2013.Q3 | Artonview 75 Spring 2013

13 20 ER B EM EC

SPRING 2013 | 75

O

PE

N

S

6

D

N AT IO N A L G A L L ERY O F A U S T R A L IA , CA N B ER R A

SPRING 2013 | 75

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

PRESENTING PARTNERS

ACCOMMODATION PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

William Kentridge | Gold and the Incas | Royal Academy Moche culture (100–800 AD) Owl-head bead, Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán, Lambayeque

Hotel Hotel A place for people people • Opening soon hotel-hotel. com.au Hotel Hotel NewActon Nishi, 25 Edinburgh Ave Canberra ACT 2601

William Kentridge Plate 1 from Bird catching set II 2006 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, The Poynton Bequest, 2013

For reservation or conferencing enquiries, please call 02 6287 6287 or email — hello@hotel-hotel.com.au

SPRING 2013 | 75

Published quarterly by the National Gallery of Australia, PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia artonview.editor@nga.gov.au | nga.gov.au

2

© National Gallery of Australia 2013

6

Copyright of works of art 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.

EXHIBITIONS

10 18

ENQUIRIES copyright@nga.gov.au

27

Produced by the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department

28

EDITOR Eric Meredith DESIGNER Kristin Thomas PHOTOGRAPHY by the National Gallery of Australia Photography Department unless otherwise stated RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Nick Nicholson PRINTER Blue Star Print, Melbourne PREVIOUS ISSUES nga.gov.au/Artonview ISSN 1323‑4552 PRINT POST APPROVED pp255003/00078 RRP A$9.95 | FREE TO MEMBERS MEMBERSHIP membership@nga.gov.au nga.gov.au/Members TEL (02) 6240 6528 FAX (02) 6270 6480 WARNING Artonview may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.

Director’s word

30

The brilliant cultures of Peru

Christine Dixon

A lightness of touch

Jane Kinsman

Growing an art nation: Australian land and landscape

Ron Radford, Anne Gray, Deborah Hart, Daniel Thomas, Franchesca Cubillo

Like a toddler in a toyshop

Debbie Ward

Entrepreneur, inventor: Walter B Woodbury in Indonesia

Gael Newton

Australian jewellery: four decades, six themes, forty-two artists

Robert Bell

FEATURES 32 34 37 38 40 41

Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14

Anne Gray

Immortal kings, blessed descendants: Taoist paintings of the Yao

Niki van den Heuvel and James Ward

‘When we paint’

Franchesca Cubillo

An enduring purpose: the National Gallery’s Fijian bark cloth

Crispin Howarth

Townsend on Turner: a conservation scientist’s view on the Tate’s collection

Michelle Fracaro

Farewell Alan Froud: retirement well deserved

Simon Elliot

ACQUISITIONS

(cover) William Kentridge The Marguerite Stephens Tapestry Studio (weaver) Streets of the city 2009 (detail) wool mohair weft, polyester warp and slit edging 328 x 344 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2012 224572

42 Anish Kapoor Hollow 44 Hilda Rix Nicholas oil paintings 47 Margaret Olley White still life 48 John Perceval Children drawing in a Carlton street 50 Mughal dynasty, India Tent hanging (Qanat) 51 Coromandel coast, India Coverlet or hanging (Palampore) 52 Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunman) 54 David Noonan Untitled

REGULARS 55 Members news 56 Facesinview 58 News from the Foundation 59 Creative partnerships 60 Thank you …

Penelope Benton and Alexandra Clapham’s performance work Seeing dots, performed by Benton (centre), Jasmina Black and Marni Jackson at the opening of Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 19 July 2013.

Director’s word Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master has been a success for the National Gallery of Australia and a major coup for Australian audiences. It includes many of JMW Turner’s masterpieces and the largest works he ever executed as well as sketchbooks that demonstrate his practice as an artist and extraordinary skill as a painter in both oil and watercolour.

The exhibition is almost entirely from the Tate’s unparalleled collection of Turner’s works, left by the artist to the British public.

With only two weeks left to see these masterpieces at the National Gallery, you have no time to waste.

As we have just announced, the third international blockbuster exhibition for this year’s Canberra centenary is Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru. With this exhibition, the National Gallery treats its audiences to a totally new experience, showcasing for the first time in Australia the splendour of the mesmerising preHispanic cultures of Peru. More than 200 objects will be on display, including precious gold armour, incredible figurative ceramics, intricate jewellery 2 ARTONVIEW

and elaborate embroidered and woven cloths. Audiences will encounter the aesthetic depth, drama and beauty of the famous Incan empire and its predecessors, the Chavín, Moche, Chancay and Huari cultures.

Lively depictions of animals, birds and fish decorate these works of art.

The Inca’s technological inventions, such as the knotted string quipu, and astronomical observations also provide a new outlook on their sophisticated world.

The exhibition, organised through the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, comes from nine of the finest Peruvian public and private collections, including the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. It also marks the fiftieth anniversary of Australian–Peruvian diplomatic relations.

Between Turner from the Tate and Gold and the Incas, we show a focussed exhibition, William Kentridge: drawn from Africa, of the works of the major South African contemporary artist William Kentridge. This exhibition of the Gallery’s large collection of Kentridge’s work

will be on display for the first time but only for a month, from 5 October to 3 November 2013. Many of the works have been newly acquired, including the extraordinary, large tapestry highlighted in our last issue of Artonview. Kentridge grew up in South Africa during apartheid, and his work is politically informed by the social injustices of this dark period in the country’s history. However, Kentridge’s themes go beyond the borders of South Africa to address social injustice worldwide.

Many artists are politically bold but Kentridge is politically subtle, a rare and highly interesting approach that sets his work apart from others. The exhibition shows his work in film, drawing, printmaking and tapestry design.

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is now into its second month at the Gallery after its national tour and has attracted crowds of all ages, but particularly many younger visitors.

The major benefactor of our highly valued twentieth-century American print collection, Kenneth Tyler AO travelled from the United States of America to open the exhibition in Canberra on the night of 19 July and to later

give an insightful lecture on his workshop with Lichtenstein and contemporaries such as David Hockney, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix continues until 27 January 2014 and is accompanied by a fantastic, fully illustrated and modestly priced book, which is selling fast.

The Royal Academy of Arts in London is to open the exhibition Australia on 21 September. Staged jointly with the National Gallery of Australia, this is the largest survey of Australian art ever held outside Australia. In this issue of Artonview, the different periods of Australian land and landscape painting are briefly considered in an article with texts by Anne Gray and me (as co-curators of the exhibition with Royal Academy’s Kathleen Soriano), and helped

by Deborah Hart and Daniel Thomas.

Franchesca Cubillo also contributes a section to the article with her expertise on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.

Half the works in the exhibition have come from the national art collection, which, as some of our members have already noticed, means so many highlights in our Australian

and Indigenous galleries will not be back on display in Canberra for some time.

These works, however, will be seen by many hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists in Britain.

Closer to home, the Gallery’s touring exhibition Bodywork: Australian jewellery 1970–1942 opens at Moree Plains Gallery in Victoria on 7 September. It includes forty exquisitely designed examples of Australian jewellery from the past four decades.

This cleverly packaged exhibition—in six themed showcases—allows small venues to handle these works with limited fuss, increasing the Gallery’s ability to tour parts of its collection to regional areas that might otherwise not have large enough exhibition venues.

I am pleased to announce that Hilda Rix Nicholas’s The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains 1921–22 is the subject of the Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14. Now in its fifth year, the fund has given Gallery members the opportunity, since 2009, to contribute directly to the acquisition of four works of art that enhance aspects of the national art collection: Conrad Martens’s Campbell’s

Wharf 1857, Hans Heysen’s Spring 1925, Margaret Olley’s Hawkesbury wildflowers and pears 1973 and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Divan Japonais 1893. We look forward to your continuing support for this important acquisition initiative.

Following the Museum of Contemporary Art’s recent exhibition of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, many of you would now know more about the famous Indian-born British sculptor’s extraordinary ability to transform space with his work. He is one of the best known contemporary sculptures. The National Gallery has just acquired Hollow 2012, one of Kapoor’s void forms that articulate the illusion of either a two‑dimensional disc, an opening of infinite depth or a floating sphere. The work appears to be a gravity defying ball when standing directly in front, but the illusion dissolves when viewed from other angles.

The recent major acquisition of fourteen paintings, nine drawings and two prints by Hilda Rix Nicholas almost tripled our collection of this major early twentieth‑century Australian figure and ARTONVIEW 3

4 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

Ron Radford, Jenny Harper and Pierre Arpin and Margot Jolly and Brendan Nelson, Museums Australia conference dinner in the Gandel Hall, 23 May 2013.

Photographs: Lyn Mills

(opposite) Sicán-Lambayeque culture (750–1375) Tumi (Sacrificial knife) gold, silver, gemstones, 27.5 x 10.3 cm Museo Oro del Perú, Lima Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

landscape painter. The works represent thirty years of her practice. The acquisition is also made particularly significant in the year of Canberra’s centenary as Rix Nicholas was the Canberra region’s first local artist. The acquisition was made possible largely through the generously supported National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner Fund and the Ruth Robertson Bequest Fund, with John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh providing funds for an exquisite 1927 local view of the Molonglo River from Canberra’s Mount Pleasant.

Over many years, John and Rosanna Hindmarsh have been generous to the Gallery, including the recent gift of John Perceval’s Children drawing in a Carlton street. This painting is one of a number Perceval did of children in the streets of Carlton in 1943. The subject matter and the exaggerated physicality of the children drawing on the walls and street are indicative of Perceval’s early interest in naïve expression. Children drawing in a Carlton street is a great addition to the

collection and will no doubt draw out emotional responses through the strength of Perceval’s evocative style.

Also for our Australian art collection, Wayne Kratzmann gave the Gallery Margaret Olley’s still-life masterpiece White still life 1977, a work that graces the cover of Barry Pearce’s 2012 monograph on the artist. We purchased David Noonan’s evocative fabric print and collage Untitled 2012, which was first exhibited in London, where the Ballarat-born and -trained artist now lives.

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri’s visually stunning Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunman) 1994 was acquired for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection and is currently in London as part of the exhibition Australia. This work is a departure from Tjapaltjarri’s earlier style as a key figure in the development of the Western Desert art movement that began in the early 1970s. The acquisition of Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunman) was generously supported by the Australia Exhibition Patrons Club.

Two markedly different textiles from the Indian subcontinent joined our already incredible collection from this region of Asia.

Each work demonstrates the influence of the market on the creation process: the Mughal tent hanging from around 1700 was fabricated for the Indian market and the palampore of 1760–80 for the European market.

Our much-appreciated deputy director Alan Froud retired from the Gallery in August after twenty-two years in the role. On behalf of the Gallery staff, its Council and Foundation, I would like to express our deep gratitude for Alan’s outstanding service. Alan has been a great and nationally respected deputy director and has already put off his retirement for nearly two years now, for which we are very grateful. He will be greatly missed by us all, especially by me.

Ron Radford

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 5

6 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

Paracus culture (700 BCE – 100 CE) Mantle with flying figures (detail) wool 251 x 138 cm Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

TH E B R I L L I AN T C ULTU R E S OF P E R U Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru 6 December 2013 – 21 April 2014 | nga.gov.au/Incas

Even before the rise of the famous Inca Empire around the year 1400, the artisans of Peruvian civilisation were highly skilled metalworkers, potters and weavers.

For more than three thousand years, they created extraordinary objects unique to their magnificent cultures: the Chavín, Moche, Chancay, Chimú, Huari and others. Some worked in the high Andes, others on the north or south coast of Peru, and even ranged further afield—the red spondylus shell was imported from far Ecuador. We can deduce some of the rituals of hunting, farming and religion from the things they created. So, despite their distance in time and place, the artists of ancient Peru still speak to us today.

Many of the cultures came before or were outlived or overcome by the Inca Empire. In the decades after 1400, the Incas controlled a vast territory stretching from modern Colombia in the north, east into Bolivia and Argentina, to Chile in the south.

Inca warriors defeated the Chimú kingdom and carried off their craftsmen. In this way, we can often trace cultural traditions that continued under triumphant new rulers.

Then the Spanish came, razing the Inca capital Cuzco and looting vast numbers of gold and silver artefacts, which were melted down for their ore. Twenty per cent was reserved for the Spanish throne. With horses and superior weaponry, the conquistadors under Francisco Pizarro easily vanquished the Inca Empire in 1532—perhaps ninety per cent of the native population was killed or died of introduced disease. Despite this destruction, an amazing amount of the brilliant art of the previous three millennia has been discovered and excavated in the last century. Many of these masterworks are on display in Canberra.

Dualism underlies much of the worldview of pre-Hispanic Peru: day and night, gold and silver, the sun and the moon, male and female. Sometimes

these elements are combined within a single object. Creation stories divide existence into three planes: the sky is dominated by gods and rulers, symbolised by birds; the human realm of earth and sea is represented by felines such as the jaguar and fish; while the underworld is ruled by reptiles and insects. These levels of existence are fertilised by liquids—rain, blood and semen—which are exchanged between the three to continue the cycle of life. So a fearsome sea creature is invoked to help catch food, to propitiate nature and probably to represent the occupation of the person with whom it was buried.

Lively and decorative, the animal is based on observation and enhanced by magic and imagination.

Most of the works have been disinterred from burial caches, where they accompanied the dead in their journey between worlds.

Vessels such as these contained ceremonial liquids for ritual purposes, and remains

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 7

Nazca culture (100–700) Animal-effigy double-spout-and-bridge bottle ceramic 19 x 35.2 cm Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima IRN 231345

Lambayeque culture (700–1370) Poncho (detail) feathers on cotton 86.0 x 31.0 cm Fundación Museo Amano, Lima 227094

Sicán culture (700–1370) Mask gold, chrysocolla, cinnabar 30.6 x 49.7 cm Museo Oro del Perú, Lima Photographs: Daniel Giannoni 235925

of chicha (corn liquor) have been found, which was meant to nourish those buried with it. Similarly, some glorious textiles of the Paracas culture survive—up to thirty layers wrapped around bodies found in dry and dark caves in the southern desert.

