tribe Foundation Janelle Constable Gordon Darling, AC, CMG, and Marilyn Darling Sir William and Lady Deane and family Lauraine Diggins 4 national gallery of australia

Robert Gilliland Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund Emmanuel Hirsh in memory of Etta Hirsh Don and Janet Holt and family Impress Printmakers Studio Linda Malden Bill Meldrum-Hannah Dr Orde Poynton, AO, CMG Ross Searle Prof Bernard Smith Diana Woollard Graham World and family Grants Australia Council for the Arts through the Showcasing the Best International Strategy, and through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, Visual Arts Board and Community Partnerships and Market Development (International) Board. The Gordon Darling Foundation Visions of Australia through its Contemporary Touring Initiative, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government and state and territory governments Sponsorship ActewAGL Adshel Brassey Hotel of Canberra BHP Billiton Canberra Times Casella Wines Champagne Pol Roger Eckersley’s Art & Craft Forrest Hotel and Apartments Mantra on Northbourne National Australia Bank Qantas RM Williams, The Bush Outfitter Sony Foundation Australia Ticketek Yalumba Wine WIN Television

Foundation and Development

Twenty-fifth Anniversary Gift Program Australia comes to the party! On Wednesday 27 August 2008, the National Gallery of Australia officially announced that it had raised $25.722 million, exceeding the target of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Gift Program, which was to achieve $25 million by the end of 2008. Individuals and corporate sponsors from around Australia contributed to the program, which was initiated by the Foundation to commemorate 25 years since the opening of the Gallery. Major gifts were received from generous philanthropists as well as hundreds of smaller donations to the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund. Significant sponsorship from BHP Billiton, National Australia Bank, ActewAGL, Hindmarsh and RM Williams, The Bush Outfitter, have been integral in achieving the target. The Gallery’s Council members and Foundation Directors have also been extremely supportive in assisting the Foundation. Council members generously contributed to major acquisitions and supported the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund, which funded the

exhibitions Michael Riley: sights unseen and Imants Tillers: one world, many visions, Ocean to Outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950 and Picture paradise: Asia– Pacific photography 1840s–1940s. Important acquisitions that were made possible through the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Gift Program include Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong 1977, Frederick McCubbin’s Violet and gold 1911, Giorgio de Chirico’s La mort d’un esprit (Death of a spirit) 1916, Cy Twombly’s Untitled 1987–2004, Max Ernst’s Habakuk 1934/1970 and a sandstone seated Buddha from the Kushan dynasty in India. Significant gifts included the Agapitos/Wilson collection of Australian Surrealism, a collection of twenty-five Albert Namatjira watercolours gifted by Gordon Darling, AC, CMG, and Marilyn Darling, and the donation by Ben Gascoigne, AO, and the Gascoigne family of Rosalie Gascoigne’s Earth 1999. The generous support of the Australian community demonstrates the importance of philanthropy in assisting the Gallery to acquire significant works for the enrichment of the national collection.

Robyn Maxwell, Senior Curator, Asian Art, with guests at the launch of the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2008.

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Helen Rose and Alan Rose, AO, and Ms Shanthini Naidoo, Assistant Director Development, Marketing and Commercial Operations, National Gallery of Australia, at the launch of the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2008. Michelle Mortimer and Jason Prowd, at the launch of the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2008.

To commemorate this significant occasion, the Director also launched the first handbook on the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Collection highlights, which features works from the Gallery’s various collecting areas. Many of these works were gifted or bequeathed to the Gallery, or purchased with assistance of donated funds. The major works acquired as a result of the 25th Anniversary Gift Program were all included in the handbook. When you can see tangible examples of philanthropy such as this, you realise the importance of the role of benefactors in assisting the Gallery to build the national collection. All gifts, large and small, make a difference, assisting the Gallery to develop the national collection for generations to come. Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2008 The annual Masterpieces for the Nation Fund began in 2003 and has steadily grown in support over the last five years. Most of the donors to the first fund are still contributing and the group keeps on expanding. It is an excellent example of how many small donations can work together to assist in purchasing significant works of art. Three works, which were acquired as a result of the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund, were included in the Gallery’s handbook: Sydney Long’s Flamigoes c 1904, WC Piguenit’s Near Liverpool c 1908 and the nineteenth-century Indian work of art Festival of the Cattle (Gopashtami). Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2008 raised $64 360, which has assisted the Gallery to purchase two works for the national collection: an eighteenth-century Indian pichhavai (shrine painting) and Doreen Reid Nakamarra’s Untitled 2007.

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Approximately seventy guests, who had donated towards the fund in September this year, attended to celebrate the acquisition of these works. The Director, Ron Radford, gave a warm welcome and thanked all donors who have consistently supported this program, and Robyn Maxwell, Senior Curator, Asian Art, and Brenda Croft, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, provided insights into these valuable works of art. National Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle We are in the process of establishing the National Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle. The purpose of this group is to unite a group of Gallery supporters who would like to leave a bequest to the Gallery and would like to be involved in the life of the Gallery. If you would like to be involved in this inaugural group, please contact Annalisa Millar, Executive Director, National Gallery of Australia Foundation, on 61 2 6240 6691. Degas: master of French art ActewAGL (Principal Partner) We extend our gratitude to ActewAGL, particularly their new Chief Executive Officer Michael Costello, for their generous support as the Principal Partner of Degas: master of French art. Thank you also to Mark Sullivan, Managing Director of Actew Corporation, John McKay, Chairman of ActewAGL, for his support over many years, and Paul Walshe, Director of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, and his team. Their support for the exhibition is testimony to ActewAGL’s corporate responsibility and commitment to supporting the arts, locally and nationally. We are honoured that ActewAGL have committed to sponsoring this landmark exhibition.

ActewAGL have been supporting the National Gallery of Australia for over a decade and it is through the strength of relationships like these that it is possible for us to provide exhibitions of the highest calibre. WIN Television We are delighted to announce WIN Television as one of the supporting exhibition sponsors for Degas: master of French art. In addition to sponsoring Degas, we would like to thank WIN Television for their commitment to the exhibition Soft sculpture (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 24 April – 19 July 2009). We thank Corey Pitt, Station Manager, Natalie Tanchevski, Advertising Account Executive, and the entire team at WIN Television. The Canberra Times We are also grateful to our other supporting sponsor, The Canberra Times, for their contribution and support of Degas: master of French art and for committing to a partnership with the National Gallery of Australia to promote and support other exhibitions and activities throughout 2009. We thank Peter Fray, Editor, Ken Nichols, General Manager, and Kylie Dennis, Group Advertising Manager, and the team at The Canberra Times. Champagne Pol Roger and Yalumba Wines We extend our appreciation to Champagne Pol Roger and Yalumba Wines as the official wine sponsors of the opening of Degas: master of French art and all associated gala events. It is a great privilege to welcome Champagne Pol Roger back as a sponsor of yet another great French exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. Champagne Pol Roger’s unwavering dedication to their two essential values of excellence and independence make it a perfect fit with the distinctive art of Edgar Degas. QANTAS Twenty-fifth anniversary lecture On the evening of 7 August 2008, the National Gallery of Australia and our long-term supporters QANTAS welcomed Dr Michael Brand, Director, J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. As a former curator of Asian art at the Gallery, Dr Brand discussed some of the key issues in the development of Australia’s national collection over the past 25 years. The evening was a great success with over 180 people attending the lecture. We would like to thank QANTAS for their continued support of the Gallery’s birthday lectures. Council Circle We welcome Mantra on Northbourne into the Council Circle. Mantra has been a long-term preferred accommodation supplier and supporter of the Gallery and are the official accommodation sponsor for Degas. We are also delighted to welcome the Brassey of Canberra into the Council Circle. We are grateful to the Brassey for their ongoing support of the Gallery, especially through their sponsorship of the annual National Gallery of Australia and Sony Foundation Australia Summer Art Scholarship.

Corporate Members Program We would like to welcome Eckersley’s Art & Craft to the Corporate Members Program as sponsors of the Gallery’s Education and Public Programs activities. Eckersley’s sponsored the Big Draw event held on 19 October. Big Draw was a great success and we would like to thank Eckersley’s for supplying art materials on the day. We would like to thank all our sponsors and corporate members. If you would like more information about sponsorship at the National Gallery of Australia please contact Frances Corkhill on 61 2 6240 6740.

Michael Costello, Chief Executive Officer, ActewAGL, at the sponsorship launch of Degas: master of French art. Director Ron Radford with Michael Costello, Chief Executive Officer, ActewAGL, and Mark Sullivan, Managing Director, Actew Corporation.

