Artonview 96 by National Gallery of Australia

National Gallery of Australia

PLS NOTE EXTEND IMAGE ON PAGE 1 to INSIDE FRONT COVER

Immerse yourself in a world of

Discover the NGA’s summer blockbuster

Love and Desire, 14 December 2018 to 28 April 2019 through the unique insights, inspiring events and exclusive benefits of your NGA membership, including:

Free entry during opening weekend, 15–16 December (online registration required) Access to special events such as Director’s dinner, 22 February and Love and Desire high tea, 24 March Discounted tickets and express exhibition entry Exclusive accommodation rates at Doma Hotels All year access to our exclusive Members Lounge 10% off at the NGA shop and cafe Quarterly Artonview magazine Reciprocal benefits at state galleries and institutions

Find out more at nga.gov.au/members

John Everett Millais Ophelia 1851–52, oil on canvas. Tate, presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894 © Tate

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Renowned design duo Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett of Romance Was Born have designed a luxurious, one-off silk chiffon scarf to celebrate the Love and Desire exhibition. Featuring a modern and covetable print that embodies the attitude of the rebellious Pre-Raphaelite artists, theÂ scarf is a unique and wearable piece of art. Available only in a limited-edition box together with the beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue at theÂ National Gallery of Australia for $550.

A STUNNING, EXCLUSIVE GIFT IN LIMITED RELEASE OF 50 2

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

CONTENTS 5

Editor Eric Meredith Guest contributors Anne Virgo OAM, Director, Australian Print Workshop Contributors Rebecca Blake, Curatorial Assistant, Australian Painting and Sculpture Crispin Howarth, Curator, Paciﬁc Art Ella Morrison, Assistant Curator, Kenneth Tyler Collection, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books Lara Nicholls, Curator, 19th-Century Australian Art Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax, Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings Anne O’Hehir, Curator, Photography Lucina Ward, Senior Curator, International Painting and Sculpture Advertising enquiries ArtonviewAdvertising@nga.gov.au

IN BRIEF

EXHIBITION LISTING

CURRENT MAJOR EXHIBITION LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITE MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE Lucina Ward illuminates one of Britain’s ﬁrst avant-garde art movements, the subject of the National Gallery’s summer exhibition Love and Desire

MEMBERS ACQUISITION FUND DANIE MELLOR’S LANDSTORY Rebecca Blake discusses the subject of this year’s Members Acquisition Fund, Danie Mellor’s Landstory, a monumental nine-panel work inspired by Sidney Nolan’s Riverbend

Enquiries artonview.editor@nga.gov.au

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS SKY/EARTH Lara Nicholls reﬂects on a new Australian art display that draws on the collection to explore how artists examine our place in the world

nga.gov.au/artonview © National Galley of Australia 2018 PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia +61 (0)2 6240 6411 | nga.gov.au

DIRECTOR’S WORD Nick Mitzevich

CALIFORNIA COOL Ella Morrison takes a close look at Ed Ruscha’s 1967 lithograph 1984 in the National Gallery’s exhibition California Cool

PERFORMING DRAWING Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax reﬂects on the creation of walking breathing drawing, a wall-drawing by Antonia Aitken

Published quarterly. Copyright of works of art is held by the artists or their estates. Every effort has been made to identify copyright holders but omissions may occur. Views expressed by writers are not necessarily those of the NGA. Artonview may contain names and images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Crispin Howarth examines a new display of works from Rapa Nui, including two rare examples generously on loan for the display

COLLECTION DISPLAY BARKCLOTH OF ORO PROVINCE Crispin Howarth introduces a new display of bark cloth from Papua New Guinea’s Oro Province

ISSN 1323-4552 ISSN 2208-6218 (Online)

COLLECTION DISPLAY AND LOANS RAPA NUI FIGURES

NGA PLAY SALLY SMART Anne O’Hehir spoke to Australian artist Sally Smart in the lead-up to the opening of her new project for NGA Play

Printed by Adams Print, on FSC certiﬁed paper using vegetable-based inks, FSC-C110099

PARTNERSHIP AUSTRALIAN PRINT WORKSHOP Anne Virgo OAM highlights a collaboration between the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian Print Workshop

52 Cover: John William Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott 1888 (detail), oil on canvas. Tate, presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894. © Tate

NEW ACQUISITIONS Christian Thompson, TS Glaister, Howard Taylor, Joyce Hinterding, Richard Larter

SPONSORSHIP AND DONATIONS

DIRECTOR’S WORD I’m pleased to say our recent exhibition American Masters was a

which has just opened with the exhibition Bodies of Art: Human Form

resounding success, enthralling many visitors in the short time it was on

from the National Collection, and the much-anticipated Yayoi Kusama

display, and showing the depth of our postwar American art collection,

infinity room, also now installed.

one of the largest outside the United States—thanks largely to the vision

Our current exhibitions Performing Drawing, Power and

of our inaugural director James Mollison AO. It was great to see our most

Imagination, California Cool: Art in Los Angeles, 1960s–70s and Sky/

well-known masterpieces on display with some that are rarely shown due

Earth will continue into the New Year, as will Sally Smart’s NGA Play.

to the limited space in our collection galleries. This was an opportunity

Smart’s installation, which explores our extraordinary collection of

for people to experience more of this important part of the collection.

Ballets Russes costumes, will be the last of our NGA Play experiences

Now that the exhibition has finished, these important works will once

before that area is repurposed. We will be creating a dedicated children’s

again return to our international galleries.

gallery and, in a first for the National Gallery, a creative learning centre

We are now only weeks away until Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite

dedicated to exploring and making art in all its forms. We have Tim

Masterpieces from the Tate introduces our audiences to Britain’s first

Fairfax AC to thank for his passion and philanthropy in the Gallery’s role

distinctly modern art movement. Radical and organised, the Pre-

as educator.

Raphaelite Brotherhood broke the shackles of the Royal Academy and

Come March, we will be installing Urs Fischer’s monumental candle

the long-established rules of painting in search of a more progressive

sculpture Francesco 2017 in the foyer. Captured in red paraffin wax and

and contemporary style. Although at first shocking, these artists soon

standing four-metres tall, the Italian art curator Francesco Bonami,

became much admired and highly influential. Part of this success came from pioneering commercially successful ventures such as selling the copyright to their work so that it could be widely disseminated in print and charging admission to single-work exhibitions that toured the English-speaking world. Never before has a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition of this scale and calibre been seen in Australia. We are very grateful to the Tate for parting with many of its highly visited works of art—in particular, two of Britain’s most loved paintings, Ophelia 1851–52 and The Lady of Shalott 1888—so that we can share them with the people of Australia. This continues the strong relationship between our two institutions, which I hope will extend long into the future. The forty-odd works on loan from the Tate are joined by an equal number of works from other British and Australian collections, including our own. Lucina Ward delves further into the beginnings and innovations of the Pre-Raphaelites on pages 12–21. We recently announced our exhibition program for 2019, which includes two major international exhibitions, one in winter and another in summer. The first, Monet: Impression Sunrise is an exhibition of the great Impressionist master Claude Monet’s world-famous paintings from the Musée Marmottan Monet, which holds the largest Monet collection in the world, including his extraordinary Impression, sunrise 1872, which makes its long awaited debut not just in Australia but in the southern hemisphere. The exhibition also includes key paintings by JMW Turner, whose early works inspired Monet, along with other artists who found a voice in Impressionism. The second blockbuster will explore the relationship between two of art history’s greatest rivals in art, the Spanish Pablo Picasso and the

looking down at his smartphone in a pose emblematic of our era, will gradually melt, giving visitors the opportunity to see its intriguing metamorphosis over time. Māori Markings: Tā Moko opens on 23 March and explores the demise and rebirth of the Māori facial moko, which is deeply rooted in Māori culture and identity. The exhibition traces the history of the practice of tā moko, from Māori sculptural figures to some of the earliest European records of moko, including illustrations created on Captain Cook’s first voyages, and paintings by the likes of CF Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer, which are treasured by many families in Aotearoa New Zealand. The dimension and depth of our 2019 program is very exciting and can be discovered at a glance on our website. I am particularly looking forward to reimagining our Australian art hang, which will explore the diverse nature of Australia’s visual histories, identity and cultural landscape. Although the extent of this major project will not be revealed until December 2019, there is much in between to satisfy any visitor to the Gallery. And, of course, Artonview will also reveal insights into our exhibitions and the experiences to be had and shared at the National Gallery of Australia and through our travelling exhibitions program throughout the year. Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to our Members Acquisition Fund 2018–19 (pages 22–5), which aims to secure Danie Mellor’s captivating nine-panel masterwork Landstory 2018 for the national art collection. With your help, we can bring this breathtaking and deeply affecting work, which takes inspiration from Sidney Nolan’s Riverbend 1964–65, into the national collection and celebrate the best of contemporary Australian art. Nick Mitzevich

French Henri Matisse, who was inspired by Monet and the work of the Impressionists to radicalise his approach with colour. Matisse/Picasso will include major works from public and private collections around the world. The 2019 program also includes a reimagined sculpture gallery,

Opposite: Danie Mellor (Mamu & Ngadjon peoples) Landstory 2018 (detail). See pages 22–5

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

IN BRIEF Bodies of Art: Human Form from the National Collection The human figure is one of the most enduring subjects of art. Throughout time, gods, spirits and deities have been rendered in human form, with figures used for sacred, spiritual and religious worship and ceremonies. Representations of the body have changed as social conditions and artistic expressions evolve. Spanning art making across hundreds of years, this new display invites viewers to consider what it means to be human. Artists use mythology and allegory to address ideals of beauty or to explore notions of the inner workings of the body. Nineteenth-century sculptors such as Paul Montford and Bertram MacKennal capture the female form in bronze. Artists like Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud challenge ideal representations by abstracting and distorting elements of the body to explore psychological expression. Annette Messager takes us on a journey inside the body, while Ron Mueck’s monumental, hyperrealist sculpture Pregnant woman 2002 shows the origin of human life. By exploring contrasting figures together in one space, this display reflects both the significance of the human body as a subject for art and reveals its range of uses over time.