The skill and sophistication of their makers is unparalleled, combining intricate weaving and embroidery techniques with images of spirits, animals and humans.

Some of the most surprising survivors, often many hundreds of years old, are the brilliant feathers of Andean birds, especially the macaw and other tropical species.

The birds were trapped or traded or even bred for their plumage. The Lambayeque

8 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

culture unku (tunic or cloak) uses thousands of bright yellow feathers for the body, with black and blue motifs of felines, probably jaguars or pumas, morphing into birds. The creatures’ bodies are made up of triangles, simple yet immediately recognisable. At the bottom is a stylised red wave, so that the components symbolise the earth, the heavens and the sea.

Sparkling minerals and shells such as mother-of-pearl decorate wooden and ceramic sculptures. A litter to carry royal or noble Chimú personages displays four divine figures, recognisable from their headdresses. The red shell is spondylus, imported from Ecuador in the north into

the Andes for its brilliant, unusual hue.

The use of such materials, including gold, silver and copper, was restricted to the ruling class; ordinary people wore fibres native to Peru, such as llama wool and cotton. Similarly, precious and semi‑precious stones were used with gold for spectacular jewellery to decorate the living and the dead.

The works of art in Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru come from the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú (the National Museum) and its fraternal collections, the Museo Arqueologico Rafael Larco Herrera (Larco Museum), the Amano Museum

and the Museo Oro del Perú (the Gold Museum of Peru). The exhibition is staged as the National Gallery’s major contribution to the Australia-Latin America Year of Cultural Exchange and is organised in co-operation with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. This year also marks the centenary of Canberra. A major catalogue— consisting of essays, entries, maps and a timeline, as well as colour illustrations of each object—accompanies the show.

Christine Dixon Senior Curator, International Painting and Sculpture, and curator of the exhibition

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 9

10 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

Plate 1 from Bird Catching set I 2006 (detail) aquatint, drypoint 39.8 x 39.6 cm The Poynton Bequest, 2013 239393

A LIGHTNESS OF T O U C H William Kentridge: drawn from Africa 5 October – 3 November 2013 | nga.gov.au/Kentridge

William Kentridge comes from a German‑Jewish and Lithuanian family who fled from Russia in the 1880s during the anti-Jewish pogroms, after the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II. From the 1950s, Kentridge’s mother, Lady Felicia, and father, Sir Sydney, were both actively involved in supporting South Africa’s anti-apartheid activists in the political trials and in events such as inquest into the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. Kentridge was born in 1955, and his family’s involvement in the injustices of apartheid played an important role in his development and informed his work as a gifted figurative artist. In this context, Kentridge considered abstract art and conceptual art ‘an impossible activity’ in South Africa, as he observed in the 1999 book William Kentridge:

Much of what was contemporary in Europe and America during the 1960s and 1970s seemed distant and incomprehensible to me.

Images became familiar from exhibitions and publications but the impulses behind the work did not make the trans-continental jump to South Africa. The art that seemed most immediate and local dated from the early twentieth century, when there still seemed to be hope for political struggle rather than a world exhausted by war and failure. I remember thinking that one had to look backwards—even if quaintness was the price one paid.

Kentridge’s art, therefore, belongs to a tradition of some of the great figurative artists of the past such as William Hogarth, Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier as well as the German Expressionists Max Beckmann and George Grosz. These artists created powerful imagery that explored the social conditions of their time. While Kentridge follows in their footsteps, he also develops imagery of subtlety and imagination in film, drawing, printmaking and tapestry design and explores three dimensions in innovative opera productions and sculptural forms. His art dismantles, transforms and fuses one art category into another.

As he matured, Kentridge addressed political subjects but not in a strident way.

There is a remarkable lightness of touch, a subtlety that is enhanced by juxtaposition, metaphor, irony and a sense of the absurd or of humour. He ignores conventional artistic categories and maintaining a fluid process of making art is important to him. As he outlines in the documentary Anything is possible, ‘In the looseness of trying different things, images and ideas emerge … So it’s about not knowing what is happening in advance. It’s always kind of been in between the things I thought I was doing that the real work has happened’.

Drawing in charcoal in particular was an ideal medium, as adding to and subtracting

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 11

from compositions provided Kentridge with the ability to explore his subjects without finality. The process also facilitated his animations for which he augmented his drawings during the process of filming.

In this way, Kentridge is able to remodel, dismantle or dissolve his subjects as he develops his imagery over time: The fact that they’re going to be succeeded by the next stage of the drawing … was very good for someone who is bad at knowing when to commit something to being finished.

Kentridge has also been a consummate printmaker, his work characterised by considerable graphic skill and technical

12 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

experimentation. This is evident in The battle between yes and no 1989, which is a remarkable screenprint revealing Kentridge’s facility in this technique, using his drawing skills to depict his subjects. The two figures are oversized and bulging within the picture plane, emphasising the combative theme of the work. They face off in an argument, with the words ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘noise’ spewing from their mouths, as they float in a rising sea of swirling confusion. This image of a showdown is related to the scene of a fighting couple in his early film Vetkoek/ Fête galante 1985, which, according to Kentridge, is an ‘early and clear’ example

of the ‘centrality of contradiction’.

This confrontational scene also prefigures the later scenes of an altercation in Kentridge’s film Other voices 2011, which explores the complexity and confrontation found in a post-apartheid era.

In Casspirs full of love, created in 1989 but not published until 2000, Kentridge uses the power of irony when he juxtaposes horrific imagery with a mother’s message of love to shed light on the darker history of apartheid. The title is from one of the state radio greetings sent by families to their loved ones in the armed forces in which Kentridge heard a mother end her message, ‘from Mum, with Casspirs full of

Atlas procession no 1 2000 etching, aquatint, drypoint, letter press, hand painting 158 x 108 cm gift of Orde Poynton Esq, AO, CMG, 2001 IRN 28421

(opposite) The battle between yes and no 1989 colour screenprint, hand painting 158 x 109 cm The Poynton Bequest, 2013 IRN 236138

Casspirs full of love 1989, published 2000 drypoint, engraving with roulette 148 x 81 cm gift of Orde Poynton Esq, AO, CMG, 2001

love’, innocently meaning, ‘with truckloads of love’. Kentridge’s use of the term, however, points to the reality that Casspirs had been the quintessential riot-control vehicle in South Africa—and that they had become both a very real object of oppression as well as a symbol of that oppression. In Casspirs full of love, seven severed heads rest inside the four irregular compartments of a vertical rectangular container, which is perhaps a cross-section through a Casspir from above—the words, ‘NOT A STEP’ seem consistent with this idea. Since the strong suggestion is that these are the remains of victims of state violence, the words, ‘Casspirs full of love’, handwritten

down the right side of the work, add a bitter twist to the innocent but ultimately crass expression of motherly love.

In comparison, much of Kentridge’s art is one of discernment, as in his enigmatic Atlas procession no 1 2000, reminiscent of Dada theatre, where a rich parade of figures circle an architectural dome decorated with a map. The map is of Greece and is labelled ‘Turkey in Europe: Romania [word obscured, perhaps Serbia], Montenegro and Greece’, a reference to the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into the Balkans in the fourteenth century; the empire’s subsequent decline ended with its collapse in 1918. Kentridge had been

interested in projecting his imagery in a three-dimensional space in the manner of a fresco. For this larger version of two, Kentridge took as his starting point Goya’s frescoes from San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid. As he notes in the book William Kentridge prints of 2006:

I was thinking about projections as a way of seeing the world, a contemporary and ephemeral vision equivalent to the view of the world encoded in fresco painting in past centuries … In this project I worked with figures moving around the ceiling, an endless procession. The figures were made from pieces of torn paper … The images were projected on top of the Baroque painting of the ceiling.

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 13

Walking man 2000 linocut 256 x 100 cm The Poynton Bequest, 2013 IRN 236132

Reeds 1996 etching, aquatint, drypoint and power-tool 120 x 160 cm The Poynton Bequest, 2013 IRN 236137

The scene is theatrical and nonsensical, with a carefree female nude dancing around the dome, mourning figures and a suited man metamorphosing into a tree.

The transforming man also appears in a massive linocut, Walking man, also made in 2000, in which Kentridge explores his interest in working on a grand scale on one single life-sized figure. Like some of Picasso’s Vollard Suite intaglio prints, Walking man may be inspired by the Latin poet Ovid and the story of Daphne, who was chased by Apollo and transformed into a shrub. In a later linocut of a similar grand scale, Eight figures 2010, Kentridge continues to explore a processional composition. In it, he includes disparate elements from his repertoire: marching figures of towers, miners, a windmill, a nose and a globe. The nonsensical nature of this grand procession of figures is augmented by the artist’s inclusion of random English and Russian signage below the stage on which the figures stride. Kentridge’s cutting of linoleum is remarkable for its variety and contrast of lines, forms and rich patterning, as evident in both of these massive linocuts.

Kentridge’s skill as a consummate printmaker is also apparent in the masterful painterly print Reeds 1996. This grand intaglio print follows in the tradition of James McNeill Whistler, where Kentridge, like Whistler before him, has broken all the rules of etching and created a wonderful, luscious composition rich

14 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

in inking and texture. Kentridge used power tools for dramatic effect, as well as more conventional methods on a huge plate. Given the problems of inking at this scale, each work in this small edition is like a monotype. For this landscape of water and reeds, Kentridge has adopted imagery found in nineteenth-century topographical engravings informed by a European sensibility. Yet, he subverts the landscape tradition of artists such as Paul Gauguin and the Pont Aven painters, who created idealised landscapes—editing out the incursions of modern life. Reeds signals Kentridge’s move to acknowledge the history of Africa: at first glance, the artist has created a lyrical view of the countryside, a rich paradise; yet, this is deceptive, as within

the landscape lie references to the often dark history of Africa.

The processional form of figures marching continued in his sculptures, prints and films inspired by nineteenthcentury Russian satirist Nikolai Gogol’s absurd tale ‘The nose’. Gogol writes of a pompous Russian bureaucrat who lives in a world of great hierarchies—which, as Kentridge notes in Anything is possible, ‘rings a bell with anyone from South Africa’.

This public servant wakes up one morning to discover his nose missing. He searches the streets looking for his nose but is horrified when, upon finding it, the nose, who now considers its own status far higher than that of its former owner, refuses to have anything to do with him. Instead, the

nose embarks on an independent journey through St Petersburg, set in tsarist Russia of the mid 1830s a time of great despotism.

In 2006, William Kentridge was commissioned to design and direct the opera The nose by Dmitiri Shostahovich: ‘For a long time, I’d been wanting to do a project that has to do with Russian modernism and the end of Russian modernism. I came across the short story of Gogol, The nose, which struck me astonishingly as an amazing story’.

Soon after this, Kentridge began work with the David Krut Print Workshop on a series of intaglio prints that continued his artistic investigation of a number of the themes and ideas that he had explored with the opera. The artist was

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 15

16 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

(above, clockwise from top left) Nose 3, Nose 4, Nose 30 and Nose 26 (opposite) Nose 28 from the series Nose 2006–09 sugarlift aquatint, drypoint, engraving 19.7 x 24.8 cm, 14.8 x 19.9 cm, 19.9 x 24.9 cm, 19.8 x 24.8 cm, 24.8 x 19.8 cm The Poynton Bequest, 2010 IRN 206279, 206286, 206306, 206308

interested in applying the aesthetics of early modernism and Constructivism as well as linking this to historic literary, musical and political sources. ‘The nose’ project satisfied these interests. The cycle of images depicting the nose’s journey are filled with references to Russian history, literature and art: visual quotation of Lenin addressing crowds during the October revolution, an imaginary visit to Vladimir Tatlin’s unbuilt Monument to the Third International, an encounter with Edouard Manet’s woman drinker in Plumb brandy c 1877 and the embrace of El Lissitzy’s design aesthetic.

The nose prints all incorporate the use of intaglio techniques such as soft-ground etching, hard-ground etching, drypoint, sugarlift and aquatint. In thirty masterly

compositions, Kentridge demonstrates his finesse with each of these techniques and combines the idiotic experiences of the nose and his owner in tyrannical times, highlighting a sense of the absurd.

William Kentridge: drawn from Africa opens at the National Gallery of Australia on 5 October It includes these works discussed, along with others, all drawn from the Gallery’s collection, including ‘The magic flute’ project, the tapestry Streets of the city 2009 and the film Other voices, and related drawings.

Jane Kinsman Senior Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books, and curator of the exhibition

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 17

John Glover A view of the artist’s house and garden, in Mills Plains, Van Diemen’s Land 1835 (detail) oil on canvas 76.4 x 114.4 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund, 1951IRN 128981

G R O WI N G A N AR T N AT I O N Australian land and landscape Australia 21 September – 8 December 2013 @ Royal Academy of Arts, London nga.gov.au/RoyalAcademy

The London exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts will fully show the evolution of the venerable tradition of Australian landscape art. Consisting of over two hundred works from 1800 to the present-day, including Indigenous art, it is the most important exhibition of Australian art ever shown outside Australia. It is staged in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia.

Australians have long loved their landscape and their landscape art. But this was not always the case for us all.

1800–1880: the colonies Ron Radford Director

When the first British settlers arrived in the late eighteenth century, they found the vast landscape monotonous and inhospitable.

Artists were more interested in recording the progress of the developing settlements than what was to them the uninviting surrounding environment.

Crossing the Blue Mountains with Governor Macquarie in 1815, John Lewin

saw and painted the first inland landscapes.

Lewin arrived in 1800 as a free settler and was the first professional artist to live here. In 1825, Augustus Earle was the next major artist to arrive, only to stay less than four years. He painted poignant and lively landscapes, which often incorporated Aboriginal people, and he was also one of a few artists to include convicts.

