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GOLD AND THE INCAS | LICHTENSTEIN | COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS Sicán-Lambayeque culture (750–1375) Tumi (Sacrificial knife) gold, silver, chrysocolla, turquoise, lapis lazuli, spondylus, Museo Oro del Perú, Lima
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
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© National Gallery of Australia 2013
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Lichtenstein and advertising
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Digging for treasure: the rediscovery of ancient Peruvian art
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Director’s word
EXHIBITIONS
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Jaklyn Babington Christine Dixon
All I want for Christmas: the enquiring camera of Trent Parke
Anne O’Hehir
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Princes, portraits and panoramas
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A gift to the nation
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
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Standing proud: sculptural highlights of the national art collection
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Bedford takes flight
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Art and Alzheimer’s
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WARNING Artonview may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.
Simon Elliott Tina Baum
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36 Cook’s voyages plates and published engravings 38 George W Lambert La blanchisseuse 39 Stella Bowen Provencal conversation 40 Papunya early boards and barks 42 Horace Trenerry Road, Aldinga Hill 43 Hossein Valamanesh Lotus vault 44 Peter Booth Man seated on a fence 45 Karnataka, India Sambhava, the third Jina 46 Edgar Degas Grand arabesque, 3rd position
REGULARS (cover) Moche culture (100–800) Forehead ornament gold, silver and copper 25.6 x 22.4 cm Museo Larco, Lima
(opposite) Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, with John Olsen’s Sydney sun 1965 displayed on the ceiling. © Royal Academy of Arts, London Photograph: Marcus Leith
48 Facesinview 50 News from the Foundation 51 Creative partnerships 52 Thank you … 54 Members news
Director’s word Summers at the Gallery are always exciting, enticing people from all over Australia and beyond to see our international blockbuster exhibitions. This year is no exception. So, to ensure we see out 2013 with a bang, we are bringing you a bling‑filled blockbuster of ancient treasures from the other side of the world. Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru caps off our special exhibition program of back-to-back blockbusters in celebration of Canberra’s centenary year. I hope you have all enjoyed the diverse international program to date, from Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayals of the bawdy nightlife of nineteenth-century Paris to the other side of the channel for our brilliant show of Turner masterpieces from the Tate. And now we venture to South America for Gold and the Incas, the first major show of the ancient art and culture of Peru to reach our shores. The National Gallery of Australia has worked with ten of the most important public and private collecting institutions in Peru to hand-pick more than 200 works of incredible beauty and artistry. The exhibition will trace the development of the Inca culture and its predecessors, going back more than 3000 years to explore the remarkable craftsmanship and complex
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mythology of these ancient civilisations. The exhibition also coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of Australia’s diplomatic relations with Peru. We are thrilled to bring this unique cultural experience to Canberra to celebrate both our continued diplomatic ties with Peru and the capital’s own centenary year. By now, you hopefully all know about our exhibition Australia, the survey on Australian land and landscape at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Indeed, some of you may also have seen it there. Australia distils two hundred years of our nation’s land and landscape tradition into an exhibition of more than 200 Australian works of art. After opening in September, it received some excellent critical reviews (and some patronising ones!) that recognised the unique vision of our most exemplary Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists on show. We are extremely pleased with its reception in the United Kingdom and by the huge number of visitors to the Royal Academy since the survey opened. I would like to thank our many supporters of the show, in particular our Honorary Exhibition Circle Patrons as well as my Australian and British colleagues who helped to sponsor this exhibition and bring Australia to the international stage in London.
In the spirit of the festive season, we are showing Trent Parke’s quirky photographic series The Christmas tree bucket: Trent Parke’s family album 2006–08, which we have recently acquired. For those of you attending family events this holiday season, you will no doubt find an affinity with Parke’s peculiar, funny and yet oddly familiar vision. The Gallery was to be the final stop for our touring exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix, which has proved immensely popular as it travelled around Australia over the past year. I am pleased to announce, however, that the exhibition will continue to Asia in 2014, providing new audiences with the opportunity to see this impressive part of our national art collection. The show is on display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra until 27 January 2014. The Gallery holds the nation’s largest and most valuable art collection, which belongs to all Australians. To celebrate this and the capital’s centenary, we have been working on a new large souvenir book of the Gallery’s collection highlights, which will go on sale later this summer. Keep your eyes peeled for it. Members will receive an e-card when the book is released, so do not forget to update your email details with our Membership Office—and, of course,
Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. © Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photographs: Marcus Leith
as members, you will receive your usual discount at the NGA Shop. The Gallery has recently acquired a number of exceptional works for the Australian art collection, ranging from early and colonial exploration to contemporary. An extremely fortunate purchase this year was a nine-volume set of plates and published engravings of Captain Cook’s three voyages between 1768 and 1779. Many of the exploration‑era works of art in the Gallery’s collection were influenced by the engravings in these formative volumes, which are so rarely found on the market—particularly as an entire set with additional proof plates. George W Lambert’s extraordinary domestic scene La blanchisseuse 1901 was purchased with assistance from the Ruth Robertson Bequest Fund. It was the first major figure composition he painted after leaving Australia and was exhibited at the Royal Academy; it was also the artist’s most important figure composition still left in private hands. Stella Bowen’s highly engaging Provencal conversation 1936 is a generous gift from the artist’s niece Mary Alice Pelham Thorman. This congenial painting dates from the artist’s time in the south of France in the 1920s. The Gallery also acquired works by South Australia’s finest Modernist and
contemporary artists, Horace Trenerry and Hossein Valamanesh respectively. The arresting landscape sketch by Trenerry was purchased with assistance from the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, while Valamanesh’s over-five-metre-long Lotus vault 2011 was purchased with assistance from Susan Armitage. Peter Booth’s large and disturbing oil painting Man seated on a fence 2012 was also purchased, along with a group of his large colour drawings dating from 1995 to 2010. Our extensive collection of Papunya boards was significantly enhanced this year with the acquisition of seven early works by some of the Aboriginal art movement’s earliest Desert painters. Included among the new arrivals were also the first two Papunya shields to be acquired by the Gallery. Edgar Degas’s major sculpture Grand arabesque, 3rd position, cast in bronze in 1926 from a wax sculpture created by the artist in the 1880s, was acquired this year through the Tony Gilbert Bequest Fund. The sculpture is one of Degas’s most lively and our first by the artist. We have also just acquired our first Indian Jain bronze, a twelfth-century sculpture which strengthens our small but significant collection of Jain art. The half-metre-tall bronze depicts Sambhava, the third of the twenty-four Jinas of the Jain faith.
In other news, we have recently welcomed Michael Baldwin as the new Assistant Director for Development, Marketing and Commercial Operations, replacing Shanthini Naidoo after her five and a half years of dedicated service. Michael brings to the Gallery extensive experience in the areas of arts administration and financial services. Finally, some of you may already have seen the magnificent new Qantas 737 aircraft featuring an Indigenous art livery. I am proud of the Gallery’s advisory role in selecting the work of art to adorn the plane. The design is an interpretation of Gija artist Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford’s Medicine pocket 2005, which is in the Gallery’s collection and was a gift of Frances Kofod and Peter Seidel, executors of the estate of Paddy Bedford. The plane was originally commissioned in 2012 and is the result of a collaboration between the Gallery, the Jumbana Group and Qantas. It is testament to the formidable contribution Bedford, and the wider Indigenous Australian community, has made to the art and culture in Australia and on the international stage.
Ron Radford ARTONVIEW 3
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Reflections on girl 1990 (detail) from the series Reflections 1989–90 lithograph, screenprint, collage, embossing 114.5 x 139.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased with assistance from the Orde Poynton Fund, 2002 © the estate of Roy Lichtenstein
LIC HT E N ST E I N A N D A DVER T I SI N G Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix 20 July 2013 – 27 January 2014 | nga.gov.au/Lichtenstein
During the 1950s, the advertising industry in America underwent an enormous transformation as the country emerged from the Second World War as a prosperous industrial giant. The growing consumer culture in America saw an increased demand for housing in newly established suburbs, household appliances to fill the new houses and new cars for driving to and from the suburbs. Over the course of the decade, many advertising companies began to employ marketing strategists and consumer psychologists to precisely target the desires of the American consumer. By the 1960s, the advertising industry was highly complex, expert in not only the initial sale of product but also subsequent purchases by encouraging consumers to renew and replace their existing and rapidly outdated products with the latest models and styles. Within this booming consumer culture, Pop artists, both British and American, found a fertile source of imagery. Two of the most successful advertising campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s were for Maidenform bras and Hathaway shirts.
From 1949, Maidenform ran the ‘I dreamed’ campaign in which models were depicted undertaking typically ‘manly’ pursuits, such as boxing, barging down the Nile or involved in public activities such as riding a streetcar, all while wearing a Maidenform bra. The ads were extremely racy and, not surprisingly, highly successful. ‘The man in the Hathaway shirt’ was an iconic campaign developed by advertising executive David Ogilvy, who is widely regarded as the father of advertising. The arresting ads feature a man with a black eye-patch performing masculine tasks—hunting, fishing, gun cleaning—while wearing Hathaway-branded shirts. The addition of the eye-patch suggested that the man was one of mystery and adventure, bold yet suave. Both ad campaigns tapped into the gender stereotypes of the time, playing on the latent desires of consumers to be either a daring and desirable woman or an unusual and intriguing man. Lichtenstein used numerous advertising images in his early works. He would trawl through newspapers, magazines and comic
books, gathering types of images—women’s faces, men’s faces, hands, hairstyles, cleaning products—as samples, which he pasted into notebooks for later reference. Through this process, many of Lichtenstein’s images of women mimic the gender stereotypes of the advertising industry—close-ups of highly stylised faces with perfected hairstyles— accompanied by thought or text bubbles. The thought bubbles in works such as Drowning girl 1963 and Reflections on girl 1990 hint at a wider narrative and function in much the same way as the combination of text and image in advertising campaigns such as Maidenform’s ‘I dreamed’ , providing the viewer with a voyeuristic insight into the private thoughts and emotions of the female subject. The text component of Lichtenstein’s imagery carries an emotional charge that is otherwise negated by his cool, detached and mechanised style. It is this contrast of melodrama and mechanisation that provides a deeper psychological aspect to Lichtenstein’s work. The pictorial similarities between ‘The man in the Hathaway shirt’ advertising
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and Lichtenstein’s imagery drawn from All American men of war comic books take up the male gender stereotype of the cool, calm and brave fighter pilot or submarine officer depicted at the height of battle. In both the ad campaign and Lichtenstein’s Torpedo … Los 1963, the central male character displays unusual qualities that leave the viewer wondering what dangerous activity he is engaged in and perhaps fantasising that they too could be as intriguing and apparently heroic. Lichtenstein not only appropriated the imagery of the newspapers, magazines and comic books of the time but also actively reconstructed the psychology of desire and
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wish fulfilment that advertising companies were employing to sell their product. In doing so, Lichtenstein’s works can be seen as tongue-in-cheek exposés on the latent strategies of the advertising industry, effectively providing sardonic commentary on 1960s America. Lichtenstein’s process of appropriation— image selection, editing, re-composition and re-issue—was directly related to his early training under Professor Hoyt Sherman at Ohio State University. Sherman is known for his experimental teaching methods, which included the use of a ‘flash-booth’ , a darkened room in which he would project images for a fraction of a second before
asking his students to reconstruct the images that they had seen, training them in the immediate recognition of form and pictorial unity. It was this rigorous training that was to influence Lichtenstein for the entirety of his career. Interestingly, many advertising companies at the time were employing the use of tashitoscopes— which operate in a similar manner to the flash‑booth—in their consumer-based testing and evaluation of advertising images, company logos and branding. It is not surprising, then, that Lichtenstein’s works function in a similar way to many advertising images; comprised of blackoutlined forms, simplified detail and bright
Torpedo … Los 1963 oil on canvas 173 x 203 cm private collection © estate of Roy Lichtenstein
David Ogilvy’s ‘The man in the Hathaway shirt’ advertising campaign for Hathaway shirts, 1951. (opposite) Nude with blue hair 1994 from the series Nudes colour relief 146.7 x 93.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased with assistance from the Orde Poynton Fund, 2002 © the estate of Roy Lichtenstein
The ‘I dreamed’ campaign for Maidenform bras, c 1950s.
but reduced colour schemes, they are instantly recognisable and memorable. Further complicating his appropriation of the advertising industry’s strategies and techniques, Lichtenstein also consciously branded his work. By co-opting the Benday dot as a signature motif, Lichtenstein removed his own signature from his compositions, allowing the stylistic tropes he had appropriated to act as the packaging and branding of his work. The black outlines, reduced colour palate, removal of extraneous detail and close cropping all came to be read as ‘product Lichtenstein’. As Michael Lobel convincingly argues in his book Image duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the emergence of Pop Art, ‘it is no longer necessary to sign the image, in large part because the form of the work is now understood to be its signature’. In this way, Lichtenstein successfully equated his signature with a brand in a visual manoeuvre akin to advertising companies associating company logos with products—a strategy that has proven to have lasting impact. Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is on display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra until 27 January 2014. It is then set to travel to Asia in 2014. Jaklyn Babington Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books, and curator of the exhibition A book accompanying Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is available at the NGA Shop for $24.95.