Māori Markings: Tā Moko 23 March to 25 August Tā moko is the unique Māori art of marking the skin with patterns that connect, patterns that tell of prestige, authority and identity. To receive and to wear moko is a great cultural privilege. From 23 March to 25 August, a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Māori Markings: Tā Moko, will explore this tradition, from its origin in the legend of Mataora and Niwareka and the earliest European records of the practice to its contemporary resurgence from the 1990s. Important early Māori sculpture, nineteenth-century prints, paintings and photography and contemporary photography will trace the story of this unique cultural art form. The portraits in the exhibition span the past two hundred and fifty years and include images of men and women influential in Māori history. Visitors will have the chance to discover some of the first illustrations of Māori people, made during Captain Cook’s voyages. Pictures of chiefs who travelled the world in the early nineteenth century, such as Hongi Hika, will also be among the treasures on display, as will portraits of signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi and of those who openly defied the colonial government during New Zealand’s land wars of the mid nineteenth century. Importantly, Māori Markings: Tā Moko will also draw a line between the art of tā moko and common tattoos. Societal perceptions From top: Rosemary Madigan Torso 1948, sandstone. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1976; Charles F Goldie Reverie, Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi) 1916, oil on canvas. Denis Saville Collection, Sydney

IN BRIEF

today have conflated the two, yet, as Rangi Mclean, the first university student to graduate with a moko, recently said, ‘The tā moko is not a tattoo, to us, in terms of being Māori it is a taonga, a treasure’.

A new destination work With summer now here, visitors to the National Gallery have the

Although the polka dot has particular significance for Kusama—

opportunity to encounter one of Yayoi Kusama’s renowned infinity

‘Polka dots are a way to infinity’, she has said—another of her most

rooms, The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens 2015,

beloved motifs is the pumpkin. This is due to its endearing yet grotesque

acquired for the national collection earlier this year through the generous

form and swift growth as well as her memories of growing up in her

support of donors Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett. The Gwinnetts have

family’s seed nursery. The pumpkin motif has evolved and expanded

been dedicated in their effort to support the National Gallery’s Japan

throughout her work, and, in The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended

Art Fund so that an acquisition of this magnitude could be acquired for

into the Heavens, it proliferates in a total environment at a rapid

Australia’s national art collection. Without their patronage, it would not

pace—a world of endless reflection, both physically and conceptually.

have been possible to realise this ambition. This work will be a perpetual reminder of their generosity. Kusama is now in her eighty-eighth year and has a career spanning six decades. She is among the world’s most influential artists and has played a crucial role in the development of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She has established an instantly recognisable signature aesthetic with her abundant use of polka dots

Below: Yayoi Kusama The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens 2015, mixed-media installation. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2018 with the support of Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett. © Yayoi Kusama. Installation view at National Gallery Singapore, 2017

and is particularly known for her ‘infinity rooms’, which she has developed over the past fifty years. These rooms are immersive, multi-reflective installations that emphasise the body’s phenomenological encounter with space.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Ophelia After Hours: Enter Ophelia 26 to 28 April Described by one critic as ‘Purely magical to watch!’, Essential Theatre

Rossetti’s wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian animals 2 February 2.00 pm

and Three Birds Theatre’s production Enter Ophelia is a black comedy

One of the more curious members of the group that clustered around the

exploring femininity, isolation and silliness. And you can see this

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s pet wombat

reimagining of Shakespeare’s drowned damsel at the Gallery from

named ‘Top’. Before Top joined Rossetti in his Chelsea mansion, the

26 to 28 April as part of our Ophelia After Hours program.

Pre-Raphaelites had shown considerable interest in wombats, including

Director John Kachoyan has expressed his delight at the

them in both permanent and temporary form in the decorative scheme

National Gallery presenting Enter Ophelia at the Gallery. He

for the Oxford Union and in drawings and cartoons–even including one

says, ‘Enter Ophelia was born out of the imagery and icons that

in a mural at William Morris’s Red House.

have been built up around Shakespeare’s neglected heroine over

Dr John Simon, historian, writer and author of Rossetti’s wombat:

time. The Pre-Raphaelites and their circle played with and used

Pre-Raphaelites and Australian animals in Victorian London will

these images in their work. The production is a dynamic, darkly

illuminate more about this curious Australian connection in this

funny exploration of the myth-making underpinning our idea of

lecture in early February.

Shakespeare’s women’. Ophelia After Hours invites you to see this pacey one-hour play in the James O Fairfax Theatre and then enjoy exclusive after-hours access to Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate during the exhibition’s final weekend.

IN BRIEF

Above: Anna Rodway in Enter Ophelia, 2018. Photo: Theresa Harrison Opposite: John Everett Millais Ophelia 1851–52, oil on canvas. Tate, presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894 © Tate

Love and Desire: Valentine’s Dinner 15 February 6.00–10.30 pm A curated night of feasting like the gods under a February moon

Joining Mikelangelo, Anushka will embody the haunting characters

including live performance, music, poetry and romance. Internationally

of the Pre-Raphaelite muses, local sound artist Happy Axe will weave

acclaimed singer and host extraordinaire Mikelangelo will transport you

mythical sonic dreamscapes and Santa Fe-based singer-songwriter and

and your valentine into the romantic world of the Pre-Raphaelites. ‘The

enchantress Wendy Rule and her band will showcase their Persephone

Pre-Raphaelites conjure ancient narratives and half-remembered dreams

songbook. Ticket price includes a drink on arrival, exhibition entry and a

that float in our collective memory. The sweet kiss of romance and

luxurious dinner in the Gandel Hall.

yearning in Pre-Raphaelite art, and the hunger of their spiritual quest, has borne influence on my own writing and music’, says Mikelangelo. Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott in our bathroom. I spent many hours

All events associated with Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate 14 December 2018 to 28 April 2019

of bath time looking at that painting; the woman’s mournful expression;

Details and bookings at nga.gov.au/calendar

‘When I was growing up, my mother hung a framed print of

her cascading red hair; the rich fabrics draped around her; the dark water and mythical landscape; the crucifix that looked so real I thought Jesus may escape his bonds and be free. The Pre-Raphaelites share our longing for a golden age that may never have existed anywhere other than the human imagination. This is the wealth of inspiration I am drawing upon for the upcoming Love and Desire: Valentine’s Dinner event at the National Gallery.’

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

School holiday programs

National Visual Art Education Conference

There’s something for everyone to love this summer at the National Gallery

At the Heart: Inspiration, Bravery, Compassion and Connection 21 to 23 January 2019

The National Gallery is a great place to embrace art and creativity this

Inspired by our major exhibition Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite

summer. Enjoy time together with inspiring works of art and a program

Masterpieces from the Tate this summer, the National Visual Art

of events designed with kids and families in mind. From free family

Education Conference in 2019 will support teachers to be inspired,

tours focusing on works of art on display to creative making workshops,

to be brave, to innovate and to be compassionate toward their students.

there is something on offer for everyone. NGA Play, on the first floor

It will also enable connections with colleagues from across the country.

as you enter the gallery, will be alive with colour and movement as

This year’s keynote speakers will discuss what is at the heart of

Sally Smart invites you into a world inspired by her love of the Ballets

art education.

Russes costumes. Smart discusses the motivations behind the work on

Sandra Jackson-Dumont is responsible for the vision and

pages 42–7 and will host a collage workshop for children on 24 January.

management of education at the Met. She is a champion for diversity

Fall in love with works from the national collection with focused

and inclusion and is known for blurring the lines between academia,

‘Create space’ drop-in activities in gallery spaces every Tuesday during

popular culture and non-traditional, art-going communities. John

January. Whenever you visit, be sure to add your creative colour into our

Armstrong, philosopher-in-chief of The School of Life and co-author

new drawing sheet, and little ones will love a visit with their My friend

of Art as Therapy, has argued that art should be not for art’s sake but

at the gallery digital trail, which you can enjoy on your own device or on

integrated into our lives. This serves as a provocation. How might this

one of ours.

view influence us as art educators?

Details and bookings at nga.gov.au/calendar

Dr Flossie Chua of Project Zero, Harvard University, and Anne Smith of Independent Schools Victoria will explore how the approach contemporary artists take to articulating, responding to and challenging

Sally Smart The choreography of cutting (the pedagogical puppet projects) 2012–15, synthetic polymer paint, conté crayon, oil pastel and pencil on canvas and paper, fabric, wood, cardboard and various collage elements with ﬂat screen monitor. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2016 © the artist

the way we understand contemporary ideas and issues might inspire new paradigms for teaching and learning. And Sally Smart will speak about her artistic practice and invite us into the world she has created for children and families, inspired by the Gallery’s collection of Ballets Russes costumes and our Indonesian wayang kulit shadow puppets. A full program of artist talks, papers and workshops will be announced.

For more information and to register, go to nga.gov.au/nvaec 10

IN BRIEF

EXHIBITION LISTING AT THE NGA LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITE MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE From the Tate’s unsurpassed collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and other collections worldwide. 14 December 2018 to 28 April 2019 Adult $25.00 | Children 16 and under free Concession $22.50 | Member $20.00 Audio-guide hire $7.00 Book now at ticketek.com or 1300 795 012

ART DECO IN AUSTRALIA Stylish items from an age of jazz and ﬂappers, glamorous fashion and design. 16 February 2018 to 17 March 2019

CALIFORNIA COOL: ART IN LOS ANGELES, 1960S–70S Highlighting American artists’ responses to the promise of LA in the 1960s and 1970s. 6 October 2018 to 24 February 2019

PERFORMING DRAWING Bringing together drawings, photographs and audiovisual works from the collection. 1 September 2018 to 3 March 2019

SKY/EARTH Revealing works in the national collection that speak to our place in the cosmos. 6 October 2018 to 7 April 2019

POWER AND IMAGINATION Language, poetry, performance and ﬁlm in art. 11 August 2018 to 19 May 2019

BODIES OF ART: HUMAN FORM FROM THE NATIONAL COLLECTION Investigations of the human form throughout time. From 1 December 2018

MAORI MARKINGS: TA MOKO Exploring the Maori art and tradition of tā moko, face and body marking. 23 March to 25 August 2019

TOURING EXHIBITIONS SILVER AND GOLD: UNIQUE AUSTRALIAN OBJECTS 1850–1910 Works from the NGA’s signiﬁcant collection of colonial Australian decorative arts and design. 11 October to 9 December 2018 @ Bundaberg Art Galley

THE NATIONAL PICTURE: THE ART OF TASMANIA’S BLACK WAR Curated by Prof Tim Bonyhady, working with Dr Greg Lehman. 23 November 2018 to 17 February 2019 @ Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery

DAVID HOCKNEY: PRINTS Hockney’s printmaking practice through key works from the collection. 15 February to 21 April 2019 @ Cairns Art Gallery

DEFYING EMPIRE: NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL Contemporary art responding to the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum. 9 March to 5 May 2019 @ Western Plains Cultural Centre

PICASSO: THE VOLLARD SUITE A rare opportunity to see one of the twentieth century’s greatest suites of prints. 17 November 2018 to 3 February 2019 @ Art Gallery of South Australia 10 February to 28 April 2019 @ Ballarat Art Gallery

