Artonview 62

I S S U E 6 2 • w i n t e r 2 0 1 0

JAMES TURRELL’S SKYSPACE  ROBERT DOWLING LIFE, DEATH AND MAGIC  HANS HEYSEN

The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

published quarterly by National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 nga.gov.au

Issue 62, winter 2010

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exhibitions and displays

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© National Gallery of Australia 2010 Copyright for reproductions of artworks is held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia.

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Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire Anne Gray

ISSN 1323-4552 Print Post Approved pp255003/00078

Director’s foreword

Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art Robyn Maxwell

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Hans Heysen Anne Gray

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Portraits from India 1850s–1950s Anne O’Hehir

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In the Japanese manner: Australian prints 1900–1940 Emma Colton

Produced the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department:

acquisitions

editor Eric Meredith

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designer Kristin Thomas photography Eleni Kypridis, Barry Le Lievre, Brenton McGeachie, Steve Nebauer, David Pang, John Tassie rights and permissions Nick Nicholson advertising Erica Seccombe, Eric Meredith printed in Australia by Blue Star Print, Melbourne enquiries The editor, artonview National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 artonview.editor@nga.gov.au advertising

Lucina Ward

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado Jane Kinsman

31 Mutuaga The drummer Crispin Howarth

32 Nias Anthropomorphic stone monument Niki van den Heuvel

33 Yami House post Lucie Folan

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Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3 Jane Kinsman

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James Turrell Skyspace

Fred and Lyn Williams gift Emma Colton

Walangkura Napanangka Untitled Franchesca Cubillo

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Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation Gael Newton

programs

39 Foundation 40 Sponsorship and Development 42 Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship Belinda Cotton

(cover) James Turrell Skyspace 2010 installation: lighting, plaster, painted concrete, marble, stainless steel, granite, bronze, water and landscape surrounds 800 x 2800 x 2800 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra photograph: John Gollings View at the entrance to the stupa inside the Skyspace.

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Faces in view Starry Nights At play in van Gogh’s bedroom Peter Naumann

Director’s foreword

In the last issue of artonview, I said how pleased we were with the extraordinary success of Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond. At the time, attendances had passed 230 000 during the 2009–10 summer holiday season, setting a Gallery record. We really did not expect such very high numbers to continue to the extent they did during the second half of the exhibition.

We were wrong—so much so that we achieved and easily overtook a new art museum record during what we normally consider our off-season, when adults return to work and children to school.

We were extremely fortunate to be able to extend the exhibition’s season by nearly two weeks to ensure that as many Australians as possible could see this fine and deservedly popular show. It is very rare to be able to extend the season for a show of such quality and size, particularly as the exhibition opened in Japan in May. The Musée d’Orsay, however, generously supported the extra time. In the end, 477 000 people visited Masterpieces from Paris, making it easily the most popular exhibition ever held in Australia. We had 38 000 school children and over 60 000 visitors to the Family Activity Room, which was generously sponsored by the Yulgilbar Foundation. We printed 64 000 catalogues, an art publishing record in Australia. We also gained an extra 11 000 new members during the exhibition. In addition, the exhibition pumped nearly $100 million into the Canberra economy. More importantly, the exhibition brought great Post-Impressionist works to Australia, where few are owned, for the appreciation of so many Australians.

The nearly half-a-million attendance demonstrates the importance of staging exhibitions of this quality and size in Canberra, which is a convenient city for people from all over Australia to visit. Nearly 80 per cent of visitors were from outside Canberra. It would be impossible, of course, to mount such exhibitions without the support of sponsors and programs such as the Australian Government’s Art Indemnity Australia scheme, the generous contribution of the ACT government for the national marketing campaign, corporate sponsors, particularly the National Australia Bank but also Qantas, and other sponsors and philanthropists.

The energy and effort that goes into these great exhibitions should not be underestimated—they command tremendous time and resources. The Gallery is extremely grateful to everyone involved in making the exhibition such a success—from our sponsors to, for example, the Gallery’s security staff, our shop and cafe staff, cleaners, installation teams, marketing staff, our members, volunteers and the staff who volunteered to work extra hours to ensure people enjoyed their experience at the Gallery.

Indonesia, possibly Borneo discovered Flores The bronze weaver 6th century bronze 25.8 x 22.8 x 15.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2006 To feature in Life, death and magic at the National Gallery of Australia in August.

Now, with Masterpieces from Paris behind us, the Gallery’s focus is on finalising preparations for the opening season of its new building.

James Turrell’s spectacular Skyspace, the Gallery’s largest work, is almost completed, with only the surrounding area to be landscaped in the new southern garden before it can open to the public. The Skyspace stupa is the first one of its kind to be built in the southern hemisphere.

This complex architectural work intensifies our experience of two elements we take very much for granted in our everyday lives: the sky and light. We will shortly announce its opening season.

On 13 August, we open to the public Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art, an exhibition designed to reveal the power of art made for rituals of life and death from ancient to recent times. The animist religion was the earliest in our immediate region and is still practised in some areas of Southeast Asia.

Objects from museums around the world will complement the National Gallery of Australia’s own exceptional collection of ancestral art for this, the first major exhibition of Southeast Asian animist art ever staged. Unlike similar Asian exhibitions around the world, which focus on works from classical Hindu and Buddhist civilisations, Life, death and magic will reveal the diversity of art produced over two millennia by animist communities, some of which still live in mountainous terrain and remote islands. The Australian International Cultural Foundation and the Gordon Darling Foundation are generously supporting Life, death and magic.

Our two major winter exhibitions look at the work of two exceptional Australian painters of the past: Hans Heysen and Robert Dowling.

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Hans Heysen began his successful career in Adelaide in the Federation period. Although he is one of Australia’s best-known artists, this is the first full retrospective in over 30 years. It includes his oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints. Heysen’s work was pivotal to the development of Australian landscape art in the early twentieth century. He made the Australian gum tree the monumental hero of his nationalistic pictures. His later paintings of the rocky, arid region of the Flinders Ranges from the late 1920s, in the reds and ambers of inland Australia, depicted our dry sculptural landscape almost for the first time. Developed by the Art Gallery of South Australia, this touring retrospective opened at the National Gallery of Australia on 14 May and will continue until 11 July. It includes works that have not been shown at other venues.

Our second winter retrospective is the Gallery’s own Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire. Robert Dowling was not only Australia’s first locally trained artist, when in 1850 he advertised his services as an artist, but he also later became Australia’s first artist to enjoy a career abroad.

This, the first retrospective of Dowling’s work, has been curated for the Gallery by John Jones, one of the Gallery’s inaugural curators of Australian art. The exhibition opened in Launceston, Dowling’s home town, at Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery in March, where it was very warmly received by locals. It is currently at the Geelong Gallery until 11 July—Dowling having worked in Geelong for a few years after Launceston. Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire opens at the National Gallery of Australia on 24 July and will later travel to the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Recent generous gifts have made significant contributions to the Gallery’s collections of International Prints and Drawings, Australian Prints and Drawings, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The Modernist Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg’s gouache painting on paper Space-time construction #3 1923 is an exceptionally generous gift by Penelope Seidler in memory of her husband, acclaimed architect Harry Seidler. Van Doesburg is an important figure in early twentieth-century European art and, along with Piet Mondrian, was a founding member of the De Stijl movement in 1917.