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exhibition

Edgar Degas: master of French art 12 December 2008 – 22 March 2009 | Exhibitions Galleries

Edgar Degas A cotton office in New Orleans 1873 oil on canvas 74 x 92 cm Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau

Edgar Degas The dance class c 1873 (detail) oil on canvas 47.6 x 62.2 cm The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC William A Clark Collection, 1926

In late 1872, the French artist Edgar Degas (1834–1917) left Paris. He travelled via England to the United States of America to visit his relatives in New Orleans. One of the results of his visit was his painting A cotton office in New Orleans 1873, which is remarkable for its modern interpretation of a group portrait. It is one of extraordinary innovation, where the figures are not posed in some formal arrangement before a velvet backdrop, which was often the case at this time. Rather, Degas chose to depicts his relatives and associates at work in the family’s cotton office. The space is full of activity and Degas’ framing of the figures, the office and its furniture enliven his composition. The bustle of the office contrasts

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with the inaction of his brothers—one leaning on a window and the other reading a newspaper—both seeming to have a relaxed attitude to their work. On his return to Paris in 1873, Degas painted The dance class, an ambitious and complex interpretation of dancers at a ballet class. This is no glamorous portrayal of the life of the dancer. By clever design and the clustering of figures, Degas manages to evoke a real sense of what it was like to be in the middle of a class: the pitter-patter of the dancers’ feet as they make their way down a spiral staircase to the left of the composition and the close-up of several ungainly figures in the foreground on the other side of the composition.

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Shortly after this, Degas began another investigation of the same theme. The dance class, began 1873, completed 1876, is a particularly complex arrangement of individualised figures in a variety of poses. This could have been a discordant grouping, but Degas has confidently moulded the figures into an organic whole, creating an ebb and flow of dancers with their gestures and their stances echoing through the assembled troupe. In tandem with his exploration of the ballet theme, Degas tackled another theme of modern life—the races. At the races in the countryside (Carriage at the races) 1869 is an early example of a theme Degas returned to again and again. The brilliant green colouring suggests the influence that English scenes of horseracing had on the artist in his early race scenes. The composition is a transitionary one as it combines a family portrait with the artist’s growing interest in depicting horses and the racetrack. The family seated in their carriage has been identified as the Valpinçons, Degas’ close friends. Their son Henri is seated on the knee of a wet nurse and the group is accompanied by the family pet. The family, horses and carriage have all been placed in the foreground to one side of the

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painting, which provides a strong sense of movement that is reinforced by the cropping of figures. However, the motion of the horses racing in the background is not yet adequately rendered—this was a pictorial problem Degas would solve later in his artistic life. The painting is notable for its clear colours and fine brushwork, reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch masters. Some eight years after painting this picture of the Valpinçon family, Degas began The racecourse (Amateur jockeys close to a carriage) 1876–87. This work took him an agonising 11 years to complete and is a key work, showing all the hallmarks of Degas’ signature style. The composition is decidedly asymmetrical: while the races are continuing in the background, the figures of race-goers and the carriage are placed to the forefront and cropped to emphasise movement. The structure is reminiscent of racing imagery of Honoré Daumier’s (1808–1879) as seen in his caricatures such as Nautical sports of 1856 (published in Le Charivari on 14 May 1856) in which a crowd of race-goers watch jockeys racing their horses in the rain. At the races: before the start c 1880–92 is one of the last in an important series of horizontal canvases that Degas began in the early 1880s. The composition is characterised

by the depiction of horses and jockeys in a variety of positions. The horizontal format that he uses here is one that he favoured for many of his compositions, both of the ballet and of horses, during this period. The high horizon line, flattened sense of space and brilliant colours suggest the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts. Degas had become interested in the art of Japan in the 1860s, early in his career, and the style was to permeate his compositions as he matured as an artist. Over his working life, Degas turned his mind to many different arts and became thoroughly accomplished in several fields. He was a noted sculptor, though a self-taught one, and worked in the tradition of the sculptor–painter. His facility for making three-dimensional forms was clearly evident in many of his sculptures.

Edgar Degas The racecourse (Amateur jockeys close to a carriage) begun 1876, completed 1887 oil on canvas 66 x 81 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris Legacy of Count Isaac de Camondo, 1911 © RMN / Hervé Lewandowski

Honoré Daumier Nautical sports of 1856: Oh! It’s amazing how fast they can go … and without oars from the series What’s on, published in Le Charivari, 14 May 1856 lithograph sheet 27.6 x 25.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1980

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Edgar Degas Little dancer aged fourteen modelled 1880–81; cast 1920–21 bronze, gauze, and satin 97.8 x 41.3 x 34.9 cm Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis Funds given by Mrs Mark C Steinberg

Edgar Degas Bust of a café-concert singer 1877–79 charcoal on paper 47.3 x 30.5 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris © RMN / Gérard Blot

Little dancer aged fourteen, modelled 1880–81, appeared in the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, causing a sensation in the art world. This ‘little flower of the gutter’, as commentator Jules Claretie described it at the time, was a radical statement regarding the possibilities of sculpture.1 It was as if Degas was throwing down the gauntlet to the art world and the accepted conventions of sculpture of his day. The original model was built of wax tinted a skin colour, and Degas added to this the fabric of her tutu, real hair bound by a silky ribbon, and ballet shoes. Astonishingly, the sculpture was almost life-size and far from idealised. The crude features of the dancer’s physiognomy, based on those of his model the ballerina Marie van Goethem, also caused controversy. The critic Henry Trianon complained that Degas had chosen his model ‘from among the most odiously ugly’ and achieved a ‘standard of horror and bestiality’ not suitable for an exhibition of art; rather, it belonged to one of ‘zoology, anthropology, or physiology’.2 As a self-taught sculptor, in this provocative work, Degas pushed the boundaries of scale, technique, use of materials, subject matter, genre and style. Little dancer aged fourteen both tantalised and unsettled contemporary

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audiences. It goaded and intrigued. Subsequently, it has continued to do so in the form of a bronze cast, which also features the additions of a tutu in net and a ribbon binding her hair. The ballet, opera and races were not the only subjects that Degas entertained in his search for subjects of modern life. The café-concert was another favourite theme. The combination of musical entertainment at a café seemed to tap the Parisian soul and cater to low-brow tastes. As commentator André Chadourne put it: The particular attractions of this sort of entertainment which are very well suited to the needs of a thrifty republic should be noted: it is within reach of the most restricted budget; it requires neither etiquette nor elegance in attire or appearance, and appeals most to partisans of those special delights enjoyed between a pipe and a tankard.3

Many café-concerts sprung up in the centre of Paris—at establishments such as the Alcazar, Eldorado, Le Bataclan and Café des Ambassadeurs—and gained notoriety. The singer depicted in Degas’ charcoal drawing Bust of a café-concert singer 1877–79 is shown with her mouth wide open, as if in full voice, and with hand raised in an emphatic and dramatic gesture—no doubt performing

songs that deal with ‘matters below the belt’, as the witty Gustave Coquiot commented.4 This was a favourite composition to which Degas would return. Degas readily embraced the process of making monotypes in the second half of the 1870s. He called monotypes his plats du jour and described the ways of making them as his ‘cuisine’. In particular, his figurative monotypes are of an intensely intimate nature and relate to a seamier side of Parisian life such as the brothels. One such work is Prostitute seated in an armchair 1876–77. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) admired and collected some of these scenes of prostitutes. For an artist who took pride in his lack of spontaneity, the process of making monotypes allowed Degas to develop his powers of observation and provided an almost instantaneous means of experimentation—in line, form, brushwork and composition. Making monotypes was an important outlet for Degas’ ideas, and it enhanced and influenced his future art practice. During the summer of 1895, and continuing the following year, he became obsessed with another process of making art—photography. Degas’ photographic subjects range from portraits, interiors and women bathing to the occasional landscape. As with many of his monotypes, this was an excursion into black and white and, despite his keen interest in colour, Degas found the experience a welcome one. His compositions became more complex during this intense, albeit brief, period. He would photograph friends and associates in rooms, taking particular care with their placement: adjusting the

stance and gestures and compositional relationships of the sitters, rearranging furniture and works of art, and setting up reflections of figures in mirrors—a motif he adopted from the art of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). Degas preferred to stage his photographic sessions in the evenings, using artificial light rather than natural daylight. Lamps, wall lights and chandeliers were placed to serve as props and as a means of diffusing or spotlighting his scenes, or augmenting reflections in mirrors such as in Portrait in front of a mirror of the artist Henry Lerolle and his two daughters, Yvonne and Christine 1895–96. Degas carefully composed his sitters, the photographs often being taken after dinner. He was close friends with the author Ludovic and Louise Halévy and would frequently invite them and their children, Daniel and Elie, to dine with him. Daniel Halévy (1872–1962) has described the regimented nature of these sittings:

Edgar Degas At the races: before the start c 1880–92 oil on canvas 40 x 89 cm Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon Photograph: Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia

Degas raised his voice, became dictatorial, gave orders that a lamp be brought into the little salon and that anyone who wasn’t going to pose should leave. The duty of the evening began. We had to obey Degas’s fierce will, his artist’s ferocity.5

In Dancers, pink and green c 1890, Degas has populated the painting with many of his favourite figures of dancers, which he had developed over the years. One ballerina, barely seen, adjusts her bodice. Two more, with their backs turned to the viewer, adjust their hair