THE NED KELLY SERIES Sidney Nolan’s iconic paintings of the exploits of Ned Kelly and his gang. 23 November 2018 to 17 February 2019 @ Murray Art Museum Albury 1 March to 26 May 2019 @ Geelong Art Gallery

ART NOUVEAU Inspired by the inexhaustible forms of the natural world. From June 2018

NGA.GOV.AU ARTONVIEW 95 SPRING 2018

LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITES MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE

CURRENT MA JOR EXHIBITION

Lucina Ward illuminates one of Britain’s ﬁrst avant-garde art movements, the subject of the National Gallery’s summer exhibition Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelites Masterpieces from the Tate, which brings together forty works from Tate and another forty from British and Australian collections.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Page 12: William Holman Hunt Isabella and the pot of basil 1867–68 (detail), oil on canvas. John Schaeffer Collection. Courtesy Nevill Keating Pictures Ltd Left: William Holman Hunt The light of the world 1851–56, oil on canvas over wood panel. Manchester Art Gallery, purchased 1912 Opposite: Ford Madox Brown Work 1852–65, oil on canvas, Manchester Art Gallery, purchased 1885

Artists of mid-1850s Britain worked at a time of great change—the industrial revolution, rapid urbanisation, democracy and labour movements, the rise of the popular illustrated press and an increasingly visual culture. In this environment, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and those who came after them, innovated by selling (or retaining) the reproductive rights to their work, by staging single-painting exhibitions and by making replicas for clients, many of whom were members of the new mercantile class. While many of today’s art lovers don’t necessarily know their Millais from their Hunt, their Edward Burne-Jones from their John William Waterhouse, they do recognise the beauty and tragedy of Ophelia 1851–52 or the romantic, otherworldliness of the The Lady of Shalott 1888. The seven young artists and writers who came together in 1848 to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were dissatisfied with the teachings of the Royal Academy Schools, its emphasis on Old Master painting and formulaic training methods. They wanted to make art for a modern world, to find new ways of working, taking their cues from ‘the primitives’, as early Italian and Northern Renaissance artist were then known. Their choice of biblical subjects was compelled by notions of ethnographical accuracy and of emphasising Christ’s human qualities.

LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITES MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE

They took inspiration from new research and scientific discoveries and

In 1854, when the first version of the painting was exhibited at

new technologies such as photography. Spurred on by the critic and

the Academy, London-based publisher and dealer Ernest Gambart

writer John Ruskin they made nature their teacher.

proposed producing an engraving. Hunt was initially unconvinced the

Rossetti’s younger brother William Michael, the Brotherhood’s

engravers would do due justice to his work but, after lengthy negotiations

amanuensis and scribe, recorded the group’s aims: ‘1, To have genuine

(including over the price of the copyright), prints after The light of the

ideas to express; 2, to study Nature attentively, so as to know how to

world were made by William Henry Simmons and issued in 1860 and

express them; 3, to sympathise with what is direct and serious and

1870. The engraving was described in the Illustrated London News

heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and

of 17 November 1860 as ‘one of the most perfect things modern art

self-parading and learned by rote; and 4, and most indispensable of all,

has produced’ and became a prominent feature of many homes. This

to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues’.

was the beginning of Hunt’s engagement with print mediums and of

As Tate curator Carol Jacobi observes in her essay for the book accompanying the Gallery’s summer exhibition Love and Desire: PreRaphaelites Masterpieces from the Tate, Hunt was one of the first to

a strategy for the promotion and circulation of his work that proved immensely effective. Ford Madox Brown also produced versions of his paintings.

bypass the Royal Academy. He began The light of the world 1851–56 as

The slighter older artist, never formally part of the Brotherhood, struggled

a way of grappling with issues of spirituality. By showing Jesus, holding

through periods of financial hardship to the extent that he considered,

a lantern and about to knock at the door, Hunt implies that Christian

like Thomas Woolner, seeking his fortune in the colonies. Brown’s visual

salvation is available to all who are willing. Viewers then, as now, admire

treatise on labour, Work 1852–65, is regarded as one of most important

the atmospheric setting, closely observed detail and use of symbolic

paintings of the era, and combines fascinating vignettes into the types

language. The light of the world was also one of the first works to

and roles of work in the nineteenth century. The painting centres on

be mass-disseminated.

the trio of workmen building the infrastructure for a modern city.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

The churchman and philosopher at right are the ‘big picture’ thinkers,

on marriage—so much so that the ‘surplus’ of women was much discussed

while the wretch to the left and three small children in the foreground

by contemporary commentators.

are the results of poverty, circumstance and poor social planning.

Collinson produced as many as five versions of the first work,

Brown laboured over his chef-d’oeuvre for more than a

including Tate’s The empty purse c 1857, that, like so many paintings of

decade—having been commissioned, in 1859, to produce a second

the period, contains a wealth of detail for interpretation. The fashionably

smaller version for the lead manufacturer, James Leathart—and,

young lady glances, somewhat sassily at the viewer as she raises, in her

when it was finally complete, organised his own one-man exhibition,

left gloved hand, the empty purse of the title. The items on the table

promoted with advertisements and printed notices in railway stations.

include objects such as embroidery, elaborately dressed dolls and flower

Love and Desire features another of the artist’s best known paintings,

arrangements, some of the means by which a middle-class woman could

The last of England 1864–66, the exquisite watercolour version made

announce her skills and refinement.

for Brown’s patron George Rae. James Collinson was a founding member of the Brotherhood but

Love and Desire includes an intriguing early painting by Millais that responds to the idea of replicated images. Mrs James Wyatt Jr and

resigned in May 1850, unable to reconcile his religious beliefs with

her daughter Sarah c 1850 suggests the ways in which the Raphaelites

the group’s ideals. He trained briefly for the priesthood but resumed

positioned their own works as a corrective to art since the High

painting in 1854. For sale and its companion To let were shown at the

Renaissance. The portrait was commissioned by Oxford art dealer,

Royal Academy in 1857. The paintings show young women offering items

publisher and framer James Wyatt, one of the earliest Pre-Raphaelite

for sale at a church bazaar and a room for rent respectively. The innuendo

supporters, and it shows his daughter-in-law, Eliza, with her second child

was remarked upon at the time: were these young ladies actually offering

on her lap in front of prints of Leonardo da Vinci’s The last supper and

themselves for sale on the marriage market? The painting, after all,

Raphael’s Madonnas. This modern-day mother and child are positioned

reminds us of the many young women who moved to the London

as descendants of the Marian tradition, but the artist stakes a claim for

metropolis, how few rights women had and how women were dependent

contemporary art and unwavering realism.

LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITES MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE

Opposite: John Everett Millais Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her daughter Sarah c 1850, oil on wood. Tate, purchased 1984. © Tate Right: John Everett Millais The order of release 1746 1852–53, oil on canvas. Tate, presented by Sir Henry Tate 1898. © Tate Below: James Collinson The empty purse (replica of For sale) c 1857, oil on canvas. Tate, presented anonymously 1917. © Tate

Millais also took advantage of the thirst for reproductive prints. He admired Gambart’s reputation and promotional abilities, but the copyright of his painting The order of release 1746 1852–53 was instead purchased by Henry Graves, who became the artist’s principle publisher. Exhibited at the Academy in 1853 Millais’s scene, showing a rebel returned to his family after the defeat of the Jacobite risings, was much admired for the historical accuracy implied by details such as the carefully observed tartans. Another of his iconic works, the mesmerising Ophelia appeared as a mezzotint engraving in a tiny edition of 325 in 1866. Rossetti’s practice of the 1850s stands slightly apart from his contemporaries, who moved in different directions after the formal breakup of the Brotherhood. He abandoned painting in oils to focus on an extraordinary series of watercolour drawings inspired by the work of his namesake, the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Two of these, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini 1855 and Dante’s dream at the time of the death of Beatrice 1856, show his skills in the medium and exquisite handling of notions of romantic love and spiritual journeying. The first watercolour, owned by Ruskin, was reproduced by Felix Jasinki, also well known for his work with Burne-Jones, and published by the Fine Art Society in 1903.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Rossetti continued to produce highly sensitively drawings, especially portraits, throughout his life. Indeed, tracing his work in the late 1850s and 1860s, after he resumed painting and when his ‘stunners’ dominated, we see how he adapted his favourite female characteristics— heavy eyes, full lips, elongated neck, abundant tresses and strong physical presence—for a range of historical heroines and femme fatales. The beloved (The bride) 1865–66/73, for example, employs a range of types to celebrate sexual and romantic love, while in Astarte Syriaca 1877 Rossetti adapts the classic pose of Venus pudica to produce a highly charged image of the goddess. Despite the fact that he used a number of models, many of whom are distinguishable, they merge to represent an universalist image of woman. The artist’s sister, poet Christina Rossetti captured in humorous verse, as early as November 1853 (although unpublished until 1895 in

LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITES MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE

Above: Dante Gabriel Rossetti The beloved (The bride) 1865–66/73. Tate, purchased with assistance from Sir Arthur Du Cros Bt and Sir Otto Beit KCMG through the Art Fund 1916. © Tate Opposite: Edward Burne-Jones The wheel of fortune 1871–85, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest 1909

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: his family letters with a memoir), the different directions of members of the group: The P.R.B. is in its decadence: For Woolner in Australia cooks his chops, And Hunt is yearning for the land of Cheops; D.G. Rossetti shuns the vulgar optic; While William M. Rossetti merely lops His B’s in English disesteemed as Coptic; Calm Stephens in the twilight smokes his pipe, But long the dawning of his public day; And he at last the champion great Millais, Attaining academic opulence, Winds up his signature with A.R.A. So rivers merge in the perpetual sea; So luscious fruit must fall when over-ripe; And so the consummated P.R.B. From the late 1850s, as William Morris, Burne-Jones and others gathered around Rossetti, a second generation of Pre-Raphaelites came to the fore. Many of these artists later came to be identified with the Aesthetic movement. They highlighted literary, especially medievalist, imagery with a new emphasis on the applied arts. Burne-Jones, who made several trips to Italy, revelled in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, as his The wheel of fortune paintings suggest. From 1870, he made at least seven versions of the theme, originally motivated by the concept of a series of large, room-sized schemes illustrating mythological narratives such as Cupid and Psyche, Perseus and the Trojan War. In Love and Desire we see the way in which Burne-Jones’s figures were built up from simplified studies to richly articulated, full-sized figures that seem to spill out of the composition, giving The wheel of fortune 1871–85 a sense of immense scale. Burne-Jones and Morris were close collaborators throughout their careers, applying their artistic and design skills to a huge range of projects, from illuminated, deluxe publications such as The Kelmscott Chaucer, described by BurneJones in an 1894 letter to Charles Eliot Norton as ‘a pocket cathedral’, to the expertly crafted tapestry The adoration of the Magi 1887, with its Botticelli-like decoration, manufactured in 1900–02 for the South Australian businessman and politician Sir George Brookman. Hunt, like other Pre-Raphaelite artists, continued to produce his paintings in versions. Isabella and the pot of basil 1867–68 was painted while he lived in Florence for a year, waiting to travel the Holy Land, his trip delayed by an outbreak of cholera. The story is from John Keats’s poem Isabella, or the pot of basil, which borrows a tale from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron of the fourteenth century. When Isabella’s lover, the servant Lorenzo, is killed by her brothers, she exhumes his head