De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and made a considerable impact on architecture. Space-time construction #3, in particular, was a major influence on Harry Seidler’s practice as an architect. A highly valued personal possession of the Seidlers since the early 1970s, this work is now a crucial addition to the national collection.

Another important acquisition for the collection of International Prints and Drawings is Henri de ToulouseLautrec’s famous poster Eldorado 1892, which brilliantly captures the bravado of the notorious French cabaret singer Aristide Bruant. This very large and rare lithograph

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complements the Gallery’s important collection of Toulouse-Lautrec’s works on paper. It was acquired through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation with funds raised at the Foundation’s Gala dinner in March.

For the Australian Prints and Drawings collection, the Gallery received prints and artists books from the collection of Lyn Williams and the late Fred Williams. This significant gift includes early works by major Australian printmakers John Brack, Tate Adams, Jan Senbergs, George Baldessin and others who shared the printmaking studios with Williams at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology during the 1960s.

Walangkura Napanangka’s Untitled 2009 was acquired for the Gallery’s collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art with the generous support of The Myer Foundation in acknowledgment of the 2008 National Apology to the Stolen Generations. This engaging contemporary work is a large acrylic painting from the Western Desert region of Central Australia, the birthplace of this contemporary Indigenous art movement derived originally from sand drawings.

This valuable and much appreciated addition to the collection will be included in the opening displays in our new Indigenous galleries.

The Gallery also received two Indonesian textiles, gifts of Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, the first lady of Indonesia: a fine hand-drawn batik from Java and a luminous silk and silver brocade from Bali. Accompanied by Thére`se Rein, Mrs Bambang Yudhoyono toured the Asian galleries and the exhibition Emerging Elders: honouring senior Indigenous artists in March. The two gifts were made in recognition of the Gallery’s role in establishing Indonesian textiles as one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant art forms.

Over the past two years, the Gallery has made key purchases of rare Southeast Asian ancestral sculpture that will be first seen in our major exhibition mentioned earlier, Life, death and magic. The recently acquired stone figure of a grand nobleman from the Indonesian island of Nias and the tall boldly painted house post from the Yami community of Taiwan will be among works on display.

The Gallery continues to refresh the important collection displays. A selection of early Indian portrait photographs now on show in our new photography gallery reveals the vitality of Indian culture and the unmistakable character of Indian photographic portraiture from after 1850 to 1950. The Indian portraits are from the Gallery’s growing and important collection of early Asian and Pacific photography.

In addition to vitally needed new facilities, the new building includes 11 generous spaces for our collection of Indigenous Australian art, the largest and finest anywhere. A book on the Indigenous collection will be published in conjunction with the opening of the

building. It will provide a comprehensive introduction to Indigenous art from early barks and early Papunya boards to contemporary urban works.

The new building, nearing completion, will be a special feature of the next artonview.

Ron Radford, Director, Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, first lady of Indonesia, and Thérèse Rein in the Southeast Asian gallery with the two textiles given to the Gallery by Mrs Bambang Yudhoyono. (opposite) The queue for Masterpieces from Paris, 7 January 2010.

Ron Radford AM Director

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exhibition

Robert Dowling Tasmanian son of Empire 24 July – 3 October 2010 | Orde Poynton Gallery and Project Gallery

Robert Dowling Breakfasting out 1859 oil on canvas 61 x 91.5 cm Museum of London, Britain purchased 1953

Robert Dowling Self-portrait c 1852 oil on board 30 x 25 cm private collection

Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire is a tribute to a remarkable colonial artist, the first locally trained artist in Australia. It opened at the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston, on 5 March, and then at the Geelong Gallery on 8 May, and will be on display at the National Gallery of Australia from 24 July to 3 October. It is the Gallery’s most significant Australian colonial art exhibition since its John Glover retrospective in 2004.

Although Dowling’s work is held in private and public collections across Australia and overseas, this is the first time that a significant body of his work has been presented to the public. The exhibition includes more than 70 works.

The exhibition and the accompanying book both explore Dowling’s successful career in Australia and Britain.

It not only re-establishes his place in Australian art history, but also shows how he earned a place within British art.

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Paradoxically, some of his successes have remained hidden for many years. Breakfasting out 1859, Dowling’s first work to receive critical acclaim at the Royal Academy, has only just been correctly attributed to the artist after spending almost 60 years in the Museum of London attributed to an English artist.

Who, then, was Robert Dowling? Photographs and self-portraits suggest that he was a tall slender man, with a straight back, who was immaculately dressed. He seems to have been good looking in his youth with dark brown hair and neatly trimmed beard, brown eyes, rosy cheeks and a firmly set mouth. From all accounts, he had a directness of manner, which he probably inherited from his father, a Baptist preacher, and a man of physical and moral strength.

Dowling likely had few inhibitions; he was a self-made man—having started his career as a portrait painter by

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Robert Dowling Weerat Kuyuut and the Mopor people, Spring Creek, Victoria 1856 oil on canvas 52 x 108.5 cm The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane gift of Miss Marjorie Dowling, 1952

teaching himself how to paint. It would seem he believed in himself and his abilities but was always ready to learn from whomever he came across—artists Thomas Bock and Henry Mundy, for instance. His family had a standing in Tasmanian society, and this would have contributed to his self-confidence. Moreover, he mixed with men who played a crucial role in developing the young colony— men such as the Reverend John West and WP Weston, who were prominent figures in the anti-transportation league, believing that the penal system was cruel.

From his father, and from such local dignitaries, Dowling would have gained a sense of justice and integrity.

But mixing among such society also provided Dowling with easy access to those who might commission portraits or purchase paintings. He came from a close-knit family; his brother Henry, particularly, was a staunch advocate of his work and encouraged others to purchase or commission it.

In the Western District of Victoria in the 1850s, Dowling painted sympathetic portraits and portrait groups of the local Aborigines. His Aboriginal subjects, such as

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Weerat Kuyuut and the Mopor people, Spring Creek, Victoria 1856, are unique historical documents. These images reveal a real interest in and concern for the Mopor people, in their way of life and their relationship with their land. He talked with the Aboriginal people, learned their names, closely observed the clothes they wore and the tools they used when hunting, and depicted this in his paintings.

From his Baptist family background Dowling would have developed a concern for the wellbeing of other people. We can see this in his social realist painting, Breakfasting out. Painted in London in 1859, the year that Charles Dickens wrote A tale of two cities, this work shows the working class in the streets of London, including a predatory toff attempting to seduce a young woman. This Dickensian painting also suggests that Dowling, like the great author and like some of the Tasmanian dignitaries he portrayed in his youth, may have been interested in social reform.

In London in the 1870s, Dowling painted the watercolour Egyptian banana seller 1878, a carefully

worked image in which he conveyed the quiet beauty and radiance of his subject and captured the softness and exquisite detail of her shawl. In its large scale and Orientalist subject, A sheikh and his son entering Cairo 1874, reflects Dowling’s ambition. Such subjects were popular with successful academicians at the time such as Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, who often portrayed the Orient as exotic, colourful and sensual.