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or the shoulder straps of their tutus. A fourth stands with her hands on her hips staring down at her feet. In the foreground, another peers up at the boxes at the opera from behind the stage. In the far distance are the ill-defined forms of two more dancers on stage. Some of the figures are almost fused with the backdrop of the scenery—a view of woodlands with tall trees and abundant foliage. The thin shadowy figure of the man in a top hat and tails is barely perceptible behind the pole. He is one of the caddish ‘Lions’ from the Jockey Club who used to lurk backstage, seeking out the young ballerinas. The figure references Degas’ 1870s monotypes inspired by Ludovic Halévy’s stories of the Cardinal family—Monsieur and Madame Cardinal and their daughters Pauline and Virginie—and their unsavoury encounters backstage at the Paris Opéra. Though this work uses many favourite figures and views that could be found in Degas’ earlier art, it also signals his growing interest, in the 1890s, of almost abstracted forms, and his radical application of paint and a new, vivid palette. It shows the influence of his monotypes and photography and anticipates the beginning of modernism and the art of the twentieth century. Jane Kinsman Senior Curator, International Art, and curator of Degas

In conjunction with the exhibition, the book Degas: the uncontested master is available from the nga shop. For further information, telephone (02) 6240 6420 or send an email to ecom@nga.com.au. The exhibition Degas’ world: the rage for change, an exhibition of European prints by Degas’ contemporaries, will also be on display from 23 January to 3 May 2009 in the Orde Poynton Gallery. It demonstrates how artists at the end of the nineteenth century altered the direction of art, moving away from the tradition of the Paris Salon towards art that was revolutionary, independent and modern. notes 1. Jules Claretie, La vie à Paris: 1881, Victor Harvard, Paris, 1881, pp 148–57. 2. Henry Trianon, Le Constitutionnel, 24 April 1881, quoted in Fronia E Wissman, ‘Realists among the Impressionists’, in Charles S Moffett, Ruth Berson and Barbara Lee Williams et al, The new painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, p 362. 3. André Chadourne, Les café-concerts, E Dentu, 1889, p 2. 4. Gustave Coquiot, Les cafés-concerts, Librairie de l’art, Paris, 1896. 5. Daniel Halévy, My friend Degas, trans and ed Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 1964 (1960), p 82.

Edgar Degas Prostitute seated in an armchair 1876–77 monotype in black ink on white wove paper, heightened with brush and ink plate-mark 15.8 x 11.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1980

Edgar Degas Portrait in front of a mirror of the artist Henry Lerolle and his two daughters, Yvonne and Christine 1895–96 (detail) gelatin silver photograph taken from a glass negative and enlarged 29.0 x 36.2 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris © RMN / Hervé Lewandowski

(opposite) Edgar Degas Dancers, pink and green c 1890 oil on canvas 82.2 x 75.6 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York HO Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs HO Havemeyer, 1929 Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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exhibition

Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 21 February – 26 April 2009 | Project Gallery

Clarice Beckett Taxi rank c 1931 oil on canvas on board 58.5 x 51 cm Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth formerly Orica Collection Photograph: Jenni Carter

Max Meldrum The three trees c 1917 oil on board 35.5 x 25.5 cm Private collection © estate of the artist

Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 is the first exhibition of its kind ever assembled, and showcases the previously unexplored riches of the Australian Tonalist painting movement, which flourished during the twentieth-century interwar period. Remarkably, despite the fact that some of Australia’s greatest twentiethcentury artists, such as Max Meldrum, Clarice Beckett, Lloyd Rees, Roy de Maistre and Elioth Gruner, variously explored the gentle atmospheric effects of Tonalism, it became maligned over time and developed into one of the most misunderstood and most underestimated movements in Australian art.

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There are many complex reasons that have contributed to Tonalism’s marginalisation, and certainly its radically humble qualities were overshadowed by more fashionable genres such as narrative painting and grand sunlit landscape painting. However, possibly of greatest detriment has been its confusion with the long Western art tradition of tonal painting. Tonal painting was popular around the turn of the twentieth century, coinciding with a renewed appreciation of the dark-toned seventeenth-century subjects of Velázquez (1599–1660) and Rembrandt (1606–1669). A descendent of this tradition was a dominant form of low-toned painting taught in Melbourne, whereby the painted surface is progressively and slowly built up, working in part from dark to light. Form is sharply painted in great detail, creating an effect of realism, and is typically seen, for example, in the early work of Margaret Preston, Hugh Ramsay and George W Lambert. Tonalism is fundamentally different and is best understood as a painting system. It involves no under drawing and is based on the rapid and direct recording of tonal impressions (generalised massed areas of light and dark) onto the canvas in the order the impressions meet the eye of the artist. Its intention is to create an exact illusion of nature. In this way, it is a spontaneous, ‘perceptual’ and responsive form of painting, as opposed to traditional tonal painting, which is craft-based and measured. Thus, rather than appearing highly detailed and photographic, Tonalist paintings are more generalised and identified by a soft-focus, tonal atmospheric aesthetic. The blocked-in tonal transitions in many of these paintings are also sometimes slow to unfold and demand time and physical distance from the viewer (six metres) as the fields of tone optically shift and lock into focus to create the desired three-dimensional illusionary effect within a unified tonal pitch. This Tonalist system of painting was highly controversial and was pioneered by Max Meldrum (1875–1955), the ‘stormy petrel of Australian art’ and one of the most important artists, teachers and theorists of the first half of the twentieth century. When Tonalism arrived in Melbourne in 1919 in the form of a large group exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery, it was bitterly received and divided the arts community. The sheer immediacy of its technique,

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Roy de Maistre Berry’s Bay c 1920 oil on board 26.5 x 33.0 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Gift of Peggy Barker, Margaret Bennett, Diana Evans, the Hon Dr Kemeri Murray, AO, and Adam Wynn through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation Collectors Club, 2007 © Caroline de Mestre Walker

its modest subject matter and the subtle appearance of the paintings fundamentally challenged well-established, nationalistic and elevated painting traditions that were more reliant on high craftsmanship and immediate visual impact. Misty moderns charts the earliest beginnings of the Tonalist movement through Meldrum’s 1917 revolutionary perceptual landscapes. These small-scale experimental studies demonstrate arguably the first important advance in Australian landscape painting since Australian Impressionism of the 1880s. Using his newly devised painting system, Meldrum responded to the delicate tonal qualities of the Australian bush in Eltham (29 kilometres north-east of Melbourne) and painted a watershed series of spontaneous works remarkable for their brevity and spatial penetration. Paring back his painting process to a rapid application of broken areas of restricted tone, Meldrum created works of extraordinary dynamism, light and space. Meldrum’s The three trees c 1917 is one of his most progressive paintings from this early Eltham period, and along with several of his other key early works, became widely known in artistic circles when illustrated in his influential hardcover book Max Meldrum: his art and views, published in 1919. The startling simplification of form

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and recessive space demonstrated in these early reductive paintings of Eltham are significant today for prefiguring the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Minimalist interpretations of the Australian landscape. The deep impression that Meldrum’s perceptual painting system had on Australia’s first wave of modernists is also demonstrated in Misty moderns by the inclusion of rare Tonalist works by Roy de Maistre, Roland Wakelin, Lloyd Rees, Arnold Shore, William Frater and Godfrey Miller. Among the most interesting of these early exploratory subjects is Roy de Maistre’s Berry’s Bay c 1920, which is a rare synthesis of formal elements related to the artist’s pioneering semi-abstract ‘colour music’ studies and the softened forms of Tonalism. A small group of Tonalist self-portraits painted by some of these young artists in the privacy of their studios are among the most engaging and most unexpected works in Misty moderns. The sheer economy of Roland Wakelin’s brushwork in his introspective and monochromatic Self-portrait 1920 accounts to the pull of Meldrum’s ideas in the preeminent artistic circles of Sydney at this time. Meldrum galvanised the artists’ commitment to forging a pathway into art by offering a painting system that strengthened and simplified their

approach. Tonalism also inadvertently sharpened the artists’ receptivity to modernism. These surprising experimental paintings challenge pre-existing ideas about the development of Australian modernism and point towards the reinstatement of Max Meldrum as a major force in twentieth-century Australian art. Clarice Beckett’s spellbinding suburban, coastal and city views of the 1920s and early 1930s included in Misty moderns confirm Beckett’s position as one of the movement’s greatest artists. Forgotten for over 30 years, Clarice Beckett has only in recent times been rightfully acknowledged as one of Australia’s greatest landscape painters of the twentieth century. The National Gallery of Australia led the way in resurrecting the reputation of Clarice Beckett when James Mollison, as acting director, acquired a seminal group of the artist’s then recently rediscovered works in 1971. Beckett transcended Meldrum’s painting system, transforming it into her own ethereal signature style, distinguished by a wonderful command of design and feeling for colour. Carefully selected examples of her most luminous and minimal landscapes, such as Passing trams and Taxi rank of the early 1930s, are displayed in elegant groupings that collectively resonate, forming a moving highlight of this exhibition.