This new land, its unique light and the new society eventually inspired colonial landscape painters to artistic heights far beyond the quality of their own European works. John Glover, who came to Tasmania in 1831, aged 64, was the only colonial artist to have previously had a successful landscape career in Europe. He became a farmer and Australia’s finest landscape artist during the early colonial period, capturing Australia’s natural beauty, often close to his northern Tasmanian farm. Conrad Martens, who settled in Sydney in 1835, painted harbour, homestead and mountain views that were more atmospheric and light-filled than any of his predecessors in colonial Sydney.

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 19

In South Australia in the 1840s, EC Frome and ST Gill depicted different parts of the arid and, to them, strange landscape around the Flinders Ranges— such imagery, although new then, later became a focus for twentieth-century artists. Gill’s rival in South Australia was GF Angus, who recorded the landscape and the Aboriginal people.

Before 1850, Australian art naturally followed British traditions, particularly British watercolour painting at a time when landscape painting was also at its peak in Britain. This changed after the 1851 gold rush in Victoria. With increased European immigration came artists trained in German Romantic tradition in oil painting. The most important was Eugene von Guérard,

20 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

who migrated in 1852. Travelling the southeast of Australia, including Tasmania, and across to New Zealand, he depicted aweinspiring landscapes with great detail. He became the greatest Romantic landscape painter of the Southern Hemisphere.

The most influential landscape artist to arrive after von Guérard was Swiss artist Louis Buvelot, in Melbourne in 1865.

His approach was that of the more intimate French Barbizon School. He did not paint grand panoramics like von Guérard and Nicholas Chevalier but more familiar, domesticated landscapes. His application of paint was looser than von Guérard’s. His landscapes and application of paint inspired Impressionist artists such as Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin in the 1880s.

1880–1920: art nation Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

Australian Impressionists such as Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder came into prominence in the late nineteenth century.

This was a period of change, and artists began to talk about an Australian tradition.

There was a self‑conscious desire to create a national school and to develop a local market for Australian art. On 24 August 1895, the editor of The Melbourne newspaper Argus proudly claimed that ‘there can be no doubt that an Australian School of painting is in process of birth’.

Artists celebrated the cities, beaches and bush, and sought to capture the

characteristic Australian light—from the harsh midday glare to the gentle, subdued tones of early morning and evening. Their landscapes were populated with men and women who were now comfortable in their surroundings.

Roberts was Australia’s foremost artist of the late nineteenth century. He sought to portray ‘a life different from any other country in the world’, as he said in 1895 to the Society of Artists in Sydney. Indeed, his Allegro con brio: Bourke Street west c 1885–86 created a new vision of urban Australia. From 1888 to 1890, Streeton, Conder and Roberts spent two summers in an old farmhouse at Eaglemont, in outer Melbourne. Streeton captured the intense light there in his Golden summer,

Eaglemont 1889, using what later became his characteristic blue-and-gold palette.

In 1891, it was the first painting by an Australian-born artist to be hung in the Royal Academy in London.

With the banking crisis of the 1890s, the sun went out of most Melbourne landscapes until about 1908. David Davies painted the melancholic soul of the bush in unpeopled, aestheticised landscapes. Sydney Long also painted poetic subjects, but with an Art Nouveau approach.

Although figure painting was the focus in Britain from 1901 to the 1920s, landscape continued to dominate Australian painting, and strong emblems emerged: the sturdy eucalypt, redolent of masculine power; lively cities, suggestive of

Tom Roberts Allegro con brio: Bourke Street west c 1885–86, reworked 1890 oil on canvas mounted on composition board 51.2 x 76.7 cm National Gallery of Australia and National Library of Australia, Canberra purchased 1918 IRN 62278

(opposite) Eugene von Guérard North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko 1863 oil on canvas 66.5 x 116.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1973 IRN 48469

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 21

Grace Cossington Smith Eastern Road, Turramurra c 1926 watercolour and black pencil 40.6 x 33 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra bequest of Mervyn Horton, 1984 IRN 35103

John Brack The car 1955 oil on canvas 41 x 102.2 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne purchased 1956 © Helen Brack IRN 26247

progress; and expansive beaches, indicative of egalitarianism and a healthy lifestyle.

Interest in watercolour painting also returned at the turn of the century, with Hans Heysen in Adelaide, JJ Hilder and Sydney Long in Sydney, Blamire Young in Melbourne and James WR Linton in Perth.

These were the years when Australia became more consciously cultural and supportive of creative pursuits. Public art galleries were established around the nation and significant bequests were given to purchase art. Australia also had a number of established novelists, poets and filmmakers. Australia had become not only one united country but also an art nation, and self-consciously so.

22 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

1920 to 1950: pathways into the modern world Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920

In the aftermath of the First World War, women artists such as Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston and Dorrit Black were at the forefront of the modern movement in Australia, developing distinctive responses to their local environs while also being informed by British and European art. Cossington Smith’s Eastern Road, Turramurra c 1926, one of the most significant watercolours of the period, conveys the meeting of old and new worlds.

The sweeping directional movement of the road through the centre suggests

a time of change when the semi-rural suburb of Turramurra was undergoing modernisation. A great colourist, Cossington Smith’s distinctive palette was informed by a spiritual dimension and colour theories of the day.

A committed modernist, Dorrit Black studied with Claude Flight in London and with the Cubists André Lhote and Albert Gleizes in France. Back in South Australia she painted one of the great modernist works, The olive plantation 1946, in what was itself a transplanted idea of a Mediterranean landscape. Echoes of lessons learnt in Europe, such as Lhote’s principles of dynamic symmetry, are combined with Black’s intense feeling for her own place, conveyed in the rows of

plantations that appear like force-fields.

In the immediate aftermath of war the rounded hills also suggest the comfort of nurturing mother earth; the olive branch, the symbol of peace.

A child of inner-city Melbourne during the Depression, Sidney Nolan was one of the first artists to fly vast distances across the red earth of the interior. He was deeply impressed by the landscape and the Indigenous people he met on his travels. On Australia Day, 26 January, in 1950, he wrote to Albert Tucker: ‘We had a wonderful trip to the back of beyond, it is the proper Australia, old, dignified and coherent’. In his Central Australia paintings such as Inland Australia 1950, Nolan depicted the patterns of

rocks like waves stretching as far as the eye could see. Nolan and Drysdale provided non‑Indigenous Australians with distinctive new visions of the Outback landscape.

For some commentators, the desert became emblematic of the Australian landscape. However, idiosyncratic responses to urban, suburban and regional landscapes also evolved.

With wave≈upon wave of change since the First World War, artists continued to forge new pathways into the modern world, reminding us that responses to place in a settler society are not static but about states of becoming, open to new beginnings and cross-cultural meeting places.

1950 to 2012: new Australian Daniel Thomas curator

We start the period with John Brack’s The car 1955, painted the year after our first royal visit by the new Queen who had been glimpsed by thousands as she passed by in a car. The clean, angular postwar style of Brack’s painting and the small British car are new, as is the subject. Melburnians are taking a new car on a Sunday drive through unprepossessing city-fringe countryside— note the near-city sky: polluted white, not clean country blue. Here, the landscape is inside the car, a mental prospect. The two windows in a narrow horizontal canvas are a witty modernisation of early colonial multipanel panoramic landscapes.

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 23

Fiona Hall Black boy (Xanthorrhoea australis) 1989–90 aluminium, tin 24.5 x 11 x 1.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1994 © Fiona Hall IRN 6104

Robert Campbell Jr Abo history (facts) 1988 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 130 x 200 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1988 Courtesy the artist’s estate and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery IRN 82130

Fred Williams returned from London converted to modernism and, on first sight of his homeland in January 1957, immediately resolved ‘to resurrect the gum-tree’ from the stale conventions of Heysenesque landscape. A group of near-city, beach and alpine landscapes by Williams constitute a lyrical centrepiece to the period—a zone of peculiarly Australian overall luminosity, extended space, subtle bleached and jewelled colours, varied temperatures, and intimate touch.

Postmodernism, exemplified by Imants Tillers’s Shadow of the hereafter 2007, analyses ideas and cultural concepts, not visual or tactile sensations. The vast painting appropriates the ever-popular Hans Heysen’s

24 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

small watercolour Land of the Oratunga 1932. Ghost-white stencilled lettering recites the names of settler ghost towns and of Aboriginal tribes who no longer haunt these inland ranges. Dark semicircles resemble the Aboriginal ideogram for a seated figure and can be read as a muttering of lost meanings and intercultural misunderstandings.

Aboriginality was the big idea in late twentieth-century Australian art.

The second big idea for the period was environmentalism. Peter Dombrovskis’s magical photograph Morning mist, Rock Island Bend 1981, taken on Tasmania’s Franklin River, helped change an Australian government. The wild river was to be drowned for a hydro-electricity dam; a protest poster used the image to ask, ‘Could

you vote for a party that will destroy this?’, and in 1983 many could not.

Fiona Hall’s Paradisus terrestris 1989–90, the first of three suites of miniature intricate sculptures fashioned from recycled sardine cans, is a postmodernist take on botany. She sets up human-botanical parallels in diverse fertilisation procedures and recognises that many plants, though unexploited economically by colonists, were an important source of Aboriginal bush tucker, shelter and craft.

Even if Australian nature—the world’s poorest soils and most erratic climate—is the main creator of our generally free and co-operative Indigenous and settler cultures, notes of pleasant otherness in immigrant English-elm botany—Daniel Crooks’s video

Cloud atlas 2012—and unhappy cultural baggage of Holocaust horrors—Kathy Temin’s white soft-sculpture Tombstone garden 2012—are valuable comforts and warnings. Our national anthem, Advance Australia Fair is not only about blond vegetation and seashores; it is also about human fairness and decency.

Indigenous Australia: the longest tradition Franchesca Cubillo Senior Advisor, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Our understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art has grown substantially over the last fifty years. Dynamic and complex works of art

created by Indigenous artists, past and present, are no longer relegated to dusty ethnographic museums of social history, flora and fauna. Instead, today, we celebrate Indigenous Australian art as a living and thriving part of our national identity and culture.

This ancient rich aesthetic was originally immortalised on rocks, engraved and embellished on ritual objects and brought to life on the bodies of ceremonial participants. Vibrant designs and iconic patterns were inherent in nature and made manifest by the ancestors, varying across the continent.

The tradition of bark painting from the Arnhem Land and Tiwi Island regions is over two hundred years old. The Dreaming

narratives depicted reference complex title deeds to Country. These detailed clan designs were, and continue to be, delicately illustrated with powerful aesthetic resonance.

The Western Desert art movement emerged with all its traditional iconography, restrained and controlled. Topographical in nature, these cultural maps of Country convey the ferocious episodic activities that occurred during the Dreaming.

However, artists and community soon realised these works were far too potent for public viewing and chose to shroud the narratives with fine dotting.

On Christmas Eve in 1974, Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin. A thousand kilometres south-west, senior east Kimberley cultural

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 25

Yirawala Kundaagi—red plains kangaroo 1962 natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark 103 x 47 x 3 cm (irregular) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2012 © the estate of the artist represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency IRN 207271

leaders, including Paddy Jaminji and Rover Thomas, believed the Rainbow Serpent that traversed their Country was responsible. Confirming this, Thomas had spiritual visitations instructing him in a new song-cycle, the Kurirr Kurirr (Krill Krill) ceremony. New ritual paraphernalia was made specifically for the ceremony and included painted boards held on participants’ shoulders.

The style of these initial boards set the parameters for the bold ochre paintings of the Kimberley.

The Aboriginal nations of the southeast were the first to experience the full impact of colonial engagement in the late 1700s—the dispossession and desecration of traditional lands, displacement of populations and foreign disease. The Government established reserves and missions for these populations to recover, adjust and ultimately assimilate into the new Australian community. It was in this environment that William Barak, Mickey of Ulladulla and Tommy McCrae emerged to document the changing colonial landscape in pictorial fashion.

The first generation of contemporary city‑based artists—Trevor Nickolls, Lin Onus and Robert Campbell Jr— produced provocative paintings during the 1960s and 1970s that critiqued political issues of the day.

Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage is distinct and independent from Aboriginal art and culture. However, there are underlying similarities in their belief systems and spiritual relationships to their Country.

Dennis Nona creates superbly detailed and sublime intaglio prints of the creation ancestors of the Torres Strait.

The art of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is diverse, complex and unique. The rich stylistic depictions remind us of the ancient spiritual landscape that is Australia.

26 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

LIK E A TO D DL E R I N A TOYSHOP Toyshop until 6 April 2014 | nga.gov.au/Toyshop

Toyshop is an exhibition for the very young gallery visitor. But, equally, it has something for all of us. Toys hold a special place for children as objects of fun and imagination.

For an adult, they present a nostalgic link to the past, which is often employed by artists to stir up childhood memories or to capture the innocence or fun we once had as children.

This exhibition includes toys in a wide variety of artistic styles and mediums and from various cultures. Artists have captured our association with these objects of play in prints, photographs and paintings, but some of the toys reflect a nostalgic element that extends well beyond the thematic physical aspect of toys. Iconic works such as the Ginger Meggs doll from around 1960 and the earlier Koala from around 1950 shift the

significance from the established realm of art aesthetic to a merger of craftsmanship with a social identity, adding a unique quality to these toys. However, among the familiar toys are those that will surprise such as Jiggle‑Joggle, a frog race game that appears to be, as it states on it box, ‘splendid fun for both big and little people’.

Many of the items in Toyshop are from a unique assortment of toys that comprise a small part of the Gallery’s Julian Robinson Collection, an eclectic and extensive collection of almost 4000 works driven by one man’s passion for all things associated with fashion and its craft. A number of the works from this collection provide rare insight into the toys of bygone eras, including a magic set and puzzles manufactured over a century ago

and one of the earliest sets of playing blocks from Germany.

The exhibition also includes entreating sculpture, painting, photography and prints—from Ruth Hollick’s photograph of ‘Miss Beggs’ with her teddy from around 1928 to Charlotte Ardizzone’s oil painting Wrapping up Christmas presents 1969 and Lucy Culliton’s sculptural work Hand knit toy 2007. The items in Toyshop are sure to capture your imagination, whatever your age.