One of Dowling’s last paintings, Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly) 1885–86, was a portrait of a young Australian.

The painting is currently the subject of the National Gallery of Australia’s Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010 (see page 39). Dowling first painted Dolly dressed in white at her home in the Western District of Victoria.

But Dolly, then aged 19, did not approve of the portrait and persuaded the artist to repaint her wearing a dark brown dress. Other successful portrait painters would not have done so, but Dowling agreed, perhaps entranced by the charms of young Dolly, but perhaps just out of a genuine kindness of heart. As the art critic James Smith commented in Dowling’s obituary in The Argus on

14 July 1886, the artist’s nature was ‘breezy, genial and sympathetic. He took a cheerful view of life, looked on the bright side of human nature, and was somewhat of a laughing philosopher’.

Three years in the making, Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire, the exhibition and book, curated and written by John Jones, reveals the work of a remarkable character and a fascinating and broad-ranging artist.

As the Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Ron Radford, has said:

Robert Dowling A sheikh and his son entering Cairo, on their return from a pilgrimage to Mecca 1874 oil on canvas 139.3 x 244.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne presented by a committee of gentlemen, 1878

This exhibition aims to return Robert Dowling to his proper place in Australian cultural history. He was the first Australian to achieve success at the Royal Academy in London and the most successful portrait painter in Australia in the 1880s.

Robert Dowling truly holds a special place in the history of Australian art, a place that this retrospective affirms.

Anne Gray Head of Australian art

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exhibition

Life, death and magic 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art 13 August – 31 October 2010 | Exhibition Galleries

Ngaju people Kalimantan, Indonesia Ceremonial mat (amak dare) early 20th century bamboo, natural dyes 205.3 x 88.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1994

Toraja people Sulawesi, Indonesia Ceremonial hanging and shroud (paporitonoling) 19th century (detail) cotton, dyes 137 x 181 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired through gift and purchase from the Collection of Robert J Holmgren and Anita E Spertus, New York, 2000

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Throughout Southeast Asia, the deification of significant forebears and the veneration of spirits of nature have long provided the impetus for the creation of superb works of art. Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art is the first major exhibition to focus on the art of animism, the oldest of the Asian religions. For thousands of years, objects have been made to give pleasure to the living and the dead. Often their designs are simultaneously appealing and frightening, created to encourage benign spirits to join in village celebrations and yet providing protection from dangerous beings and misfortunes. For this exhibition, some of the finest works of Southeast Asian animist art have been assembled from around the world, with generous loans from collecting institutions in Asia, Europe and America joining works from the national collection.

Recent acquisitions of animist sculpture by the National Gallery of Australia will be revealed for the first time and provide the focus for the themes in the exhibition. A rare painted Yami house post (see page 32) is pivotal to the section exploring the majestic wooden architecture of the region, while two monumental Nias stone effigies of noblemen—one purchased 2009 (see page 33) and one in 2008—are central to the selection of objects, textiles and gold jewellery that proclaim wealth and power. Many of the textiles from the Gallery’s internationally renowned Asian collection will also be new to visitors. Here, the focus is on bold fibre shrouds and delicate barkcloths brightly painted with curving buffalo horns, widely used as symbols of abundance. Heavily beaded and interlaced mats from the collection depict the cosmic tree and the spirit ship that, along with strange birds, symbolise changes in status throughout life as well as transitions through the layers of the universe, especially between this world and the afterlife. Mats and fabrics are often hung at significant rites of passage, especially funerals.

Life, death and magic presents a very broad geographic and temporal vista of the region’s ancestral arts, from ancient times to the twentieth century and encompassing

Yamdena, Maluku, Indonesia Ancestral altar (tavu) 19th century wood 138 x 188 x 3.5 cm Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam

Sa’dan Toraja people Tondon village, Sulawesi, Indonesia Granary facade 19th century wood, pigments 211 x 198 x 10 cm Fowler Museum of Cultural History UCLA, Los Angeles gift of Dr and Mrs Robert Kuhn

mainland and island Southeast Asia. The juxtaposition of 2000-year-old archaeological treasures with nineteenthcentury sculptures, gold ornaments and architectural elements dramatically demonstrates the ancient and enduring links between the arts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia (especially Borneo), the indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan and the mountain groups of Vietnam and southern China. Significantly, the exhibition reveals the richness of the arts of smaller and more remote communities often overlooked in exhibitions and publications in favour of the great stone monuments and sculptures from the better-known classical Hindu-Buddhist civilisations such as Angkor and Borobodur.

The exhibition features works in a wide range of media, including fibre, stone, metal, wood and clay. Always present at the many rites that celebrate agricultural and life cycles—most notably harvests and funerals—are sculpture and textiles, often symbolising the male–female dimensions of the cosmos that underpin ancestral beliefs. This dualism

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is powerfully represented, in ceremony, by the male arts of woodcarving and smelting and the female arts of textile, basketry and pottery. Works have been selected to demonstrate recurring images in animist art such as human and animal figures, real and mythical, shown seated, standing and sometimes mounted on fantastic creatures.

Similarly the horns of sacrificial buffaloes, grains of rice and stars in the night sky evoke fertility and fecundity.

These symbols are displayed at rites enacted to ensure the prosperity and survival of small communities, while fanged demonic masks and fierce reptilian forms such as serpents and dragons serve to repel evil.

The central object in the exhibition is The Bronze weaver, the Gallery’s superb 600-year-old seated maternity figure. Found on one of the eastern islands of the archipelago, The Bronze weaver will share the spotlight in Life, death and magic with other remarkable rare and ancient bronzes: a curving ceremonial axe from Roti from the National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, an enigmatic

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Sumbanese people west Sumba, Indonesia Breast ornament or pectoral (marangga) late 19th – early 20th century gold, cinnabar 16.5 x 24.2 x 0.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2005

Sumbanese people Kanatang domain, Sumba, Indonesia Ceremonial ear pendant (mamuli ) 19th century gold alloy 10.2 x 9.6 x 1.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1984

bulbous flask with spiral ornamentation unearthed in Borneo from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, and the splendid figure of a sturdy dog possibly discovered in Sulawesi and now in the collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Among the most beguiling, however, are the bronzes from the early Dian Kingdom (500 BCE – 200 CE) discovered in a series of archaeological excavations in the province of Yunnan in southern China. Objects from the Provincial Museum in Kunming and smaller local museums include large drums with dramatic three-dimensional scenes of weaving and hunting on their lids. The most detailed of the scenes shows a village house and granaries teeming with activity—a cameo of life in early Southeast Asia that are still replicated today in remote hamlets in the Batak regions of north Sumatra or the Toraja areas of Sulawesi.

The facade of a Toraja granary from the collection of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of Los Angeles comes from a structure very similar to but two millennia younger than those of the Dian people of Yunnan.

Another fascinating aspect of the exhibition is the variety of masks found across Southeast Asia. Frightening wooden faces—in both anthropomorphic and animal forms—are stark reminders of the need for powerful protection from evil spirits and the wandering souls of the

dead. Some of the most striking are the gold burial masks.