Misty moderns concludes with a series of introspective themes painted during the early 1940s as the terror of war raged and the competing forces of modernism began to firmly take hold. Living and working in London in 1942, expatriate Colin Colahan was appointed an official war artist, providing him with an opportunity to extend his gaze beyond the domestic realm to produce a series of sensitively observed war subjects. His poetic airfield scene of Ballet of wind and rain 1945 is one of the many revelations in Misty moderns that will be on display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra from February to April 2009. The exhibtion brings together 82 paintings by 18 artists drawn from significant private and public collections from around Australia.

Roland Wakelin Self-portrait 1920 oil on paperboard 26.7 x 25.4 cm The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Edward Stinson Bequest Fund 2006 © estate of the artist

Tracey Lock-Weir Curator, Australian Paintings and Sculpture, Art Gallery of South Australia, and curator of Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 The Art Gallery of South Australia’s Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 national tour has been made possible by the support of the Australian Government, through Visions of Australia. A catalogue published to accompany this exhibition is available from the nga shop.

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for thcoming exhibition

Soft sculpture 24 April – 12 July 2009 Eva Hesse Contingent 1969 cheesecloth, latex, fibreglass installation 350 x 630 x 109 cm (variable) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1973 Courtesy the Estate of Eva Hesse, Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich

Soft sculpture looks at the ways artists use non-traditional materials to question the changing nature of sculpture. The exhibition explores the historical relationship between anti-form works of the 1960s and 1970s, the Surrealist and Pop art objects that inspired them and contemporary art practice from the 1980s to the present day. Drawing on the strong holdings of the National Gallery of Australia, supplemented with loans from private lenders and other art museums, the exhibition includes rarely displayed treasures from the collection. The term ‘soft sculpture’ emerged during the later years of the 1960s to describe works of art that were constructed from pliant materials. As artists began to explore and exploit the qualities of supple substances, unconventional objects comprising fibres and fabrics, plastic, vinyl and rubber were introduced into gallery spaces. The resultant forms were often fragile rather than robust and, in many cases, combined metaphorical and metaphysical concerns. Leading the innovation, Claes Oldenburg created sculptures that referenced banal, everyday objects. His manipulation of media and form rendered him one of the foremost exponents of Pop art. Ice bag—scale B 1971 explores the impact of mechanical movement on a playfully oversized commonplace item. Central to the themes of the exhibition, Oldenburg’s piece pre-empts contemporary experimentation with alternative materials and modes of construction. Soon after, artists such as Richard Serra, Michelle Stewart and Robert Morris also began to explore the qualities of pliable matter. Their innovative use of naturally occurring and found materials led to the development of anti-form sculptures that championed the themes of Minimalism. The display of large-scale works by these artists will encourage contemplation of the conceptual nature of post-war American sculpture. The survey is further enhanced by Eva Hesse’s celebrated Contingent 1969. Comprising eight rectangular pieces of latex-covered cheesecloth, each end embedded in a translucent field of fibreglass, the work explores the

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tensions between rigidity and malleability, continuity and change. Completed shortly before the artist’s untimely death, the superlative installation is testament to Hesse’s influence on the genre of sculpture. Audiences will also have the opportunity to view important works by European artists. Joseph Beuys’s Stripes from the house of the shaman 1962–72 1980 uses felt, animal skin, rubber tubing and ground minerals as autobiographical metaphors for experiences and feelings. The commanding work blends symbolic and poetic meaning as Beuys explores the alchemy of art. His installation transcends the physical and acts as a powerful means of drawing in space. The hand-sewn forms of Annette Messager’s Penetration 1993–94 highlight contemporary explorations of the soft sculpture genre. Oversized internal organs and viscera constructed from vividly coloured fabrics hang from the gallery ceiling, taking the viewer on a tour of the human body. In this installation, Messager replaces the kinetic experience proposed by Oldenburg and the ephemeral approach of the Minimalists with a psychological ordeal that immerses the viewer’s entire body. A selection of works by Australian artists will parallel international tendencies, revealing local approaches to soft sculpture. Originating with Tony Coleing and Les Kossatz, following generations of artists referred to Surrealism, Pop art and Minimalism in their creations. Luke Roberts manipulates conventional children’s toys in his installation All souls of the revolution 1976–94 to conjure perverse humour and sinister connotations, while Rosslyn Piggott’s High bed 1998 reflects upon the contradictions of the subconscious mind. Soft sculpture, the first Australian survey to critically reappraise this major tendency, will challenge and subvert traditional notions of art. The exhibition presents a broad array of objects that promises to intrigue and amaze audiences of all ages. Lisa McDonald Assistant Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

collec tion focus

Australian prints: four fabulous birthday acquisitions!

Queenie McKenzie Franck Gohier (printer) Northern Territory University (print workshop) Joodal country—Tick Dreaming 1995 lithograph, printed in dark blue ink, from one stone printed image 28.4 x 29.8 cm

outskirts of Melbourne reflects the broad nature of the Fund which, under the guidance of Roger Butler, Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings, aims to collect a comprehensive overview of contemporary printmaking in Australia and the region. The four print workshops are not only geographically scattered but each operates along a different model of the artist-printer association. In the case of Larry Rawling and his eponymous studio, the role of the printer is based on a traditional custom-printing approach. Coming from

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2007

Brook Andrew Larry Rawling (printer) Larry Rawling Fine Art Prints (print workshop) The man 2005 screenprint, printed in colour, from multiple stencils printed image 150 x 100 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2008 © Brook Andrew. Represented by VISCOPY, Australia, 2008

Don’t you just love a birthday? The Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund certainly does—celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s twenty-fifth anniversary by acquiring the extraordinary archives of four major print workshops based around Australia—Larry Rawling Fine Art Prints, Cicada Press, Franck Gohier and Viridian Press. It is fitting that Gordon Darling was involved with this hugely generous gesture as he has been a staunch supporter of the Australian Prints department since the Gallery opened in 1982. As the inaugural chairperson, he encouraged the development of the print collection, and in 1989 he established what is now the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, which assists with the purchase of prints produced after 1960. This recent acquisition of over two thousand works on paper from workshops based in Sydney, Darwin, Canberra and the 22 national gallery of australia

a commercial printing background, he is known for his beautifully produced screenprints in which the colours are crisp, clear and perfectly registered. Over the four decades that he has been printing limited edition prints, Rawling has demonstrated his versatility in the medium—producing screenprinted text for artist’s books, custom-mixing ink colours and trialling countless experimental techniques to help achieve the artist’s vision for the work. It is this remarkable resourcefulness that has made Larry Rawling a much sought-after printer, and he has worked with over eighty artists during his long career. Rawling began printing for Alun Leach-Jones in the 1960s and went on to produce prints with artists such as Bea Maddock, Charles Blackman, Robert Jacks and Jan Senbergs. Since moving his studio to the outskirts of Melbourne in 1998, Rawling has continued to produce innovative prints for a new generation of artists, including Brent Harris, David Band, Juan Davila and Brook Andrew. John Loane initiates print-based collaborations with established artists at his Canberra-based studio Viridian Press. After working as the inaugural director of the Victorian Print Workshop, Loane established Viridian Press in Melbourne in 1988. Over the years, he has invited selected artists to work with him on developing editions of prints, producing etchings, lithographs and woodblock prints with artists such as Mike Parr, Aida Tomescu, Jeffrey Harris, Imants Tillers, Judith Wright and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn. Diverse in their style and conceptual approach, many had never worked with printmaking before and Loane’s approach often involves an exchange of ideas and technical expertise. Working together can be the catalyst for a shift in scale or the discovery of new possibilities in their work. In 2004, Loane worked with Brisbane-based artist Judith Wright on developing a series of prints based on her dance-derived

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films and drawings. Wright was surprised by how her fragile shadow drawings were transformed by the process of printmaking into robust and monumental pieces, such as her 2004 etching One dances. The elongated abstract shape is printed in a soft transparent black, which echoes the shadow of dancers in the spotlight. Artist and printer Franck Gohier is recognised for his pivotal role in initiating Indigenous printmaking in the Top End. He began printing at the Northern Territory University in 1992 and helped establish their groundbreaking print workshop with Leon Stainer and George Watts. They formed links with the community and initiated printmaking workshops to encourage painters such as Rover Thomas, Queenie Mckenzie, Tommy Bung Bung, Lily Karadada and Paddy Carlton to try other mediums. Printmaking offered a new way of recording traditional stories and Gohier introduced the artists to lithography, etching, woodcuts and linocuts, which he printed in the rich earth tones of the desert country. In 1997, funding cuts to universities prompted Gohier to set up the independent print workshop Red Hand Print Studio with Shaun Poustie (formerly of Red Planet Posters). This open-access studio was founded on the principle of community-based printmaking, and underpinned by the Gohier and Poustie’s ideological vision that prioritised the hand of the artist above the commercial viability of the

Cicada Press, based at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, follows the Bauhaus-derived apprenticeship model and was established in 2003 by the Head of Printmaking Studies, Michael Kempson. It offers short-term residencies to established artists, who are invited to produce a series of prints, which are often editioned by students from the printmaking workshop. This dynamic exchange enriches the process for the artists—many of whom have had limited experience in printmaking—and allows the students to gain invaluable insight into the artist’s process. The residency program often results in exciting new works such as Adam Cullen’s 2001 dark and spiky relief etching Local concerns which, although condensed in size, contains the same disturbing energy as his forceful largescale paintings. Other participants have included senior New South Wales artists Elisabeth Cummings, John Peart, John Coburn and Reg Mombassa as well as younger Sydney-based figurative artists Adam Cullen, Cherry Hood, Nicholas Harding, Euan MacLeod, David Fairbairn and Ben Quilty. Cicada Press has also had a long-term commitment to working with Indigenous artists based in Sydney and remote communities. The acquisition of this significant group of prints has been a fantastic accomplishment for the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund in the twenty-fifth birthday

image. Red Hand continued to work with established and emerging artists based in Aboriginal communities. After Poustie moved to Sydney in 1999, Gohier continued to run the workshop before setting up his own studio in 2000 to concentrate on producing his own works on paper.

year, and has further strengthened the National Gallery of Australia’s exceptional collection of contemporary prints.