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Sicán-Lambayeque culture (750–1375) Ceremonial breastplate (detail) gold and copper 65.5 x 44.5 cm Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima
DIGGING FOR TR E A S U R E the rediscovery of ancient Peruvian art Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru 6 December 2013 – 21 April 2014 | nga.gov.au/Incas
Andean artists and craftspeople displayed the highest technical virtuosity and expressive power in their expositions of complex mythology, producing great art over a period of more than 2500 years. Their experience of ritual, warfare, daily life and ideas about death can be explored in the artefacts found over the last 130 years in the modern nation of Peru—a fine representation of which is in the Gallery’s extraordinary summer exhibition, Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru. The Andes mountains run like an inland spine along Peruvian territory, dividing coastal regions from the Amazon Basin. Distinct cultures flourished from about 2000 BCE until the Spanish conquest of 1533, when Francisco Pizarro and his Conquistadors defeated the Inca Empire and killed its leader, the Inca Atahualpa. Much precious metal and other treasures were taken, melted down or sent to Spain. But many objects and textiles remained buried, only to be looted or excavated from the late nineteenth century until the present day. The earliest work on show in Gold and the Incas is a granite plaque about 3000 years old, almost certainly made for a Chavín temple near the religious capital of Chavín de Huantar in the northern highlands. Winged deity holding a severed head exemplifies the transformational
figure, part human and part animal, that shamanic priest-kings invoked in their ceremonies. The god has the feline fangs of a fierce jaguar or puma, combined with the large wings of a harpy eagle. He holds by its hair the severed head of an enemy or sacrifice and triumphantly metes out death. Like all the works in the exhibition, the carved relief plaque was created in association with a gravesite, almost always for the benefit of members of the ruling elite. Many cultures flowered in the thousands of years since people settled in the Andes and began to grow crops, herd llamas, weave textiles, make pots and forge metals. Modern views of these societies, for centuries seen through the European and Catholic eyes of Spanish colonisers, have been revolutionised in the last few decades. Reinterpretation of artefacts and new excavations of sites have led to revised theories about the Andean past. Most startling have been discoveries of myriad objects in looted sites, scientific digs in previously unexplored locations and new identification of separate cultures. The Cupisnique culture evolved on the north coast of Peru more than three millennia ago, largely influenced by the contemporary Chavín feline cult. An intricately worked pectoral of queen
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conch shell and the copper silica ore chrysocolla was made to accompany a Cupisnique noble on his journey after death. Its border of jaguar heads with blue eyes is carved from the same shell, which was imported from the warm waters to the north, perhaps even the Caribbean. In ancient Peru, blue stones are chrysocolla, turquoise, lapis lazuli or sodalite; green stones are malachite or emeralds, mined in Colombia or Bolivia; and red spondylus shell from Ecuador was prized for its intense colour and seems to have had a spiritual significance. Sophisticated trading systems occurred within Peru for other goods as well as precious and semiprecious
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stones and shell. Jaguars and tropical birds came from the jungle; their hides and feathers were exchanged for items from the coast. A small gold and platinum female figure known as ‘The Venus of Frías’ shows how early metal technology developed in the Andes. Gold was valued for its lustre and was polished to a dazzling shine. It usually represented the sun, day and the male, while silver stood for the moon, night and the female. Often figures were made in pairs: a gold or silver couple or a gold man and a silver woman. By the beginning of the Vicús period, about 100 BCE, smiths smelted and hammered gold dust and
ingots into very thin sheets and soldered them together to make three-dimensional objects. The Venus of Frías has inlaid platinum eyes and pierced ears for dangling ear ornaments. Her elongated skull is evidently the result of binding in infancy, often a mark of high, even royal, status. The figure may have been wrapped in textiles before being placed in the tomb to accompany the dead in the afterlife. Such effigies often represented fertility deities and were used in rituals to call for bountiful harvests or success in hunting. Ceramics are among the glorious and lasting achievements of the Moche Empire, which rose on the north coast and spread
Vicús culture (Frías style) (100 BCE – 400 CE) Female figure known as The Venus of Frías 200–600 gold and platinum 15.3 x 8.7 cm Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Sala de Oro del Museo Municipal Vicús, Piura
(opposite) Cupisnique culture (1000–200 BCE) Pectoral conch shell and chrysocolla 34.8 x 46 cm Museo Larco, Lima
throughout much of northern and central Peru between the first and eighth centuries. The technical and aesthetic achievements in the formation, decoration and firing of clay place the makers in the very highest ranks of pottery creation. Stirrup vessels, where two handles are united to form a spout, indicate the Moche tradition. As well as the famous portrait heads, renowned for their individual characterisation, important works such as Stirrup vessel in the form of a cormorant can be seen in Canberra this summer. Stylised and simplified, the graceful rhythm of the seabird’s long neck is emphasised. Birds stand for the heavens, felines for the earth, and serpents the
underworld in a creation story that divides the world into three realms. But waterbirds such as pelicans and cormorants move from the sky into the ocean, between domains, as bodies of water are entry points to the underworld. The spread of Moche influence from the Piura Valley in the north to Ancash in the south was founded on wealth from advanced farming and irrigation techniques. Recent excavations have uncovered great riches accompanying the Lord of Sipán and the Lady of Cao. The supreme deity, Ai Apaec, or the Decapitator God, demanded blood, which entailed the ritual torture and killing of defeated enemies.
Highly stratified ranks of society meant the elite had other people sacrificed in their burials. The eventual downfall of the Moche is linked to the disastrous consequences of a severe El Niño in the sixth century, which caused thirty years of flooding followed by thirty years of drought. Such disruption undermined belief in the supernatural power of the rulers. In the central highlands, from about 600 to 1000, the Huari culture built on the achievements of their predecessors, the southern Nazca. Both used colourful patterns to decorate their textiles and ceramics. Huari potters excelled in realising very large vessels, especially urns and face‑neck jars.
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They also depicted llamas, the most arresting being the bright tan and white standing animal, made with a black and white pair. Llamas were extremely important for Huari agriculture and economy. They were domesticated for their wool, meat and hides and to transport light loads, as they would not carry heavy burdens. Herds of llamas and alpacas, native to the highlands, were driven from pasture to pasture. To bolster their fecundity, offerings were made to propitiate the gods: the animals were sacrificed in ceremonies along the Andes. Llamas have been found in tombs even in coastal areas where they did not occur naturally, meaning they were moved and traded as the Huari Empire expanded. Sicán culture was centred in the Lambayeque region on the north coast, and is famous for the luxury and excess of its gold. It flourished between about 750 until military defeat by the neighbouring Chimú kingdom in the period 1372–75, after another spate of natural disasters led to the populace overthrowing their rulers. The major site is Batán Grande in the La Leche Valley, still containing the remains of many large adobe compounds, pyramids, platforms and temples called huacas, which contain the shaft tombs of the Sicán elite. Most remarkable is the metallurgy of the Sicán artisans. They worked with copper, gold and silver, sometimes combining the metals to produce tumbaga, alloys usually composed of copper and gold or copper and silver. Tumbaga was especially suited to the process of annealing and metalworkers were able to use sheet-metal technology to create objects as thin as 0.1 millimetres. Many Sicán smiths and weavers were abducted by the Chimú for their advanced skills. Tumi, or sacrificial knives, have an important role in later Peruvian cultures. Generally composed of a half-moon blade attached to a straight handle, tumi were essential grave goods for Sicán nobles and are often excavated in numbers. Some are topped by a representation of Naymlap, the Sicán ancestor deity, who can be recognised by his crescent headdress and winged eyes. The silver shaft and blade of a knife in Gold and the Incas are covered with sections of gold foil to produce a checkerboard effect. The concept of dualism underpinned
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Moche culture (100–800) Stirrup vessel in the form of a cormorant ceramic 21.3 x 14.2 x 21.6 cm Museo Larco, Lima
Huari culture (600–1000) Vessel in the form of a llama ceramic 67 x 54 cm Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima
Inca culture (1400–1533) Unku (Tunic) wool and cotton 110 x 98 cm Minesterio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima
Andean thought, and gold and silver probably represented the sun and moon. Ritual sacrifice—of humans, animals and even cloth—was common in propitiatory ceremonies undertaken by priests and rulers. Vanquished warriors were decapitated, while beautiful children, wives and ordinary people were often killed to be interred with dead members of the elite. Tumi, however, were symbolic weapons, as gold is too soft for the purpose of killing. Sharpened stone or copper blades would have been used in hunting, war and sacrifice. The kingdom of Chimor in the Moche Valley was ruled by Chimú lords and priests from the religious centre of Chan Chan, now a World Heritage Site. It dominated the northern coast of Peru after the fall of
the Moche Empire and eventually stretched for more than 1300 kilometres. At first dependent on canal irrigation, the Chimú expanded militarily to become a state based on conquest and tribute after the depredations of yet another catastrophic El Niño. Chan Chan had a population of 40 000 and its buildings covered an area of more than twenty square kilometres. The city consisted of adobe palaces, extravagantly decorated with colourful painted high reliefs and tapestries. Chimú nobles valued silver as much as or more than gold. In their graves they were accompanied by ornate jewellery and clothing often decorated with the figure of an ancestor deity with plumed crescent headdress. As seen in a nose ornament in
Gold and the Incas, the deity is depicted as a fisherman, a representation befitting a coastal society. He holds up two fine fish and is surrounded by a stepped design and flanked by three stylised spondylus shells on each side, with two single pendants, two pairs of double pendants and a triple set below. Technological inventions such as the knotted string quipu provide insight into the sophisticated world of the Incas. From about 1430, they rapidly established control over a vast territory that stretched from modern Colombia in the north, eastward into Bolivia and Argentina, to Chile in the south. The royal family was the Inca ruling elite, whose name was eventually given to the entire culture. They received goods and labour from the people, organised under
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a centralised system that exacted military service, work gangs for buildings and roads and taxes of food, textiles, ceramics and metalwork. Gold distribution belonged to the Inca, and the state religion undertook rituals and festivals. Central stores ensured against famine. Incan military power is realised in the finely woven camelid wool checkerboard tunic that seems to have served as an officer’s uniform. Archaeological sites such as Sipán and Chan Chan, Piura, Trujillo and Ferreñafe have their own museums based on recent scientific excavations, and these museums have generously lent some of their greatest treasures. Wonderful objects also come from the Larco, Oro and Amano museums in Lima, all founded by Peruvian archaeologists
and collectors, while the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Peru has agreed to send many of its masterpieces to Australia. The exhibition Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru is a unique opportunity for residents and visitors to Canberra to encounter a wealth of objects never before shown in this country, to explore the ideas and mythology of Andean civilisation, and to marvel at the sophistication of ancient Peruvian art.