Powerful but delicate examples from Indonesia and from the pre-Hispanic period of Philippine art comprise only the nose, eye and lip covers along with arching gold eyebrows.

Life, death and magic follows the life cycle from birth to death and into the afterlife. A wooden baby carrier from Borneo, borrowed from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, protects the child physically while its carvings of large ferocious faces, with bared teeth and huge shell disc eyes, provide a barrier to evil spirits. Given the uncertainties of childhood, it is not surprising that some of the most powerful art is created to celebrate the great achievements of adulthood—success at hunting, including warfare and head hunting, prowess in weaving and the promotion to high rank and chiefdom. The exhibition will feature a selection of large gold ornaments, ostentatiously displayed by nobles from Nias at great communal feasts, from the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore.

Arguably the greatest works of art have been created for funerals of prominent members of the community, whose spirits may continue to be active in the affairs of the living. Where the afterlife mirrors the human dimension, no expense is spared on ensuring that the deceased moves into the realm of the spirits and ancestors with an enviable collection of fine grave goods at an elaborate ceremony

with huge attendances. Beautiful objects—textiles, ivory, jewellery and vessels of ceramic and bronze—are interred with the dead during mortuary rites. In many communities, the bones are later exhumed and the deceased is again honoured in elaborate secondary burial rites that also require fine objects and textiles. A number of large and richly decorated coffins are the epitome of the arts associated with death. A 2.4-metre-long house-shaped bronze sarcophagus from the Dian culture of Yunnan and an intricately decorated, buffalo-shaped nineteenthcentury Toraja ossuary from Sulawesi are among the most spectacular items in Life, death and magic, demonstrating the endurance of Southeast Asian art forms and practices from ancient times into the modern era.

Unusually for a major Asian exhibition, works created by both men and women are featured together in Life, death and magic, since the veneration of nature spirits and ancestral beings, who are themselves both male and female, requires the creation of powerful works of art by members of both sexes. Respect for ancestors, including the mythical creators, the original mothers and fathers of all things, often demands fine effigies to be placed in sacred locations and altars in and around the family house and village compound. Mindful of the role of the ancestors in the existence of the living and the ongoing wellbeing of the community, pairs of figures—male and female—are conspicuous in animist art of Southeast Asia. Their human form varies from full-bodied realism to stylised minimalism, and their size from tiny to taller than life-size. Through magnificent contributions from two great Dutch museums, the National Museum for Ethnology in Leiden and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the exhibition explores the most powerful objects created to honour the dead. These spectacular shrines and altars, often in the form of mythical founding ancestors, were sites of offerings reverently laid by generations of descendants.

Southeast Asian art has long been a major focus of the National Gallery of Australia’s collections, displays and curatorial research. Through the juxtaposition of works drawn from the Gallery’s fine collection and the generous loans of great works of Southeast Asian art from around the world, visitors will be introduced to the little-known but truly astounding art of the oldest religion in Southeast Asia.

Audiences will experience art forms and styles that have endured sweeping changes over many thousands of years until recent decades. The accompanying publication fully illustrates this unique assemblage of the finest and rarest works of ancestral art from Southeast Asia.

Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

Indonesia Standing dog 4th–6th century bronze 43.2 x 15.9 x 37.5 cm Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii gift of the Christensen Fund 2001

The book Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art, published in conjunction with the exhibition, will be available from 13 August at the Gallery Shop and selected bookstores nationally.

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exhibition

Hans Heysen A grand vision: strong forms and bold light 14 May – 11 July 2010 | Exhibition Galleries

Hans Heysen Droving into the light 1914–21 oil on canvas 121.9 x 152.4 cm Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth gift of Mr WH Vincent, 1922

Hans Heysen Mystic morn 1904 oil on canvas 122.8 x 184.3 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Elder Bequest Fund, 1904

One of Australia’s best-known landscape painters, Hans Heysen (1877–1968) was also one of the most successful during his lifetime. He changed the way we view the Australian landscape, with his distinctive gum trees having now become a part of our national imagery.

This exhibition celebrates Heysen’s work.

Heysen painted the majesty of Australia. He did so through his images of huge gum trees around Hahndorf and the stark hills of the Flinders Ranges. Heysen’s largeness of vision is evident in oil paintings such as Mystic morn 1904, Red gold 1913 and Droving into the light 1914–21.

In these works, Heysen observed nature acutely, portraying individual species of gum trees in all their specificity— a river red gum distinguished from a white gum or a stringybark. But these images are not just descriptive;

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they are triumphant portraits, with symbolic resonance.

Heysen ‘humanised’ his trees into dramatic self-conscious poses, imbuing them with qualities of endurance, resilience and grandeur. And he arranged his trees within the landscape as if they were sculptural forms or architectural columns.

Mystic morn, for instance, depicts two young cows moving through a eucalyptus grove in the early morning light. Heysen painted it soon after his return to Adelaide after studying in Europe for four years, and it reflects his new awareness of the character of the Australian bush. In the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, visitors will be able to see together for the first time four versions of this image: two drawings, one watercolour and an oil painting. They will be able to observe how the artist explored the same subject in different media. In the first drawing, Group of young trees c 1904, Heysen made a tentative sketch, possibly outdoors, depicting sinuous trees and their peeling bark. The second drawing, Study for ‘Mystic morn’ 1904, is a densely worked compositional study for the oil painting, with very faint grid lines dividing the image into 16 even rectangles in preparation for transferring the design onto canvas—a method Heysen used throughout his career. This compositional drawing also includes a man beside the cow on the left, showing that Heysen initially considered including a figure in the painting. These changes demonstrate the way that Heysen carefully composed his landscapes—after first having made a sketch directly from nature. He worked on his composition to make it more balanced and harmonious, and sought to direct the viewer’s eye through the image.

The watercolour, Study for ‘Mystic morn’ 1904, may have been painted before the finished oil, but it could possibly have been painted after it. Unlike the carefully worked drawing, it is a freer image, painted in rich strong colours and using the watercolour medium to capture an intense light. There are no cows in this image, and the trees are more interwoven and intertwined. The trees almost seem to come to life. The work is also related to another oil painting

by Heysen, Sunshine and shadow 1904–05.

Hans Heysen Bronzewings and saplings, 1921 1921 watercolour on paper 56.7 x 76.4 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide South Australian Government Grant, 1937

In 1926, in search of a change in his art, Heysen visited the Flinders Ranges, more than 500 kilometres north of Adelaide, and began to depict the ancient mountain ranges there. Before this, he had been attracted to the theme of nature laid bare, to scenes of quarries and cliff faces, but from 1926 to 1933 the dry bare-boned terrain of the Flinders Ranges became the focus of his art. He admired the way in which the hills were defined by light.

He captured the sharp profiles of the hills, the clarity of the light, and the intense colours. But, more significantly, he saw this landscape as being dateless, frozen in time, and he captured its haunting silence. Writing to Sydney Ure Smith, Heysen observed that in the Flinders Ranges the scene was ready-made, ‘fine big simple forms against clear transparent skies—and a sense of spaciousness everywhere’.