Adam Cullen Cicada Press (print workshop) Special concerns 2001 relief-etching, printed in black ink, from one plate plate-mark 21.4 x 25.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2007

Ben Quilty Cicada Press (print workshop) Fang 2005 etching and aquatint, printed in brown ink, from one plate plate-mark 28.5 x 29.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2007

(opposite) Judith Wright John Loane (printer) Viridian Press (print workshop) One dances 2004 etching, printed in sepia ink, from one copper plate plate-mark 98.2 x 79.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2007

Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

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acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ar t

Balang (Mick) Kubarkku’s bark paintings

Balang (Mick) Kubarkku Namorodo spirit 1971 natural earth pigments on bark 153 x 61 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008 © Balang (Mick) Kubarkku. Represented by VISCOPY, Australia, 2008

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Balang (Mick) Kubarkku’s life spanned a period of incredible change for his people, the Kunwinjku (eastern Kunwinjku), of central Arnhem Land. From the Kulmarru clan, Kubarkku was of the Dhuwa moiety and Balang subsection. He was born at Kukabarnka, part of his homelands in the Marrinj clan estate, which included Yikarrakkal and Kubumi. He died in May at the township of Maningrida, central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Kubarkku was born into a world that had minimal contact with non-Indigenous people and culture, when the only white people who travelled to largely inaccessible Arnhem Land were traders, anthropologists and later missionaries. The first bark paintings were collected in the 1870s from Port Essington. Maningrida did not exist until just after Second World War when it was established as rations distribution centre/trading post; however, the timeless culture of the Kunwinjku has been inherent in the land for thousands of generations. As with many Indigenous artists from traditional communities, Kubarkku was tutored in artistic and cultural practices by his father, Ngindjalakku, initially creating paintings for sacred ceremonies and later selling his works through the government established township of Maningrida. At the time of his death, Kubarkku had been infirm for some time and had not created any works of art since the early 2000s. Very few works were created after 1995, when Kubarkku was acknowledged for his artistic vision and prowess in the exhibition Rainbow, sugarbag and moon, with Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek, curated by Margie West, then Curator of Aboriginal Art and Material Culture at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. These bark paintings are part of a group of eighteen barks recently acquired by the Gallery, marking an extremely valuable addition to the holdings of this significant artist’s work in the national collection, bringing the total number of works in the collection by Kubarkku to twenty-five. Spanning four decades by one of the country’s most significant Arnhem Land artists, the group of barks were collected by a single vendor over a number of years. Kubarkku was a traditionalist in his approach to painting, mirroring his upbringing with minimal contact with white people prior to war. His art adhered to the style reminiscent of rock art painting, similar to his

colleague and countryman Bardayal Nadjamerrek and other contemporaries such as Anchor Kulunba, Peter Marralwanga and Crusoe Kuningbal—all of whose descendents are among the current group of acclaimed Kunwinjku artists. Kubarkku produced highly figurative work, allowing space around his depictions of totemic animals and spirit beings, differing markedly from the innovative and increasingly abstracted rarrk (cross-hatched) designs created by acclaimed Kunwinjku artists like John Mawurndjul. Initially he commenced painting at Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) after the war before moving to Maningrida in 1957, where he and David Milaybuma were the first regular painters at Maningrida. The present Maningrida Art and Culture—arguably one of the country’s most recognised and successful art centres—evolved from the establishment of an art and craft centre in 1968, auspiced through the Maningrida Progress Association. His representations of malevolent spirit beings and ancestral figures resonate with power, and the works of Kubarkku and Nadjamerrek are a direct connection to the ancient tradition of painting on rock surfaces and bark shelters, a tradition that ceased in 2004 when Bardayal painted the last image on rock galleries near his homeland. Kubarkku’s first paintings were on bark shelters and he later incorporated the rarrk designs associated with the Mardayin ceremony into his art. Among his repertoire were Ngalyod, the Rainbow Serpent; Namarrkon, the lightning spirit; Kodjok

Bamdjelk, the pandanus spirit; lorrkon (hollow log coffin); namorroddo, yawk yawk and mimih spirits; and assorted freshwater fish species and native animals such as the namanjwarre (estuarine crocodile) and lambalk (sugar glider). He is the cultural custodian, or djungkay (manager), of the Bird Moon Dreaming. Namarrkon, the Lightning Spirit is associated with the intense electrical storms of kunemeleng, the pre-wet season between October and December. Namarrkon is typically illustrated in the rock art and bark paintings of the region with a circuit of lightning encircling its body. Kulburru, the stone axes which protrude from his joints, are hurled by Namarrkon to cause the lightning and thunder that accompany tropical storms. The body form of Namarrkon is said to represent ngaldjurr the Leichhardt’s Grasshopper (Petasida ephippigera), which is active and most visible during this time of year.1

Balang (Mick) Kubarkku Dird Djang (Moon Dreaming) c 1990 natural earth pigments on bark 112 x 90 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008 © Balang (Mick) Kubarkku. Represented by VISCOPY, Australia, 2008

Balang (Mick) Kubarkku Njaljod–Rainbow snakes at Gubumi on the Mann 1979 natural earth pigments on bark 126 x 79 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008 © Balang (Mick) Kubarkku. Represented by VISCOPY, Australia, 2008

Contemporary Arnhem Land artists create works for the art market, acquired for public and private collections, and none paint designs on the rock art sites, some of which dated as old as 50 000 years (if not older). Kubarkku was one of the few men who could recall those artists of earlier generations and was able to provide detailed interpretations of images on the rock galleries. Brenda L Croft Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art note 1. Margie West (ed), Rainbow, sugarbag and moon: two artists of the stone country, exhibition catalogue, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 1995.

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acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

Frederick McCubbin At the falling of the year

Frederick McCubbin At the falling of the year 1886 oil on canvas 30.6 x 15.1 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of Terry and Christine Campbell, 2008

In At the falling of the year 1886, Frederick McCubbin lovingly depicted a small segment of a woodland. Two baby magpies fly among the trees. He carefully delineated the bark and leaves of the slender eucalypt saplings as well as the grasses and twigs in the foreground. We feel as if we are in the midst of this intimate scene, listening to the soft rustling of the bush. McCubbin was a prominent Australian Impressionist and At the falling of the year comes from a key period in his oeuvre. The title derives from a line in Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poem ‘A song of autumn’, where the poet wrote: Where shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? …

McCubbin evoked this season through his use of yellow and red tones, and a fading evening light. He most likely painted it at Houston’s farm, Box Hill, on the outskirts of Melbourne. From 1885 to 1886, McCubbin was working alongside Tom Roberts at the artists’ camp at Box Hill (near Heidelberg). It was an ideal place to work because it allowed them easy access to the bush during the weekends and was a short train journey from Melbourne, where they worked during the week. They were soon joined by other artists, including Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder and Jane Sutherland. This painting shows the advances that McCubbin and Roberts made in Australian landscape painting. Telescoping in on a small segment of the bush, their paintings were radically different in composition and technique from the wide panoramic views of earlier Australian landscape painters. In contrast to the work of previous artists, they depicted treescapes in which the sky is nearly absent and the eucalypts are viewed in close focus. In these works, they sought an intimate, naturalistic approach to the bush, capturing the play of light and shade in the landscape.