Chimú culture (1100–1450) Nose ornament silver 8 x 1.3 x 12 cm Museo Larco, Lima
(opposite) Chavín culture (1500–200 BCE) Winged deity holding a severed head c 1000 BCE granite 50.5 x 42.3 x 12 cm Fundación Museo Amano, Lima
Christine Dixon Senior Curator, International Painting and Sculpture, and curator of the exhibition The book Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru is available at the NGA Shop for the special venue price of $39.95.
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Christmas tree 2008 from the series The Christmas tree bucket pigment print image 40 x 32 cm sheet 50 x 42 cm purchased 2013 © Trent Parke
A LL I WAN T FO R C H RIS TM AS the enquiring camera of Trent Parke The Christmas tree bucket: Trent Parke’s family album 20 December 2013 – 23 February 2014 | nga.gov.au/Photospace
In 2007, after fifteen years living in a small two‑bedroom unit in Sydney’s Kirribilli, virtually cut off from relatives, Trent Parke and his family moved to Adelaide, his wife Narelle Autio’s home town. Suddenly, Parke was surrounded by extended family, even staying with the in-laws for a period after relocating. Out of this encounter with the ‘suburban dream’ emerged his idea for assembling The Christmas tree bucket: Trent Parke’s family album 2006–08, a photographic series examining his experiences of family rituals in Adelaide as well as back in his home town of Newcastle—of special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries and everyday happenings and misadventures. The works are tied together by the recurring motif
of the most looked-forward-to, fun and in turn gruelling and awful event of year: the family Christmas get-together. In an art photography field largely dominated over the last thirty years by staged tableaux, Parke chooses to work in a documentary style—the real world his focus. In a profound and deep way the camera is his instrument for working out his place in this world. He photographs obsessively and ceaselessly—sometimes, he has recalled on one project, up to forty rolls of film a day. Although his single images have impact, his own interest is in building stories with his images, in exploring what meaning they have when they talk to each other in sequences, and in reaching unexpected conclusions.
Parke picked up his mother’s Pentax Spotmatic in his early teenage years and started recording his surroundings after her sudden death from an asthma attack. It became his way of finding a path back from a terrible tragedy. In a 2007 interview with Alasdair Foster, Parke reflected, ‘That was it. It was all over. It was a defining moment of my life that left me desperate to try and make sense of things’. After a brief stint as a professional cricketer, the need to take pictures reasserted itself and Parke built a successful career as a photojournalist from the early 1990s. He became increasingly known for his personal bodies of work, largely through self-published books such as Dream/life and beyond and, with Autio, The seventh wave.
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Among other achievements and industry prizes, Parke was, in 2003, the first Australian awarded the W Eugene Smith Memorial Fund’s Grant in Humanistic Photography. ‘It’s exciting to view the country through his eyes’ , commented the fund’s president. Parke has the distinction also of being the only Australian to have become a member of Magnum. Established by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others after the Second World War and owned and administered by its members, Magnum is one of the oldest photography agencies in the world, and arguably the most prestigious. Parke was made a full member in 2007 and commented soon after that it’s ‘an inspirational place to be’ ,
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where members ‘become lifelong friends … a kind of photographic family, I suppose’. Out of his preoccupations, Parke has developed a unique photographic language. In his high contrast black-and-white work, achieved through long exposures, the effects of light over time transform the ordinary into images infused with mythic and poetic sensibility. Given its role in his life and its exploratory nature, Parke’s photographic vision is not surprisingly one in which contradictions sit side by side. Minutes to midnight, a series made between 2003 and 2005, for instance, contains optimism for the future and reflections on moments of violence, cruelty and loss. The Christmas tree bucket images are also a reminder that the camera an
extremely effective tool in making the ordinary strange. Instead of disappearing like mist into the past, into memory, certain moments are preserved by the the camera. In the hands of an observant photographer overlooked moments, even non-moments, of everyday life are given weight and permanence—and how peculiar they are. Masterly use of light dominates this body of work; objects and people are isolated in this glorious light and made unforgettable. The photographs in The Christmas tree bucket are highly sophisticated and rich, successful in working on many levels, with nods back to the great urban recorders of the American dystopian vision such as Robert Frank,
Garry Winogrand and William Eggleston and recorders of shambolic family life such as Nick Waplington. Investigations into connectedness—of how we function in society, our obsessions and pastimes—is the recurring leitmotif of Parke’s oeuvre. These images encapsulate the highs and lows of belonging, of family life and its obligations, instilling in us an overwhelming sense of the ridiculous and absurd nature of human behaviour. While many are playful, Parke’s images nonetheless scratch away at the facade of the easygoing ‘Aussie way’ of life to reveal something about our inner social fabric, something that is undeniably endearing and funny but also at times dark and not to be celebrated.
His photographs hint at the appeal and attendant danger of living a life of stifling complacency. The Christmas tree bucket series cannot but endear itself to its audience by virtue of the fact that Parke has used the camera to dissect the chaotic high jinks of his own extended family. Parke has undoubtedly found a place he belongs; it is a place into which he brings his enquiring camera and his open-ended, thoughtful examination of what it might mean to live in this country at this time.
Bugs Laurie’s 70th birthday surprise 2006 Dash and doll 2008 Dash and Santa’s head 2008 1 am 2007 from the series The Christmas tree bucket pigment print each image 32 x 40 cm purchased 2013 © Trent Parke
Anne O’Hehir Curator, Photography
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PR I N CE S , P O R T R A I T S A N D PA N ORA MA S Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s 21 February – 22 June 2014 | nga.gov.au/GardenEast
Opening 21 February, Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s offers the chance to see images from the last century of colonial rule in the former Dutch East Indies. It includes over two hundred photographs, albums and illustrated books from the Gallery’s extensive collection of photographic art from our nearest Asian neighbour. Most of the daguerreotype images from the 1840s, the first decade of photography in Indonesia, are lost and can only be glimpsed in reproductions in books and magazines of the mid nineteenth century. It was not until the late 1850s that photographic images of Indonesia—famed
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origin of exotic spices much desired in the West—began circulating worldwide. British photographers Walter Woodbury and James Page, who arrived in Batavia (Jakarta) from Australia in 1857, established the first studio to disseminate large numbers of views of the country’s lush tropical landscapes and fruits, bustling port cities, indigenous people, exotic dancers, sultans and the then still poorly known Buddhist and Hindu‑Javanese antiquities of Central Java. The studios established in the 1870s tended to offer a similar inventory of products, mostly for the resident Europeans, tourists and international markets. The only Javanese photographer of note
was Kassian Céphas who began work for the Sultan in Yogyakarta in the early 1870s. In late life, Céphas was widely honoured for his record of Javanese antiquities and Kraton performances, and his full genius can be seen in Garden of the East. Most of the best known studios at the turn of the century, including those of Armenian O Kurkdjian and German CJ Kleingrothe, were owned and run by Europeans. Chinese-run studios appeared in the 1890s but concentrated on portraiture. Curiously, relatively few photographers in Indonesia were Dutch. From the 1890s onward, the largest studios increasingly served corporate
customers in documenting the massive scale of agribusiness, particularly in the golden economic years of the Indies in the early to mid twentieth century. From around 1900, a trend toward more picturesque views and sympathetic portrayals of indigenous people appeared. This was intimately linked to a government sponsored tourist bureau and to styles of pictorialist art photography that had just emerged as an international movement in Europe and America. As photographic studios passed from owner to owner, old images were given new life as souvenir prints sold at hotels and resorts and as reproductions in cruise-ship brochures.
Amateur camera clubs and pictorialist photography salons common in Western countries by the 1920s were slower to develop in Asia and largely date to the postwar era. Locals, however, took up elements of art photography. Professionals George Lewis and Thilly Weissenborn (the only woman known from the period) and amateurs Dr Gregor Krause and Arthur de Carvalho put their names on their prints and employed the moody effects and storytelling scenarios of pictorialist photography. Krause was one of the most influential photographers. He extensively published his 1912 Bali and Borneo images in magazines
Atelier O Kurkdjian Bromo eruption of December 1915 gelatin silver photograph 17.7 x 24 cm purchased 2007
(opposite) Gotthard Schuh Mother and child, Bali from Island of the gods 1941 gelatin silver photograph 60 x 49.7 cm purchased 2013
Kassian Céphas Young Javanese woman c 1885 albumen silver photograph 13.7 x 9.8 cm purchased 2013
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Thilly Weissenborn (attributed to) I Goesti Agoeng Bagoes Djelantik, Anakagoeng Agoeng Negara, Karang Asem 1931 gelatin silver photgraph 14 x 9.7 cm purchased 2006
and in two books in the 1920s and 1930s, inspiring interest in the indigenous life and landscape as well as the sensuous physical beauty of the Balinese people. Postwar artists and celebrities—including American André Roosevelt, who used smaller handheld cameras—flocked to the country to capture spontaneity and daily life around them, to affirm their view of Bali as a ‘last paradise’ , where art and life were one. In 1941, Gotthard Schuh published Inseln der Götter (Islands of the gods), the first modern large-format photo-essay on Indonesia. While romantic, the collage of images and text in Schuh’s book presented a vital image of the diverse islands, peoples and cultures that were to be united under the flag of the Republic of Indonesia in 1949. A particular feature of Garden of the East is a selection of family albums bound in distinctive Japanese or Batik patterned cloth boards as records of a colonial lifestyle (for the affluent) in the Indies. Hundreds of these once treasured narratives of now lost people ended up in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 1980s in estate sales of former Dutch colonial and Indo (mixed race) family members who had returned or immigrated after the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia. Through the National Gallery’s collection and exhibition program the rich heritage of images by poorly known, forgotten and unknown photographers in Indonesia comes to life for new audiences. Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography, and curator of the exhibition The book accompanying Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s–1940s will be available at the NGA Shop and selected bookstores nationally.
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A G I FT T O T H E NAT I ON Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 26 October 2013 – 19 January 2014 @ Art Gallery of Ballarat | nga.gov.au/Capital
Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 is a major touring exhibition celebrating the Federation of Australia and the centenary of Canberra. It debuted at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin and is touring six venues over the next two years as the National Gallery’s centenary gift to the nation. Curated by Director Ron Radford and former assistant curator Miriam Kelly, the exhibition highlights the richness of Australian Federation-era art with paintings by much-loved artists such as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Hans Heysen, Frederick McCubbin, Rupert Bunny and Ethel Carrick featured alongside the work of lesser-known artists such as Florence Fuller, Godfrey Rivers and Richard Hayley-Lever. The exhibition invites regional audiences on a journey from the Australian bush, captured in patriotic visions of sunlight and eucalypts, to the bohemian enclaves of London and Paris, where expatriate Australians painted sumptuous society portraits and explored
the light, landscapes and ancient streets so different to those at home. Major oil paintings that are hardly ever off display in Canberra are united with gems previously unknown to the public, some of which are on display for the first time, having been recently acquired, reframed or conserved specially for the exhibition. These paintings tell the story of the early years of a new nation—from the opening of the first Federal Parliament in 1901 to the foundation of our Federal capital in 1913, with the final work in the exhibition dating from 1914, when the shadow of the First World War fell across the exuberant new nation. Capital and country is generously supported by the Australian Government’s National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program and Visions of Australia and by the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund and ABC Local Radio. Bronwyn Campbell Project Officer, Travelling Exhibitions
Also touring this summer unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial Cairns Regional Gallery, Qld, until 5 January Bodywork: Australian jewellery 1970–2012 Glasshouse, NSW, until 2 February Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, SA, 28 February – 2 May
WC Piguenit Near Liverpool, New South Wales c 1908 oil on canvas 74.2 x 125 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired with assistance from the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2005
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The entrance hall of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, prominently featuring the specially commissioned, twelve-metre-long Mandjabu (Fishtrap) 2010. Photograph: John Gollings
STA N D I N G P R O U D sculptural highlights of the national art collection
It is sometimes hard to believe when navigating the long corridors of art at the National Gallery of Australia that it is one of the youngest national galleries in the world. Although a national gallery was an idea at the time of Federation, a collecting policy was not formalised until the Lindsay Report of 1966. The finished gallery opened to the public in 1982, after little more than a decade of serious collecting. Now, in 2013, the collection is the largest in Australia, with around 170 000 works of art from around the world. On the eve of releasing Collection highlights, an insightful and beautifully designed new souvenir book featuring over three hundred of the premier works in the collection, we consider some of our great sculptural works.