Debbie Ward Head of Conservation and curator of the exhibition

(clockwise from top left) Ginger Meggs doll c 1960, Koala c 1950, Ark c 1930, Tom Andersen Toy train 1975 and F Ad Richter and Co Anchor stone building set c 1900. 20130614nga2188_666

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 27

E N TR E PRE NE UR , I N V E N TO R Walter B Woodbury in Indonesia Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s 21 February – 22 June 2014 nga.gov.au/GardenEast

In 1852, at the age of eighteen, Walter B Woodbury left behind his engineering apprenticeship in Manchester to try his luck halfway around the world in Australia’s Victorian goldfields. On arrival, he realised the easy pickings were gone and he took a variety of jobs, soon changing from a rather sheltered British ‘new chum’ into a seasoned colonial.

Not long after, in Melbourne, recalling his boyhood experiments with cameras, Woodbury invested his meagre remaining funds in a camera. This time, however, his impulsiveness paid off. Woodbury rapidly became expert in the new process of wet-

28 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

plate photography on glass, and he went onto to make the earliest photographic panorama in Australia.

By 1854, Woodbury had a studio in Beechworth, and in 1855 he teamed up with young James Page from Kent.

In 1857, finding there were too many competing studios in Victoria, the partners in Woodbury & Page set off for Java, their first stop on a planned business circuit of exotic ports.

In one of his first letters home from Java in 1857, Woodbury declared, ‘I cant tell you how beautiful it is’; but, his photographs could, and he regularly

dispatched prints home, some of which survive in his personal album. A year later, on 15 June 1858, Woodbury triumphantly reported, ‘we each of us 7 or 800 pound richer’. He persuaded his brothers Henry and Albert to join him. In 1863, Woodbury returned home, newly married to his beautiful Dutch-Indonesian wife, Marie Sophie. His fine home and studio in Jakarta remained as the headquarters of the firm until 1908 under various successors, including brothers Henry and then Albert from the 1860s to 1880s.

Woodbury’s career from the 1860s was chiefly as an inventor. His super

fine-quality photomechanical process, the woodburytype, was patented in 1864 and showcased in his own 1875 deluxe travel book Treasure spots of the world.

Woodbury’s various inventions and ventures were ultimately not lucrative, and he died in ill health aged fifty-one.

Henry and Albert similarly returned home rich but did not hang onto their tropical fortunes. In its decades of operation, Woodbury & Page, however, maintained the brand. The firm’s distinctive rich-toned, detailed prints survive today as the major archive of Jakarta and nineteenth-century colonial Indonesia.

The work of the Woodbury brothers and their successors will the feature prominently in the National Gallery’s exhibition Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s, which opens in February 2014.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography

Walter B Woodbury Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano c 1858 albumen silver photograph 14.3 x 17.4 cm purchased 2006 IRN 160927

(opposite) Colossal at Singa-sarie in Treasure spots of the world 1861 woodburytypes, letterpress 16.5 x 12.3 cm purchased 2000 The man in the photograph is likely Henry Woodbury.

IRN 175410

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 29

AU S TR A L I A N J E W E L LERY four decades, six themes, forty-two artists Bodywork: Australian jewellery 1970–2012 7 September – 3 November 2013 @ Moree Plains Gallery nga.gov.au/Bodywork

Also touring this spring Stars of the Tokyo Stage: Natori Shunsen’s kabuki actor prints Cowra Regional Art Gallery, NSW, until 29 September Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory, NT, until 29 September Art Gallery of Ballarat, Vic, 26 October 2013 – 19 January 2014 unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial Western Plains Cultural Centre, NSW, until 6 October Cairns Regional Gallery, Qld, 26 October 2013 – 5 January 2014 Carol Jerrems: photographic artist Monash University Museum of Art, Vic, until 29 September

30 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

The Gallery’s new touring exhibition Bodywork: Australian jewellery 1972–2012 features the work of forty-two Australian jewellers displayed across six thematic showcases: ‘Romanticism’, ‘Interpreting the vernacular’, ‘Encapsulating nature’, ‘Technics’, ‘Social message’ and ‘Sculpture for the body’.

The romantic tradition of jewellery is reinterpreted in many ways by contemporary jewellers. Some make historical references through imagery and use of traditional materials and styles, others delve into fictions, myths, personal memories and family histories for narratives that carry across time. Materials such as gold and precious gemstones embody meanings that can be manipulated or subverted by contemporary jewellers. Forms of jewellery such as lockets, necklaces and rings accrue meaning when given and worn, while the representation of the human body adds to the narrative power of intimate objects.

Working within an intimate scale, jewellers investigate behaviour, question

social constructions and reconsider the value and use of materials. Traditions of craft and design are deconstructed and reinterpreted to refract a sense of the past into the more complex and contradictory world of the present. A range of techniques and materials, from precious metals to recycled plastics and other discarded objects, are often re-purposed to create new visual effects and ambiguities. Ordinary and unexpected materials can become poetic narratives.

The powerful physicality of Australia’s natural environment provides a pervasive backdrop to narratives on light, growth and destruction and is a continuing source of inspiration for jewellery designers, offering imagery and materials that can be considered for their visual and tactile properties. The growth patterns and structures of plants and organisms, the qualities and properties of minerals and metals and the new possibilities of hybrid materials offer jewellers new ways to interpret the natural world.

Jewellery serves a social role as a signifier of many types of status or affiliation with ideas and political messages. Some jewellers use graphic imagery to explore ideas, while others make reference to popular culture to build narrative and visual complexity into their work. Whether in the format of a badge or more formal jewellery, their work can be topical and wryly humorous, yet made permanent through eloquent design and innovative production skills.

Engagement with new technologies and experimentation with advanced materials have been characteristic aspects of contemporary studio jewellery practice since the 1960s and has resulted in some of the most spectacular innovations in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century jewellery design. Some artists have rewritten the rules about jewellery as a signifier of value through its precious materials, instead exploring the design, visual and tactile qualities of modern synthetic materials and approaches.

Jewellers use the human body as a point of reference and departure from

the expected roles and conventions of ornamentation. Contemporary jewellers explore this intimate terrain with works that intersect visually and physically with the body and emotionally with the wearer and viewer. Materials such as reflective metals and glass are used by some artists to explore the relationship of light and the body. Some artists work in deliberate opposition to the body to emphasise the contrast between skin and material, while others explore the body’s inner structures of bone and muscle to externalise and abstract these forms as jewellery.

All the works in Bodywork are from the National Gallery’s collection of Australian jewellery, selections from which are always on display in Canberra.

From 7 September, the exhibition tours ten regional venues around the country, ensuring more Australians see the thoughtful expressions of our nation’s jewellery designers.

(clockwise from top left) Julie Blyfield Brooch 1995, purchased 1995 IRN 6084 Carlier Makigawa Cluster brooch 2011, purchased 2012 purchased 2012 IRN 223549 Blanche Cameron Tilden Palais, necklace gift ofand Melissa Infinity affinity2010, III, brooch Sandy and Phillip Benjamin, 2010 IRN 205908 pie dish 2011, purchased 2013 no 2, Susan Cohn Systematic Gibsonia no 2, condom pendant 1995, purchased 1995 IRN 6089 Brenda Ridgewell Space edifice, armband 2002, purchased 2003 IRN 126180 Melissa Cameron Infinity affinity2010, III, brooch Blanche Tilden Palais, necklace gift ofand pie dish 2011, purchased 2013 IRN 228378 Sandy and Phillip Benjamin, 2010

Robert Bell Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design, and curator of the exhibition

EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW 31

ME MB E R S A C Q U I S I T ION FU N D 2013–14 Hilda Rix Nicholas’s The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains 1921–22 | nga.gov.au/Members

The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains 1921–22 oil on canvas 51 x 66 cm © Rix Wright IRN 231480

Hilda Rix Nicholas was what people might once have been called a ‘trooper’.

Although she had much sadness in her early life, she always overcame it and carried on. In the end, she had a happy marriage to Mr Wright (in both name and circumstance) and was a loving mother and grandmother. Moreover, she had a highly successful life as an artist, producing many memorable works. Indeed, she is one of Australia’s most important early twentieth-century women artists as well as a significant Canberra‑region artist.

Rix Nicholas was born in Ballarat in 1884 and studied at the National Gallery School from 1902 to 1905. After her father died in 1906, she left Australia for Europe with her mother and sister. Like so many of her contemporaries, she studied painting in London and later in Paris, exhibited work at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy and was made an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (New Salon).

She also had work purchased by the Musée National du Luxembourg, Paris. Each summer from 1910 to 1914, she visited the artists’ colony at Etaples in northern France, and in 1912 and 1914 travelled to Morocco where the colour and light inspired her to produce fresh and lively oil sketches and drawings.

Her wartime experiences were particularly harrowing. At the start of the war, her mother and sister contracted enteric fever; her sister died soon afterwards and her mother in early 1916. Later that year, her husband of only a few months, Major George Matson Nicholas, was killed in action. She was left trapped in war‑torn London.

When Rix Nicholas was able to return to Australia in 1918, she received critical acclaim for the range and versatility of her work. At this time, she began to paint images of the Australian landscape and country life, exhibiting them successfully in London and Paris. During a visit to the

Blue Mountains in the early 1920s, she produced the remarkable and majestic painting The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains 1921–22. Using a dramatic composition, she not only responded directly to nature but also simplified the scene into bold sculptural forms with a restricted pallet of blues, greys and pinks. It is an imposing image in its perspective and depth and conveys a largeness of space. Painted from high ground, the jagged sandstone forms of the Three Sisters dominate the foreground from which we look down giddily into the deep valley and its winding river. On the horizon, there is a ripple of undulating forms beneath a pale green-pink sky.

Rix Nicholas visited Britain and France in 1924–26, and depicted Breton subjects.

Following her return to Australia, she painted the Canberra subject, Molonglo River from Mount Pleasant, Canberra 1927, displaying her strong sense of colour and use of bold design. In 1928, she married Edgar Wright, a Monaro District grazier, and went to live at Knockalong station, Delegate, New South Wales. She painted the people and landscapes of her immediate Monaro environment. 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, aged 76.

She was the Canberra district’s first professional resident artist whose experiences overseas informed her unique vision of Australia. In this year of the Centenary of Canberra, the Gallery is seeking to improve its representation of this significant artist, and we would like our members to feel part of this collecting initiative by contributing to the Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14. For more information on contributing to the fund, telephone (02) 6240 6408 or fill in and return the donation form in the Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14 brochure.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 33

IMMOR TA L K IN G S, B LES S ED DESC EN DANT S Taoist paintings of the Yao

In 2011, the National Gallery of Australia acquired a collection of twenty-four ceremonial paintings made for and used by the Mien Yao people of northern Vietnam.

While their fascinating subject and bold imagery made them a particularly suitable addition to the Asian art collection, their poor condition—resulting from age and extensive ritual use—precluded their display at the time. However, through the efforts of the Gallery’s highly trained paper conservators, a number of these paintings from 1810 have now been fully conserved.

Originally from central China, the Yao are believed to have migrated to China’s southern-most provinces before travelling into northern areas of present-day Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. According to texts documenting their origins, the Yao are descended from an original divine ancestor, King P’an, who assists his people when they are in urgent need. Legend tells how King P’an was elevated to regal status when, in his previous form as the Five-Coloured Dragon Dog P’an Hung, he eliminated the emperor’s troublesome enemy.

Rewarded with a royal bride and kingdom, King P’an fathered twelve sons and daughters who established the Yao clans.

These histories further tell how King P’an assisted his blessed descendants on their journey from China to northern Vietnam at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).

Paintings known as mien fang play an integral role in the complex Taoist rituals performed among Yao communities

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 35

The Taoist god Tai Wai 1810 mask (tsien tao), pigments on paper 25 x 15 cm purchased 2011 204559

(pages 34–5) High constable Tai Wai 1810 ceremonial painting (mien fang), pigments on paper 120 x 46 cm purchased 2011 204546

Yen Si, most revered of the Three Pure Ones 1810 ceremonial painting (mien fang), pigments on paper 120 x 51 cm purchased 2011 204553

To Ta, eldest of the Three Pure Ones 1810 ceremonial painting (mien fang), pigments on paper 120 x 51 cm purchased 2011 204554

to ensure the salvation of the soul in the afterlife and to ward off malevolent spirits that inflict disease and misfortune.

Each image is produced according to exacting rules and, following an awakening ceremony, is inhabited by the god depicted. This enables Yao priests to commune with the gods during lifecycle rituals and exorcisms. In the event that a set of paintings is no longer required, a ritual is performed to remove the deities’ presence. The Gallery’s paintings range from small masks worn by Yao priests when channelling deities to larger vertical hangings depicting the Taoist pantheon and their magical feats.

Eight of the twenty-four paintings that have now undergone conservation were in poor condition from extensive ritual use— they were torn, dirty, abraded and encrusted with bird and insect droppings, soot and smoke. The adhesive used to attach the scroll painting to its layered paper support was failing, resulting in delamination and separation. Numerous crude repairs had been affected and movement, handling and degradation of the binding media had resulted in considerable paint loss.

To carry out conservation treatment, each painting was first disassembled by unstitching the top and bottom edges, removing the original hanging rods and carefully peeling back each paper layer of the support one by one. Surface cleaning with a soft brush removed dust and debris before the paintings were

36 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

cleaned and chemically stabilised by the controlled application of water. This allowed soluble grime and other products causing degradation to be drawn onto a dampened blotter. Removing ingrained dirt also restored the brilliance of the natural mineral pigments.

Particles of loose and cracking pigment were re-adhered with a natural seaweed solution that left the colour or gloss of the painted areas unchanged. The paintings were sympathetically relined and reassembled in their original format.

With only minimal retouching required the accumulated patina of age and use so vital to the context of these works was retained.

Included among the newly conserved works are depictions of the Three Pure Ones, or Fam Ts’ing: Yen Si, To Ta and Leng Pu. The highest deities of the Taoist pantheon, these beings are the embodiment of the Tao, or Way, the divine force underpinning the universe and everything in it. Seated upon a throne, each crowned figure is adorned in an elaborate dragon and phoenix robe, a signifier of imperial rank.