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

and buries it in a pot of basil, disguising her reliquary in order to keep

was compared to a missionary. From the sale of exhibition tickets and by

her beloved close. The painting was begun by a copyist known only as

offering engravings after the painting, Gambart recouped his payment of

Galicott, possibly as the model for an engraver, thus allowing the collector

£10,500 to the artist.

to keep his originally commissioned painting. In the end, Hunt was so unhappy with the copyist’s work that he repainted the canvas. Pre-Raphaelite scholar Tim Barringer summarises the impact of

Late in life, in his Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt acknowledged the importance of reproductive prints for him and his contemporaries, especially during the early days: ‘We

another of key Hunt’s works, Shadow of death 1870–73, the publicity

knew less of Michael Angelo in England then than now, when we have

for which, when exhibited by Thomas Agnew’s in 1873, reprised that for

the Sixtine Chapel and the Medici tombs photographed, while Tintoretto

The scapegoat 1854–55 in 1856 and for The finding of the Saviour in the

in his might was not known at all. Della Robbia, Donatello, Luini, and

temple 1854–55 in 1860. Notions of authenticity, reinforced by Hunt’s

Angelico were mere names in books or, at the most, to be seen in the

travels, research and dedicated labour—as with Brown’s Work—meant he

Print Room’.

LOVE AND DESIRE: PRE-RAPHAELITES MASTERPIECES FROM THE TATE

Right: William Holman Hunt The shadow of death 1870–73, oil on canvas. Manchester Art Gallery, gift of William Agnew Below: Morris and Company The adoration of the Magi 1887/1900–02, wool, silk, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1917

The range of illustrations within art journals and art books increased during the second half of the nineteenth century, bringing more and more images to artists and art lovers. Just as the Pre-Raphaelite artists took inspiration from early Italian art in books and through engravings, their paintings became known further afield, including in colonial Australia, due to print reproductions and, in some cases, painted replicas. The PreRaphaelites were some of the first superstars of the art world, whose works and images of their works circulated nationally and internationally, displayed in schools, parlours and churches. Extraordinary exhibitions such as Love and Desire ensure they will continue to attract new admirers into the twentieth-first century.

Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate 14 December 2018 to 28 April 2019

Join the conversation #lovedesire

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

MEMBERS ACQUISITION FUND

DANIE MELLOR’S LANDSTORY Rebecca Blake discusses the subject of this year’s Members Acquisition Fund, Danie Mellor’s Landstory, a monumental nine‑panel work inspired by Sidney Nolan’s Riverbend of the 1960s.

DANIE MELLOR’S LANDSTORY

Landstory 2018 is an immense nine-panel photographic work by

Alfred Atkinson, who documented the people and landscape of north

contemporary Australian artist Danie Mellor, and arguably one of

Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

his finest to date. The work reimagines the Australian landscape

Atkinson is intimately intertwined with Mellor’s family history, as he

and history, intertwining past and present to capture the continual

photographed multiple generations of Mellor’s Aboriginal family in his

presence of Aboriginal people and their timeless connection to the

studio. Together the overlaid images reimagine the landscape and time

natural environment. Mellor captures the dense rainforest of far

as a constant, exploring the continual presence of Australia’s Indigenous

north Queensland and the underlying sense of unease beneath the

people and their connection with the land. Mellor says, ‘Reimagining the

lush flora and fauna, creating a new way of seeing ownership and

world as a landspace suggests we are in an enveloping environment, a

occupation within the Australian landscape.

world that has its past, present and future—its dreaming and landstory—

Mellor was born in Mackay in 1971 and is from the Mamu and Ngadjon peoples, whose Country lies in the Atherton Tablelands. His hybrid practice is critically linked to cultural histories and concepts

unfolding as prescient and concurrent phenomena’. The inspiration for Landstory is Sidney Nolan’s renowned ninepanel Riverbend 1964–65, which reveals Nolan’s preoccupation with

of the landscape, particularly his Country. He employs a variety of

the Australian landscape, mythology, history and tradition. Riverbend,

techniques, encompassing sculpture, installation, photography, drawing

which was shown at the National Gallery at the beginning of 2016,

and printmaking. For Landstory, he used infrared technology to reveal

is permanently on display at the Drill Hall, Australian National University,

hidden imagery in the forest, unveiling multiple dimensions that were

Canberra. This work had a profound effect on Mellor when he first

previously concealed. In a recent conversation with The Design Files’s

viewed it at the age of twenty-one, the same year Nolan died. ‘It made me

Indigenous arts writer Tyson Yunkaporta, Mellor said, ‘It is proof—here is

keenly aware of how history and tradition is passed on, even somewhat

an unseen world of presence and knowledge and phenomena’.

invisibly through significant works of art’, says Mellor.

Looking at Country through a photographic lens, Mellor skilfully

The National Gallery of Australia is now seeking donors to support

combines his own photographs of the Queensland rainforests with

this key addition to the national art collection by one of Australia’s most

archival imagery from artists such as the late colonial photographer

significant contemporary artists.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Members Acquisition Fund 2018–19 Support the acquisition of this rich and striking work by giving to this year’s Members Acquisition Fund. Call the Foundation office on 6240 6408, find more information in the enclosed brochure or donate online at nga.gov.au/giving.

Danie Mellor (Mamu & Ngadjon peoples) Landstory 2018, Diasec-mounted chromogenic print on metallic photographic paper, 9 panels. Image courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

CURRENT EXHIBITION

Lara Nicholls reflects on a new Australian art display that draws on the national collection to explore how artists examine our place in the world.

sky/ earth

SKY/EARTH

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Page 27: Howard Taylor Sky ﬁgure 1977, oil on shaped plywood. Purchased with the assistance of Village Roadshow Limited 2012 to commemorate the Centenary of Canberra © Howard H Taylor estate Left: George Denton Hirst Mars 1877, handcoloured photo-lithograph. Gift of John McPhee, 2004 Opposite, from top: Ludwig Becker Donati’s Comet (I–III) 1860 and Donati’s Comet as seen at Melbourne, on October 11th, 1858 1859, lithographs. Purchased 2011 All works in this feature are from the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

A new display in the Australian galleries reveals treasures in the collection

Institute of Victoria, published in 1860. He writes, ‘The young moon

about the Earth’s place in the cosmos. It explores artists’ unerring

stood, like a key-stone, on the top of the pointed arch of the zodiacal-

fascination with the natural world and the celestial realms above and

light; and close to her, in her greatest brightness, Venus and the fiery

asks questions about our relationship to outer space and our position

Antares. Looking at that splendid constellation, the observer perceived

as a species on this planet. Many of the works have never been on

… a streak of light like a small, lonely cloud. There it stood, motionless,

display before.

its luminosity slowly increasing—and before a minute of time had

Throughout history, the sky has been a source of inspiration in all cultures influencing art, literature, philosophy, politics, mathematics,

This duality between the scientific and romantic was crystallised

science and spirituality. Remarkable human accomplishments,

by the American poet Walt Whitman in his ‘When I heard the learn’d

such as Sir Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation of 1686 and

astronomer’ of 1865:

the discovery of vast black holes today, have come from observing the heavens. Artists have played a significant role in this quest for

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

knowledge, often working closely with astronomers to document

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

their observations. One remarkable example is amateur astronomer,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and

artist and wine merchant George Denton Hirst’s handcoloured photo-

measure them,

lithograph of Mars of 1877, made by looking through the eyepiece

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much

of the Sydney Observatory’s newly acquired Schröder telescope.

applause in the lecture-room,

At the time, it was considered the finest representation of Mars in

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

the world. Artist, writer, explorer, scientist and musician Ludwig Becker was the embodiment of the nineteenth-century polymath. His exquisite lithographs of Donati’s comet are accompanied by his

passed on, the cry was heard:—a Comet, lo! a Comet!’

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

observations written with both a scientific rigour and passionate

Evocations of the night sky are important in Indigenous Australian art

poetic candour in volume 4 of the Transactions of the Philosophical

and certain artists are custodians of ancestral stories about the moon

SKY/EARTH

and stars. Kuninjku men of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, Balang (Mick) Kubarkku and his nephew Paul Nabulumo are custodians of the moon dreaming of Dirdbim, where a large hole in the sandstone outcrop there is said to have been created by the rainbow serpent Ngalyod, who pieced the rock in the shape of the full moon. Kubarkku’s Moon dreaming from Dirdbim 1995 and Nabulumo’s The Sun, the Moon and the Star 2014 are brought together and displayed for the first time since acquisition. Contemporary artists are also drawn to the realm of science fiction and pop art in their work. Australian painter Tim Johnson has a long history of collaborating with artists across cultural boundaries. In his multi-panel work UFOs per se 2013–14, he explores evocations of extraterrestrial life in pop culture in collaboration with Los Angeles-based artist and animator Daniel Bogunovic. Each canvas is a tribute to the history of recorded sightings of unidentified flying objects. Johnson wrote in a 2015 artist statement, ‘To make art that is transcendent one has to be able to look at the unexplained and the unknown. The extraordinary complexity of documented sightings, abductions, conspiracy theory and new age ideology that one finds in ufology certainly stimulates my imagination, even if I don’t know whether it’s real or not’.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Left: Ken Unsworth Suspended stone wall piece 1976, river stones, annealed steel wire. Purchased 1976 Opposite, from left: Christian Thompson (Bidjara people) Untitled #8 (red kangaroo paw) 2008, C-Type print. Purchased 2009. Courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin and Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne; Balang (Mick) Kubarkku Moon dreaming from Dirdbim 1995, natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark. Purchased 2008 © Balang (Mick) Kubarkku/Copyright Agency

The theme of Sky/Earth also provides the perfect opportunity to display Ken Unsworth’s Suspended stone wall piece 1976, a work made of river stones that appear to levitate above the ground, hovering between the material and the ethereal. The concept comes from Unsworth’s performance practice in which he would suspend his own body to emphasise the tension between gravity and mass. The work focuses the viewer’s gaze on the beauty and rhythm inherent in grouping objects found in nature as elemental as a stone. Sky/Earth also includes works about the organic, botanical and earthly world. In 2015, the Gallery acquired one of Marc Newson’s important examples of furniture design, the Voronoi shelf ÿ2006. A work cut from a single block of Carrara marble, it powerfully evokes the underlying structure of many organisms in the natural world. It is named after Russian mathematician Georgy Voronoi, who devised a tessellation of shapes based on the distance between clusters of points on a plane. His diagrams are often reinterpreted by visual artists, and Newson has used it to great effect in a three-dimensional form that mimics the cellular structures of plants or subterraneous geological formations. This will be the first time since the Gallery acquired Christian Thompson’s Australian Graffiti series of nine self-portraits festooned with garlands of Australian wild flowers that we have been able to display the entire group of nine works plus his three Black Gum portraits. As he

SKY/EARTH

wrote of the images in an artist statement, ‘I carry the flowers with me like the most quintessential Australian symbol, a return to a more pagan and traditional symbiosis between man and the natural world’. He refers to his body becoming an extension of the plant world as though it is an armature for both the flowers themselves and the 1980s vintage fashion pieces he adorns for the work. Sky/Earth holds extraordinary treasures from the national collection, many of which have never been displayed in the gallery since acquisition. New research conducted in preparation for the display reveals many fresh insights into one of the great preoccupations of humankind, namely the universe and our place within it.