Heysen was also interested in capturing the Australian sunlight in all its variety—from a brilliant glare to a misty haze. And through this he conveyed a sense of the

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spiritual or sublime in nature. In Droving into the light 1914–21, for instance, Heysen expressed his love of light, glowing through the monumental gums at the end of the day. The massive foreground trees provide scale for the picture as well as a frame directing the attention of the viewer towards the centre of the composition.

It is a vision of nature as homely, secure and peaceful; a promised land.

In addition to his evocative gum tree paintings and the magnificent barren landscapes of the Flinders Ranges, the exhibition includes a number of Heysen’s lesserknown images, from his early student days and his time in Europe from 1899 to 1903. There are portraits of Heysen’s wife Sallie and still-lifes depicting the vegetables from his garden. There are landscapes that reflect Heysen’s experience of bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, in which he captured the fierce blaze of the fire and the stifling heat emanating from it. And there are images of sheep

wandering on dusty roads during a drought, which conjure up the smell of the hot, dry air.

Among Heysen’s intimate and domestic images is the delightful watercolour of two cats in a tree, Spring 1925.

It is a simple snatch of life—with the cats stretching, crouching, possibly waiting for coming prey, or maybe just basking in the sun. Likewise, Bronzewings and saplings 1921 is a sparkling image and one of Heysen’s major watercolours. Here, the artist depicted a group of albino turkeys within a sapling glade. The Hahndorf postmistress had given him a number of bronzewing turkey eggs and, to his surprise, when the eggs hatched many of the chicks turned out to be white. The combination of bronzewing and white turkeys inspired this work. He took much care in painting the scene, laying down each colour freshly with a crisp edge and arranging the composition like a mosaic. Heysen considered it one of his most complicated pieces of design. Some years after he had painted this

watercolour, the Commonwealth Government commissioned Heysen to paint a similar work in oil, which he called The promenade 1953. In Canberra, both the watercolour and the oil will be shown together for the first time.

There is much to see in this exhibition, which throws a different light on Heysen. Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, has summed up the artist’s achievements:

Hans Heysen Spring 1925 watercolour on paper 39.3 x 49.2 cm private collection

Heysen made the Australian gum tree monumental and the hero of his nationalistic pictures. His paintings of the rocky, arid region of the Flinders Ranges from the late 1920s onward added a new dry and sculptural aesthetic, emphasising the reds and ambers of inland Australia.

Comprising about 80 works, the exhibition Hans Heysen at the National Gallery of Australia has been organised and curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

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display

Portraits from India 1850s–1950s

The second display in the National Gallery of Australia’s Photography gallery turns to the important role India played in the development of portrait photography in Asia. The works on display present the vibrant and enigmatic world of Indian studio-based portraiture.

Dias Studio Maharaja Jivajirao Scindia, Gwalior c 1937 gelatin silver photograph, watercolour image 29 x 24 cm card 51.5 x 41 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

One highlight in the new display is the portrait of the dashing Maharaja George Jivajirao Scindia of Gwalior— prominently wearing his sash and medal of the Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India, awarded to him in 1946. I first saw him looking down at me in a dealer’s premises in Jaipur in Rajasthan. He was with other elaborately framed, hand-coloured photographs and paintings hanging at rakish angles high on the walls.

Piles of studio shots of children, family portraits, glamour shots of women and albums by Raja Deen Dayal wrapped in cloth jostled in the semi-dark with embroideries, softly shimmering silver jewellery and knick-knacks.

A selection of the photographs I saw that day were acquired by the Gallery, and they, along with others bought in recent years, comprise this new display of photography from the collection. Images on show date from early in the history of Indian photography, from the 1850s, with the inclusion of plates from William Henderson and William J Johnson’s The Oriental races and tribes, residents and visitors of Bombay, the first photographically illustrated ethnographic publication on India. These photographs show a high degree of manipulation—their strangeness attributed to Johnson bleaching out the studio backgrounds, overprinting them with Bombay scenes from separate negatives and drawing in features such as foliage.

Also in the display is a splendid array of nineteenthcentury rulers with their inventive blending of traditional Indian clothing mixed with Western imports such as patent leather shoes and umbrellas—ensembles that demonstrate resourceful adjustments to shifting political and social climates under the British Raj. Invented in the late 1830s, photography is distinctive as an art form in the history of many countries because it was introduced very soon after its appearance in Europe—arriving without the burden of a pre-existing tradition. Brought into India by a variety of means— visiting photographers, missionaries, anthropologists,

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ethnographers—locals were quick to pick up cameras, build up their skills and develop successful businesses. As in other parts of Asia, Indian royals were particularly astute in seeing the political potential of the new medium and were passionate patrons and practitioners.

One drawback of the new medium—particularly in India, where colour, symbolically and for its own beauty, permeates every aspect of life—was that it rendered a highly colourful world in monochrome. The solution was a truly hybrid form of photography and painting. Techniques used for hundreds of years by painters of miniatures found a new application in painting over photographs, particularly portraits—with the over-painting often almost completely obscuring the photograph beneath. Photography developed a distinctive local flavour with regional styles and essentially a home-grown clientele—as opposed to the hand-coloured views and portraits from Japan, for example, which were produced for the tourist trade.

The history of the professional studio photographer is longer in India than in other more-industrialised countries where amateur home photography took over by the late nineteenth century. In India, elderly hand-colourists are still working today, and long-established studios continue to do business or have only recently closed. Contemporary photographers also draw on their predecessors’ studio work as inspiration. This display of a century of Indian portrait photography presents examples of a wonderfully rich and varied art form, one with a long history. Like many things brought in by the colonising foreigner, photography was embraced and made unmistakably Indian, in style and in spirit.

Anne O’Hehir Assistant Curator, Photography

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travelling exhibition

In the Japanese manner Australian prints 1900–1940

Paul Haefliger Sublime Point above Bulli 1936 woodcut, printed in colour in the Japanese manner from one cherry woodblock on paper printed image 26.5 x 36.6 cm sheet 26.5 x 36.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of the artist, 1978

Margaret Preston Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay) 1920 woodcut, printed in black ink from one woodblock, handcoloured, on thin smooth offwhite Japanese-style paper 21 x 26.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009 © Margaret Rose Preston Estate.

Represented by VISCOPY, Australia

Lionel Lindsay Beach scene with figures c 1917 etching, printed in black ink from one plate; woodcut, printed in colour from one block on paper printed image 22.1 x 16 cm sheet 28.2 x 20.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1989 © National Library of Australia

During Margaret Preston’s second visit to Paris in 1912, her Australian contact, artist Rupert Bunny, advised her to look at the Japanese prints at the Musée Guimet. She was immediately impressed by the asymmetry of the images and the use of pattern as a key element of design. After trade with Japan resumed in the 1850s, the rediscovery of Japanese art and design had a profound influence on European art. From the 1860s, traditional Japanese woodblock prints became a source of inspiration for artists who were receptive to the unique compositions enlivened by silhouettes, high horizon lines and unusual viewpoints.

Elongated pictorial formats, decorative motifs and spaces with abstract elements of colour and line superseded perspective and shadow as the focus of the design.