Not often can you walk into the midst of a work of art, yet one of the Gallery’s destination works is The Aboriginal Memorial 1987–88, which greets us on arrival at the main entrance. It is both a great creative undertaking by Indigenous Australian artists and a political statement. Specially created in response to the then pending Bicentenary of 1988, the two hundred poles were created by forty‑three Ramingining artists to stand as a memorial to Aboriginal people who died defending their land. Visitors are able to walk on the ‘water’ of the installation’s abstracted Glyde River. The work is set within its own space, specially constructed to address the growing saplings in the southern gardens beyond the glass of
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the Gallery. The poles are bathed in controlled natural light, echoing the place of their creation. The indigenous art of Australia’s close Pacific neighbours from Melanesia and Polynesia begins as one transits into the original building. The Gallery’s holdings of Maori art is small but of high quality. It includes the richly carved canoe-prow figure of the Maori warrior Te Rauparaha from around 1835 and a figure from a housepost from the early nineteenth century. Both sculptures, while small in stature, have the chilling stare of powerful cultural figures, their richly carved surfaces as well as full-face tattoos (moko) indicate their spiritual force as warriors ready to fight for the pride of their people.
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The much larger collection from Papua New Guinea contains masterpieces of Pacific art. The highlight and most significant work from the Papua New Guinea collection is The Ambum stone, the Gallery’s oldest and one of its most remarkable objects, carved more than 3500 years ago. Another is the striking nineteenth-century Double figure from Lake Sentani on the north coast of what is now known as West Papua. Dredged from the lake in 1929, this minimal, carved wooden sculpture would have sat at the top of a ceremonial house support and suggests the eternal relationship between man and woman. The sculpture was praised in Paris by the Surrealists, who gave it the personal
name of ‘The lily’ , and it was the inspiration of some of their work. A highlight among the Gallery’s renowned European and American collection is Amedeo Modigliani’s masterpiece Standing nude c 1912. Although best known as a painter, Modigliani began his practice as a sculptor. Standing nude is his largest surviving sculpture and, sadly, quite fragile. Modigliani’s love of the elongated female form is evident in this work, with clear overtones of African masks infusing the Modernist circles of breast and stomach. It was through meeting Constantin Brancusi in Paris that Modigliani decided to devote himself to sculpture. The Gallery is fortunate to hold Brancusi’s sublime pair of ‘Birds in space’ sculptures from 1931–36,
which are among our greatest treasures. Originally commissioned by the Maharaja of Indore for installation in his proposed Temple of Meditation (a project that was never realised), these exquisite black and white marble forms now soar on their artist‑designed sandstone bases within a tranquil pool in our dedicated Sculpture Gallery, evoking the very idea of flight. Other artists represented in this space demonstrate the creative possibilities of sculpture. Louise Bourgeois’s pink painted ‘army’ of wooden legs, enigmatically titled C.O.Y.O.T.E. 1941–48, is Bourgeois’s childhood memory of watching her parents’ legs from under the kitchen table as they prepared a meal. The impossibly large pages of Anselm Kiefer’s lead book
The secret life of plants 2002 show paintings of Flanders poppies, with their connotations of war and loss, and inscriptions of astronomical numbers and constellations of stars reminiscent of the six-digit numbers tattooed on the inmates of German concentration camps. The tang of the spicy medicinal herbs Thai artist Montien Boonma used in his towering Temple of the mind: sala for the mind 1995 are still present in the air surrounding the work. And Cy Twombly’s enigmatic ‘victory’ sculpture, made from bronze but patinated in grey-green, suggests a mythic headless marble figure with its marks of hand-modelling reflected in Donald Judd’s perfect, machine-made bronze cubes nearby.
Antony Gormley Angel of the North (life-size maquette) 1996 cast iron 196.5 x 535 x 53 cm gift of James and Jacqui Erskine, 2009 © Antony Gormley
(opposite) Sentani artist Khabitorou village, West Papua Double figure 19th century wood 177.2 x 49.5 x 19.1 cm purchased 1974
Amedeo Modigliani Standing nude c 1912 limestone 162.8 x 33.2 x 29.6 cm purchased 1976
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Indian sculpture is often appreciated for its sensuality, and the most voluptuous example in the collection is perhaps the twelfth-century Celestial maiden from Rajasthan. Unusual for an art museum is our collection of remarkable animist sculptures, objects and textiles from Southeast Asia, including the glorious Ancestral horse with two riders from the Indonesian island of Flores. Two riders straddled on their enormous horse are exquisitely carved—the hand of the female figure is lightly placed on the male’s shoulder as they reach into another dimension. One of the most important and rarest of the Gallery’s treasures is the sixth-century Indonesian female figure known as The bronze weaver, with a mother
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suckling her child as she weaves a textile on a foot‑braced loom (an early example of female multi‑tasking). The Gallery has always collected Australian art as a national priority. The combined Australian collection of works from all periods, all states and territories and in all media is the largest and most balanced. Much admired is Benjamin Law’s 1836 bust of Trucaninny, once considered the last Tasmanian Aboriginal person. Born on Bruny Island, Trucaninny lived at a destructive time of Indigenous and settler overlap in colonial Tasmania. She saw her mother killed by a white settler and her future husband murdered by sealers, and she witnessed brutalities
and forced captivity inflicted against her people. The bust captures what Law saw firsthand: a determined woman, world‑weary yet imbued with cultural pride. Around her neck is a wonderful set of carefully defined shell necklaces, which instantly bring to mind Dulcie Greeno’s contemporary maireener shell necklaces in our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries and the rich Indigenous traditions of Tasmanian Aboriginal people that live on in the present. Ideas of loss, memorial and hope can also be found in Kathy Temin’s Tombstone garden 2012, a contemporary installation that invites us to touch (although we mustn’t). Temin’s preoccupation with sites of loss and memory is inflected with
aspects of her own history as a descendant of Jewish immigrants. Her soil-free garden of hand‑sewn white fluffy ‘plants’ growing from white ‘tombstones’ is a kind of reclamation of the past as well as a suggestion of hope for the future. Temin’s contemporary Patricia Piccinini was once a Canberra local. In her double figure The stags 2008, two Vesper motorbikes have come to life and morphed into slug‑like duelling male deer with beautifully crafted mirrors for antlers. Questioning the place of the natural and organic in an increasingly technical and mechanised world has been one Piccinini’s trademarks, something she once attributed to growing up in Australia’s pre‑planned capital city of Canberra.
The Australian native trees and shrubs now in the flush of maturity in the Gallery’s specially commissioned Sculpture Garden were planted in the early 1980s to form innovative ‘rooms’ designed to show seasonal changes. Clement Meadmore’s monumental, eight‑tonne, rust‑red Virginia 1970 appears lightly to rest. The work’s single massive form, created from a thick brand of steel known as Corten, has seemingly been twisted with an effortlessness so that its ends float above the ground in defiance of gravity. British artist Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North (life-size maquette) 1996 stands silhouetted with arms outstretched against the sky. The sculpture is positioned at the end of a long path that begins with
Nagé people Flores, Indonesia Ancestral horse with two riders (ja heda or jara heda) 19th century or earlier wood 120 x 320 x 50 cm purchased 2010
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A view to the National Gallery’s entrance with George Baldessin’s Pear—version number 2 1973 and Gloria Fletcher Thanakupi’s Eran 2010 in the centre and Neil Dawson’s Diamonds 2002 hanging above the bridge to the left. Photograph: John Gollings
Benjamin Law Trucaninny, wife of Woureddy 1836 cast plaster, paint 66 x 42.5 x 25.7 cm purchased 1981
Auguste Rodin’s groundbreaking human bronzes. This is Gormley’s human-scale maquette of his colossal twenty-metre‑high Gateshead project conceived as a national emblem for the coal and steel industries of Northern England. No delicate gossamer wings here. Created in cast iron, the angel’s wings are based on the fixed wing of the modern aircraft and the figure is at once human, mythic, industrial and organic. Bert Flugelman’s highly reflective polished stainless steel Cones has assumed an iconic presence since its placement in 1982. Reflecting everything in its purview, the work has become an interactive visual delight over the years as a favourite backdrop for photographs taken to commemorate a special occasion or
to record a visit to the Gallery with family and friends. With the new wing and southern garden added in 2010, the Gallery was able to display other famous landmark sculptures such as George Baldessin’s whimsical Pear—version number 2 1973 in which a group of seven pears are seemingly locked in intense conversation. The nearby almost‑three-metre spherical Eran 2010 by the late Indigenous artist Gloria Fletcher Thanakupi was specially commissioned for the outdoor space at the Gallery’s grand new entrance. The work refers to key rivers in the Weipa region, and images of kangaroos, birds and lizards infuse its surface with rhythm and life‑force. Eran is made from aluminium
that comes from the bauxite-rich sands of Thanakupi’s traditional Country in far north Queensland. In keeping with the circular forms of the memorial poles and Eran, the viewing oculus of James Turrell’s monumental skyspace Within without 2010 evokes the sensory memory of both Mayan temple and Asian stupa. In many ways, this walk‑in‑and-sit-down contemplative work of art encapsulates centuries of human creative endeavour, yet is intentionally designed to empower viewers by placing them in the ‘box seat’ to enjoy the changing skies above Australia’s national capital. Simon Elliott Assistant Director (Curatorial and Educational Services)
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Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford Gija/Kija people Medicine pocket 2005 natural earth pigments on canvas 122 x 125 cm gift of Frances Kofod and Peter Seidel, executors of the estate of Paddy Bedford, 2012 © estate of Paddy Bedford
The new Qantas 737 proudly featuring a design based on Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford’s Medicine pocket 2005.
BED F ORD TA KE S F L I G HT Paddy Bedford, also known traditionally as Nyunkuny, is a Gija artist from the east Kimberley region of Western Australia. An elder, senior lawman and stockman, Bedford worked at the Bedford Downs station, which he was named after. He began painting on canvas and board in 1998 for the newly formed, community-owned Jirrawun Arts and had a lifetime of connection to his Country and the knowledge of his people’s history. Many of Bedford’s works are abstract and topographical and reveal the intimate knowledge of his Country and those areas that are important to his people. Bedford also depicts significant events such
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as massacres and stories associated with the Emu, Turkey and Cockatoo Dreamings. The work Medicine pocket 2005, generously gifted to the Gallery by Frances Kofod and Peter Seidel in 2012, depicts part of Mendoowoorrji, Bedford’s mother’s Country. This Country lies to the south of Mount King, between a waterhole called Thoonbi on the upper reaches of the Ord River and Thoowoonggoonarr in the south. It was an important camping area before the arrival of Europeans, as there is permanent living water there that never dries up. In late November, Qantas launched a new 737 plane painted with Medicine pocket.