Sky/Earth 6 October 2018 to 7 April 2019 Join the conversation #SkyEarthNGA

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

CURRENT EXHIBITION

CALIFORNIA COOL Ella Morrison takes a close look at Ed Ruscha’s 1967 lithograph 1984 in the National Gallery’s exhibition California Cool.

CALIFORNIA COOL

As addressed in the NGA’s exhibition California Cool, the 1960s marked the beginning of a period in which Los Angeles became America’s new creative hub, with artists responding to the symbols and landscapes comprising life at the time. LA was a place rich in idealised imagery: blue sky, beach, road and celebrity. Both Ed Ruscha and Kenneth Tyler were prominent figures in this community, the former through his prolific painting, printmaking and publishing practice and the latter due to his experimental attitude at the helm of the print workshop Gemini GEL. At Tyler’s invitation, the two came together in 1967 to create just the one lithograph, 1984. LA was not only experiencing an increase in creative momentum in the 1960s, but was also part of broader shifts in American society as the pace of technological advancements picked up across the country. The audiocassette was invented in 1962, just prior to Ruscha and Tyler’s collaboration, with the computer mouse and Valium to come the following year. Work was being undertaken that would soon result in the introduction of DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) in 1968 and the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) in 1969. Life was fast-paced, exciting, inspirational. And yet, as artists who had moved to LA were discovering, it wasn’t perfect. Weaving its way through ideas of the white picket fence was a strong undercurrent of civil unrest and social injustice. 1984 draws on this atmosphere of mixed messages to question the implications of ‘advancement’. In our age of near constant technological connectivity, it seems particularly relevant to discuss the work’s reference to George Orwell’s popular dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949. Consider the print. The composition is filled with the numbers 1-98-4, printed in Westminster typeface, the first machine-readable font, against a gradated background resembling printed toner ink. Numeric symbol is transformed into a larger cultural reference, conjuring Orwell’s novel and protagonist Winston Smith’s plight for autonomy under the ever-watching eyes of Big Brother. The link between the novel’s dystopia and contemporary American reality is immediate, although Ruscha was adamant his oeuvre did not represent any kind of political agenda. Unlike Orwellian newspeak, which sought to limit what could be communicated, 1984 is open to interpretation. Its deceptively simple elements encourage us to consider the discord between human experience and technological innovation. As art historian, critic and curator Margit Rowell wrote in Cotton puffs, Q-tips, smoke and mirrors: the drawings of Ed Ruscha, ‘These commonplace words [or, in this case, numbers] gave Ruscha a certain freedom—a desired distance from his subject matter and an open-ended communication or conceit. They give us the same freedom, allowing us to call up images as we like’.

current social media feeds that mix interrogations of politics, social justice and impassioned calls for action with celebrity, consumerism and ‘fake news’, are we not, wilfully or otherwise, engaged in our own kind of ‘doublethink’?

California Cool: Art in Los Angeles 1960s–70s 6 October 2018 to 24 February 2019 Join the conversation #californiacoolNGA

Questions of observation and control raised by the print seem especially pertinent today, given recent privacy concerns about the information we generate and disseminate online and how digital engagement impacts our lives. The handcoloured fly hovering at the bottom right of the sheet is the print’s trompe l’oeil—and a literal ‘fly on the wall’. It marks the only sign of life in an otherwise overwhelmingly grey space and is transformed by Orwellian allusions from an everyday nuisance to a concerning, omnipresent monitor. Scrolling through

Opposite: Ed Ruscha 1984 1967, lithograph. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1973. © Ed Ruscha Above: Portrait of Edward Ruscha. Photo: Ken Fabrick. Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002. © Mrs Josephine Bayliss

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CURRENT EXHIBITION

PERFORMING DRAWING Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax reﬂects on the creation of walking breathing drawing, a wall-drawing by Antonia Aitken, presented in the NGA’s Performing Drawing.

PERFORMING DRAWING

Australian artist Antonia Aitken has developed a studio practice of

At times, Aitken would use her hands to push the charcoal into the

drawing in response to sound recordings she makes of her long walks,

surface of the wall, her flattened palms smoothing the lines into paired

translating her experience of a particular place into another visual form.

shadows. She explains, ‘The line expresses motility—an extension or a

As part of the exhibition Performing Drawing at the National Gallery, she

propulsion of myself into and through place, and the loop, expressing

transcribed one of her Knocklofty walks directly onto a wall. On Saturday

rhythm, repetition and returning—a generative folding and reflection of

15 September, she walked quietly into the exhibition space and began to

where I am and where I have come from’. For her, the traces left by these

listen to the playback of the walk through headphones to recreate a sense

actions recall the ritual of walking at specific sites. When drawing in

of interiority within the public space, while the soundtrack was relayed

different locations using the same recording, each experience activates

through a mobile speaker to a curious audience. Removing her shoes, she

different memories of the same place. Using charcoal made by her brother

grounded herself on a small mound of sandy dirt brought from the site,

and earth collected from Knocklofty, Aitken’s shares some of her sensory

then stepped forward to pick up two thick sticks of charcoal placed before

experience of the nature reserve as she draws on the Gallery’s wall.

the white wall. Aitken’s written notes document the day of her walk at

Installed in one day, over three sessions, her rhythmic gestures created a layered residue on the wall that conveys a sense of time and

Knocklofty two years earlier, in September 2016. It was overcast and

distance. On the ground, a layer of sticky paper captured the falling

quiet. Her trek began at 8.02 am, taking her into the reserve, past burnt

charcoal dust and Aitken’s footprints. The tactile memory of her presence

out shelters, along the quarry fence line and back home by 8.53 am.

for the performance of walking breathing drawing for Performing

To transcribe this experience into drawing, she has developed a set of

Drawing will remain on display until 3 March 2019.

gestures that correspond with her breathing. Beginning in the centre of the wall, she drew upward with both hands during the inhalation, before fully extending each arm outward and down with the exhalation. These synchronised arcs mirror the cycles of her breathing and were looped over and over until the accumulated lines formed lung-like

Performing Drawing Until 3 March 2019 Join the conversation #performingdrawing

shapes. Mirroring intervals of increased levels of exertion during the walk, her arms would then move in smaller circles to keep pace with her breathing.

Antonia Aitken wall-drawing and performance walking breathing drawing, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2018.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

RAPA NUI FIGURES Crispin Howarth examines a new display of works from Rapa Nui, with masterworks from the National Gallery’s collection and two rare examples generously on loan for the display.

RAPA NUI FIGURES

COLLECTION DISPLAY ANDÂ LOANS

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

There is perhaps nowhere in the world as remote as Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Rapa Nui is an isolated Pacific island that has long captured western imagination due to the well-known but enigmatic stone ‘heads’, the monolithic moai, found across its plains and coastlines. Lesserknown is that the island’s artists also excelled in wood sculpture and created some of the finest works in pre-contact Polynesia. On display in the NGA’s Polynesian gallery are five objects from Rapa Nui. This may not seem much, but it is the largest display of exceptional sculpture from this remarkable island ever in Australia. Three works from the national collection, two figures and a priest’s staff are accompanied by a further two wooden figures generously loaned from a private Melbourne collection. These works are associated with traditional religious ancestral practices from a time before Peruvian slave traders arrived in the early 1860s, triggering a chain of horrific events that decimated Rapa Nui society and culture in over less than a decade. Between 1862 and 1864, the small population of around three thousand people was decimated when slaver traders abducted or killed half of the island’s inhabitants. Many men and women, chiefs and priests among them, were enslaved and taken to labour in Peru, and traditional Rapa Nui society fell apart. Although most of the people taken into slavery quickly died of disease, international protests soon forced Peru to free those that remained. It is a shocking fact that

RAPA NUI FIGURES

Page 36–7: Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Moai moko (lizard figure) 19th century, wood. Private collection Above: ‘Surrealist map of the world’ in the book Varieties— Surrealism in 1929 1929, relief halftone, letterpress. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1992 Opposite: Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Moai kavakava 18th – mid 19th century, wood, bone, obsidian. Private collection

less than twenty people returned to Rapa Nui. The 1860s were also a decade of more foreign visitors to the island, who introduced diseases, particularly smallpox, which caused another massive decline in the Rapa Nui population. In the wake of all this devastation, Christianity quickly came, which brought further societal and cultural change and a tuberculosis epidemic that claimed another quarter of the island’s population. By 1868, almost all of the remaining Rapanui had been converted to Roman Catholicism. On top of this, Captain Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier, who brought the missionaries to the island, bought up and converted much of the island into a sheep ranch and removed inhabitants to work in Tahiti. The year after Dutrou-Bornier died in 1876, there were only just over one hundred Rapanui left on the island. Because of these cataclysmic events (slavery, murder, disease, colonisation and religion), our current knowledge and understanding of the traditional arts of Rapa Nui is only fragmentary. Like their monolithic stone brethren, very little is contextually known regarding the wooden sculptures currently on display at the NGA. There are two ‘lizardmen’ figures, moai moko, that represent spirit beings, a mixture of lizard, human and bird. Each is pierced through the spine to be suspended from a cord, and they are known to have been worn during ceremonial performances. The NGA’s moai tangata figure of a man with elongated ears and plump belly is perhaps a rare depiction of a hermaphrodite. The art of Rapa Nui was famously influential upon prominent members of Surrealism. The ‘Surrealist map of the world’ in the book Varieties—Surrealism in 1929 (in the national collection) shows Rapa Nui as a massive land on par with the size of Europe or South America. André Breton owned at least ten Rapa Nui sculptures, and one of Max Ernst’s artistic personas, Loplop, was heavily based in the lore of Rapa Nui. (We can only imagine what Breton and Ernst would say when encountering the figures in the NGA’s Polynesian gallery.) The gaunt looking Moai kavakava figure on loan for the NGA’s current display is one of less than a hundred of these sculptures extant today. It has great visual tension, due to the excellence of the artist’s hand in creating a refined, balanced and precise form. The emaciated male figure has jutting cheekbones, protruding ribs and raised spinal column. Perhaps the artist was depicting starvation or the likeness of a corpse. The figure’s intense glare is conjured by sections of bird bone with inset obsidian pupils. The head looks off to one side, the meaning of which is unknown. The figure’s ridged spine is thought to be a conceptualisation of ancestral genealogy, an important aspect of many Polynesian cultures, and upon its head is the eroded motif of frigate birds, perhaps associated with the Miru lineage of Rapa Nui people living in the Ahu Nau Nau area on the northern coast of the island. The NGA is fortunate to have a small but important collection of sculpture from Rapa Nui to draw upon for this display as well as the additional two works, the Moai kavakava and the lizard figure Moai moko, thanks to the generosity of a private Melbourne collector.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