Yen Si is identified by his black robe and hand gesture indicating his possession of the

pill of immortality (the means by which are souls are granted eternity in heaven), To Ta by his white hair and fan, and Leng Pu by the sceptre held in both hands.

In keeping with strict compositional conventions for Yao paintings, the altar scroll High constable Tai Wai depicts the Taoist god brandishing a sword astride his white steed. Tai Wai, also depicted in a paper mask worn by Yao priests, is accompanied by the horsemen Shang Yuan and Hsien Fong. Together, they are responsible for leading the celestial armies and guarding the family altar from troublesome spirits.

The intricate detailing and pigments used for this painting suggest a different artist, a commonplace occurrence in mien fang sets, which often require replacement paintings for those examples too worn for continued use.

A selection of these impressive Yao paintings can be seen on display in the Southeast Asian galleries, and the Gallery looks forward to exhibiting more newly conserved examples in coming months.

Niki van den Heuvel Assistant Curator, Asian Art, and James Ward Paper Conservator

Djambawa Marawili Baraltja, Baykuldji, Munurru 2005 natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark 220 x 81 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2006

‘ WHE N W E PAI NT ’ The date 15 August 1963 is recorded in history as the day in which the senior cultural leaders of north-east Arnhem Land presented the Yirrkala Bark Petition to the Commonwealth Government of Australia.

This significant event was an attempt by the Yolngu people to assert their sovereign rights to their land. It consisted of two petitions typed in both English and Yolngu Matha; each document adhered to a sheet of flattened bark and framed by the sacred clan designs of the Dhuwa and Yirritja moieties.

This was not the first time that Australia’s Indigenous peoples communicated their inalienable custodial ownership of the Australian landscape via a rich visual art tradition. However, it was the first time that this information was communicated to an audience outside their locale, and it was a remarkable attempt to assert their authority and prevent the establishment of a Bauxite mine on their sacred land. Regrettably, the Australian Government did not acknowledge prior ownership, despite this unique petition and a subsequent writ in 1968, known as the Milirrpum v Nabalco case, the mine went ahead and many sacred sites were destroyed and desecrated.

Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their connection to their Country has been recognised under several Acts of parliament, including the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 and Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth). The High Court of Australia has also recognised Aboriginal sea rights

with the success of the Blue Mud Bay (north-east Arnhem Land, NT) case in 2011 in which Yolngu cultural leader and artist Djambawa Marawili’s bark paintings of ancient Dreaming narratives were integral.

Marawili was also one of seven artists who collaborated on the Barunga Statement of 1988, calling for a treaty with prime minister Bob Hawke.

Galawuy Yunupingu, whose family collaborated on the Yirrkala Bark Petition of 1963, said in 1993, thirty years on, ‘When we paint—whether it is on our bodies for ceremony or on bark or canvas for the market—we are not just painting for fun or profit. We are painting, as we have always done, to demonstrate our continuing link with our Country and the rights and responsibilities we have to it’.

Now, fifty years later, the inclusion and depiction of Aboriginal art and traditional iconography is a vital component in communicating to the judicial system Indigenous peoples inalienable connection to their land.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Advisor, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 37

AN E N D U R I NG P UR P OSE the National Gallery’s Fijian bark cloth A large and impressive Fijian bark cloth, masi tutuki, currently on display in the Polynesian gallery, has an interesting social history that has continued into the present. While the history of the makers and previous owners of the masi tutuki is unclear, it is possible to pinpoint a significant historical moment in which this exceptionally fine cloth played an important role. This moment was the cession of Fiji to Britain on 10 October 1874, when the cloth was given to Scottish-born New Zealand explorer and pastoralist Nathanael Chalmers (1830–1910). Now, 139 years later, it has brought together three of Chalmers’s descendants.

Chalmers had travelled from New Zealand to Fiji in 1868 to organise cotton

38 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

planting and sugar milling. He also briefly acted as the native commissioner of Fiji and later served as a member of the Legislative Council of Fiji and as a magistrate.

Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau (1815–1883), more commonly known as the King of Fiji, or one of his high-ranking chiefs presented Chalmers with two bark cloths at the ceremonial event ceding Fiji to the British.

The cession to the British crown marked the beginning of a new era of peace in Fiji and is still celebrated today, as the same date also marks Fiji’s independence in 1970.

Fijian bark cloths are often given as gifts to strengthen social ties. To make such a cloth, strips of the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree are beaten continuously until they become matted, creating a

wonderfully soft, pliable and durable sheet of cloth. Like the technique, which is still practiced in Fiji, the masi tutuki acquired by the Gallery in 1979 has endured. It remains in remarkably good condition and, perhaps more to the point, it continues to strengthen social ties, with three of Chalmers’s great-great-granddaughters having discovered each other after enquiring about the work.

The first to request a viewing of the Masi tutuki was Diane Markowski in 2010. Sometime later, I was contacted

by Christine Cocquios, whose aunt had given her the other bark cloth Chalmers received that day. Following the history of the works, it appears that both bark cloths were originally passed onto Chalmers’s

Fiji Masi tutuki (bark cloth) prior to 1874 bark cloth, vegetable dye 91 x 463 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1979

Christine Cocquios and Diane Markowski with the masi tutuki at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 8 May 2013.

eldest daughter, Charlotte Ellen. Diane and Christine have since met, coming together at the National Gallery of Australia, where the masi tutuki that brought them together is on display.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Robyn Ann Chalmers was also researching her great-great-grandfather when Rod Ewins, an authority on Fijian history and culture, directed her to the Gallery’s Masi tutuki.

After contacting the Gallery, she has now learned of her third cousins Christine and Diane in Australia.

These distant relatives now have a chance to reunite disparate branches of the family tree and to share in each other’s discoveries.

Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Art

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 39

TOWN S E ND O N T URN ER a conservation scientist’s view on the Tate’s collection From mid July to mid August, the National Gallery of Australia hosted the Tate’s Senior Conservation Scientist Dr Joyce Townsend.

Dr Townsend has an international reputation for her work on identifying and analysing artist’s materials and on interpreting techniques, specialising in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century British art. Dr Townsend’s practice has a recurring emphasis on JMW Turner, which is understandable given the significant size and scope of the Tate’s collection of Turner’s work—a selection from which comprised the National Gallery’s winter blockbuster Turner from the Tate: the Making of a Master.

While in Canberra, Dr Townsend participated in a range of programs, including a series of watercolour workshops with master watercolourist and Tate 40 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

Visiting Artist Researcher Tony Smibert.

These intimate workshops for both beginners and experienced practitioners gave insights into Turner’s methods and techniques. The Gallery also hosted a professional development seminar in which Dr Townsend shared her extensive knowledge and experience with curators, conservators, collectors, educators, scholars and other professionals in Australia.

She also presented an in-depth lecture as part of the popular masterclass series that the Gallery runs during every major international exhibition.

Beyond Canberra, audiences from four states had the rare opportunity to hear more about the processes involved in conserving works by a master such as Turner. In a partnership between the Gallery and ABC

Joyce Townsend and Tony Smibert examine Turner’s paintings (from left) Dinner in a great room with figures in costume c 1830–35, The hero of a hundred fights 1800, Stormy sea with dolphins 1835, London, 30 May 2012.

Radio National, Dr Townsend delivered ‘Townsend on Turner: a speaking tour with ABC Radio National’, a series of live public conversations with Radio National presenters. Conversations were held at Melbourne University, the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland University and Sydney University with Radio National’s Michael Cathcart, Fran Kelly, Sarah Kanowski and Richard Aedy respectively.

If you did not make it to one of these venues the Melbourne lecture is available on the Radio National website.

The Gallery acknowledges the Jani Haenke Trust for generously supporting Dr Townsend’s visit.

Michelle Fracaro Program Coordinator, Learning and Access

FA R E WEL L AL AN F R O U D retirement well deserved In August, the National Gallery of Australia farewelled our deputy director, Alan Froud PSM, after twenty-two years of dedicated service. Alan relocated from Sydney in December 1990, having previously been deputy director to Edmund Capon at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He has since steadfastly guided the National Gallery and the three directors for whom he worked with dedication, skill and experience.

As deputy director, Alan was responsible for administrating our corporate activities and core operations and for financially managing one of the Commonwealth’s most valuable assets: the national art collection. While Alan can lay claim to many of the Gallery’s successes over the years, the most significant was the

development and delivery of our south entrance and eleven Indigenous Australian galleries in 2010. He was responsible for managing all aspects of the build in consultation with the Gallery’s Council, federal and state government and the team of architects, builders and contractors.

The project took over three years from conception to completion, delivering vital new gallery spaces and other facilities for the enrichment of visitor experience.

Alan championed many workplace reviews and reforms to ensure the Gallery achieves ‘best practice’ standards.

In particular, he was instrumental in managing and improving our work health and safety culture. His leadership in administration also goes beyond the

Alan Froud on site on 26 August 2009 during the construction of the National Gallery’s south entrance and Indigenous galleries, which opened in 2010.

Gallery’s walls. He has participated in and guided many cross-agency forums and supported the development of innovative programs for the benefit of many staff across the cultural sector, in Canberra, across Australia and worldwide. Alan was also the custodian of the Gallery’s major philanthropic endeavours, amounting to millions of dollars in support of the Gallery’s programs.

Alan’s dedication to the arts in Australia was recognised with a Public Service Medal this year—a fitting acknowledgment to his lifelong commitment to the arts.

Simon Elliott Assistant Director (Curatorial and Educational Services)

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 41

Anish Kapoor Hollow 2012, fibreglass and paint, 188 cm (diam), 77 cm, purchased 2013. © Anish Kapoor IRN 228131

Hollow 2012 is a subtle yet startling work

by Anish Kapoor, one of the world’s most renowned artists. It hangs on the wall like a traditional painting and, at first, the intensity of the colour attracts our attention.

But the experience of the work changes dramatically as we navigate it. From the side a floating, semi-circular form emerges from the wall; when approached frontally, the purity and intensity of the colour seem to continue to infinity. As noted in a statement for the work, distinctions between two and three dimensions collapse, as Kapoor elides the space ‘between perception and experience. The viewer is drawn into a meditative world.

Kapoor’s sculptures have been compared to the masters of monochrome painting, from Kazimir Malevich to Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly and Yves Klein. Colour, for Kapoor, is not an end in itself but a condition. Red, as he observed in 2012 in a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, is our earlier memory and a colour that is fundamentally human; it makes a black that is blacker than black because it has ‘graver psychological reality’.

By reinterpreting the visual effects of colour through an exploration of two and three dimensions, Hollow crosses the boundary between sculpture and painting.

When first shown at Lisson Gallery in London in 2012, Hollow was juxtaposed with other hemispherical works in electric and turquoise blue, apple green, buttercup yellow and royal purple. Some were mounted frontally, one upturned like a vessel, another tilted downward like a hood.

The interior of these new sculptures is a luminous paint, which the artist likens to watercolour, its many tiny particles causing the surfaces to resonate. The convex surface, on the other hand, is matt, neutral and offwhite, the equivalent of the wall.

42 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

Since the mid 1970s, Kapoor has broadened the scope and language of sculpture through his exploration of scale, material and the concept of the void.

The play between surface and depth is a recurring theme. He divides his oeuvre into a series of ‘languages’: pigment, wax, mirror and void. In earlier void sculptures, developed from the late 1980s, he uses matt pigments or highly polished stainless steel, which have quite different effects. Unlike the mirrored void works, which urge a direct and immediate interaction with the viewer through reflection, the matt surface of Hollow creates a gentle and abstract ambience, the anticipation of something to emerge. The viewer starts by questioning how the work is made but soon graduates to asking why.

The idea of the void reappears throughout Kapoor’s career. Traditional sculpture emphasises positive form but, by concentrating on non-form, the artist aims to create a new type of sculpture.

He describes his void works as non-objects, entities that at once empty out all content.

Part of the mystery of Hollow depends on its lighting. The floating effect is a result of the invisibility of the work’s point of contact with the wall. From a distance, the rim disappears. This illusion, like the production of the work, is executed meticulously. In his pursuit of the sublime and the spiritual, Kapoor delivers works rendered with such elegance and simplicity as to challenge expectations of what art can do.

Lucina Ward Curator, and Chiei Ishida Intern, International Painting and Sculpture

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 43

Hilda Rix Nicholas oil paintings

Hilda Rix Nicholas was the first landscape artist of the Canberra region. Until recently, there were no Australian paintings by her in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection, despite the fact that she spent her last thirty‑five years in Australia and in the Canberra region. The recent acquisition of a group of fourteen oil paintings from the artist’s family, together with a group of drawings and prints, means that the Gallery will finally represent the artist as she deserves.

Members of the National Gallery can also contribute to this collecting initiative 44 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

by supporting the Members Acquisition Fund. The subject of this year’s fund is Rix Nicholas’s remarkable oil painting The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains 1921–22 (see page 32), which she painted during a visit to the Blue Mountains in the 1920s.

With this work, the artist ably met the challenge of turning a popular scenic view into art.

Among the works acquired are three paintings from Rix Nicholas’s visits to Morocco in 1912 and 1914 (now the subject of a book by Jeanette Hoorn, Moroccan

idyll). She painted bold, adventurous images of Morocco, revealing her considerable sensitivity to colour and form. Moroccan loggia 1912–14 is remarkable in its use of an almost abstract arrangement of forms and bold colours, recalling the Moroccan work of Henri Matisse. As Hoorn writes of Moroccan loggia: ‘The splashes of colour created by “blobs” of thick impasto applied across the canvas give this work a remarkably experimental, almost fauvist aspect … The work’s simple structure and relaxed framework allow a wonderful

Snow, Tombong ranges c 1942 oil on canvas 80.9 x 99.5 cm purchased through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner Fund, 2013 © Rix Wright IRN 231471

Moroccan loggia 1912–14 oil on canvas on board 25 x 21 cm purchased through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner Fund, 2013 © Rix Wright IRN 231462

evocation of both the building’s elements and the light to dominate the picture plane’.