Arriving in London in 1913, Preston viewed the important exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e (floating world) printmaking at the Victoria and Albert Museum and later described four woodblock prints completed during this period as having been printed ‘in the Japanese manner’.

The recently acquired Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay) c 1920 is one of six woodcuts printed by Preston using Japanese techniques following her return to Australia in

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late 1919. Produced to decorate her new flat in Mosman, on Sydney’s North Shore, this delicate hand-coloured print with its glowing colours and strong lyrical design is a testament to Preston’s connection with the formal qualities and techniques associated with Japanese woodblock printing.

Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay) is included in the National Gallery of Australia exhibition In the Japanese manner: Australian prints 1900–1940, which will tour across regional New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia from 18 June 2010 to 21 November 2011. The exhibition showcases the work of Australian artists inspired by the traditional Japanese woodblock printing art of ukiyo-e. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Japanese prints were all the rage in England and France. Australian artists, like their contemporaries worldwide, were also drawn to the nuanced aesthetic of Japonisme. Printmakers working in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide adapted the radical forms, cropped figures and flat areas of colour that characterised Japanese woodblock printing to form a distinctly Australian aesthetic.

Some artists experimented with the colour woodblock method, which involved brushing ink directly onto wood or

Ambrose Patterson View over the Thames, evening c 1904 woodcut, printed in colour in the Japanese manner from two blocks, with additional handcolouring in gouache on thin cream paper printed image 21.8 x 30.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2000

lino blocks, while others applied Japanese aesthetics and style to various print forms.

Featured in the exhibition is the earliest print created in the Japanese manner by an Australian artist. Ambrose Patterson’s woodcut View over the Thames, evening 1904 displays a soft, tonal view of twilight over the River Thames, with St Paul’s cathedral silhouetted against the sky. Another rare inclusion is a Japanese-style bound book of verse written and illustrated in 1905 by Melbourne artist Violet Teague. This small childrens book contains the very first colour woodcuts printed in Australia. The book was exhibited widely, winning an award at the first Australian exhibition of women’s work in Melbourne in 1907. Night fall in the ti-tree is a cautionary tale set out through a series of brief verses reminiscent of Japanese haiku. The rabbits who live among the tea trees are urged to run, ‘Flirt tails and away!’, from ‘Man’s merciless traps’.

Working with fellow artist Geraldine Rede, Teague made the book entirely by hand, using Japanese methods at every stage of production. The book is bound with the pages folded at the fore-edge (the edge opposite the spine) and stitched through the spine with ribbon. The images are printed from woodblocks with the buff coloured paper reminiscent of the mulberry paper used by Japanese

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printmakers. Coming from a wealthy family, Teague had the opportunity to travel extensively, and developed a sustained interest in the aesthetic conventions and techniques of Japanese woodblock printing. Like Teague, many Australian artists in this exhibition studied and worked in Europe. In Paris and London, they were exposed to exhibitions of Japanese works of art as well as new ideas in Modern art. After travelling to Japan, artists such as Margaret Preston and Paul Haefliger achieved a convincing synthesis of Western and Japanese traditions.

It was Margaret Preston who taught woodblock printing to Thea Proctor, who in turn instructed the German-born Haefliger. Haefliger continued his study of traditional printmaking techniques in Japan, following a process where the image is cut along the grain of the wood rather than across the end grain. The hard, slow-growing cherry wood used by Haefliger was favoured by Japanese artists. Rice paste mixed with watercolour was brushed onto the block, which was then hand-printed onto fine, soft paper using pressure from a bamboo-covered pad known as a baren. With this method, the printer could manipulate the ink to produce bold areas of colour, subtle gradations of tone and fine line work.

Haefliger’s Sublime Point above Bulli 1936 is a

woodcut, printed in colour in the Japanese manner from a cherry-wood block. The Sublime Point lookout is on the escarpment above the Illawarra coast in New South Wales, with a view south past the town of Bulli towards Wollongong. In this print, Haefliger depicts a group of virile young men clambering up the cliff face, looking across a vast expanse of blue water dotted with the white sails of yachts and the pattern of undulating sandy bays. He successfully blends Eastern and Western elements, creating a uniquely Australian image while using the Japanese method of colour printing.

Like Haefliger, Lionel Lindsay drew inspiration from serene depictions of populated Japanese landscapes.

Though focused on traditional values in art, Lindsay was highly experimental in his use of different artistic practices to express his poetic vision. A prolific printmaker and passionate collector of Japanese prints and artefacts, he enthusiastically explored the possibilities of combining printmaking methods in works such as Beach scene with figures c 1917. Here, the Japanese compositional techniques of cropping tall trees with the border of the print and the gradual fading of the blue sky into the sea have been overprinted with an etching to define the finer outlines of the trees and figures.

Another artist who experimented with Japanese aesthetics was Murray Griffin. In Cannas 1935, he used lino rather than wood as the base for his matrix, as the material was easier to cut and more readily available. The strong geometric shapes and vibrant colours of the Cannas were closely aligned to Modernist design. The brushy lines give a sense of the texture of a woodblock print, with the striking cropped design recalling the print of irises by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

In the Japanese manner builds on the successes of the landmark exhibition The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 at the National Gallery Australia in 2007.

This exhibition presented the calibre and depth of the Gallery’s Australian print holdings and was regarded as the most comprehensive gathering of works on paper by artists from Australia and the region. In the Japanese manner will provide audiences across Australia with a fresh and inspiring glimpse of some of the National Gallery of Australia’s most delightful treasures.

Murray Griffin Cannas 1935 linocut, printed in colour from multiple blocks on cream lithographic wove paper printed image 28 x 35.4 cm sheet 32.8 x 43.7 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1978

Emma Colton Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings In the Japanese manner begins its tour of regional venues at Lake Macquarie Art Gallery, NSW, from 18 June to 1 August 2010.

Go to nga.gov.au/japanesemanner for a full list of venues and dates.

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acquisition

James Turrell Skyspace

A major new Skyspace by American artist James Turrell nears completion at the National Gallery of Australia.

The Skyspace at the National Gallery of Australia is a site-specific work, its location chosen by the artist to complement and accord with the Gallery’s southern garden. On approach, visitors see a mound surrounded by water. Only a small portion of the structure is visible from outside. Being partially subterranean, the sculpture is established as an integral part of the garden; this also muffles extraneous sound and reduces light pollution.

James Turrell Skyspace 2010 installation: lighting installation, concrete and basalt stupa, water, earth, landscaping 800 x 2800 x 2800 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra photographs: John Gollings

A Skyspace is a work of art that we enter—and then we stay to look at light, to ponder and to be moved.

Contrasts between artificial light within the installation and the changing external atmosphere affect the appearance of the sky. Colours change and seem more painterly. Movement is intensified. The sky shimmers and pulsates and, at times, descends into the space to meet us. By asking the viewer to take the time to notice these subtleties, James Turrell reveals the immensity of the natural world and the sheer beauty of ‘divine’ architecture.

A Skyspace marks the transition between night and day, and the work is at its most dramatic and most complex at dawn and dusk.

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Via a long sloping walkway, the visitor encounters a large square-based pyramid with coloured interior walls. In the middle of this room, a huge basalt stupa rises, highlighted by the turquoise water that surrounds it. Two ramps, set at right angles around the perimeter of the room, converge on a single entrance on the opposite side of the stupa.