BARKCLOTH OF ORO PROVINCE

40 4 0

BARKCLOTH BAR BA B AR A RK KC KCL CL C LO OT OTH T TH HO OF F ORO OR O RO P PROVINCE ROV RO R OV O VINC NCE

COLLECTION DISPLAY

Crispin Howarth introduces a new display of bark cloth from Papua New Guinea’s Oro Province now on display at the National Gallery.

The black is charcoal, there are shades of red and yellow ochre and even

material culture, they could have equally been gifted to a museum to

highlighter neon pink texta has been employed on several of the works

be placed in an anthropological collection. However, in those early days

on display in the National Gallery’s Melanesian gallery. These designs

of building a Pacific arts collection for the National Gallery, there was

represent many things, from clan symbols and female tattoo patterns to

extraordinary prescience at work. The Commonwealth Art Advisory

forest flora and fauna. Contemporary examples relate to frogs, birds and

Board, responsible for the collection at the time, saw them as superb

fish (and their bones and feathers), climbing vines, fruit, spider webs,

examples of Papua New Guinea’s vibrant visual culture. Not until some

cassowary eggs, mountains and clouds. The great abstraction of these

thirty years later, during the mid-2000s, did the barkcloth art of Oro

motifs may be a way of obscuring or hiding their true meaning.

Province gain wider recognition in Australia as a ‘newly discovered’

These cloths are a form of wraparound, skirt-like dress traditionally worn by men and women in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea,

art form. Two of the contemporary works on display are by Brenda Kesi and

often during festive and ceremonial events. They are traditionally used

show generational innovations in the visual development of appliqué

as dowry for a bride and as blankets to sleep under or shawls in cool

designs. For her sihoti’e taliobamë’oho (designs in mud), Kesi draws on

weather. Each is made from sheets of bark from the paper mulberry tree,

her knowledge of mud-dye techniques passed on by her grandmother

the tough outer layer of which is scaped away. The remaining soft, pliable

and incorporates it into her appliqué while maintaining the cultural

inner section is then repeatedly beaten, meshing the fibres, to form flat

integrity of the art of barkcloth. While active artists such as Kesi, Sarah

sections of flexible material.

Ugibari, Mala Nari and others have often shared the meanings of their

To make a larger section of barkcloth, the artist places two slightly

designs, our understanding of the older works in the national collection

overlapping pieces together, dampens both and continues to beat them

remains defiantly enigmatic, as the contextual background of the

until the fibres merge as one. Once ready, patterns are then painted on

designs on these barkcloths are unknown and the artists who created

the cloth’s surface. These patterns initially look orderly, as if done in self-

them are yet to be identified. This, however, does not detract from

contained sections with repeated motifs, yet the artist’s application of the

our appreciation of these dynamic visual expressions created by our

designs has little to do with precision. Instead, the oblique angularity and

Pacific neighbours.

the wonderful organic nature of the medium take over. Eight of the barkcloth from the national collection that are currently on display are part of a large 1971 gift from the Department of External Territories (now the Department of Foreign Affairs) of sixty superbly painted barkcloth from the Oro Province. As examples of

Oro Province, Papua New Guinea Barkcloths prior to 1971, bark cloth, paint. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of Department of External Territories Canberra 1971

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Anne O’Hehir spoke to Australian artist Sally Smart in the lead-up to the opening of her new project for NGA Play, which explores the National Gallery’s collection of Ballets Russes costumes and will be on display until 1 April 2019.

SALLY SMART

NGA PLAY

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Anne O’Hehir: Your current work for NGA Play responds to works in the

Anne: There’s that whole history of orientalism. You were telling me

Gallery’s collection of costumes from Ballets Russes productions. Many

about your interest in how this shows up in the ideas and motivations

people are interested in the avant-garde of this time, but we’re obviously

of the Ballets Russes.

in a diﬀerent world to Europe in the early twentieth century. Do you

Sally: Yes, through my research perspective as a visual artist, I have

think that looking at this part of history is still relevant?

made some very interesting connections and discoveries. Many

Sally Smart: For me, history is totally alive, always has been. When I see

of these will unfold over the next few years through iterations of

art, and this is the great thing about art, I see it as an artist. I can relate

my project reframing the Ballets Russes and acknowledging the

now, in a contemporary way.

entwined legacies of colonialisim and orientalism. I am especially interested in Mikhail Larionov’s designs for the ballet Chout, also

Anne: It transcends time. Sally: You can think about all the ideas that go on in making that work,

known as The tale of the buffoon, and his collaboration with the artist Natalia Goncharova.

and the reflection of the time and the contemporaneous of that time. But also, what relevance does it have now? In terms of the avant-garde,

Anne: The notion of a ﬁgure that sits a little bit outside is interesting.

there’s so much that still needs to be reviewed, especially through a

The title character of Chout is the buﬀoon, the trickster, the person

feminist lens.

who is practically standing outside society.

We know that women were involved with the Ballets Russes—

the past used the identity of the artist as outsider, the trickster. The idea

including Natalia Goncharova and Sonia Delaunay, they were there.

of transformation and also the supernatural. That’s why I like the shadow

And more and more information about their contributions is gradually

world, too. I’m very interested in women artists and the place of women

being unearthed. What things were they interested in? The same things

in culture. It is political for me. Larionov and Goncharova were partners

I’m interested in? We can see in history, and in the relationships in

their whole lives, and Goncharova is recognised in her own right. But I’m

history, that there’re a whole lot of things that have been forgotten.

sure there is work she isn’t recognised for, like Chout.

I have long been interested to explore these themes of women, performance, and dance histories of the avant-garde.

Sally: I am interested in the tradition of the trickster. And, yes, I have in

dancers and costumiers and, of course, the artists and designers,

SALLY SMART

For me, the trickster-buffoon in Chout, the idea of transformation is powerful and allows a way to explore the dynamic discourse between

Pages 42–3: Sally Smart: Staging the Studio (The Choreography of Cutting), performer: Brooke Stamp, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2017. Photo: Jeff Busby Opposite: Sally Smart studio portrait, 2017. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti Right: Chout: Act 4 2018, Melbourne Art Theatre performance, Gossard Theatre, Melbourne. Photo: Jeff Busby

tradition and the avant-garde. The costumes that were produced

I recognised crosscultural connections in the costumes, which

are some of the most exciting in the national art collection. They’re

led to thinking about orientalism, the west’s view of the east, and the

among the most sculptural. I was also inspired by the theatre sets and

inherent complexities. I recognised in Larionov’s and Goncharova’s

curtain designs of Chout. This incredible relationship between the

futurist and cubist constructions, spatially flattened and frontal

background set and the costumes, synthesised as one, a vivid cubo-

elements, like the dancers have stepped only slightly from their

futurist assemblage.

background. Javanese dance, when representing a shadow puppet,

I’m also developing work on Pablo Picasso’s Parade and Sonia

is also very frontal. To me, this seemed a strong visual connection.

Delaunay’s Cleopatra. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of documentation

So I pursued this idea and discovered Larionov’s interest in Indonesian

for any of the ballets. The costumes are unique performance artefacts.

puppetry! Who would’ve known that, necessarily, on the outset of

Sergei Diaghilev did not produce very much documentation. However,

my project?

promotion photographs for Picasso’s Parade were made and those images

All of this history is embodied in Chout, and in the costumes.

are now very famous. The horse in my work for NGA Play comes from

When you asked me before if it’s still relevant, it’s actually more relevant.

that suite of photographs, the carnival horse.

I identified these links through my experience of crosscultural working in Indonesia, where I continue to research instances when visual artists and

Anne: So, in a sense, because it’s not well documented, it gives you

dance have been most strongly entwined. The avant-garde performances

space for your imagination to come in. You can very much recreate

of the Ballets Russes are rich examples of the intersection of east and

that in a really exciting way. There’s a lot of archetypal ideas in the

west. It leads me to consider how much in history is open for revision.

Ballets Russes. Chout is a very ﬁerce tale, isn’t it?

This is why it’s so rich.