The Canberra subject Molonglo River from Mount Pleasant, Canberra 1927 is one of Rix Nicholas’s most remarkable Australian paintings, displaying her strong colour sense and bold design. The tall, vertical Japonistelike tree in the foreground contrasts with the Molonglo River’s zigzagging through the composition. Here, Rix Nicholas pays homage to the much-loved works of Arthur Streeton and Sydney Long, ‘Still glides the stream and shall forever glide’

1890 and The valley 1898 respectively. But, more than this, it is an early image of our own place, Canberra.

Rix Nicholas was, like her Queensland contemporary Kenneth Macqueen, a farmerartist. From the age of forty-two, she lived on the land with her husband, Edgar Wright, and painted her immediate environment, the people and places she knew and loved. Among the group of works recently purchased are Studio and garden, Knockalong c 1930, Snowy River country, Tombong c 1935 and Red shed yards, Knockalong c 1935, all

painted on the family property and all reflecting Rix Nicholas’s affinity with and love of the land she lived on.

A key painting among the group is Snow, Tombong ranges 1942. Here, Rix Nicholas created a grey-white painting—an image of deep, thick snow, lying on the ground. She used thick impasto to convey the texture of the snow. And she contrasted this with thin paint to conjure up the icy river, and scumbled paint to convey the troubled cloud-filled sky. Looking at this painting, we can feel the silence, the stillness of the scene.

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 45

Molonglo River from Mount Pleasant, Canberra 1927 oil on canvas on board 41 x 32 cm purchased with funds provided by John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh, 2013 © Rix Wright IRN 231468

We also sense Rix Nicholas embracing this landscape, enjoying the opportunity to paint white on grey-white and to depict a place she knew well. There are few such paintings in the Australian landscape tradition. Eugene von Guérard painted his celebrated North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko in 1863, and Imants Tillers much later made his version of this subject. But von Guérard’s is a grand romantic vista, celebrating the awe‑inspiring aspects of the landscape and the power of natural forces, with small figures of men looking in wonder at the scene.

Rix Nicholas, on the other hand, depicted her snowy landscape from the ground,

46 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

presenting it as a familiar place. And, to her, it was a well-known scene, a view from her metaphorical backyard. Although Snow, Tombong ranges might at first appear to be a traditional snowy landscape, it is, in fact, a highly original view of the Australian snowfields, with a minimal palette of white on grey-white—and a few colour highlights.

Rix Nicholas does not fit neatly into the canon of Australian art. She did not even paint similar subjects or work in a similar manner to the women artists among the Sydney modernists. And yet, Rix Nicholas is a major Australian artist much deserving of better recognition over all and, in particular, of a better representation in the national

art collection. The acquisition of this group of fourteen paintings will substantially improve our representation of her work and finally enable us to show her range of achievements. It has been made possible through the generosity of John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh, the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner Fund and the Ruth Robertson Bequest Fund.

In this year of the Centenary of Canberra it is fitting that we have improved our representations of this important artist of the Canberra region.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

Margaret Olley White still life 1977, oil on composition board, 66.3 x 89.2 cm, gift of Wayne Kratzmann, 2012, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, as part of 100 Works for 100 Years: a gift to the nation for the centenary of Canberra, 2013 IRN 222965

The late Margaret Olley is a much-loved Australian painter celebrated for her luminous still lifes and interiors. White still life 1977 is a striking work that balances light and dark, precision and softness.

A variety of objects have been carefully selected and placed in the composition— the constructed forms providing the containers for the casual arrangements of flowers and cluster of delicate eggs.

The richly varied tones in the still life are suggestive of what may constitute ‘white’ set on a table against a window and the dark night sky.

The work was undertaken during a period of intensive exploration of form, when

Olley was restricting her colour palette and experimenting with effects of light over differing times of the day. Characteristically, with her precise brushstrokes and a highly considered arrangement of light, tone and texture, Olley has transformed everyday household items into objects of beauty and grace. At the same time, there is an intriguing sense of mystery in this work, accentuated by the stillness and the night view beyond.

In her monograph on the artist, Christine France discusses Olley’s experimentation in the mid to late 1970s with night-time and the reversal of the traditional depiction of light shining through a window. France

describes the impact of the darkness as heightening ‘the viewer’s perception of the actual objects and their spatial relationships’ in Olley’s shallow, closely defined picture plane. As a great admirer of European works by artists such Paul Cézanne and Giorgio Morandi, she recognised the poetry of the life of objects. This gift of one of Margaret Olley’s most important works is a great addition to the national art collection.

Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 47

John Perceval Children drawing in a Carlton street 1943, oil on cotton gauze on cardboard adhered to hardboard, 74.5 x 62.5 cm, gift of John and Rosanna Hindmarsh, 2012, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, as part of 100 Works for 100 Years: a gift to the nation for the centenary of Canberra, 2013 IRN 222991

John Perceval created astonishing, powerful, psychological images in the 1940s. Alongside Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker, he was at the vanguard of modernist painting in Melbourne in this era and exhibited regularly with the Contemporary Art Society. Concerned about the fate of humanity during the war years and often drawing on distressing memories of his difficult childhood, Perceval was able to express anxieties in personal and universal ways.

Children drawing in a Carlton street 1943 is an arresting example of Perceval’s wartime painting. The theme of childhood underpins some of his most potent works.

As a young boy, he grew up on a remote wheat and sheep property in Western Australia. His parents separated and he was left on the farm for the first few years of his life in the care of his sometimes destructive, ill-tempered father. He later travelled with his mother to Melbourne, where, at boarding school, he discovered his passion for drawing and painting, providing an outlet and a means of entering into the realm of intense feelings.

In Children playing in a Carlton street, the dynamic energy of the three children drawing on the pavement and on the wall contrasts dramatically with the eerie de Chirico–like stillness of the street in the

48 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

background. Two children appear totally immersed in drawing a chalk figure with oversized hands that moves forward into the viewer’s space. Their faces are obscured by mops of blonde hair; the third kneels and engages with the wall of a building as though trying to bring new life to it through the intensity of creative expression.

This child possibly represents Perceval, although, taking an imaginative leap, all three figures may be versions of himself.

The distortions of scale and perspective and sense of drama in this city fringe street scene are characteristic of Perceval’s approach to painting at this time and reveal inspiration from German Expressionism and European Surrealism. There are also parallels with the work of Russian-born Danila Vassilieff, who painted children in Melbourne street scenes in the 1930s.

Vassilieff’s paintings dealt with a level of anxiety connected with the Depression years. Compared with his rather gentle, lyrical approach, Perceval’s work appears more psychologically intense and closer to the haunting streetscapes of Arthur Boyd in the war years. In Australia between 1941 and 1945, the idea of Australia’s isolation and relative safety was challenged. With the escalation of war in the Pacific and the bombing of Darwin and other parts of northern Australia, the threat seemed close at hand and very directly informed

the thinking of young artists like Boyd and Perceval.

Apart from a few stalwart supporters, there was no market for works of the kind that Perceval painted in the 1940s. It was art that came from the heart, from his innermost feelings. Over time and with retrospective and monographic studies of the work of Perceval and his friends of this period, their considerable contributions to Australian art have become widely recognised. They illuminated a challenging period in Australia’s history interwoven with their personal perspectives about art and life.

In Children drawing in a Carlton street, Perceval reminds us of the desolation of war and the life of the child trying to overcome difficulties of past and present through the powers of the creative mind.

In a sense, throughout his life, he was able to re-imagine the world through the eyes of a child, reminding us of the psychological reverberations of these years across time. This very generous gift

by John and Rosanna Hindmarsh is of considerable significance to the Gallery’s collection and is part of the 100 Works for 100 Years campaign that celebrates Canberra’s centenary.

Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 49

Mughal dynasty India Tent hanging (Qanat) c 1700, cotton, silk; embroidery, quilting, 177 x 70 cm, purchased 2013 239395

This is a superb example of Mughal art.

A tent hanging associated with the royal hunt, it is a quintessential emblem of the pleasures of the Mughal courts of India and a proud reference to the dynasty’s nomadic Central Asian heritage. The image of the flowering shrub or tree, emerging from an elegant urn or rocky mound, was a favourite motif on the tent hangings that were a vital part of the extensive provisions accompanying the royal entourage on expeditions and military campaigns across the realm.

This large single panel is one of a long series of embroideries that, when erected side by side on poles, formed the walls of the luxurious enclosures within which the noblemen camped overnight. Providing protection from the elements, the decorated panels facing the interior pleased the eye while evoking the manicured natural surroundings of Mughal gardens, themselves a mirror of Paradise. Indeed, the glorious large flowers in the central field are most likely a fanciful composite creation. The elegant floral arrangement is positioned within a pointed and cusped niche, a design element also prevalent in Mughal art and architecture.

The flowers in the borders are lotuses.

The fine chain-stitch silk embroidery and delicate quilting on the brilliant red cotton ground was created in one of the royal embroidery workshops, possibly in Gujarat.

Embroidered tent hangings appear to have been relatively rare, and companion panels from this celebrated qanat are in important collections around the world. The Gallery’s newly acquired qanat panel was recently included in the British Library’s exhibition Mughal India: art, culture and empire.

Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

50 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

Coromandel coast India, for the European market Coverlet or hanging (Palampore) 1760–80, handspun cotton, natural dyes and mordants, 313 x 234 cm, purchased 2012 218005

The ‘tree of life’ was one of the most popular decorative designs used on palampore textiles. The motive of three sinuous trees growing from a rocky mound is typical of palampores created for the European market, which favoured imaginative flowers and foliage. The distinctly Chinese-inspired imagery—bamboo, exotic birds and peony blossoms—also reflects the chinoiserie craze in Europe stimulated by the appeal of Chinese porcelains and wallpapers.

Bordering the flourishing central image are intersecting floral garlands, one of angular bamboo and the other of full lush‑petalled flowers.

Hand-painted Indian textiles known as chintzes (from the Indian word ‘chint’, meaning to spray or sprinkle) were exported to Europe from the beginning of the 1600s but had long been enjoyed in India and traded to Southeast Asia where they were treasured as ceremonial items and sacred heirlooms. In seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury Europe, chintzes were fashionable for clothing and furnishings. Palampores were most often used as bed covers, wall hangings and drapery. The term palampore, derived from the Persian word for bedcover, palangposh, came into use at the height of the mercantile era in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The international dominance of hand-painted Indian textiles ended in the early nineteenth century with the availability of industrially produced copies.

Bringing together British taste with Indian and Chinese elements, the design of this palampore is particularly delicate.

It provides an excellent complement to the Gallery’s holdings of Indian textiles made for trade, adding a new dimension in style and intricacy.

Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 51

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri Pintupi people Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunmanu) 1994, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 152 x 183 cm, purchased with funds from the Australia Exhibition Patrons Club, 2013. © the estate of the artist represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency

A masterful colourist, Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri was born at Marnpi, southeast of Walungurru in the Northern Territory, around 1926. He was a Pintupi man and lived his early years out bush.

After witnessing the death of his father, Namarari moved from Mount Liebig in the Northern Territory to Ntaria (Hermannsburg), later settling in Haasts Bluff. After working as a stockman at Haasts Bluff, Namarari eventually moved to Papunya, where he began to focus on painting.

In 1971, the schoolteacher Geoffrey Bardon was posted at Papunya. Once there, Bardon consolidated the artistic skills of the senior men in the community into what is now known as the Papunya Arts movement.

Although the cultural knowledge, designs and practice of the local people had been ongoing for thousands of years, it was with Bardon’s encouragement that the men started to articulate their ancestral stories onto small composite boards; the production of over two hundred such works gave rise to the movement.

Namarari was one of those whose initial involvement helped set the standard and quality of art that has since come out of the community. His growth as an artist over the following decades, however, can be seen in his Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunmanu) 1994, an exceptional painting and one of the most striking examples of Namarari’s final works. His long linear brush strokes of differing shades of subtle pinks seemingly float over a darker base to create a sense of movement and life in the landscape. The mesmerising repetitive lines subtly shift the tonal quality to reveal the rain soaked undulating sandhills accentuated after a big rain. Namarari’s sense of Country, use of colour and minimalistic design is extraordinary.

Untitled (Rain Dreaming at Nyunmanu) is a magnificent complement to the Gallery current collection of fifteen other works by Namarari. It will be shown in the exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from this September.

Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 53

David Noonan Untitled 2012, stencil, collage, 204 x 146 cm, purchased 2013

David Noonan is an Australian-born artist of international renown. His work has been exhibited in galleries such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Tate Modern in London.

He makes monochromatic collage from found images, which he then photographs and refashions into silkscreen prints.

The images in his works are often indistinct and unrelated, and the viewer must consider them closely to decipher what they are and how they relate to each other. In this way, Noonan replicates our first experience of the world. Standing in front of his works, we are like small children trying to make visual sense of our surroundings for the first time.

In creating Untitled, a large screenprint on jute fabric, Noonan has torn the work apart and then stitched it back together in reams of dense thread. This is a violent act, one that suggests a fraught association between images and accentuates the idea that the experience of sight is not always enlightening; it can also be distressing.

We use sight to confirm each other’s existence. But Noonan’s protagonists in Untitled do not return each other’s gaze and, therefore, never confirm each other’s presence. The sole attempt to assert the reality of the figures by bringing them into bodily relation is the gesture of one’s hand toward the crown of the other’s head.

In the past, Noonan has collaborated with the author Dan Fox, whose experimental writings form a fitting parallel to the artist’s enigmatic practice.

Elspeth Pitt Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

54 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

Members news

Turner from the Tate

Royal Academy’s Australia

Throughout the cold winter months, members enjoyed a host of events engaged with the British master JMW Turner’s painting and drawings from the Tate’s unsurpassed collection of the artist’s works. The season began with the members opening party with Tate curator David Brown providing an introduction to Turner from the Tate: the Making of a Master before immersing themselves in the exhibition.

Australia, the first major survey of Australian art outside our nation, is showing from 21 September to 8 December at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. See page 18.