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During 1886, both McCubbin and Roberts painted outdoors in front of the motif, using a limited range of colours (predominantly greens and browns). In its freshness and immediacy, close viewpoint and tonal palette, McCubbin’s At the falling of the year also resembles works that Roberts painted around this time, such as A Sunday afternoon c 1886 and A summer morning’s tiff 1886. McCubbin, however, generally presented his scenes from an even more intimate viewpoint than Roberts. The image of the two tall eucalypt saplings at the right of At the falling of the year is also a feature of several of McCubbin’s works at this time. He painted this work in the same year as his seminal Lost 1886, for which it could be considered a study—as it could for other significant works of this period such as Gathering mistletoe 1886. Although small, McCubbin saw At the falling of the year as a work in its own right and exhibited it in the First annual exhibition of the Australian Artists’ Association at Buxton’s Galleries in Melbourne on 7 September 1886, three years before the famous The 9 by 5 impression exhibition of oil sketches by McCubbin, Roberts, Streeton and Conder was shown at this same venue. In 1886, McCubbin was appointed drawing master of the school of design at the National Gallery School in Melbourne—a position he held for the rest of his life. Five years later, in September 1891, Roberts and Streeton moved from Melbourne to New South Wales, where they painted at Sirius Cove on Sydney Harbour and elsewhere in New South Wales. They subsequently travelled overseas. McCubbin remained in Melbourne, crafting his own art out of the well-known and much-loved places around him. In these works, he showed the breadth of his vision and his deep understanding of nature, capturing sparkling sensations of light and atmosphere. Anne Gray Head of Australian Art The exhibition McCubbin: greatest impressions will be at the National Gallery of Australia from 14 August to 1 November 2009.

acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

Hilda Rix Nicholas Snow, Montmartre

Hilda Rix Nicholas Snow, Montmartre c 1914 oil on canvas on board 58.5 x 48.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008

Born in Ballarat in 1884, Hilda Rix Nicholas was one of Australia’s most significant women artists during the early 1900s. While working abroad from 1907 to 1918, she painted portraits and depicted people in the streets and gardens of Étaples in Paris and views of daily activity in Tangier. Following her return to Australia she painted images of Australian rural life and landscape. Snow, Montmartre c 1914 is one of her boldest and most joyous landscapes. Painted in Montmartre just before the First World War, it is an urban scene, capturing the cold northern light on snow. It is most likely the view from Rix

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Nicholas’s studio window as she is unlikely to have ventured outside in the cold to paint such a scene. The low viewpoint suggests she painted it sitting down. Unlike so many of her other works, it is unpeopled—it is a pure image of light, the interplay of sunshine and shadow on the surface of the snow, and conveys some of the feel of a wintry day in Paris. It is constructed with strong forms: the horizontals of the buildings and fence contrast with the diagonals of the roofs and the tapestry-like pattern of the trees. She painted it expressively, using energetic brushstrokes and vibrant colour: blues, creams, browns and greens. Rix Nicholas probably painted this work around 1914—the artist was in France from 1907 to 1914 and the subject is a French one. The high key palette, free handling of paint and bold composition is similar to those she adopted in 1912 and 1914 for her Moroccan pictures. When Rix Nicholas moved to England at the end of 1914 she depicted a house and garden in Kent using a bright palette of reds and yellows as well as blues and purples. Snow, Montmartre captures a time before tragedy struck Rix Nicholas. At the start of the war, her mother and sister (with whom she lived) contracted typhoid. Her sister died soon after but her mother lived for a few more years, until 1916. Six months after her mother’s death, she married Major George Matson Nicholas. After a brief honeymoon he returned to the front and was killed in action a month after their wedding. When she came back to Australia in 1918, Rix Nicholas received critical acclaim for the range and versatility of her work. Renewed by her return, she reformulated her approach to art, exchanging her European imagery for nationalistic images of Australian country life. She visited Britain and France in 1924–26, and painted Breton subjects. She continued to exhibit her work throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but failing eyesight and ill health limited her output during the 1950s. She died in 1961 at the age of 76. Hilda Rix Nicholas gained a place among contemporary Australian artists through the power and strength of her imagery. Anne Gray Head of Australian art

acquisition Australian Print s and Drawings

Howard Arkley and Juan Davila Interior with built in bar

As part of a recent purchase of works from the innovative Melbourne screenprinter Larry Rawling, the Gallery acquired Interior with built in bar 1992, a collaborative print by Australian artists Juan Davila and Howard Arkley. At the time, Arkley and Davila seemed an unlikely partnership. Aside from their volatile personalities, their backgrounds and aesthetics were very different. Arkley was born in the Melbourne suburb of Box Hill in 1951 and his art became synonymous with the kitsch decorative themes of the 1950s and subsequent decades. In contrast, Davila was born in Chile and immigrated to Australia in 1974 with his own set of cultural and political baggage. In the late 1970s, Tolarno Galleries represented both artists and it was through the gallery that they first met. Arkley and Davila soon discovered that they shared an ambivalent attitude towards the mainstream abstraction of the period and a passion for popularised images. From their first collaboration, Blue chip instant decorator: a room, installed at Tolarno Galleries in 1991, to their last, Icon interior 1994–2001, the theme of interior decoration stayed with them. Icon interior began in 1994 and was

unfinished at the time of Arkley’s death in 1999. It was finally shown in an exhibition at Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Galleries in 2001 and served as a heart-felt tribute from Davila to his friend. This installation was a reversal of their earlier Blue chip instant decorator: a room in that it did not depict real furniture in a created environment, but rather virtual furniture in a real space. The exhibition also included Interior with built in bar. Arkley’s contribution to Interior with built in bar was a background packed with the patterns and symbols of suburban Melbourne. His hyper-intensive colours were informed by suburban decoration as well as pop culture imagery of the period. Davila subsequently sabotaged Arkley’s work by turning it upside down and putting his own version of a suburban interior over the top, challenging Arkley’s kitsch imagery. The theme of interior decoration in this and other collaborations is a vehicle with which the artists question and subvert Melbourne suburban values.

Juan Davila Howard Arkley Larry Rawling (printer) Larry Rawling Fine Art Prints (print workshop) Interior with built in bar 1992 screenprint, printed in colour, from 17 stencils 163 x 216 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2008

Alexandra Walton Gordon Darling Graduate Intern, Australian Prints and Drawings artonview summer 2008–09 31

acquisition Australian Decorative Ar t s and Design

Kevin Gordon Sea urchin I

Kevin Gordon Sea urchin I 2008 glass 30 x 37 (diam) cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Sandy Benjamin, 2008

Over the past twenty years, the diverse practices of contemporary Australian studio glass have seen its innovators acknowledge the rich visual and technical history of the material while developing it with the aid of new design and production technologies. The Western Australian artist Kevin Gordon is among the leading group of Australians taking glass beyond the expected. Kevin Gordon was born to British parents in Norway in 1968, moved to Scotland in 1972 then to Perth in Western Australia in 1980. He trained with his father, the glass engraver Alastair Gordon, from 1989 to 1992, before establishing his own studio in 1992. In 1995, he operated the Gordon Studio Glassblowers with his sister Eileen Gordon in Melbourne before returning to Perth to re-establishing his studio with glassblower David Hay in 1999. Gordon has a strong reputation for his work in engraved, multi-layer cameo glass, an ancient glass decorating technique used by few designers and artists in Australia due to its technical complexity and long production times. Gordon’s earlier work reflects a strong influence of French cameo glass of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, much of which was the period’s most vivid expression of the natural world. With its complex engraving, carving, sandblasting, wheel-cutting and polishing of clear blown glass, Sea Urchin I moves on from Gordon’s coloured and opaque works. It was developed following a period of intensive research undertaken by Gordon in the Western Australian Museum’s Department of Aquatic Zoology. His interest in the museum’s collections of dry marine specimens stimulated his research into computer-aided design templates as a way to interpret, in glass, the intricate organic complexity of these marine forms. The resulting work was revealed in his exhibition Systema naturae at the Form Gallery in Perth in early 2008. His precision cutting and polishing of sections of this work into lenslike discs allow its engraved textures and patterns to be refracted and reflected through them. This ethereal object invites the curious and concentrated gaze and rewards the viewer with an invocation of the drama and mystery of the natural world. Robert Bell Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

32 national gallery of australia

acquisition Australian Decorative Ar t s and Design

Raphael & Co Worktable

Sydney cabinet-making firm Raphael & Co was run by British-born Joseph G Raphael, who had arrived in Sydney around 1839, in partnership with Andrew Lenehan and Edward Flood. Lenehan had come from Ireland in 1835 and, in 1841, had set up his own cabinet-making firm with Flood, taking over the former cabinet-making firm of James Templeton. Lenehan’s workshop supplied furniture to Sydney’s Government House in 1846 and, by 1863, he had acquired new premises on King Street. Raphael took over the running of Lenehan’s business in 1868, forming Raphael & Co. Lenehan and Raphael were both British-trained and were importers of furniture. The design of this worktable (for sewing and needlework) illustrates the amalgam of historical revival styles that characterised mid-Victorian period furniture produced in Australia. The great exhibition of 1851 in London, which celebrated industrial technology and design, created a taste for flamboyant furniture and virtuoso craftsmanship. The influence of this exhibition was seen in the Australian production of elaborate and expensive furniture that celebrated the use of Australian native woods. This worktable has a support structure of solid turned and carved tulipwood, on four brass and porcelain castors. The frieze is Huon pine and rose mahogany veneer and the corner blocks are tulipwood with applied shields of Huon pine. The hinged lid is solid brush cypress pine veneered with strips of book-matched tulipwood, Huon pine and black bean, with a central motif of four connected diamond-shaped panels in Huon pine, Tasmanian musk and native cherrywood veneers. Under the lid, its precisely fitted interior consists of thirty small compartments surrounding a larger rectangular compartment. A tapered workbox slides out from underneath the table and is covered with new pleated silk in a colour based on the deteriorated original silk fragments. The table retains its original waxed patina and bears a partial Raphael & Co ink stamp on the base of the workbox. This worktable, with its fine turned frame elements, elaborate veneers and precise functionality is an excellent and rare example of the best of Australian design and production of the mid-nineteenth century.