The plane recognises Bedford’s important role to his Gija people and the people of the Kimberley and as a major contemporary Australian artist. It was commissioned in 2012. This exciting project has been produced by The Jumbana Group, trading as Balarinji, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia and Qantas. The project proudly presents to the world the positive and ongoing national and international presence and influence of Indigenous Australian artists such as Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford. Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
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AR T A N D AL Z H E I M E R’S
Les and Arthur stood in the queue waiting for the Gallery to open. They spotted me in the foyer and waved. Kevin, Tim and Gerard chatted near the taxi that had just dropped them off, while Peter, a carer from Alzheimer’s ACT, finalised arrangements for their pick up. I watched from inside the Gallery as five men ranging in age from 43 to 89 were talking, smiling, acting normally. Les, Arthur, Kevin, Tim and Gerard all live with a diagnosis of dementia, and they come to the Gallery every fortnight for a discussion-based tour of works of art. The Gallery’s Art and Alzheimer’s tours are about encouraging discussion of a work of art based on looking or observation. The educator provides information and facts about the work in response to comments made—a different approach to most tours. A free-flowing discussion where individuals connect with each other and the facilitator by engaging with a work of art promotes communication and brain activity. The evaluation of the Gallery’s pilot program in 2007 by clinical psychologist
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Dr Mike Bird from the NSW Greater Southern Area Health Service supported this outcome and noted that participants recorded that they felt intelligent again. In August, I discussed American artist Robert Ryman’s painting Arena 1977 with my regular group. Arena appears to be a blank canvas; it is in fact a large square of linen painted white. Over the course of twenty minutes, scepticism among the group was replaced by a grudging admiration and enjoyment of the playful and challenging nature of a painting in which there is ostensibly nothing to see. Gerard made the point that although he forgets many things, the works of art he discusses at the Gallery somehow imprint themselves on his mind. More recently, Greg Semu’s photograph Auto-portrait with twelve disciples 2010 and Eric Wilson’s The artist’s mother 1937 have provided the focus for in-depth analysis and interpretation of each artist’s intention, stimulating the group to say that being challenged and extended is what they like about their visits to the Gallery.
But, it is not only the participants who benefit. As an educator, it is intensely engaging to be part of the process of looking, to respond to the discussion that develops and to witness the feelings of well being generated over the course of the tour. In 2010, an Art and Alzheimer’s outreach training workshop was developed, and this initiative has been largely responsible for the proliferation of Australian art museum programs providing social inclusion and intellectual stimulation for people living with dementia. Over twelve galleries in four states now deliver tours like the Gallery’s, and Australia has also become an important contributor to the international development of gallery programs for this audience. As a representative of the National Gallery of Australia, I recently contributed to a workshop on advanced engagement at the 2013 Practice and Progress: the MoMA Alzheimer’s Project Exchange seminar in New York. Over sixty people from around the world were present at the two-day art and dementia seminar. Rarely have
I attended a conference where I have had so much to discuss. It was immensely stimulating to experience such a strong connection to so many colleagues working in diverse ways toward the same goals. The ten days in New York was spent immersed in art programs designed for people living with dementia. The Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art all have established programs. I was invited to observe a training workshop for carers at the Met, introducing both professional and personal carers to the ways in which works of art can communicate and engage their relatives and clients. I also attended an art-making workshop at Lennox Hill community centre, an outreach program for people unable to visit the Whitney. Another opportunity to present the Gallery’s work in this field was in a joint paper given at the 20th IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics in Seoul in June 2013. The conference, which is held every four years, presents
the latest research in healthy ageing to over 4000 delegates. Yoko Hayashi, founding Director of Arts Alive at Shobi University, Meryl Schwartz and Laurel Humble from Meet Me at MoMA and I presented an international comparison of visual arts–based programs developed for people living with dementia. Despite much of the audience for the conference having strong medical backgrounds, the paper was well attended and well received. Connections were also made with researchers in the field, which is an exciting prospect for the ongoing development of non‑pharmacological programs connecting art and people living with dementia. A touring exhibition is currently being developed to support existing art and dementia programs at regional venues and to seed the development of new initiatives. This exhibition, featuring key works of art from the Gallery’s Australian art collection, will travel across Australia from mid 2014 to 2016.
Art and Alzheimer’s participant David makes an observation about Donald Judd’s Untitled 1974 as the group arrives to discuss works of art in the Sculture Gallery, 4 October 2013. Art and Alzheimer’s participants discuss Robert Klippel’s No 757 painted wood construction 1988–89. Julie contributes her thoughts on the Klippel.
Adriane Boag Program Coordinator, Learning and Access
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Cook’s voyages plates and published engravings
At a time when little was known about the Pacific Ocean, British naval captain James Cook undertook to explore it in three voyages between 1768 and 1779. Earlier Medieval and Renaissance maps portrayed strange creatures living in uncharted southern seas. Some believed in the existence of a far-flung Arcadia, rich in trade goods and mineral wealth. Seventeenth-century maps drawn by the Dutch without the benefit of circumnavigation depicted the east coast of New Holland stretching infinitely into the wilds of the Tasman Sea. The Oceanic region may have been present in the European imagination but it was Cook who helped to place it into the Western realm of actuality. Cook’s accounts of his three voyages were first published by London firm 36 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION
W Strahan and T Cadell. Printed between 1773 and 1784, the volumes featured an exquisite series of engravings made after work produced by artists who accompanied Cook on his voyages, including Sydney Parkinson, William Hodges and John Webber. The National Gallery of Australia has recently acquired an exceptional set of Cook’s voyages, assembled in the late eighteenth century by astute collector Charles Hoare. Hoare was part of the affluent banking family whose Palladian mansion, Stourhead, is now overseen by the British National Trust. The set appears to have been sold in the 1880s, when Hoare’s descendants faced financial difficulty. Spanning nine volumes bound in Russia leather and embellished with
gilt anchors and rosettes, the jewel of the set is an atlas volume in which Hoare compiled scarce and unpublished supplementary images in addition to engravings removed from the original published set. A sophisticated example of ‘extra collecting’ , Hoare’s preference for studies and trial proofs entailed that the volume is not only a pictorial account of Cook’s voyages but also an art historical document that details the production of images. The set abounds with art of exceptional rarity. An examination of plates from the second voyage reveals eighteen trial engravings from the sought-after ‘Admiralty’ issue, which was presented to influential naval officials in advance of the official account.
A mezzotint engraving of the New Zealand poa bird is one of few known examples in the world. Made by British printmaker Robert Laurie, it was used to demonstrate early advances in colour printing to the Royal Society in 1776. An exquisite proof of Omai, a native of Ulaiete 1774 is among the grandest statements of Cook voyage art. Standing in a pose of elegant contrapposto, Omai is fine-featured, his countenance composed and assured. He is the embodiment of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’ and, unlike later portrayals of Pacific Islanders, is the subject of reverence rather than parody or fear. The death of Cook 1785, an engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi after John Webber, is the most famous of all eighteenth-century
attempts to portray the tragic fray between Cook’s party and the natives of Hawaii. The engraving captures the frenzied final moments of Cook’s life as a mass of figures battle on the shores of Kealakekua Bay. A great cloud of gunpowder deflects attention from the moment in which Cook ultimately meets his death, the explicit details of which were the cause of sustained speculation in eighteenth-century Britain. A magnificent acquisition, this set of Cook’s voyages will lend insight into numerous exploration-era works of art in the Gallery’s collection, many of which were influenced by these seminal engravings. Elspeth Pitt Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings
Nathaniel Dance (print after) Francesco Bartolozzi (engraver) Omai, a native of Ulaiete 1774 etching, engraving and stipple-engraving, printed in black ink from one plate printed image 21.3 x 35.4 cm purchased 2013
Robert Laurie The poa c 1776 mezzotint, printed in colour inks a la poupée from one plate; touched with varnish printed image 31 x 22 cm purchased 2013
(opposite) John Webber (print after) Francesco Bartolozzi (engraver) William Byrne (engraver) The death of Captain Cook 1785 etching and engraving, printed in black ink from one plate printed image 25.4 x 37.9 cm purchased 2013
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George W Lambert La blanchisseuse c 1901, oil on canvas, 147.3 x 160.6 cm, purchased with assistance from the Ruth Robertson Bequest Fund in memory of Robert and Elizabeth Dennis, 2013
La blanchisseuse is one of George W Lambert’s most significant paintings from his time in Paris during 1901–02. It captures a moment in the Lamberts’ daily life in Paris. The models for the painting were Lambert’s wife, Amy, and baby son, Maurice, with their landlady posing as a washerwoman (la blanchisseuse). Maurice was born in Paris on 25 June 1901 and would have been about three months old. The painting presents two different realms of women: the mother and the working woman with her load of washing. Lambert was interested in the decorative placement of the figures and in the harmonious balance of tone and
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colour—a unity of effect. He was also concerned with painting various tones of white against white: the ‘washerwoman’ is wearing a black-and-white check skirt; the baby, in a white frock, is playing on a white sheet; and a white bundle of laundry, white hat box and vase of white flowers sit on the table covered by white drapery. The whites, nonetheless, are full of colour, with pinks, blues, yellows and greens added to them. Given the title, La blanchisseuse, which translates literally as ‘the bleacher’ , Lambert was likely emphasising his interest in painting white on white. Lambert was one of Australia’s most capable portrait painters, war artists and
sculptors of the early twentieth century, with considerable finesse and wit. He exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 1904 to 1930, and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1922. A retrospective of his work was organised by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, in 2007. This large and impressive painting is an important addition to the Gallery’s Lambert collection, and we are grateful to the Ruth Robertson Bequest, which has enabled us to acquire it. Anne Gray Head of Australian Art
Stella Bowen Provencal conversation 1936, oil on canvas, 63.7 x 72.3 cm, gift of Mary Alice Pelham Thorman, 2013, niece of the artist, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 100 Works for 100 Years
‘Stella was the most courageous, vital and harmonious personality that I have known … Her death is a waste, for she had so much to live for and such a genius for living’ , wrote Keith Hancock to Stella Bowen’s daughter at the time of the artist’s death in 1947. An Australian expatriate artist, Bowen was a remarkable woman with a passion for both art and life who sought her own form of visual expression in her portraits. Provencal conversation is one of Bowen’s most engaging works and is from a period at Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France, where, as she notes in her memoir Drawn from life, she set up her ‘easel for six weeks of blissful uninterrupted work’.
The painting depicts her friends, London journalist Ruth Harris (the dark-haired woman) and fellow artist Tusnelda (the red-haired woman), and possibly Tusnelda’s partner, Sandy. It encapsulates elements that were important to Bowen: friendship, warmth, and conversation. She described the scene: ‘I found Ruth in a little squarewalled garden, overhanging a cemetery that lay deep in the valley below. There were four orange trees under whose interlacing boughs was set an oval table with yellow cloth. A goldfish pond was fringed with pot-plants and pink bath-house in the corner contained a shower, a basin, a lizard and two spiders … It belonged to Sandy and Tusnelda’.