Crossing a small bridge, we enter the stupa, the Skyspace proper. We find ourselves within a simple domed space, sparsely furnished with a concrete bench around the edge. The roof is open, the sky framed in an oculus.

A moonstone, set into the centre of the floor, echoes the opening above. A bank of lights is located around the base of the dome, discreetly fixed into the wall of the bench.

This inner sanctum is austere, even church-like. Within the space, we look up. Even during the day, changing light conditions, shifting weather patterns and variations in the seasons, ensure the experience is always different. We are offered artlessness, simplicity, unhurried perception— perhaps even the chance of epiphany.

Turrell has made a small number of permanent Skyspaces in the United States of America, Europe, Britain, Japan and Israel. To date only two others use the stupa form: Three gems 2005 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and Second wind 2005 2009 at the NMAC Foundation in Cadiz, Spain. The Skyspace in Canberra will open with a series of special viewings later this year, when the landscaping is complete. Visitors will then experience this wonderful work of art, Turrell’s new Skyspace under southern skies.

Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

acquisition

Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3 [Concerning] the space that is implicit in this arrangement of divorced structural trays that carry floors, one can only recall the paintings of the 1920s such as this one [Spacetime construction #3] by Theo van Doesburg, a remarkable man who seemed to have predicted what would/will concern twentieth-century man’s eyes about what he feels to express this spaciousness, this continuum [of space].

His painting reflects this continuum of being able to look down and being able to look above from any one space, sensing that there is something beyond, having an illusion of something more, that the space keeps on going. It is not ever restricted or confined. And this is particularly exploited later in my work of the 1960s in multistorey buildings. It makes sense both in terms of planning and expresses a visual quality that underlies my interpretation of modern architecture.

Harry and Penelope Seidler (architects) Interior view, Harry & Penelope Seidler House, Killara, NSW, 1966–67 photograph: Max Dupain © Harry Seidler & Associates

Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3 1923 gouache, graphite, ink 44 x 31 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Penelope Seidler AM in memory of Harry Seidler AC, 2010

Space-time construction #3 is a 1923 painting in gouache on paper by the renowned leader of De Stijl, Theo van Doesburg. It remained a constant inspiration for the extraordinarily gifted architect the late Harry Seidler AC during his years of practice. Seidler’s work, in turn, has had a great influence on architectural developments in Australia.

Penelope Seidler has now generously donated Space-time construction #3 to the Gallery in memory of her husband.

Harry Seidler first saw the work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1940s, when it was owned

by American collectors Mr and Mrs Burton Tremaine.

The impact of the van Doesburg work on Seidler was profound—something he outlined on numerous occasions in lectures and interviews. Its influence was evident in his designs for the Rose Seidler House in 1949–50. Seidler also mentioned van Doesburg’s importance for his Rushcutters Bay apartments of 1963–65 and the family home in Killara of 1966–67. In a lecture to the Royal Australian Institute of Architects on 8 October 1980, copies of which are held at the universities of Melbourne and South Australia, Seidler noted:

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The significance of the van Doesburg is outlined by Peter Blake and brilliantly captured in Max Dupain’s photographs in the 1973 publication Architecture for the new world: the work of Harry Seidler, which included an illustration and analysis of the van Doesburg. Seidler generously gave a group of Dupain’s photographs of his work to the National Gallery of Australia in 2001.

Space-time construction #3 became a valued possession of the Seidlers after they acquired it from Berlin dealer Jürgen Holstein. Holstein had bought the van Doesburg at an auction of the Tremaine collection and had contacted Harry Seidler, having seen its importance to the architect in Blake’s book. The work was also coincidently created in the year of Seidler’s birth, 1923. As Penelope Seidler recently recalled, Harry was ‘thrilled’ to own ‘his most favourite artwork’. In turn, this most influential work in the recent history of architecture in Australia is now in the national collection for all Australians to own.

Along with this van Doesburg gouache, Penelope Seidler has also generously donated a group of early European Modernist works on paper by artists associated with the Bauhaus. The gift includes postcards by Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, which were created to promote the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923 (again coinciding with the year of Harry Seidler’s birth).

Penelope Seidler gave these to her husband on his birthday.

They provide wonderful examples of the aesthetic and the passion the Seidlers shared as collectors over the years.

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

acquisition

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became renowned for his portrayal of subjects drawn from the Parisian demimonde in the late nineteenth century, producing astonishing images executed with an unerring and penetrating eye.

The subject of this famous poster is the singer Aristide Bruant. Bruant was a notorious character as renowned for his rich baritone voice as he was for insulting his audiences. Despite this, his patrons kept coming back for more, attracted not only to the outrageousness of his performances but also because he sang lyrics in a Parisian argot.

Toulouse-Lautrec was a master draughtsman and we can see this in the seemingly effortless way he has captured Bruant’s physical presence and character. As one critic of the day said of Bruant, he was ‘Tall, with a broad barrel chest and a Napoleonic profile: but his eye is sly and his lip sardonic’.

Bruant commissioned this poster for his debut in 1892 at the Parisian café-concert Eldorado, which was more luxurious than some of the seedier café-concerts found in Montmartre. The poster brilliantly captures Bruant’s character; his larger than life presence, his signature scarf and black fedora almost burst from the picture frame.

Behind Bruant is the ominous silhouette of a city ruffian suggesting the singer’s links with the Parisian underworld.

Bruant was keen to promote such an association to provide him with the streetwise credentials that attracted his wealthier patrons, who enjoyed slumming it.

This is an iconic work by Toulouse-Lautrec, who applied fine-art qualities to low-art subjects. Eldorado with its sinuous lines, bold colouring and simplified forms also reveals the artist’s enthusiasm for Japanese ukiyo-e prints.

Now, through the generosity of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, this justifiably famous poster will become one of the highlights of the collection.

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

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado 1892 colour lithograph on two sheets 150 x 99 cm (overall) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, 2010

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acquisition

Mutuaga The drummer It is rare that a Melanesian work of art from the nineteenth century can be attributed to an artist with any certainty, so the artist known as Mutuaga is a phenomenon. He is the only named New Guinean artist who was active during this period and who is responsible for a known body of outstanding work characterised by small yet monumental figurative sculpture.

The artist was known to be of positive and cheerful disposition and, as a carver of great standing, Mutuaga was nicknamed Oitau (carved man) by his peers. His ability to transform the utilitarian object—in this case, a lime spatula

Mutuaga The drummer 1880–90 ebony, lime 36.5 x 4 x 5.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

(known as enale or gem in the Suau area)—and to make it into something attractive and covetous was exceptional.

While all lime spatulas from the Milne Bay Province are decorated to some extent, and many also include a small figure as the handle, Mutuaga’s works are usually far larger and show a greater level of sculptural strength.

Little was known about the artist’s identity until 1996, when art historian Dr Harry Beran published groundbreaking research. Beran identified Mutuaga and his body of work through some hundred sculptures that had been mainly sitting unrecognised in museum collections.

We now know Mutuaga was born around 1860 in Dagodagisu Village in the Milne Bay province of Papua New Guinea. He died around 1920.