Sally: Absolutely. Very traumatic. And comic. It’s everything. That’s what I’m working through. Chout is violent and

Anne: You’ve been collaborating with a number of people for quite some

absurd. It’s based on a hybrid of two Russian fairytales.

years. Including the dancer you’re working with now. Do you want to

The choreography, costumes and set design were first conceived

say a little bit about that?

in 1915 and performed in 1921, during a tumultuous time in

Sally: I’ve been working with Maria Tumarkin for over eight years. Maria

European history.

is a writer and culture historian and is a native Russian speaker, which

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

has been so fantastic with Chout. I remember remarking to her, ‘I don’t understand the story’. Because, every time I read about Chout it was written a different way. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t get it into my mind about the story. It’s a fairytale, yes, but what really happens? It just seems so convoluted. I just didn’t understand. And what was that bit about the goat, you know? The woman turns into the goat, or the man turns into the woman who turns into the goat. Maria said, ‘What’s there not to get about someone turning into a goat, Sally?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I got it. I got it’. It made me laugh. Of course, it’s a fairytale, an absurd fairytale!! Anne: In which illogical things happen. Fairy tales negate that notion of a rational world where identity is fixed. It’s a world where magical things happen. Sally: She gave me the key, which she always does, to unlock it. It was the farce of it. What happens is they put a real goat in there, not somebody who turns into a goat. But, in history, in the English translation, it all gets mixed up and so it turns out also that there’s two fairytales melted together. And that’s why it’s sort of difficult. The choreographer and dancer Brooke Stamp and I have worked together for a number of years, and most recently with re-imagining the Ballets Russes. She has performed improvisational dance in every recent exhibition of mine, wearing embroidery costumes I’ve constructed by

‘THE AVANT-GARDE PERFORMANCES OF THE BALLETS RUSSES ARE RICH EXAMPLES OF THE INTERSECTION OF EAST AND WEST. IT LEADS ME TO CONSIDER HOW MUCH IN HISTORY IS OPEN FOR REVISION. THIS IS WHY IT’S SO RICH.’

digitally cutting up the Ballets Russes costumes. We recently did the one-night performance Chout: Act 4 for Melbourne Art Theatre. I made a horse costume for Brooke’s improvisational dance. You will see this dance in the video component for NGA Play. I give Brooke some direction, a little discourse around the ideas, but she has developed a repertoire, and a range of iconography for Chout. We do work collaboratively. For Chout: Act 4, I combined dance and song. Maria’s daughter, Billie Tumarkin is an opera singer and sang in Russian. It was really about the women becoming the Chout. They’re the tricksters, the transformation moment. We subverted the narrative, abstracted it. The story is strange. Anne: There is this thing that happens when you put on a mask. You disappear. Sally: It’s like a good puppeteer, you don’t see the puppeteer you see the puppet. I think that’s sort of true. Anne: At one point, Brooke bangs her foot and neighs and so on. It’s like she has lost herself and been transformed. Sally: Well, she has become a horse. Anne: That’s why fairytales and so on are so powerful, aren’t they? We are free to lose that self-consciousness. Sally: That’s why we’ve got mask making in NGA Play. But I can imagine that a lot of young people will probably not need a mask. Some will and some won’t. Some will delight in it and some will delight maybe in not wearing one. But a mask can also help you embody a character more fully. You can become a horse, become the buffoon.

SALLY SMART

Anne: Just to see that possibility of inventing yourself, it’s a really powerful thing. Sally: I think also that’s what the NGA Play space we’re creating together is meant to be about. About creating. About being. A space for experimentation and invention, and performing without any particular narrative structure. Anne: That’s right. Sally: There is an abstraction. There are no specific how-to instructions. There are horses and masks, some costumes, and the focus is to draw attention to the Ballets Russes collection and that inspirational moment in the history of the avant-garde, of radical collaboration and invention in dance performance.

Opposite: Sally Smart, DGTMB (embroider) Horsecraft (P.A.R.A.D.E.) 2017, synthetic thread, pins Right: Sally Smart The horse dance 2018 (ﬁlm still), moving image for NGA Play, performer: Brooke Stamp, cinematographer: James Wright Below: Sally Smart Performance (Chout) 2017, assemblage textile, cotton, synthetic embroidery, screenprinted elements, pins. Installation view of the exhibition The Choreography of Cutting at PostmastersROMA, Rome, 2017. © the artist

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

AUSTRALIAN PRINT WORKSHOP

PARTNERSHIP

AUSTRALIAN

PRINT WORKSHOP Anne Virgo OAM, Director of Australian Print Workshop, widely acknowledged as Australia’s leading non-proﬁt print workshop, highlights a new collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia, which is proving to be the workshop’s most ambitious international research project to date.

Australian Print Workshop and the National Gallery of Australia share a deep commitment to furthering contemporary Australian printmaking and supporting artists working in the medium. This commitment has resulted in a number of collaborative print-based projects between us over the past thirty years, the latest of which is French Connections. This new project supported four contemporary Australian artists—Martin Bell, Megan Cope, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison—to undertake an intensive program of research in France, followed by a series of residencies at APW during which the artists will be assisted to produce a significant new body of work that will reflect ideas and imagery developed during their research abroad. Following the success of our ANTIPODES project of 2015–16, in collaboration with three contemporary Australian artists (Brook Andrew, Tom Nicholson and Caroline Rothwell) and a number of significant cultural institutions in the United Kingdom, we were keen to expand the project’s initial scope and undertake a second phase that explored French connections with our region, with an emphasis on the interplay of natural history, the history of science, empire, art and anthropology. While APW was very fortunate to have secured the generous support of its long-standing philanthropic partner the Collie Print Trust towards undertaking this highly complex and ambitious international project, we acknowledged that we needed further assistance to help facilitate access to key collections in France. We then sought the NGA’s support and expertise. The ongoing guidance and overwhelming support offered by NGA Senior Curator Roger Butler AM has been key to the project’s success.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Page 48: French Connections project artists Martin Bell, Megan Cope, Louise Jennison, Martin Bell and Gracia Haby and National Gallery curator Elspeth Pitt with Louvre curator Marie-Pierre Salé in the viewing room of the Département des arts graphiques, May 2018. Left: Examining a Pierre-Joseph Redouté engraving at the Louvre, Paris, May 2018. Opposite, clockwise from left: The French Connections project artists in Paris, May 2018; with Elspeth Pitt and Archives nationales curator Brigitte Schmauch, May 2018; at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, April 2018.

Archives and museum collections have long been a source of

of visits to cultural institutions across the city. These opportunities

and gain special access to cultural material in significant collections

provided the group with privileged behind-the-scenes access to

throughout Australia and overseas is central to several of our special

important cultural material and rare collections not normally available to

projects. This aspect follows the widely practised tradition of using

the general public.

the print form to record journeys of exploration and discovery—to

The APW group was very fortunate that NGA curator Elspeth Pitt

document foreign landscapes, other cultures and cultural material and

was able to join them in Paris for part of the research trip, facilitating

exotic flora and fauna. It is a practice that has provided many records

important introductions and access to key institutions that enabled the

of early Australia, giving today’s audiences the chance to reflect on the

group to view, firsthand, collections that would not have been possible

representation of the ‘other’ as seen through the eyes of early European

without the support of the NGA and Elspeth’s tremendous work in

voyagers to Australia.

securing appointments for the group.

We have long sought these kinds of opportunities for artists within

A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Paris Archives, where the

Australia and overseas, forging fruitful relationships with world-renown

group was able to examine the remarkable hand-scribed journals of

organisations. Recent projects include those undertaken with the

Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to south-eastern Australia. A special visit to the

British Museum and Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and

Louvre Prints and Drawing study room revealed rare early proofs of Pierre

Anthropology in the United Kingdom and the National Gallery of Victoria

Joseph Redouté engravings of Australian botanical specimens—perhaps

in Melbourne.

drawn directly from plants that had been collected by Baudin in Australia

French Connections commenced in May 2018, with a two-week study tour to Paris during which artists were able to examine Australia’s early and continuing connections with France. A comprehensive itinerary

included meetings with artists, curators and scholars as well as a program

inspiration for artists, and facilitating opportunities for artists to research

AUSTRALIAN PRINT WORKSHOP

for the empress Joséphine Bonaparte. A visit to Joséphine’s eighteenth-century home, Château de Malmaison, located on the outskirts of Paris, allowed the group to retrace

her steps and independently explore the extensive gardens to imagine

overseas. For many of the artists, this project represented their first

what had once been an exotic zoological garden housing Australian flora

experience of creating a print in collaboration with a master printer,

and fauna. The discovery of several black swans swimming happily on

initiating what would become an ongoing association with the print

a pond at the back of the manor house made us all wonder if they had

medium for artists such as Mike Parr.

descended from the ‘original’ birds that had been taken by Baudin from Australia over two hundred ago. Following their return to Australia, each artist was scheduled

In 2001, with the support of the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, the NGA acquired a significant collection of over 3500 APW workshop proofs that provided an important twenty-year ‘snap shot’ of

to spend time at the Australian Print Workshop studio in Melbourne,

contemporary Australian printmaking, representing the work of many of

working in collaboration with APW’s highly skilled printers to create a

Australia’s leading contemporary artists in depth. Importantly, it meant

suite of original prints inspired by their time in Paris. The works created

that this body of work would be preserved and conserved for generations

as a result of the project will be launched in a ‘season’ of changing solo

to come, rather than being precariously stored in plan cabinets

exhibitions at APW Gallery to be held in mid-2019.

throughout the APW studios. This project resulted in the major exhibition

The French Connections project builds on our long-standing

PlaceMade: Australian Print Workshop at the NGA in Canberra, which

relationship with the NGA, who has partnered with us to achieve many

then toured several venues around Australia. The works were also

important milestones that have produced lasting outcomes for the field

digitised and are accessible to all via the NGA’s website.

of contemporary Australian printmaking. In 1988, for instance, the NGA

Working with the NGA and the artists on French Connections

commissioned APW to work with twenty-five of Australia’s leading

has delivered a highly significant contemporary visual arts project

contemporary artists, each working collaboratively with a highly skilled

and an ambitious and innovative suite of original prints that highlight

printer to produce an original print. These prints formed a portfolio

the continued development and relevance of printmaking in

that was gifted to major cultural institutions throughout Australia and

Australia today.

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Christian Thompson When Bidjara man Christian Thompson travelled to Oxford University

which crystals and flowers were worn alongside the Oxford subfusc, the

he understood the complex political and ideological resonances that

academic dress worn at all formal Oxford events and exams. The subfusc

surrounded his experience as one of the first Aboriginal people to

signifies the Oxford student’s assimilation into the august institution’s

undertake study at this monument to British authority. The university,

traditions and social structures. But Thompson disrupts this process

its colleges, its social and academic conventions and its collections

of assimilation, and its association with British power, culture and

embody and feed into British power and privilege. Thompson’s series

privilege, by introducing elements associated with Indigenous culture

of photographs We bury our own responds to this. As a PhD candidate

(a headscarf printed with Indigenous artwork) and confusing male and

at Oxford’s Trinity College, he used his proximity to the collection of

female attributes. In doing so, he proposed a new model of association

the university’s famous Pitt Rivers Museum as the basis for research.

with the institution and its power structures, one that appropriated and

He was especially drawn to the collection of historic photographs

then subverted the authority assumed by the centre with a performative

of Aboriginal Australians compiled by the museum’s first curator

process that sought to ‘set free’ the portraits he found in the museum

Henry Balfour.

collection, so far from Country.

Thompson’s response to the archive was to ‘spiritually repatriate’ it.