Drusilla Modjeska suggested in Stravinsky’s lunch that Provencal conversation ‘more than any other of the late 1930s paintings that we know of captures the flavour of intimacy and conversation,’ and ‘it is a patterning of male and female … Like a dance. Or a conversation. Right now these are the chairs they inhabit, but the pattern will rearrange. One or other will stand and move, the table will be left empty, or rejoined’. The Gallery is immensely grateful to the artist’s niece Mary Alice Pelham Thorman AO for gifting this painting for all to enjoy and share. Anne Gray Head of Australian Art
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Papunya early boards and barks
Seven early works from the Papunya movement were acquired earlier this year, including five paintings on board and the first and only two Papunya shields to enter the national art collection—one by Uta Uta Tjangala and another by Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri. Two of the boards that were acquired are fine representatives of the exceptional quality and strong cultural connections Papunya artists have to their Country. Travelling Water Dreaming with lightning 1971 by Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, an emerging artist at the time, displays the artist’s detailed knowledge of the major Water Dreaming site of Kalipinypa in his Country. The black lines that swirl and strike across the board, the singular white dots spotted throughout the work and the finer white dots outlining the black lines all combine to show the creative power and energy that the lightening Ancestor Winpa uses to create storms. The subtle green background also hints at the resurgence of vegetation after these big rains, turning the deep red lands shades of green. Corroboree and body decoration 1972 is an example of Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa’s early work revealing the ceremonial body and corroboree designs of his Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte peoples. The work depicts a torso with multiple red lines running along the neckline, chest, arms and sides, down toward the legs. The intricacies of the white lines, with their repetitive geometric ceremonial designs, further accentuate the major body design, with the black underlay representing the body. Combined, the elements of this stunning work create an energised, mesmerising effect of movement. With these newly acquired works, the National Gallery of Australia now holds eighty-one works by artists from the remote Papunya community in the Northern Territory, including seventy-nine paintings on board and two painted shields. In 1971, school teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged the men at Papunya to paint their cultural designs and stories, which resulted in
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Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula Pintupi and Luritja peoples Travelling Water Dreaming with lightning 1971 natural earth pigments and Boncrete on composition board 83 x 38 cm purchased 2013 © the artist represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte peoples Corroboree and body decoration 1972 natural earth pigments and Boncrete on composition board 41 x 20 cm purchased 2013 © the estate of the artist represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency
the significant Honey Ant mural being painted on the local school wall that year. The Papunya Tula Artists Company was formed in late 1972 and is, to this day, solely owned and directed by the artists of the community. The first Papunya work acquired by the Gallery was Old Mick Tjakamarra’s 1973 work Honey Ant Dreaming. It was purchased in 1980, less than a decade after Papunya was recognised by the Western world as the first Aboriginal art movement—despite the designs, associated stories and ceremonies being practised by the community for thousands of years. Tjakamarra was a custodian of the Honey Ant Dreaming and, with others from the community, he had contributed to the mural of 1971. The second of the Gallery’s Papunya boards was not acquired until nine years later, in 1989. The work was David Corby Tjapaltjarri’s Budgerigar Dreaming, which was also painted around 1973. This acquisition was quickly followed by another seven in the same year and later by another twenty-one works in 1993. Then, in 1998, a significant collection of forty-one works were acquired as part of the Peter Fannin collection of early Western Desert paintings, adding greatly to the Gallery’s growing collection of Papunya works. Since then, numerous works from the movement have been acquired and today the Gallery’s significant Papunya collection, acquired over the past thirty-three years, shows the commitment to acquiring and showcasing the best of the works by these senior male artists of Australia’s first Aboriginal art movement. Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
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Horace Trenerry Road, Aldinga Hill c 1940, oil on board, 40 x 54 cm, purchased with assistance from the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, 2013
Horace Trennery is regarded as one of South Australia’s finest Modernist artists. While he is relatively well known in his home state of South Australia, he deserves to be much more widely recognised. As a young artist, Trenerry was inspired by Elioth Gruner, whom he befriended on a brief visit to Sydney, and by fellow South Australian Hans Heysen. In June 1924, Trenerry was hailed in the local press as South Australia’s ‘most promising artist’. While his early work was popular, his vision and distinctive visual language emerged following a visit to the Flinders Ranges in 1930. Trenerry’s move toward a more Modernist approach burgeoned in the 1930s. Another South Australian artist,
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Kathleen Sauerbier, who had experienced English and French Post-Impressionism and Modernism firsthand on her travels, introduced Trenerry to the Port Willunga and Aldinga area on the Fleurieu Peninsula, where he moved to around late 1934. It became his favourite place to paint, his spiritual artistic home. It was where he painted many of his most memorable works, including Road, Aldinga Hill. In Road, Aldinga Hill, Trenerry positions the viewer looking down a hill and back up the road in the centre. He flattens the form of the road, tilting it up. The feeling of moving down and up is created by the fence posts at the side of the road and by the sketchy lines drawn with a brush. The precise placement of a red-orange
roof at the top of the hill draws our eyes upwards. In the distance, the ranges are depicted in a narrow band—the horizontal counterpoint to the vertical road— stretching across the top of the painting, beyond the frame. We are very grateful to members of the ‘Canberra Collective’ of the National Gallery’s Foundation for their generous support of this acquisition, one of the most significant works by Trenerry to become available in recent years. Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920
Hossein Valamanesh Lotus vault 2011, lotus leaves on paper on plywood, 210 x 527 cm, purchased with assistance from Susan Armitage, 2012. © Hossein Valamanesh
Tehran-born, Adelaide-based artist Hossein Valamanesh’s Lotus vault builds on his persistent interest in shared spaces and cultural connections. The large, contemporary work was inspired by the vaulted ceilings in the remarkable twelfth-century Jameh mosque in Isfahan, Iran, which Valamanesh visited while travelling with his wife and son. In a 2012 statement for Adelaide’s Greenaway Art Gallery, the artist recalled that, on looking up at the ceilings, he was first struck by the resonance between the fine geometry he saw and the patterning used by some Indigenous Australian artists in their work. Valamanesh has long been influenced by Indigenous Australian art. He revealed in an interview with Ian North in 2011 that, having travelled to communities in the Central and Western deserts soon after emigrating in 1973 and witnessing artists painting at Papunya, he was impressed by the ‘simplicity of the method used for
such remarkable achievement’. Valamanesh adopted the style and motifs of dot painting—having sought permission from the artists—to render Conference of the birds 1974, which is based on the poem of the same name by famous twelfth-century Iranian poet Farid al-Din Attar. This was the first painting Valamanesh made in Australia and was an early marker for the ongoing alliance in his work between his own Persian heritage and Indigenous Australian art and culture. Over five meters in length, Lotus vault is composed of meticulously hand-cut, dried lotus leaves collaged onto paper. This use of lotus leaves extends Valamanesh’s investigation into the aesthetic and evocative qualities of the natural world. Significantly, the lotus plant has species native to both Iran and Australia, paralleling the aesthetic connections that Valamanesh perceived at the mosque. In the work, impeccably assembled concentric lines
create an illusory effect of depth and grandeur in space. The dimensional suggestion of architectural space coexists with a suggestion of an aerial perspective, recalling the fine, lineal abstractions of land made by Aboriginal artists in the desert regions. In this way, Valamanesh refers concurrently to the religious architecture of Islam and the Indigenous Australian concept of sacred topography. Lotus vault subtly takes up strands of influence and inspiration, eloquently signalling points of connection between seemingly disparate cultures, gently dissolving boundaries of difference. This is a major work by Valamanesh and was purchased thanks to the generosity of Susan Armitage, who has assisted the Gallery in acquiring numerous contemporary South Australian works of art over the years. Jacqueline Chlanda Assistant Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture
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Peter Booth Man seated on a fence 2012, oil on canvas, 213.5 x 91 cm, purchased 2013. © Peter Booth
In a conversation with Peter Booth, he remarked on how silently snow falls. In his painting Man seated on a fence, the man is perched high up. Holding on. Watching. This man on the fence is no snowflake. He is awkward, heavy, pensive. He is naked and doesn’t have the requisite number of toes. He is the outsider. Of course, the man on the fence will never fall because, apart from being held captive in the painting, he is a metaphor, a personage on the stage of life. Yet, he is much more than a figment of imagination. Like so much of Booth’s art, this ambivalent, watching man is wrought from experience that stretches back in time to his childhood and a much broader awareness that comes from being witness to the vicissitudes of human behaviour over half a century and more on this earth. Born in 1940, Booth grew up in the British industrial town of Sheffield in the Second World War. It was a tough start for a young boy to see great poverty and hardship. To experience firsthand the devastating bombing by the Germans of the place you call home would inevitably leave an indelible impression. Hearing about such memories of the past as well as a return visit to Sheffield in more recent times is to conjure bleakness. In his recent works, an eerie stillness emerges out of brilliant reds, black and white and now, more than ever, grey—sooty asphalt-grey like the fence in this painting. Booth’s mature work has ranged across abstraction, apocalyptic figuration and, in more recent times, white, snow-covered landscapes such as Untitled 1999 in the national art collection Man seated on a fence complements this earlier work, revealing that Booth remains one of our greatest contemporary artists, capable of conveying on a vast and intimate scale the precariousness of human existence with which we can all, at times, identify. Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920
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Karnataka India Sambhava, the third Jina 12th century, bronze, lost-wax casting, 48.3 x 13 x 13 cm, purchased 2013
Sambhava (Sambhavanatha) is the third of the twenty-four Jinas, or Tirthankaras (ford makers), revered in the Jain faith of India. Jainism emphasises non-violence, asceticism and truth. Rather than gods, Jinas are humans who have achieved enlightenment and show others the path to liberation through correct spiritual behaviour. The individual attributes of the Jinas are often described in texts; however, representations are created according to long-established iconographic conventions and rarely display identifying marks. This remarkable sculpture of Sambhava is a rare exception. While it features the prescribed youthful body, long arms, delicate limbs and hair that turns to the right in tight curls common to Jinas, the figure’s elegant double-lotus base is inscribed with a small horse, the known emblem or cognisance of Sambhava. Prayers offered to Sambhava, who is characterised as golden-skinned, are believed to increase happiness. Sambhava stands in meditation in an austere pose representing the abandonment of the body (kayotsarga). His neck is dramatically marked by a series of concentric circles, an ancient Indian symbol of a great being. Keeping with Jain tradition, Sambhava, who lived in the mythical past, was born into royalty and renounced his princely life for spiritual fulfilment and service to others. His elongated earlobes allude to his earlier privileged life in which his rich jewellery would have included heavy earrings. Entirely unclothed, the sculpture may have been cast as a focus of faith for the Digambara, or ‘sky clad’ , sect of Jainism, the leaders of which discard all possessions, including clothing. This fine image of Sambhava is the first Jain bronze to be acquired by the Gallery and significantly enriches the Gallery’s small but important collection of Jain art. Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art
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Edgar Degas Grand arabesque, 3rd position 1880s, cast 1926, bronze, 40.3 x 55.5 x 33.5 cm, Tony Gilbert Bequest Fund, 2013, 100 Works for 100 Years
Edgar Degas’s signature theme is the ballet: forty of the seventy-four sculptures modelled by him in the 1880s and 1890s are dancers. These figures are much admired for their naturalism and range of poses, and Grand arabesque, 3rd position is considered one of the most lively and graceful of them all. The dancer leans forward, with arms outstretched and her leg extended upwards. The artist captures the final, extreme third position—a moment of balance, the peak of tension between ‘submission to gravity’ and escape from it. Degas used his sculptures as models for his drawings, in preparation for his pastels and paintings and to supplement his studio sessions with a life model. His figures are often compared with Eadweard Muybridge’s stop‑action photographs of animal and human movement; indeed, the photographs may even have provided inspiration. Degas’s approach to sculpture, and the physical practicalities of sculpting, was quixotic, as his friend Albert Bartholomé wrote despairingly: That devil of a man wants to sculpt but does not want to apply himself to the necessities of sculpture. In order to make a sculpture solid, it must rest on a rational substructure, without which there will come a time where everything will fall apart. I cannot drum this into his head. If an arm is off balance and it risks falling off, he puts a match-stick there!
The artist’s own comments are equivocal, questioning the need to ‘fix’ his sculpture in time and revealing ambivalence about posterity. Although he exhibited only one three-dimensional work in his lifetime,
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Degas did have three of his wax sculptures cast in plaster between 1900 and 1903. The majority, however, remained unknown until after his death when his heirs authorised the production of a series of bronzes. Casting began in 1919—the first compete sets were exhibited in Paris 1921 and New York in 1922—and continued to 1937, with more than 1700 bronzes produced. This exquisite dancer was cast using a brass, copper and tin alloy, with a warm red and brown patina applied. It was produced under the direction of Parisian founder Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard in 1926 and issued in the ‘K’ series. Grand arabesque, 3rd position makes manifest Auguste Renoir’s claim that Degas was the ‘greatest living sculptor’. Grand arabesque, 3rd position was acquired with funds from the generous bequest of Tony Gilbert AM. He is best known for his philanthropic support of the Bell Shakespeare Company. The family wealth— originally from the automobile trade, a car dealership and bus lines—was applied to shrewd investments. Gilbert developed a taste for antiques, books and fine art. In 1998, he gave the National Gallery a Rodin bronze from his collection; the sculpture is a study for the figure of Eustache de Saint Pierre for the Burghers of Calais. The choice of a Degas dancer, then, seems a fitting tribute for a benefactor with interests in European sculpture and connections to the theatre. Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture
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Turner from the Tate 1 Deborah Crook and Susan Hunt enjoy a members high tea with Wedgwood’s fine china, 10 August
Turner from the Tate Family Room 2 Proud mother Courtney with budding builder Suryia, 13 September 3 Felix reads to his audience 4 Flecher and Juliet Saulet discover the iPad
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Canberra Collective dinner
Australia at the Royal Academy
Toyshop
5 Neil Hobbs and Karina Harris, 14 August
9 Ray Wilson and Bruce James at the Wallace Collection dinner, 18 September
12 Children enjoy the board game activity in the exhibition, 3 October
7 Diane and Dr Ray Cook
10 Rupert Myer and Andrew Todd at the Wallace Collection dinner
Bequest Circle lunch
Artist talk
13 A father and his child make music in the Toyshop family fun-time event at the Gallery, 3 October
8 Jim Gray, John Hindmarsh, Elizabeth Gray and Rick Smyth, 13 August
11 Peter Kennedy speaks about his 1997–98 work A language of the dead, 24 September
6 Ron Walker, Ron Radford, Pamela Walker, Kristian Pithie and Emma Larking
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News from the Foundation
Trip of a lifetime
The generosity of the Gallery’s Honorary Exhibition Circle Patrons
Sixty committed patrons of the visual arts travelled to London in September to participate in a week of events surrounding the opening of Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts. Activities included events hosted by the Australian High Commissioner the Hon Mike Rann, behind-the-scenes tours and dinners at the Royal Academy, a dinner at the magnificent Wallace Collection, day trips to Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Ashmolean in Oxford, private tours of galleries and very special visits to private homes and studios.
enabled this extraordinary art event to take place, and we were
London was abuzz with all things Australian. The exhibition was advertised on giant banners across Piccadilly and on billboards at tube stations. Floods of people were visiting the Royal Academy to see the great landscape art of our country.