A totally new experience As Turner from the Tate draws to a close, we turn to the rich treasures of Peru. With this issue of Artonview, you will find your invitation to some of the exclusive members events associated with Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru.

Remember to take advantage of your membership benefits.

You’ll receive discounts on exhibition tickets, priority entry into the exhibition and discounts in the Gallery shops, Members Lounge and cafes.

The String Theory Quartet entertains the crowd at the special members opening of Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master in the Gandel Hall, 1 June 2013.

20130601nga1729_0030

Members travelling to London during this time will receive complimentary entry to the exhibition courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia. Remember to take your current membership card with you.

Members Acquisition Fund Four works of art in the national art collection will forever be known as works acquired by Gallery members. This year, with your continued generosity, we will add a fifth to this list. To find out about this outstanding work by Hilda Rix Nicholas, see page 32.

As a member, you can play your part in the life of the National Gallery and enjoy the many benefits this brings to you and the community. To become a member, go to nga.gov.au/Members or free call 1800 020 068.

Robin Amm and Tony Strong at the members opening of Turner from the Tate, 1 June 2013, with JMW Turner’s Rome, from the Vatican. Raffaelle, accompanied

by La Fornarina, preparing his pictures for the decoration of the Loggia.

20130601nga1729_0071

ARTONVIEW 55

1

3

FA CES I N VI E W

2

4 3

5

6

7

Sculpture: Space and Place symposium 1 Patricia Piccinini and Robyn Archer, 11 May

Turner from the Tate

2 Meredith Lane, Lindsay Davie and Laura Fischetti at the opening, 31 May 3 Carol Sawyer and Liz Lang, 31 May 4 Stephen and Celia McKew, 31 May

56 ARTONVIEW

8

9

11 11

10

12

5 George and Anne Yuille at the members opening, 1 June 6 Jane and Ian Saddington, great-greatgreat-great-grandson of JMW Turner, visits the exhibition, 14 June

Toulouse-Lautrec competition

7 Anabel Parbury, winner of a new Renault Megane hatch from Rolfe Renault, 14 May

UMI Arts tour

8 Cheryl Creed and Gertrude Ygosse, 17 June

13 11

12 Phil Crothers, Roshelle Fong and Rahul Prasad 13 Tharika Liyanage and Helen Kennedy

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix

9 Andrew Hogan, Dave Scully and baby Sam at the opening, 19 July 10 Kelly Sturgiss and Ryan Lungu 11 Simon Blanckensee, Mitchell Baum, Tom Rose and Axel Debenham-Lendon

ARTONVIEW 57

News from the Foundation

100 Works for 100 Years

Save the date

The Gallery moves closer to its ambitious target to raise funds for the acquisition of 100 significant works of art for the national art collection. Forty-two major works of art have already been secured through generous cash donations and gifts of works of art.

This year, the Foundation AGM will be held on 19 November.

All Foundation members will be notified in writing and provided with the 2012–13 Foundation Annual Report, which outlines recent achievements and celebrates the generosity of our donors.

Bequest Circle lunch

Trip to the Royal Academy, London

Guests this year enjoyed a tour of Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master before sitting down to lunch in the Gandel Hall. Senior Curator Christine Dixon spoke about the recent acquisition of Edgar Degas’s magnificent bronze sculpture Grand arabesque, 3rd position 1880s, which was on display. The acquisition was made possible through the generous bequest of Anthony (Tony) Gilbert.

The Bequest Circle is delighted to welcome new members Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards, Brian Fisher and Leonie Fisher, Warwick Flecknoe and the late Jane Flecknoe.

Twenty-four Gallery and Foundation members will soon be boarding the plane to London to participate in the opening celebrations for Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts.

The Bequest Circle actively celebrates supporters who have made a bequest to the National Gallery of Australia. Contact Liz Wilson on (02) 6240 6469 or liz.wilson@nga.gov.au to find out more.

Sidney Nolan Pretty Polly Mine 1948, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased 1949 IRN 237078

The official opening will take place on 17 September and we hope that the exhibition patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, will be in attendance. We are delighted our supporters are joining us for this very special event in Australian art history and look forward to reporting on the trip’s success.

The support of donors to the fundraising initiatives of the Foundation is greatly appreciated. To get involved, contact Maryanne Voyazis on (02) 6240 6691 or foundation@nga.gov.au.

Rover Thomas (Joolama) Cyclone Tracy 1991, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra,purchased 1991. © the artist’s estate, courtesy Warmun Art Centre IRN 148012

58 ARTONVIEW

Creative partnerships

A fine British tradition of tea with Wedgwood’s fine British-design tea-ware This winter, during the National Gallery of Australia’s major winter exhibition Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master, visitors delighted their senses in the distinguished Wedgwood Tea Room.

The tea room, which opened on 31 May and continues until 15 September, provides a distinctively English experience of morning and afternoon tea for all Gallery visitors to enjoy, as well as a traditional Ploughman’s lunch.

Wedgwood, the iconic luxury tableware brand established in 1759, is synonymous with timeless British design and craftsmanship and has long been associated with fine tea-ware. The Gallery is delighted to serve guests elegant savoury and sweet treats on Wedgwood’s high-quality fine bone china.

The partnership between Wedgwood and the National Gallery has created a complete experience with a luxurious tea room and fine art experience together in one beautiful space set inside the Gallery.

For information on how to book tickets, visit ticketek.com.

Developing Canberra The National Gallery of Australia is proud to continue its partnership with Canberra Airport. These two icons share a vision to promote Canberra as a destination with world-class art, architecture and design. It is a natural synergy focussed on the visitor experience to Canberra and the flow-on benefits to the local and regional economies.

Canberra Airport is unique among the world’s airports in its commitment to public art, supporting an artist-in-residence and displaying more than a dozen major sculptures and other works of art around the airport precinct. Canberra Airport is supporting the Gallery’s first winter international blockbuster in decades, Turner from the Tate:, and has previously supported the summer blockbusters Renaissance: 15th- and 16th‑century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo in 2011 and Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris and the Moulin Rouge in 2012.

If you are interested in creating ties with the Australian community through the arts, contact Nicole Short, +61 2 6240 6781 or nicole.short@nga.gov.au.

Winners of a 666 ABC Radio competition enjoy high tea in the National Gallery’s Wedgwood Tea Room, 21 June 2013. Filmename TBC

ARTONVIEW 59

Thank you …

Exhibitions, programs and acquisitions at the National Gallery of Australia are realised through the generous support of our partners and donors. The National Gallery of Australia would like to thank the following organisations and people:

Grants American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc, New York, made possible with the assistance of: Kenneth Tyler AO and Marabeth Cohen‑Tyler Wolfensohn Family Foundation The Aranday Foundation Gordon Darling Foundation The Jani Haenke Charitable Trust National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board Publishing Fund Yulgilbar Foundation

Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, through: Council on Australian and Latin American Relations International Cultural Visits Program Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport, through: The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians 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, and through Art Indemnity Australia Australia Council for the Arts Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency

60 ARTONVIEW

State and territory governments Queensland Government, through the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA), Arts Queensland

Corporate partners ActewAGL Aerial Capital Group Aesop AGB Events The Age Australian Broadcasting Commission ACT Government, through Australian Capital Tourism Barlens Brassey Hotel of Canberra Canberra Airport The Canberra Times Clayton Utz Coopers Brewery Eckersley’s Art & Craft Flash Photobition Forrest Hotel and Apartments Maddocks Moët Hennessy Australia Molonglo Group National Australia Bank Nine Network Australia Novotel Canberra Qantas Airlines Qantas Freight Rolfe Motors The Sydney Morning Herald Wedgwood Wesfarmers WIN Television Yulgibar

Donations Includes donations received from 20 April to 19 July 2013 Lenore Adamson Dr Mary Boyd Turner Donna Bush

Gifts of works of art Susan Armitage and the Hon Dr Michael Armitage Art and Heritage Collections, University of Adelaide GW Bot Canberra Grammar Girls School Katherine Stirling Cawsey, in memory of her great-uncle Captain Donald MacLeod Antonia Chaffey Pat Corrigan AM Elaine Cox Lauraine Diggins Tony Donnithorne Averill MB Edwards Anna Eglitis David Fopp Frank Gohier Dr Penelope Graham, in memory of Edith Jean Graham Dr Anne Gray in acknowledgment of the Centenary of Canberra, 2013 Gillian Green Tadeusz Groblicki John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh Brian Hirst Cherylynn Holmes Pauline Hunter John Kaldor AM Franx Kempf AM Cal Lane and Gallery Art Mur, Montreal John Loane and Sara Kelly Dr Andrew Lu OAM Justice Robert McDougall Ian McNeilage and Moonyeen McNeilage Naomi Milgrom Kaldor AO Peter Naumann Robert Nelson Prof Anne Noble William Nuttall and Annette Reeves Thomas Pauling AO, QC Peta Burdett Phillips, in memory of Lorraine See Bowan

Francis John Purnell Marlowe Thompson Brian Thornton and Ley Thornton Brian Thornton and Eleanor Thornton Ravie Traine The Trumble family Dr Angus Trumble, Nick Trumble, Simon Trumble and Angus Trumble The Fullwood family Gabrielle Watt The estate of Ludwig Putmann Weber

100 Works for 100 Years Neilma Gantner Kiera Grant Peter J Hack Tim Harding and Pauline Harding Colin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh Raymond Kidd and Dianna Kidd John Kirby and Carolyn Kirby The Hon Dr Diana Laidlaw AM De Lambert Largesse Foundation The Lansdowne Foundation Prudence MacLeod Suzannah Plowman The Sun Foundation

25th Anniversary Gift Program Charles Curran AC and Eva Curran

National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund John Calvert-Jones AM The Calvert-Jones Foundation John Hindmarsh AM Allan Myers AO, QC Jeanne Pratt AC

Foundation Board Publishing Fund Susan Armitage

Members Acquisition Fund 2012–13 Joan Adler Margaret Aston

Ron Bannerman Maria Carmen Castello W Caukill and D Cramer Kathryn Clarke Christine Clough Arthur D Conigrave Irene Delofski and Ted Delofski David Donaldson, in memory of Rose Donaldson Dr Peter Fullagar and Helen Topor Cheryl Hannah Maggie Hargraves Yvonne Harrington Dr Anthea Hyslop Christine King Ilse King Jennifer Lee and Robert Lee Rachael Milfull Paul Minogue and Mandy Minogue Margaret Naylor Max Riethmuller and Pat Riethmuller Jennifer Rowland Helene Stead Robyn Stone

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2012 Beverley Birtles Janette Lindesay and Dr Lindesay Dr Caroline Turner AM and Dr Glen Barclay

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2013 Mehran Akbari Robert Albert and Libby Albert Ken Alexander and Margaret Alexander Lynne Alexander and Rob Lesslie Deborah Allen Robert Allmark and Alison Allmark Cynthia Anderson Dorothy Anderson Prof Jan Anderson Sue Andrew David Asbury Margaret Aston Michelle Atkinson Shane Baker and Linda Pearson John Bamford and Janet Bamford Dorothy Barclay Lesley D Barker Chris Barnes and Estelle Barnes Patrick Barrett and Margaret Barrett Thelma Barwick The Beddoe family Rosemary Bencke Andrew Bennett

Prof Jeff Bennett and Ngaire Bennett Prof Martin Bennett John Besmeres and Anne Besemeres Judith Bibo David Biddles and Suzanne Biddles Sheila Bignell David Biles and Julie Biles Lorraine Birch Noel Birchall Beverley Birtles Robert Blacklow Eileen Bond Valerie Boot and Dr Mac Boot Gillian Borger Max Bourke and Margaret Bourke Ivor Bowden Donna Bowell Sarah Brasch Phillip Braslins and Maura Braslins George Brenan Margaret Brennan and Geoffrey Brennan Mary E Brennan Robert Brennan Cheryl Bridge Una Brough Evelyn Brown Howard Brown and Jenny Brown Margaret Browne John Bruce and Barbara Bruce Jennifer Bryson Jill Burke Peter Burns Ron Burns and Gail Burns Julian Burt Margaret Burt Robyn Cairns John Caldwell and Judith Caldwell Rear Admiral David Campbell Shirley Campbell Emeritus Professor Stewart Campbell and Iris Campbell Alan Capp and Carol Capp Anne Carroll Sophia Cassimatis Fr David Catterall Marianne Cavanagh Dr Ian Clark and Dr Margaret Clark John Clements Christianna Cobbold Angela Compton and John Compton Arthur Conigrave and Kate Conigrave Graham Cooke Janelle Cooke-Inman

Christine Cooper Gwen Cooper Neil Cox and Kay Cox David Craddock Merrilyn Crawford Georgia Croker Prof Robert Crompton and Helen Crompton Commander Andrew Dale and Barbara Dale Wilma Davidson Diane Davies Winifred Davson MBE Susan Daw OAM Anne De Salis Robyn Dean and Phillip Dean Bette Debenham Dr Moreen Dee Patricia Degens Peter Deighan Irene Delofski and Ted Delofski Cecily Dignan Judith Dixon Dr Rita Dodson and Richard Dodson John Dorrington and Norm Dorrington Shaun Duffey and Susan Duffy Robyn Duncan Sue Dyer Anthony Eastaway Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards Robert Ellicott Alice Engel Rosemary Engel Sue Farrow Amanda Farry Nowla Farwley Daniel Fawcett Elaine Faye and Ronald Luhrs Emeritus Professor Norman Feather Noelene Ferrier and William Ferrier Brian Fitzpatrick Peter Flanagan and Cheryllee Flanagan Lynn Fletcher and Wayne Fletcher Philip Flood AO and Carol Flood John Flynn and Marlene Flynn Michael Flynn David Franks Mary Rose Fraser Margaret Frisch Justin Fuller Helen Fyfe William Galloway Joseph Gani Robert Gardiner Roy Garwood