To ‘set free’ the original photographs, Thompson highlighted

This involved a range of performative actions, which led to the production

the cultural and ideological connection of Oxford University, the Pitt

of the photographs. In an artist statement, he writes, ‘I lit candles and

Rivers Museum collection and the British colonial project that led

offered blood to the ancestral beings, looked into the black sparkling

to the dispossession of Australia’s Indigenous people. In one of the

sea, donned the Oxford garb, visited the water by fire light and bowed

photographs from the series, he holds a miniature tall ship. In the

at the knees of the old father ghost gum’. He intended these actions as

most melancholic of the images, he holds (as if an evangelist) a gilded

gestures of healing, referred to in his own photographs by candle votives

frame surrounding an image of the ocean on which ships sailed,

and crystals. His use of crystals also recalls their ceremonial significance.

and over which the original photographs and their subjects might

He remembered hearing stories from old men about a ceremony ‘where

spiritually return home. Shaune Lakin, Senior Curator, Photography

young warriors would make incisions through the flesh exposing the joints [and] insert gems between the bones to emulate the creator spirits, often enduring infection and agonizing pain or resulting in death’. He was drawn to this idea of ‘aspiring to embody the creators, to transgress the physical body by offering to our gods our spiritual heart, freeing ourselves of suffering by inducing a kind of excruciating decadent torture’.

Thompson restaged this story as a photographic ceremony, one in

in the United Kingdom as an inaugural Charlie Perkins Scholar,

NEW ACQUISITIONS

TS Glaister Like many photographers in the nineteenth century, Thomas Skelton Glaister followed the money. He came to Australia from New York in 1854 in the wake of the gold rushes, setting up a studio on Collins Street in Melbourne. By April the following year, he had relocated to Sydney to set up shop in Pitt Street, enjoying great success. He returned to the United States in 1869, apparently a year before a fire destroyed the building that housed his studio, although the details around his return to the States Opposite: Christian Thompson (Bidjara people) Forgiveness of the land, Desert melon and Danger will come, from We bury our own 2012, chromogenic photographs. Purchased 2018. Courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin and Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne Below: TS Glaister not titled (Aboriginal nanny with two children) c 1860s, ambrotype. Purchased 2018

remain cloudy. Like many early photographers, aspects of Glaister’s life remain obscure. Recent research is only now filling in some of the blanks. It is now known, however, that he was sufficiently well rewarded from his time in Sydney to become a vintner in Sonoma, California, not working in photography again and dying at the age of 79, when the horse pulling the carriage in which he was travelling bolted at the approach of an automobile. Glaister proudly advertised that his ambrotypes were expensive but high quality and not prone to fading (a problem at the time). The superiority of his surviving works attest to this. As the photographic historian Erica Esau noted in 1999 in the journal History of Photography, ‘Glaister demonstrated a concern for aesthetic sophistication often lacking in many Australian practitioners of the time’. He has come to be regarded as one of the most skilled photographers of the mid nineteenth century for good reason. His images still speak to us because they are imbued with an overriding sense of humanity. They transcend their particular historic context. Many American photographs exist of children photographed with their African-American nannies. They are poignant and difficult images that attest to the close relationship between the women and the children they raised. While the subject of Aboriginal people dressed in non-traditional garb was a subject relatively common to nineteenth-century Australian photography, this is a rare example of a photograph depicting an Aboriginal nanny with children in her care. The family dog got to visit the studio as well and has stayed commendably still for the long exposure. The whole thing is beautifully observed, as you would expect from Glaister. It adds to the richness of the story the Gallery can tell of Australia’s colonial past. Anne O’Hehir, Curator, Photography

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

Howard Taylor In June this year, the NGA received an important gift of three works by

art supplied by the Red Cross. This experience inspired him to study at

West Australian artist Howard Taylor. The gift came from Sharon Grey and

the Birmingham College of Art from 1947 to 1948. Upon returning to

Jeff Hall, who have been judicious and discerning collectors of the artist’s

Australia, he taught painting and drawing at the Perth Technical College

work for many years and previously donated his painting Burnt hillside

from 1951 to 1965 and at the School of Architecture and Planning at the

1991. The two drawings of 1994, Column work and Prismatic black,

Western Australian Institute of Technology from 1965 to 1969. In 1967,

and the painting Planet 1988 that form the gift all delve into Taylor’s

he moved to Northcliffe in the heart of the tall-timber karri and jarrah

preoccupation with the column, or tree trunk, and the sphere. Both

forests of the south-west of Western Australia, where he produced some

shapes appear throughout his work as building blocks to understanding

of his most powerful, impeccably crafted evocations of nature. He died on

the infinite, unknowable aspects of the universe.

19 July 2001 in Perth.

Planet, which is currently installed in the NGA’s display Earth/Sky,

after the artist’s death, ‘Howard Taylor was an Australian and his

the enigma of the universe and hints at the geometry that underpins the

brilliant gifts and stunning vision was totally focused on the depiction

gravitational forces of the cosmos. The simplicity of the composition and

of his beloved Australian bush. His vision, however, went far beyond

palette belies the complex ideas Taylor is ruminating on in this restrained

the focus of any painter before him, in that none of them, irrespective

vision of space and our place within the universe.

of their unquestioned brilliance, ever interrogated and captured the

Taylor was born in Hamilton, Victoria, on 29 August 1918 and

complexity of structure, the ephemeral quality of its light and colour,

moved to Perth with his family in 1932. He served with the RAAF and

or the rich and subtle patina of its living forms, as he did’.

RAF during the Second World War until captured in 1940. While a

Lara Nicholls, Curator, 19th-Century Australian Art

prisoner of war in Germany, he began to draw and to read books on

As Anthony K Russell AM has remarked in August 2001, shortly

is from a larger series of works depicting the solar system. It encapsulates

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Richard Larter Richard Larter was one of Australia’s most innovative artists and made a significant contribution to Australian cultural life. Film goddess 1959 captures, within the sitting room of Larter’s parent’s house in Tadworth in Surrey, the intersection of pop culture and suburbia. A beautiful woman dominates the composition and a man, bearing resemblance to Larter’s father, admires her from afar. Personal touches can be seen, such as the clay model head on the back wall, an early sculptural work by Larter. The theme of the family living room appeared in several of his sketches from the late 1950s, with the rotary dial television often dominating the composition. During this period, a television was still an expensive luxury for most families, and Larter fondly remembers watching it at his family home. The semi-abstract composition is created using directional lines of bright colour. The concertina zigzag of the blue walls and the swirls on the woman’s cheek create movement within the work. In 1956, Larter began to change direction, focussing on figurative works and

Joyce Hinterding As fingers trace the pattern of dark lines in Joyce Hinterding’s L-System Oscillator 2018, the headphones emit a fluctuating soundtrack of humming and buzzing. The work is the conductor of this crackling composition, harnessing the enigmatic electromagnetic waves that we ordinarily cannot hear and transposing them into a site-specific soundscape. The paired glass panels contain drawings in graphite ink of fractalbased forms. These shapes are sourced from Hungarian theoretical biologist Aristid Lindenmayer’s ‘L-system’, which maps the development and energy storage of plants. Using the conductive material of graphite, this intricate drawing operates like an open circuit. It crosses the divide between audience and traditional drawings by incorporating touch and sound, prompting the unusual act of both feeling and listening to the drawing.

subjects from popular culture. The background of his later work became increasingly abstract, eventually developing into a singular plane of pattern, colour and texture. Larter’s practice is marked by his regular experimentation with colour and inventive techniques, most notably his use of a syringe to draw raised lines in a variety of patterns. In this painting, the lines are formed by pushing oil paint through a hypodermic syringe, creating a richly textured surface. This method of delivery was time-consuming, as the syringe would block easily and required a firm grip and steady hand. He developed this technique in the late 1950s, later abandoning the method in 1965 following the negative association of syringes with drug use and the controlled supply of needles. Rebecca Blake, Curatorial Assistant, Australian Painting and Sculpture

Acting as both antenna and a capacitor, the work searches for and stores electromagnetic energy, which is then transferred into oscillating sound when the viewer’s touch completes the circuit. Each viewer subtly manipulates the static-like sound by contributing their own unique energetic timbre as they physically follow the lines. L-System Oscillator also disrupts the expectation of a ‘neutral’ gallery space, drawing attention to the architecture’s elusive, resonant electromagnetic atmosphere. Hinterding’s interactive work builds on her ongoing experimental practice, which aims to expose concealed natural phenomena through visual, aural and tactile manifestations. L-System Oscillator is currently on display in Performing Drawing until 3 March 2019. Yvette Dal Pozzo, Curatorial Assistant, Australian Prints, Gordon Darling Graduate Intern

Opposite: Howard Taylor Planet 1988, oil on plywood panel. Gift of Sharon Grey and Jeff Hall, 2018. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. © Howard H Taylor estate Above: Joyce Hinterding L-System Oscillator 2018, installation view, graphite on glass, wood, mixer, headphones. Purchased 2018 Right: Richard Larter Film goddess 1959, oil paint on composition board. Purchased 2018

ARTONVIEW 96 SUMMER 2018

SPONSORSHIP AND DONATIONS Private donors The Gallery acknowledges the support of its many private donors and recognises here all donations made between 23 March and 5 October. You have our thanks.

50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum Fund William Hayward and Alison Hayward

Alan Scott Collection of Papunya Boards and Photographs Fund

Exhibition Patrons: Love and Desire Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate Andrew Sisson AO and Tracey Sisson

Exhibition Supporters: American Masters The Government of the United States of America

Australian Art: Painting and Sculpture Fund Jennifer Manton

Philip Bacon AM The Barnett Newman Foundation

Julian Beaumont OAM Robyn Burke Terrence Campbell AO and Christine Campbell John Hindmarsh AM Allan Myers AC, QC Ezekiel Solomon AM Wright Burt Foundation

Gala Dinner Fund 2018 American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia

Australian Ceramics Fund

Sir Ronald Brierley

The Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation

Adam Brooks

Cézanne Watercolour and Drawing Fund

Kay Bryan Andrew Buchanan PSM and Kate Buchanan

Margaret Burrell

Robyn Burke and Graham Burke AO

The Margaret Olley Art Trust

Julian Burt and Alexandra Burt

John Sharpe and Claire Armstrong

Terrence Campbell AO and Christine Campbell

Conservation Fund Feilman Foundation

Contemporary Interventions

Krystyna Campbell-Pretty Michel-Henri Carriol and Julie Carriol Maurice Cashmere Philip Colbran

The Balnaves Foundation

James Darling AM and Lesley Forwood

Council Exhibitions Fund

Peter J Hack

Warwick Hemsley

Sue Hewitt

John Hindmarsh AM

Sinclair Hill AM, OBE, and Wendy Hill

Ezekiel Solomon AM

Sam Hill-Smith and Margo Hill-Smith

Decorative Arts and Design Fund Elspeth Humphries and Graham Humphries Humphries Family Foundation

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John Baldessari Throwing three balls in the air to get a straight line (Best of thirty-six attempts) (detail) 1973, offset lithograph. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1981. © John Baldessari

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