Federation landscape A golden hour c 1905.
It was particularly inspiring to see that so many outstanding and important works in the exhibition had been acquired with the support of many generous donors from across Australia, whether that be through large and magnanimous cash donations and gifts of works of art or the collective impact of campaigns such as the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund and Members Acquisition Fund.
Honorary Exhibition Circle Patrons, Gallery and Foundation members and other guests at the stunning Wallace Collection in London, 18 September 2013.
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delighted by the enthusiastic participation of Gallery and Foundation members who joined us on this trip of a lifetime.
Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2013 This was the most successful campaign to date and the Director hosted a thankyou event for all donors in November. Guests were invited to a talk and private viewing of Florence Fuller’s luminous
Bequest Circle The Gallery is delighted to welcome Arthur and Debra Eady as new Bequest Circle members. You can contact Liz Wilson for more on this unique program: (02) 6240 6469 or liz.wilson@nga.gov.au. 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.
Creative partnerships
The gold standard With the launch of Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru just around the corner, the Gallery would like to show its appreciation to the corporate partners that have helped make this exhibition possible. The Gallery is once again pleased to have the support of the ACT Government through ACT Tourism and the Australian Government through the International Exhibitions Insurance Program. The exhibition showcases the splendour of the ancient pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru and is the Gallery’s final major exhibition for Canberra’s centenary celebrations in 2013. Principal Partners providing generous support are National Australia Bank and Nine Network. Major Partners include Qantas Airways, Qantas Freight, Canberra Airport, the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibition Fund and the Yulgilbar Foundation. The Yulgilbar Foundation also proudly supports the family activity room, as they have done for major exhibitions in the past. The Gallery is also excited to announce PromPeru as a new Major Partner. PromPeru is offering ticket buyers the chance to
win a prize package for a person and their guest to travel to Peru, homeland of the many stunning objects on show in Gold and the Incas. For more information on the PromPeru prize package, visit nga.gov.au/Incas. The Gallery is also working with our Media Partners—Fairfax through The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Win TV and JCDecaux—to increase the marketing reach of this thrilling exhibition. Look out for the promotions the Gallery is running with its Media Partners throughout the course of the exhibition. Beverage Partners Coopers and Moët Hennessy Australia are once again teaming up to support the festivities and Sculpture Bar during the exhibition, and Accommodation Partner Novotel Canberra and Signage Partner Flash Photobition continue their support of the Gallery’s major exhibitions. 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 or Claire Carmichael, +61 2 6240 6740 or claire.carmichael@nga.gov.au
Moche culture (100–800) Nose ornament, gold and turquoise, Museo Larco, Lima
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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
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State and territory governments
WIN Television The Yulgibar Foundation
Queensland Government, through the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA), Arts Queensland
Donations
Corporate partners ABC Radio ACT Government, through Australian Capital Tourism ActewAGL Aerial Capital Group Aesop The Age AGIEI The Brassey of Canberra Canberra Airport Canberra Hire Cars The Canberra Times Chimu Clayton Utz Coopers Brewery Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Eckersley’s Art & Craft Flash Photobition Forrest Hotel and Apartments JCDecaux Maddocks Lawyers Moët Hennessy Australia Molonglo Group National Australia Bank National Gallery of Australia Council Education Fund Nine Network Australia Novotel Canberra Palace Cinemas PricewaterhouseCoopers PromPeru Qantas Airways Qantas Freight Scenic Tours The Sydney Morning Herald Waterford Wedgwood Wesfarmers
Includes donations received from 20 July to 18 October 2013 Donna Bush
Gifts of works of art Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists Canberra Airport Maureen Chan in memory of her father Charles Chan Dr Liz Coats Peter Hack Bruce Heiser Petr Herel Jonathon Jones John McPhee Jeffery Mincham and Lexie Mincham Penelope Seidler AM Alex Selennitsch Gabrielle Watt Janet Wilson
100 Works for 100 Years Antoinette Albert Robert Cadona The Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer Colin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh The Keys family Tony Lewis and Helen Lewis Dr David Pfanner and Dr Ruth Pfanner Jane Smyth and Dr Rick Smyth
25th Anniversary Gift Program Roslyn Packer AO
National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund Warwick Hemsley
Honorary Exhibition Circle Patrons The Aranday Foundation James Erskine and Jacqui Erskine
John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh The Myer Foundation Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer Roslyn Packer AO Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell The Parncutt Family Foundation John Schaeffer AO and Bettina Dalton
National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board Publishing Fund Philip Bacon AM Sandy Benjamin OAM Robyn Burke Terrence Campbell AO and Christine Campbell Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards Allan Myers AO, QC Ezekiel Solomon AM
Members Acquisition Fund 2012–13 Pat Harvey and Frank Harvey Katrina Higgins Clare Humphreys Valerie Kirk Liz Lynch and Mike Lynch
Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14 Dr Colin Adrian and Lorraine Adrian Robert Allmark and Alison Allmark Margaret Anderson Prof Jan Anderson Leonie Andrews and Stephen Lee Leonie Armour Isabelle Arnaud Cornelia Bachor Brett Backhouse Dr Lynne May Badger Ruth Baird Christopher Baker and Kerri Hall Lesley Baker Janet Bamford Lesley D Barker
Maurice Beatton and Kay Beatton Maria Bendall Prof Martin Bennett Virginia Berger Sheila Bignell Noel Birchall Philip Boorman and Majorie Boorman Ruth Bourke Ivor Gordon Bowden Mary E Brennan John Bruce and Barbara Bruce Tony Buckingham Jill Burke Alex Cairns and Robyn Cairns John Caldwell and Judith Caldwell Rear Admiral David Campbell Yvonne Campbell Julie Carroll Alan Cassel Helen Cassimatis and Sophia Cassimatis Carmen Castelo Maureen Chan Christine Clark Vikki Clingan Kerry-Anne Cousins Kay Cox and Neil Cox Barbara Crawford Georgia Croker Corinna Cullen Debra Cunningham Wilma Davidson John Davison-Mowle and Diana Davison-Mowle JW de Burgh Persse Bette Debenham Dr Moreen Dee Patricia Degens Barbara J Develin in memory of Jane Jennings Lauraine Diggins Judith Dixon Neil Donoghoe Vernon J Drew Alice Engel Mary Falconer and Prof Ian Falconer Emeritus Professor Norm Feather Mary Rose Fraser Ron Fraser and Sue Fraser Helen Ann Fyfe Bronwyn Gahan Prof Joseph Gani Neilma Gantner Vyonne Geneve OAM Joan George William Gibbs and Geraldine Gibbs
Dr Peter Gibson and Jenny Gibson Lindsey Gilbert and David Gilbert Sylvia Glanville Mary Gleeson Moya Ann Gnezdiloff and Robert George Gnezdiloff Lyn Gorman Gillian Gould and Hugh Smith Dr Elizabeth Grant AM and Allen Grant Lynnere Gray Alpha Gregory and Gordon Gregory Malcolm Hanratty and Maureen Hanratty Karina Harris and Neil Hobbs John Harrison and Danielle Kluth John Hawkins Bruce Hayes Peter Henderson and Heather Henderson Richard Higgins Dr Marian Hill Anthony Hill and Maureen Hill Gordon Hill and Pamela Hill Margaret Hone CN Howard and LM Howard Patricia Howard Krystina Hoylland John Hyndes and Danielle Hyndes OAM Helen Jackson Dr Victoria Jennings Dr Joseph Johnson CSC, AAM, and Madeleine Johnson Judy Johnson Brian Jones Susan Jones WG Keighley David Kennemore Christine B King Colin Kirkwood Joan Kitchin Betty Irene Konta Gerry Kruger and Ted Kruger Dian Langley Thomas Leffers and Corrie Leffers Dr Frederick Lilley and Penelope Lilley Don Limn Gaye Lindfield Pamela Linstead and Peter Linstead Margaret J Mashford Noel Mason and Susanna Mason Robyn Mason Sally-Anne Mason Graeme Henry Mayo and Jill Diane Mayo
Patricia McCullough Wilma GB McKeown Selma McLaren Betty Meehan Jennifer Millen and Clive Millen Prof Elizabeth Minchin and Tony Minchin Bevan Mitchell Jean Moran Dr John Morris Margaret Morrow Heather Nash in memory of Bill Nash Karen Nastvogel and Reiner Nastvogel Barbara Noden and Victor Noden Christopher Norwood OAM and Gweneth Norwood Patricia Ruth Nossal Kathleen Y Nowik Jan O’Connor Mike Ogden PSM Barbara Oom Ingrid Osborne Milton Osborne Anabel Parbury David Pfanner and Ruth Pfanner Caroline Phillips Richard L Price Tony Purnell and Kaye Purnell Wendy Quilter Heather Quinnell Lyn Re and Tony Re Ardyne Reid Eric Reid Helene Rey Peter R Richards Dallas Richardson M Riley and B Riley Dr James Ross and Heather Ross Riddi Hanna Schelling Annette Searle Roma Grace Sinclair Mike Slee and Judy Slee Dallas Smith and Robin Smith Jennifer Smith Spectrum Consultancy Andrew Spilva and Vivian Spilva Carolyn Spittle and Murray Spittle Sydney Stewart Elinor Swan Lady Synnot The Taylor-Cannon family Sue Telford and Richard Telford E Thomas Jason Thomas Ann Thompson Alison Thomson and Lincoln Smith
Sylvia Tracey Janice C Tynan Rosemary von Behrens Brenton Warren Hilary Warren Alexandra Wedutenko and Don Williams Norman Wheatley and Joyce Wheatley Helen White Janelle White Helen Williams Wayne Williams Julia Wilson Lynette Wilson Ellen M Woodward Richard Wootton and Prudence Wootton Mike Wright and Robyn Wright Robert Z King Giovanna Zeroni
Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2013 Jeanne Arthur Suzanne J Baker-Dekker Wendy Brackstone and Harry Brackstone Billie Burke OAM Patricia Clarke Wendy Cobcroft Henry Dalrymple Nanette Danks Helen Forbes Douglas Dr Adam Graycar and Elizabeth Percival Yvonne Harrington Annette Hearne and Ron Middleton Elizabeth Hewson Major General Michael Jeffery AC, AO (Mil), CVO, MC (Retd), and Marlena Jeffery Arthur Kenyon and Helen Kenyon Ingrid Mitchell Ross Monk and Beth Monk Dr Lyn Riddett Prof Ken Taylor AM and Maggie Taylor Helen Tuite Barbara White and Brian White
South Australian Contemporary Art Fund Macquarie Group Foundation Susan Armitage
Treasure a Textile Maxine Rochester
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Members news
Trip to London A group of Gallery and Foundation members enjoyed a busy but exciting trip to London for the opening of the exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts in late September. Many of the events for this exclusive trip were organised especially for members of the Gallery and its Foundation and would not have been possible through travel agencies or private bookings. The events included beautiful and dramatic dinners at the Wallace Collection and the hallowed hall of the Royal Academy Schools, talks and private viewings, a visit to Antony Gormley’s studio with a fascinating talk by the artist, cocktail parties and lunches.