Raphael & Co Worktable c 1869 wood, brass, porcelain and silk 75 x 63 x 47.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008

Robert Bell Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design artonview summer 2008–09 33

acquisition A sian Ar t

Heri Dono Flying angels

Heri Dono Flying angels 2006 (detail) polyester resin, clock parts, electronic components, paint, wood, cotton gauze installation 60 x 135 cm (each, approx) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Gene and Brian Sherman 2008

Heri Dono is among Indonesia’s most prominent and innovative contemporary artists. Working in sculpture, installation, performance, paint and print, he brings together elements of Indonesian artistic tradition with his own distinctly contemporary concepts and playful imagery. The intersection of these constituents, and the tensions that ensue, are recurring features of Heri Dono’s work. His Flying angels 2006—an installation of nine whimsical electronic angels with elaborate headdresses, impish painted faces, broad cotton wings, tiny red boots and exposed genitals—is part of an ongoing series begun in 1995. Since their first showing at the 1996 Bienal de São Paulo, angels from the cluster have been exhibited in various configurations in many parts of the world, including Japan, Indonesia, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia. Invited to participate in vast numbers of biennales, triennials and residencies internationally, Heri Dono is a constant traveller who creates and recreates his work on the move. Stylistically inspired by Flash Gordon cartoons and American robots from the 1950s, the Flying angels also draw on the Indonesian theatre tradition of wayang puppetry, an art form long associated with social commentary and political expression. After graduating from the Indonesia Institute of the Arts in Jogjakarta in 1987, Heri Dono trained in wayang kulit shadow play—using two-dimensional, perforated leather puppets—under the modern master Sukasman. In contrast to many Indonesian artists active in the 1970s and 80s, artists from Heri Dono’s generation have tended to embrace rather than reject local artistic practices. While much of his work, particularly painting and performance, draws strongly on the aesthetic and form of wayang kulit, Flying angels and the related series Bidadari turun dari langit (Fairies from the heavens) 2004 have greater affinity with the three-dimensional puppet dolls used in wayang golek. For the artist, whose work expresses his particular experiences and concerns, the dangling angels represent

34 national gallery of australia

human vulnerability but are also uplifting personal symbols of freedom, conscience and hope. Actively opposed to oppression, injustice, violence and abuses of power, Heri Dono is interested in the role of the individual in society and has referred to his angels as a replacement for the garuda, mythical man-bird, as an emblem of Indonesian identity. He has described the garuda as ‘a symbol of collective identity and propaganda to prevent individuals from developing their intellect and personality freely’.1 As it is in much of the artist’s work, the subversive spirit of Flying angels is shrouded in incongruously quirky cheer. Powered using temperamental low-tech motors constructed from discarded clock parts and electronics, the angels flap their wings while emitting discordant sound; their chorus brings together contemporary popular music with birdsong, insect chirps and the voice of the artist chanting in several languages, including old Javanese. Flying angels is a gift of Gene and Brian Sherman, who are long-standing supporters of contemporary Asian art and the National Gallery of Australia. It is an excellent complement to the Gallery’s small but high-quality collection of contemporary art from Asia and, especially, to the single Heri Dono angel acquired by the Gallery in 1999. Created in 1995, the single angel was one of the first such sculptures produced by the artist. Previous works of art acquired with the support of Gene and Brian Sherman include Red rain (Hujan merah) 2003, a popular installation by Brisbane-based contemporary Indonesian artist Dadang Christanto, and Taiwanese artist Lin Shu-Min’s holographic installation Glass ceiling, both purchased through the Gene and Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Fund. Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art note 1 Heri Dono, ‘Watching the logic through an upside-down mind’, in Yasuko Furuchi (ed), Heri Dono: dancing demons and drunken deities, The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo, 2000, p 83.

artonview summer 2008–09 35

acquisition Pacific Ar t s

Solomon Islands people Bonito fish

Solomon Islands people Bonito fish 1900–30 wood, nautilus shell, patinas 38 x 90 x 35 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2008

Large sculptures of the bonito fish (Katsuwonus pelamis), more commonly known as skipjack tuna, are iconic symbols in the art of the Solomon Islands. The fish were, and still are in some areas, considered sacred. They form a link to the ancestors and to sea spirits; their presence indicates good relations between man and the spirit world. This can perhaps be explained by the important role they play in the fishing cultures of the Solomon Islands. Bonito are attracted to shoals of smaller fish and tend to form schools that aggressively attack the shoal, driving them to the surface of the water. Birds are attracted by this turmoil, swooping into the fray for their pickings. This spectacle is a signal for fishermen who are also intent in taking advantage of the bonito schools work. Although the smaller fish are made easy to catch by the bonito, the real prize is the bonito itself. Actually catching a bonito, however, requires consummate skill. Bonito are smooth-skinned with no scales; they have red blood and are described as being the ‘humans of the sea’. The sighting of the first bonito each season is a signal to begin festivities that involve passing the traditional knowledge of this unpredictable fish to young initiates. These festivities were organised in front of the sacred canoe houses, which faced out toward the sea.

36 national gallery of australia

The canoe house is where the large sculpture of bonito fish along with carvings of sharks and relics such as the skeletal trophies of pigs, people and fish decorated the already elaborate structure. On certain occasions, such as the arrival of the bonito schools, sculpture of bonito fish and those of frigate birds would be moved out of the canoe house and attached to dance platforms near the shore. The Gallery’s bonito exhibits a widely used aesthetic choice in the art of the Solomon Islands: the use of hundreds of tiny triangles of shell inlay against a contrasting black mass—the black colouration is derived from a mixture of soot, plant resin and possibly ink obtained from nautilus fish. This technique gives the impression, when displayed in a darkened canoe house illuminated by torchlight, of the sculpture being underwater with rippling reflections of the sun and watery shadows shimmering as if the fish is in motion. The artist has presumably observed bonito in its underwater habitat, when its fins would be fully extended, and captured its essence in this work. Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Arts This acquisition is on display in the exhibition Gods, ghosts and men at the National Gallery of Australia until 11 January 2009.

Travelling exhibitions summer 2008 Exhibition venues and dates may be subject to change. Please contact the Gallery or venue before your visit. For more information on travelling exhibitions, telephone (02) 6240 6525 or send an email to travex@nga.gov.au.

Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial

Ocean to Outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950 The National Gallery of Australia’s 25th Anniversary Travelling Exhibition Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia. The exhibition is also proudly sponsored by RM Williams, The Bush Outfitter, and the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund Arthur Streeton The selector’s hut (Whelan on the log) 1890 oil on canvas 76.7 x 51.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1961

Maringka Baker Kuru Ala 2007 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 153.5 x 200.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2007 © Maringka Baker

To mark the 25th anniversary of the National Gallery of Australia, Director Ron Radford, AM, curated this national touring exhibition of treasured works from the national collection. Every Australian state and territory is represented through the works of iconic artists such as Clarice Beckett, Arthur Boyd, Grace Cossington Smith, Russell Drysdale, Hans Heysen, Max Meldrum, Sidney Nolan, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Eugene von Guérard. nga.gov.au/OceantoOutback

Proudly supported by BHP Billiton; the Australia Council for the Arts through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Board, Visual Art Board and Community Partnerships and Market Development (International) Board; the Contemporary Touring Initiative through Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program; and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government and state and territory governments; the Queensland Government through the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency Culture Warriors, the inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial, presents the highly original and accomplished work of thirty Indigenous Australian artists from every state and territory. Featuring outstanding works in a variety of media, Culture Warriors draws inspiration from the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Referendum (Aboriginals) and demonstrates the breadth and calibre of contemporary Indigenous art practice in Australia. nga.gov.au/NIAT07 Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Qld 14 February – 10 May 2009

Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle, NSW 8 November 2008 – 1 February 2009 Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, ACT 14 February – 17 May 2009

The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift Travelling Exhibitions War: the prints of Otto Dix

Otto Dix Ration carriers near Pilkem 1924 plate 43 from the portfolio War etching, aquatint 24.8 x 29.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The Poynton Bequest, 2003 © Otto Dix. Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia, 2008

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

Otto Dix’s Der Krieg cycle, a collection of 51 etchings, is regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century. Modelled on Goya’s equally famous and equally devastating Los Desastres de la guerra (The disasters of war), the portfolio captures Dix’s horror of and fascination with the experience of war. nga.gov.au/Dix Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld 7 November 2008 – 1 February 2009

Sri Lanka Seated Ganesha 9th–10th century bronze 10.0 x 6.8 x 4.4 cm in Red case: myths and rituals The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Ulli and Georgina Beier Collection, purchased 2005

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 Flinders University City Gallery, Adelaide, SA 5 December 2008 – 28 January 2009 Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill, New Zealand 20 February – 19 April 2009

Red case: myths and rituals and Yellow case: form, space and design Young District Arts Council, Young, NSW 3 November – 16 December 2008 Cable Beach Primary School, Broome, WA 9–23 February 2009 St Mary’s College, Broome, WA 23 February – 16 March 2009

Imagining Papua New Guinea: prints from the national collection

Mathias Kauage Independence celebration I 1975 (detail) stencil 50.2 x 76.4 cm

For further details and bookings telephone (02) 6240 6650 or email travex@nga.gov.au.