Richard Gate Andrew Geering Joan George Ann Gibson Lindsey Gilbert Philip Giovanelli Sylvia Glanville Mary Gleeson Maryan Godson and Richard Godson June Gordon Gillian Gould and Hugh Smith Dr Elizabeth Grant AM and Sue Hart Alpha Gregory Dr Noel Grieve and Janet Grieve Dr Phillip John Hagan Patricia Haggard Claire Haley Aileen Hall Kerri Hall and Dr Christopher Baker Isobel Hamilton William Hamilton Cheryl Hannah Malcolm Hanratty Sam Harkiss and Carolyn Petersons Margaret Harkness Peter Harkness Karina Harris and Neil Hobbs John Harrison and Danielle Kluth Eleanor Hart Bruce Hayes Janet Hayes Monte Heaven and Carol Heaven Joan Hegarty Brit Helgeby and Edward Helgeby Dr Garry Helprin Shirley Hemmings Suzanne Herbst Sue Hewitt Anthony Hill and Maureen Hill Colin Hill and Linda Hill Narelle Hillsdon Meredith Hinchliffe Rosemary Hirst Robert Hitchcock OAM Graham Hobbs Michael Hobbs Dr Kenneth Hodgkinson and Lenore Hodgkinson John Hole Ian Holland Courtney Hoogen Rev Bill Huff-Johnston Margaret Hughes and Gareth Hughes Jane Huglin

ARTONVIEW 61

Dr Ron Huisken and Mei Ling Huisken Elspeth Humphries Judith Hurlstone Claudia Hyles John Hyndes and Danielle Hyndes OAM Dr Anthea Hyslop John Jackson and Ros Jackson Philip Jackson Lucie Jacobs Cliff Jahnsen and Suzanne Jahnsen Dr Joseph Johnson CSC, AAM Elaine Johnston Brian Jones Susan Jones Eunice Jukes Penelope Jurkiewicz Lena Karmel Judith Kedge and Katharine Walker WG Keighley Margaret Kellond David Kennemore Dr Peter Kenny and Pamela Kenny Dinny Killen Desmond King King O’Malley’s Irish Pub Joan Kitchin Lou Klepac OAM Grace Koch Daphne Kok Ruth Kovacic Ted Kruger and Gerry Kruger Robyn Lance Susan Laverty Faye Anita Lee Thomas Leffers and Corrie Leffers Lady Jody Leonard Alison Leslie, in memory of James B Leslie Frank Lewincamp and Barara Lewincamp David Lewis OAM Frederick Lilley and Penelope Lilley Karyn Lim Pamela Linstead and Peter Linstead Elizabeth Loftus Liz Lynch and Mike Lynch

62 ARTONVIEW

William MacCallum Elizabeth Mackie Meg Macleod Jenny Manton Jim Maple-Brown AM and Pam Maple-Brown Anne Mar Bruce Marshall and Robin Coombes Dr Rosamond Mason Sally-Anne Mason Bruce Matear AM and Judy Matear Paul Mattiuzzo and Deborah Mattiuzzo Frances McArdle Bill McCann Diana McCarthy Margaret McCay and Ian McCay Patricia McCullough Patricia McGregor Selma McLaren The McLeod family Margaret McLeod Patricia McPherson The Hon Justice John Middleton Louis Mihalyka and Jilliam Mihalyka Jennifer Millen and Clive Millen Dr Robert Miller and Mary Miller John Miller and Rosemary Miller Elizabeth Minchin and Tony Minchin Bevan Mitchell Beverly Molvig Lisa Molvig Dr Elizabeth Morrison Margaret Morrow Dr Ann Moyal Janet Moyle Dr Angus M Muir Patricia Mulcare and Philip Mulcare Neil Mulveney Barbara Murray Claude Neumann Newcastle Art Gallery Society Victor Noden and Barbara Noden Terry O’Brien OAM Simon O’Halloran and Barbara O’Halloran

The Rt Hon Barry O’Keefe and Janette O’Keefe Marie Oakes Mike Ogden PSM Geoffrey Pack Arthur Parker John Parker and Joceyln Righton Beth Parsons Gwen Pearson Mary Pollard Ron Price and Fay Price Anne Prins Michael Proud Tony Purnell and Kaye Purnell G Quintal Dheny Raw Godrey Regan Ardyne Reid Gregory Rendell Cheryl Rennie Helen Rey Penelope Richardson Jeanette Richmond Judith Roach Gavin Roberts Paul Robilliard and Hanan Robilliard Susan Rogers Alan Rose and Helen Rose James Ross and Heather Ross The Rosson family Diana Ryan Bridget Sack Eileen Sadler Neta Saint and Julian Goldenberg Raoul Salpeter and Roslyn Mandelberg Fiona Sawyers Annette Searle Judith Shelley and Michael Shelley John Shephard and Monique Shephard Audrey Shepherd and Ken Shepherd Doris Sheppard Roma Sinclair Sandra Sinclair Mike Slee and Dr Judy Slee Roy Smalley OAM and Ruth Smalley Jennifer Smith Barry Smith-Roberts Phyllis Somerville

Kerry Speak Vivian Spilva Carolyn Spittle and Murray Spittle David Stanley and Anne Stanley Dr Richard Stanton Helene Stead John Stead Jose Stephens Patricia Stephenson Lieutenant Colonel Jayne Stetto and John Fely Joy Stewart Elizabeth Stone Nea Storey Susanne Storrier Charles Stuart and Gay Stuart Dr Peter Sutherland and Mary Sutherland Elinor Swan Robert Swift and Lynette Swift Audrey Swinton The Taylor-Cannon family Richard Telford and Susan Telford Donald Thomas and Robyn Thomas Jason Thomas Dr Lindsay Thompson AM Jacqueline Thompson Phillip Thompson Claire Truscott Phil Tunney Tony Tyler and Alison Tyler Karina Tyson Norma Uhlmann Nancy Underhill Jean Urquhart Neik Van Vucht and Jenny Van Vucht Joan Vanderwerdt Susan Volker and Derek Volker Berta Von Bibra George Wallens John Walton John Ward Brenton Warren Jenni Warren Karenza Warren Donald Waterworth Debbie Wauchop and Graham Wauchop Wendy Webb Anne Westerman

Linda White Paul Whitfield Rowena Whittle Prof Malcolm Whyte Muriel Wilkinson Libby Williams Prof Lauren Williams Alex Williams and Jean Williams David Williams and Margaret Williams Andrew Williamson Angela Williamson and David Williamson Jennifer Wilson Julia Wilson Lynette Wilson Michael Wilson Robine Wilson and the late Donald Wilson Deborah Winkler Donna Woodhill Ellen Woodward Workplace Research Associates Janet Worth George Z Worthington and Cameron Mowat Les Wright and Norma Wright Mike Wright and Robyn Wright Alan Wyburn

South Australian Contemporary Art Fund Macquarie Group Foundation

For more information about developing creative partnerships with the National Gallery of Australia, contact: Nicole Short Sponsorship and Development Manager +61 2 6240 6781 nicole.short@nga.gov.au For more information about making a donation, contact: Maryanne Voyazis Executive Director, National Gallery of Australia Foundation +61 2 6240 6691 maryanne.voyazis@nga.gov.au

Garden of the East Photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s

21 February – 22 June 2014 Free entry

nga.gov.au

Thilly Weissenborn, Balineesch dansmeisj in rust (A dancing-girl of Bali, resting) c 1925 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2007

ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW 63

call for entries important fine art and aboriginal art auctions melbourne • november 2013

JUSTIN O’BRIEN The Miraculous Draught • SOLD Deutscher and Hackett • 28 August 2013

for obligation-free appraisals, please contact melbourne • 03 9865 6333 sydney • 02 9287 0600 info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com

16 august – 27 october 2013 | Free eNtrY | mca.com.au

Lipaki Marlaypa, Raki 2013, hand-made string, Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased 2013, Image courtesy and Š the artist, Photograph: Alex Davies

BUTTERFLY BLOOM wEdgwOOd.cOM.aU

JOHN GLOVER (1767–1849) Ben Lomond from Mr Talbot’s property – four Men catching Opossums oil on canvas · 30 1/4 x 45 1/4 in. (76.8 x 114.9 cm.) £1,800,000–2,500,000

Australian Art London, King Street • 26 September 2013 Viewing

Contact - UK

Contact - Australia

21–25 September 8 King Street London SW1Y 6QT

Nicholas Lambourn nlambourn@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2040

Ronan Sulich rsulich@christies.com (02) 9326 1422

christies.com

ITALYIn Style A SELECTION OF OUR ITALY TOURS IN 2014 The city of Rome January 7-21, 2014, From $5,250 pp Escape the Australian summer in the Eternal City, gloriously free of tourist crowds.

Venice: city, republic and empire March 14-28, 2014, From $5,750 pp Unpack your bags for 14 nights and explore the city that ruled the Mediterranean for 1,000 years.

Southern Italy March 31 – April 17, 2014, From $6,500 pp Explore remote Calabria before travelling the Appian Way from Puglia through the mountains to Rome.

Grand tour of Italy

Villas and Gardens of Central Italy April 23 – May 9, 2014, From $6,800 pp Explore Tuscany and Lazio, enjoying the Italian genius for architecture and landscape.

Lakes and Villas of Northern Italy April 24 – May 10, 2014, From $7,490 pp Travel from Lake Como across to the Veneto, with Spring flowering, Palladio’s villas and fine dining.

Sicily and the Aeolian Islands May 2-18, 2014, From $6,950 pp Enjoy superb scenery and 3,000 years of history and art, from the Greeks to the Baroque.

April 1-18, 2014, From $6,500 pp Featuring a private Sistine Chapel viewing, this tour visits Sorrento, Rome, Umbria, Florence and Venice.

Experience the Academy Travel difference!

Academy Travel is Australia’s leading provider of high quality, special interest travel to Italy.

We have our own offices in Rome and over 20 years’ experience creating and managing art, history and archaeology themed tours to every corner of the peninsula. > Expert tour leaders > Maximum 20 in a group > Unhurried itineraries – minimum three night stops > Centrally located four-star accommodation > Excellent meals, opera, concerts included.

www.academytravel.com.au for detailed itineraries and booking information.

tailored small group Journeys › Expert tour leaders › Maximum 20 in a group › Carefully planned itineraries

Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000 Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney) Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123 Email: info@academytravel.com.au Web: www.academytravel.com.au

Don’t miss an issue!

save and subscribe

to Australia’s leading visual arts magazine.

Now available at the iTunes App Store.

Still available in print.

C•A•N•B•E•R•R•A

The Brassey of Canberra

BOOK INGS A RE ESSEN T I A L

Belmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600 Phone: 02 6273 3766 Email: info@brassey.net.au

CALL FOR BOOKINGS THROUGH THE HOTEL 1800 659 191 OR REFER TO OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRASSEY.NET.AU

Canberran Owned and Operated

Your world like you’ve never seen it

Introducing The Canberra Times iPad app.

It brings Canberra’s best journalism to your fingertips. Whenever, wherever.

Download it now before you take off.

It’s free for a limited time.

Data download charges apply.

iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

with care & expertise When it comes to shipping your treasured art around Australia, or around the world, there is no room for compromise.

With a proven track record since 1922, Qantas Freight puts your priceless works in safe hands. Through a tailored mix of scheduled or charter services, our specialised solutions include expert handling and high security for valuable, fragile or security sensitive pieces.

For enquiries please contact artmoves@qantas.com.au Conditions of carriage apply, see qantasfreight.com Qantas Freight is the Official Freight partner of the National Gallery of Australia.

qantasfreight.com

visit canberra for some living floral artwork this spring!

Stay in the heart of the city with Novotel Canberra and be inspired by Floriade, Australia’s celebration of spring, running from 19 September to 13 October 2013.

Novotel Canberra - proud supporter of Floriade 2013 65 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra. Tel. 02 6245 5000 | novotelcanberra.com.au

Novotel.com | Accorhotels.com *Rate based on accommodation in a standard room and subject to availability. **Maximum of up to 2 adults and 2 children (under the age of 16, when staying with parents using existing bedding) per room. For further details and full terms and conditions visit www.novotelcanberra.com.au

J O I N O U R G L O B A L L O YA L T Y P RO G R A M AT ACCO R H OT E L S . CO M

Weekdays 5.30am

East Hotel, Canberra’s highly anticipated four and a half star contemporary design and lifestyle hotel is now open. With its focus on providing a memorable Canberra experience and its premium location just minutes from the National Gallery of Australia, between the fashionable retail and restaurant hubs of Manuka and Kingston, East Hotel ups the ante for local guests and visitors to the nation’s capital.

East Hotel provides a contemporary, cool and vibrant option for visitors to Canberra, whether overnighters, business guests, long stay guests or families. The six-story hotel has 140 rooms in various studio and apartment-style combinations, recognizing the challenges families can face with hotel accommodation by providing specially designated suites, cleverly designed in a modular, fun way specifically to cater for both adults and kids. The hotel has standalone dining and bar facilities, with Ox Eatery and it’s associated Bar and Delicatessen sure to become an instant classic.

East Hotel’s business facilities are state-of-the-art with modern and professional conference rooms, boardrooms and an all-day meeting lounge, complete with air hockey table, to foster the creative environment that leads to the success of any meeting. The facilities have the flexibility to fit perfectly to most business requirements with a distinctively edgy East Hotel touch.

69 Canberra Avenue, Kingston ACT 2604 | +61 2 6295 6925 | easthotel.com.au

Hotel Hotel A place for people people • Opening soon hotel-hotel. com.au Hotel Hotel NewActon Nishi, 25 Edinburgh Ave Canberra ACT 2601

William Kentridge Plate 1 from Bird catching set II 2006 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, The Poynton Bequest, 2013

For reservation or conferencing enquiries, please call 02 6287 6287 or email — hello@hotel-hotel.com.au

13 20 ER B EM EC

SPRING 2013 | 75

O

PE

N

S

6

D

N AT IO N A L G A L L ERY O F A U S T R A L IA , CA N B ER R A

SPRING 2013 | 75

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

PRESENTING PARTNERS

ACCOMMODATION PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

William Kentridge | Gold and the Incas | Royal Academy Moche culture (100–800 AD) Owl-head bead, Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán, Lambayeque