With more than two hundred extraordinary objects on display, it is the most significant survey exhibition of Peruvian art ever staged in Australia. Don’t forget to take advantage of your membership benefits when you visit. You receive discounts on exhibition tickets and in the Gallery shops and cafes as well as the exclusive Members Lounge.
Lichtenstein
A golden summer
If you are at the Gallery or in Canberra in December of January, remember to have a look through Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix. The exhibition traces Pop art icon Roy Lichtenstein’s print projects from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring how he appropriated, transformed and remixed numerous art historical sources. It is well worth allowing some extra time during your visit. The exhibition closes on 27 January 2014.
As summer is upon us, our attention turns to Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru. A host of events are planned for the coming months, so members can engage with the drama and beauty of the famous Inca Empire and, importantly, its lesser-known predecessors.
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.
Honorary Exhibition Circle Patrons, Gallery and Foundation members and guests on a tour at the Dulwich Picture Gallery with Chief Curator Dr Xavier Bray, 19 September 2013.
The spectacular dinner at the Wallace Collection, 18 September 2013.
This one-off experience is sure to be remembered and treasured by all participants for many years to come.
54 ARTONVIEW
K I D S NGA
What’s in store this Christmas
We share our land with
birds Animals can sometimes be spirits too. Ngak Ngak, a sea eagle, is an important spirit that protects the land. In this painting of birds, what other animal can you see?
Ginger Riley Munduwalawala Mara people Ngak Ngak, sea eagle 1988 synthetic polymer paint on canvas purchased with funds from the Moet and Chandon Australian Art Foundation, 1991 Reproduced courtesy of the estate of the artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Our land A book of ten 16-piece jigsaw puzzles featuring the art of Indigenous Australians and the lessons we might learn from them.
Peter and the wolf This classic Russian folktale is boldly re-envisioned with the art of Russian-born Danila Vassilieff, ‘father of Australian modernism’.
Raining cats and dogs Sure to appeal to animal lovers of all ages, this charming and imaginative book playfully pairs art with onomatopoeia and graphics.
All titles available at the NGA Shop and selected bookstores nationally Raining cats and dogs $14.95 | Peter and the wolf $24.95 | Our land $24.95
56 ARTONVIEW
The Chinese Art Book ‘Genuinely engages with the art of China past and present’ The Guardian An authoritative overview of Chinese art from the earliest dynasties to the new generation of contemporary artists 3,000 years of Chinese art in 300 works; from paintings, calligraphy, ceramics and bronzes, to contemporary installations, photography and performance art Available in the gallery shop $ 69.95 AUS / € 49.95 EUR / £ 39.95 UK / $ 59.95
www.phaidon.com/chineseartbook
australia’s great bark artists
The National Museum of Australia holds the largest collection of bark paintings in the world. Don’t miss the chance to see 122 specially selected barks on display in this stunning exhibition, which celebrates the genius of Australia’s master bark artists.
ONLY ON SHOW AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA, 6 DECEMBER 2013–20 JULY 2014 Purchase your tickets online at nma.gov.au/oldmasters
Free general entry. Open 9 am – 5 pm daily (closed Christmas Day). Acton Peninsula, Canberra. Freecall 1800 026 132 nma.gov.au The National Museum of Australia is an Australian Government Agency. Image: Yirawala, Totemic Crocodile, 1965, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Art collection, National Museum of Australia. ©The artist or the artist’s estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency 2013. The image must not be reproduced in any form without permission.
MAPPING OUR WORLD Terra Incognita To Australia
UNTIL 10 M A R C H 2014 Only at the National Library of Australia, Canberra PRINCIPAL PARTNER
GOVERNMENT PARTNERS
AIRLINE PARTNERS
MAJOR PARTNERS
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program
International Exhibitions Insurance Program
BOOKINGS
EXHIBITION GALLERY FREE DAILY FROM 10 AM nla.gov.au/exhibitions ESSENTIAL Fra Mauro (c. 1390–1459), Map of the World (detail) 1448–1453, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. The loan of the Fra Mauro Map of the World has been generously supported by Kerry Stokes AC, Noel Dan AM and Adrienne Dan, Nigel Peck AM and Patricia Peck, Douglas and Belinda Snedden and the Embassy of Italy in Canberra.
PANO RAM A
13-03772
GUILLERMO DEL TORO ‘Art is like sex’
ROSAMUND PIKE
At the world’s end
JK ROWLING Staying anonymous
PA NO RA MA
Join Archibald prize winner Wendy Sharpe on a journey to South Georgia and Antarctica
age t s for a new space Star S St Why young women are
To kick start the centenary celebrations of Shackleton’s Epic Adventure, Wendy will be joined by her equally talented partner, artist Bernard Ollis and television presenter/producer Andrew Denton as special guests on this exclusive voyage.
taking in the lead in sci fi
TRUE LIVES
Festival of docos
ROADSIDE TRIBUTE
Tim Winton’s latest play
FINALLY SATISFIED
Marianne Faithfu ll opens up
Visiting the highlights from Shackleton’s Adventure, this expedition will raise funds for the Mawson’s Huts Foundation.
Wendy and Bernard will host an exhibition of their work from the voyage at home in Sydney 2014.
Lo L ov o viin v n ng g na nattu u urrre e The T h W Wa rhous Wat Wate rhou house h u e iiss hhere ree
PAN OR AM A
Departs: Ushuaia 24 February 2014 Duration: 16 Days Cost: from USD 8,990*
LLOYD JONES
Memory in Christchurch
PRINCESS DIANA
The cult continues
BLANCHE D’ALPUGET
History and intrigue
g Awakenines the sens A show that fuses
www.chimuadventures.com Email: australia@chimuadventures.com Phone: 1300 678 909
*cost valid at the time of print and is subject to availability. Lic 2TA5968
dance and music
August 31, 2013
Panorama Magazine, every Saturday |
Unfurling by Andrew Rogers
WORLD CLASS ART
*Conditions apply. Discount doesn’t apply at Eckersley’s online store.
AUSTRALIAN AIRPORT OF THE YEAR 2013
BUTTERFLY BLOOM wEdgwOOd.cOM.aU
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
Hotel Hotel A place for people people •
hotel-hotel. com.au
Hotel Hotel NewActon Nishi, 25 Edinburgh Ave Canberra
For reservation or conferencing enquiries, please call 02 6287 6287 or email — hello@hotel-hotel.com.au
SPEND YOUR SUMMER IN STYLE WITH THE SEASON’S BEST NEW RELEASES AT PALACE ELECTRIC CINEMA
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NewActon Nishi | 2 Phillip Law Street Canberra ACT 2601 | 1300 620 809 www.palacecinemas.com.au
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Experience ‘Gold and the Incas’ at the National Gallery of Australia, only showing in Canberra. This must-see event is the first exhibition of Peruvian art ever staged in Australia. See the splendour of the ancient cultures of Peru and experience the drama and beauty of the famous Incan empire and its predecessors.
SICÁN-LAMBAYEQUE culture. North coast 750–1375 AD. Tumi [Sacrifical knife] gold, silver, chrysocolla, turquiose, lapis lazuli, spondylus; 27.5 x 10.3 cm. Museo Oro del Perú, Lima © Photograph Daniel Giannoni
CaNberra oNLy. 6 deCember 2013 - 21 aPrIL 2014
enjoy a cultural getaway and experience the lost worlds at novotel canberra from $195* Enjoy overnight accommodation in a standard room, buffet breakfast for two people in One Restaurant and two untimed tickets to ‘Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru’ at the National Gallery of Australia. Novotel Canberra - Proud supporter of ‘Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru’ 65 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra. Tel. 02 6245 5000 | novotelcanberra.com.au *Subject to availability from 6 December 2013 to 21 April 2014 inclusive. Blackout dates may apply. Rate based on accommodation in a standard room with buffet breakfast for a maximum of 2 adults and 2 children under 16 who are sharing with their parents or grandparents and utilising existing bedding. Includes 2 x general untimed admission tickets per stay to the ‘Gold and the Incas’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. Bookings must be prepaid at time of booking and are non transferable and non refundable. For 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
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. Grand tour of Italy April 1-18, 2014. From $6,500 pp Featuring a private Sistine Chapel viewing, this tour visits Sorrento, Rome, Umbria, Florence and Venice. Florence and the Italian Renaissance
May 11-24, 2014. From $5,490 pp Enjoy our popular two-week ‘residential’ tour to Florence including walking tours, museum and gallery visits complemented by excursions to important sites in Tuscany.
Switzerland to Rome
June 2-18, 2014. From $6,950 pp A relaxed journey through varied and dramatic landscapes following the Via Francigena from the Swiss Alps and the Apennines to the hills of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany.
Lakes and Villas of Northern Italy September 4-20, 2014. From $7,890 pp Travel from Lake Como across to the Veneto, with autumn colours, Palladio’s villas and fine dining. Sicily and the Aeolian Islands
October 10-26, 2014. From $6,950 pp Enjoy superb scenery and 3,000 years of history and art, from the Greeks to the Baroque.
tailored small group Journeys › Expert tour leaders › Maximum 20 in a group › Carefully planned itineraries
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.
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
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Visit nabprivatewealth.com.au Paul Baker Private Client Director T: +61 (2) 6246 0847 M: +61 (0) 418 227 459 E: paul.a.baker@nab.com.au
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Alex Sloan Adam Shirley Greg Bayliss Graham Williams Melanie Tait Ross Solly
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C•A•N•B•E•R•R•A
SICÁN-LAMBAYEQUE culture North coast 750–1375 AD Tumi [Sacrifical knife] (detail) gold, silver, chrysocolla, turquiose, lapis lazuli, spondylus; 27.5 x 10.3 cm Museo Oro del Perú, Lima © Photograph Daniel Giannoni
NATIONAL GALLERY ACCOMMODATION PACKAGE Package Includes: • Overnight accommodation in Heritage room for two adult guests. • Two untimed adult tickets to the exhibition. • Full buffet breakfast for two adults, daily. • Complimentary bottle of bubbly. • Free parking and daily newspaper. • Walking distance to the National Gallery of Australia.
The Brassey of Canberra Belmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600 Phone: 02 6273 3766 Email: info@brassey.net.au
TOLL FREE TELEPHONE BOOKINGS 1800 659 191 WWW.BRASSEY.NET.AU
Canberran Owned and Operated ABN 40 096 349 094 • All other rates on application • Subject to availablility
CANBERRA’S ONLY HERITAGE BOU T IQUE HO T E L (ES T. 192 7 )
call for entries
important aboriginal and oceanic art • march 2013
important australian and international art • april 2013
left: Lin Onus Fish, Barmah Forest, c1994 SOLD • March 2013 for $294,000 (including buyer’s premium)
for appraisals please contact: melbourne • 03 9865 6333 sydney • 02 9287 0600
right: Bridget riLey oFF, 1963 SOLD • August 2013 for $984,000 (including buyer’s premium)
info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com
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
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
SUMMER 2013 | 76
SUMMER 2013 | 76
6 DECEM B E R 2 0 1 3 T O 2 1 AP R I L 2 0 1 4 BOOK NOW PRINCIPAL PARTNERS
or 1300 795 012 PRESENTING PARTNERS
ACCOMMODATION PARTNER
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GOLD AND THE INCAS | LICHTENSTEIN | COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS Sicán-Lambayeque culture (750–1375) Tumi (Sacrificial knife) gold, silver, chrysocolla, turquoise, lapis lazuli, spondylus, Museo Oro del Perú, Lima