The 1888 Melbourne Cup

The 1888 Melbourne Cup 1888 The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift

Western Australia Museum, Albany, WA 8 December 2008 – 7 January 2009 Western Australia Museum, Geraldton, WA 9 January – 20 February 2009

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

artonview summer 2008–09 37

vale

James Gleeson: an extraordinary journey At the heart of every great work of art lies an area of darkness that defies analysis. Theorists try, but something of the greatest works always elude the pursuer … It is not whether you have understood exactly what the artist had in mind, but whether or not it has stirred your imagination into a creative act. James Gleeson, 1993

Portrait of James Gleeson by Jacqueline Mitelman, 1997 Courtesy of National Library of Australia, Canberra

James Gleeson The attitude of lightning towards a lady-mountain 1939 oil on canvas 79.0 x 63.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of James Agapitos, OAM, and Ray Wilson, OAM, 2007

James Gleeson (1915–2008) was one of Australia’s most important artists and art writers. For more than 60 years, he has painted works that question, demand and engage. Inspired by the Surrealist movement, Gleeson started painting in the late 1930s while in his early twenties. He revolutionised and transformed Australian painting through his original and dynamic works. He was always interested in paint, commenting that ‘seeing the originals of great paintings in Europe, I fell in love with paint. I discovered a new interest in style and technique’.1 His powerful images are always visceral, sometimes terrifying and bizarre. They reach the emotions directly, creating a strange magical world that stirs the imagination. For over six decades he continued his extraordinary journey in paint. Gleeson had a significant place in the development of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, in being one of those responsible for forming the Australian art collection in its earliest days. From 1975 to 1979, he was the Gallery’s Visiting Curator of Australian Art and, from 1976 to 1982, a member of the Gallery’s first Council. His knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication ensured many fine acquisitions. He emphasised the value of creating significant collections of art on paper pointing to the Gallery’s responsibility towards public education and the encouragement of research in the visual arts, as well as the role that the works on paper collection would have in ‘broadening and deepening our understanding of Australian art in the years to come.2 Under Gleeson’s guidance, the Gallery acquired many artists’ sketchbooks. He was also responsible for seminal exhibitions on the collection, such as Aspects of Australian art, 1900–1940 in 1978. Gleeson interviewed a range of Australian artists in the 1970s and this oral history archive has been digitised as an invaluable asset to the Gallery’s Research Library. Many of these interviews can be heard online and offer a

38 national gallery of australia

profound and personal insight into both Gleeson and the artists interviewed. For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, Gleeson took a break from painting and made a major contribution through his lucid and insightful texts. These include Masterpieces of Australian painting (1969) as well as monographs on William Dobell (1969) and Robert Klippel (1983). His writing was sensitive and intelligent. He always gave something of himself and his experience of a wide range of art to make the relationship between the reader and the artist a more personal one. Gleeson was a great benefactor of the arts, generously giving his work to major public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia. Through the Gleeson O’Keefe Foundation, he promoted major acquisitions of Australian art for public collections. Works by Gleeson were donated to the National Gallery of Australia in September 2007 as part of one of the largest collections of Australian Surrealism ever collected—the Agapitos/Wilson collection. Among the many Gleeson works now in the national collection is The attitude of lightning towards a lady-mountain 1939, a key painting in the history of Australian art as it is one of the first Surrealist works undertaken in Australia. Like so many of his paintings, drawings and collages over the years, this seminal painting reveals Gleeson’s audacious, imaginative and technical powers, which will resonate with local and international visitors for many years to come. A true gentleman, a generous and compassionate person, his recent death at the age of 92 will be a significant loss to the Australian art world. Anne Gray and Deborah Hart Australian Art notes 1. James Gleeson, in John Hetherington, Australian painters: forty profiles, FW Cheshire Publishing, Melbourne, 1963, p 144. 2. Gleeson, ‘Australian sketchbooks: William Dobell’, Art and Australia, Australian National Gallery special issue, vol 14, no 4, 1977, pp 324 & 327.

artonview summer 2008–09 39

40â&#x20AC;&#x192; national gallery of australia 9

faces in view 1–3. Bee Gunn and Barry Cundy; Nicky Gallagher, Luseanne Tuita, Siua Lafitani and Yvonne Howarth; Lyn Morey, Jane Wild and Margaret Wild at the opening of Gods, ghosts and men. 4. Children participating in the South Pacific dance workshop led by dancer, teacher and choreographer Shiara Astle from Phoenix Performing Arts.

5. Life model drawing workshop inspired by Richard Larter’s works of art. 6. Crispin Howarth, Curator, Pacific Arts, giving his insightful talk on the works of art in Gods, ghosts and men. 7. Robyn and John Milthorpe at the special members’ opening for Gods, ghosts and men. 8. Mark Henshaw, Curator, International, Prints and Drawings, discussing the works of Eduardo Paolozzi’s portfolio Bunk! 1972. 9. Peter Fay, co-curator of Without borders, with Gallery member Elizabeth Storrs, artist Slim Barrie and Maryanne Voyazis. 10/ Visitors participating in the 11. special event Big draw at the Gallery in October. 12. Amber Al-otaibi, Siobhan and Natalie Turtle and Olga Pinzon at the members’ Glitterati party, celebrating the conclusion of Richard Larter: a retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia.

13. Robert Allison, Marj Wilson and Elizabeth Allison at the QANTAS Twenty-fifth anniversary lecture Inside/Outside: perspectives on collections, presented by Dr Michael Brand, Director, The J Paul Getty Museum, and former senior the curator of Asian art at National Gallery of Australia. 14. Canberra Youth Orchestra, conducted by Dominic Harvey.

artonview summer 2008–09 41

Edgar Degas France 1834â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1917 The dance class c. 1873 oil on canvas 47.6 x 62.2 cm The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC William A Clark Collection, 1926

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Edgar Degas The racecourse. Amateur jockeys close to a carriage 1876–87 (detail) Musée d’Orsay, Paris Gift of the Comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911 © RMN / Hervé Lewandowski

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Edgar Degas, France 1834‚Äì1917, At the races: before the start c. 1878‚Äì80, oil on canvas , 40.0 x 89.9 cm, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, Photograph: Katherine Wetzel , ¬© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

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GALLERY OF MODERN ART, BRISBANE 15 NOVEMBER 2008 – 22 FEBRUARY 2009

Tony Albert at the Paddington Antique Centre, Brisbane, September 2008

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Canberran Owned and Operated

This exhibition features key personalities and battles, and draws on the Memorial’s unique collections. See medals awarded to General Monash and Lord Birdwood, an 18-pounder field gun, and an exposed portion of a British Mark IV tank.

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artonview summer 2008–09 51

0RINTEDĂŚANDĂŚBOUNDĂŚINĂŚ!USTRALIA ISBN 064254204-X

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780642 542045

Richard Larter

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Printed

Culture Warriors

Roger Butler

Brenda Croft (ed)

315 pp, illustrated in colour, hardover, 290 x 240 mm RRP $89.00

218 pp, illustrated in colour, softcover, 298 x 245mm RRP $55.95

Australian artists books

Redback Graphix

Alex Selenitsch

Anna Zagala

128 pp, illustrated in colour, softcover, 225 x 225 mm RRP $39.95

images by Australian artists 1885â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1955

Deborah Hart 184 pp, illustrated in colour, softcover 290 x 240 mm RRP $44.95 Special NGA venue price $34.95

Picture paradise

Asiaâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Pacific photography 1840sâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;1940s

Gael Newton 88 pp, illustrated in colour, softcover 270 x 220 mm RRP $29.95 Special NGA venue price $24.95

National Indigenous Art Triennial

ngapublications available from the

ngashop

open 7 days 10 am â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 5 pm â&#x20AC;˘ Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2601 â&#x20AC;˘ ngashop.com.au free call 1800 808 337 â&#x20AC;˘ (02) 6240 6420 â&#x20AC;˘ ecom@nga.gov.au

52â&#x20AC;&#x192; national gallery of australia