Mutuaga, although he did not adopt Christianity, gained the friendship and patronage of the missionary Charles Abel at the nearby Kwato Island Mission.

Mutuaga’s relationship with Abel provided a conduit for his art beyond the traditional exchange practices of his community. Missionaries, commodores and even two of Papua’s first governors acquired Mutuaga’s sculptures.

Unsurprisingly, many of these works later found their way into galleries and museums across the world.

The National Gallery of Australia’s The drummer—like the Gallery’s Double figure from Lake Sentani—was once part of sculptor Jacob Epstein’s collection on nonWestern art. Epstein was known to spend hours silently contemplating objects in his collection. One can almost see Epstein sitting in silence with this work in his hands, enjoying its superb tactile qualities and reflecting on the work of another great artist obscured by time and distance.

Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Art

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acquisition

Nias Anthropomorphic stone monument

Nias people Nias, Indonesia Anthropomorphic stone monument (gowe salawa) 19th century or earlier stone 160 x 30 x 41 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

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Situated off Sumatra’s west coast, the island of Nias is home to an ancient yet enduring tradition of monumental statuary in stone and wood. Ancestral and aristocratic effigies, pillars and seats of honour are still found today in Nias villages. The layout of traditional villages is dramatic, with immense wooden houses erected around central terraces and stone-paved plazas, the venue for important feasts and gatherings. A striking Anthropomorphic stone monument (gowe salawa) from Nias is a major acquisition of Indonesian animist sculpture.

The impressive figure of a nobleman would have been commissioned as a portrait to preside over a feast of rank celebrating the patron’s elevation in social and political standing. While abstract depictions of great chiefs in the forms of shafts and steles are found across the entire island, this example is carved in a more realistic style found especially in the northern villages of Nias.

The squatting or seated human figure is an ancient feature of animist sculpture throughout Southeast Asia and this gowe salawa is one of the most striking known examples of this form. A slightly more eroded partner to this monument, most likely by the same artist, is on permanent display in the Louvre in Paris.

On Nias, distinct hierarchical divisions exist between lower and upper classes. In former times, slaves and commoners were governed by noble chiefs who traced their lineage back to mythical founding ancestors. Even today, status is reinforced by the display of attributes associated with wealth and power. The Gallery’s gowe salawa exhibits many markers of high status, including a gold studded headdress, necklace, bangles and long ear ornament—typical ceremonial regalia of a Nias nobleman.

The patron’s qualities of bravery and strength are confirmed by the emphasis of his masculine physical traits, namely his prominent genitalia, and by his sword and scabbard.

This figure joins another more abstract Nias stone monument in the collection, and both will be on display in the exhibition Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art.

Niki van den Heuvel Exhibition Assistant, Asian Art

acquisition

Yami House post This large and strikingly painted panel is an important new addition to the Gallery’s collection of Asian sculpture. It was created by Taiwan’s Yami people, an indigenous group who live on Botel Tobago (also known as Lanyu or Orchid Island), a small mountainous isolated island off the south-east coast of Taiwan. Along with distinctively decorated canoes, the tomok—the main house post of a traditional dwelling—is the most culturally valuable art form of the Yami people.

Worldwide, only a small number of significant Yami objects are held by public museums.

Yami culture shares ethnographic and linguistic similarities with communities of the northern islands of the Philippines. Fishing is still central to traditional life and the flying fish that annually migrate past the island are considered sacred. The Yami ritual calendar centres on the flying fish season when ceremonies are performed to summon, store and prepare the fish.

A typical Yami dwelling consists of a main house built below ground to withstand frequent typhoons, a separate work house, and a platform for eating and socialising.

Painted with very similar imagery to the ceremonial canoes, tomok support the roof apex at the centre of the main house. Symbolising the connection between sea and mountain, the tomok is the first element to be erected after a house site is excavated, and is carefully positioned in accordance with local lore. Highly valued, tomok are passed down from one generation to the next and are moved if a family relocates or reconstructs a house.

One face of this post is decorated with red, black and white motifs intended to protect the household from malevolent spirits of the dead (anito). The circular motif, which typically appears on Yami canoe prows, is called mata no tatara (eye of the canoe). The figure with spiral arms and headdress represents Magamoag, the ancestor who imparted boat-building and agricultural skills to the Yami, while the goat’s horn motif symbolises longevity.

This tomok will go on display alongside other rare and fascinating works of art in the Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art.

Lucie Folan Curator, Asian Art

Yami people Botel Tobago, Taiwan House post (tomok) 19th century wood, pigments 216.6 x 108.8 x 8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

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acquisition

Fred and Lyn Williams gift

George Baldessin Walkers II 1966 etching and aquatint, printed in black ink, from one plate, on thick off-white wove paper plate-mark 20.2 x 30.2 cm sheet 56 x 69.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Lyn and the late Fred Williams, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2009

The prints and artists books in the Fred and Lyn Williams gift capture the milieu of the Melbourne art scene, with important examples from well-known printmakers including Tate Adams, Jan Senbergs, Franz Kempf, Noel Counihan and John Brack. There are also prints by significant artists not generally recognised for their printmaking, including a wonderful group of early screenprints by Leonard French and experimental works by Asher Bilu.

One of Australia’s most significant painters and printmakers, Fred Williams played a pivotal role in the development of contemporary art in Australia. Williams lived in London from 1952 to 1956, undertaking study at the Chelsea Art School and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. It was during this period that he learnt the technique of etching, with works populated by the vivid characters of music halls and London streets.

Following his return to Melbourne, Williams began developing new works, while editioning his London prints

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at the print workshop at Melbourne Technical College, renamed the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in 1960. From 1961 to 1963, Williams used the workshop on Fridays in the company of Gil Jamieson, Don Laycock, Tate Adams and Leonard French. He also established links with a number of RMIT students, including Guy Stuart, Robert Jacks, Paul Partos and George Baldessin.

Baldessin studied painting at RMIT, adding sculpture and printmaking in his third and fourth years. The printmaking course at the college was revolutionised by Tate Adams, who took over evening classes and established the first Diploma of Printmaking in Australia in 1960. The print workshop at RMIT had been opened up to interested artists in the late 1950s by Adams’s predecessor, Roy Bisley.

It brought students together with painters and sculptors who wished to experiment with the printed medium.

Williams developed a firm friendship with the much younger Baldessin, and a strong connection emerged

between the two artists in terms of both subject matter and technique. Baldessin’s early work was influenced by the images of music halls and trapeze artists that Williams had created in London. In particular, Baldessin was intrigued by the suspended figure and Williams’s ability to capture the isolation of performance. Such links are clearly seen in the etchings by Baldessin that form part of the Fred and Lyn Williams gift.

A recurring day in the life of MM II 1966 is from Baldessin’s seminal circus narrative series, with the tophatted observer of life as protagonist. In this work, as in Walkers II 1966, Baldessin negotiates his developing iconography focused around the detached figure.

Baldessin learnt the process for aquatint from Williams, using it as an atmospheric device to create texture across the plate. In Walkers II, the silhouetted figures drift across a velvety black stretch of barren landscape, an empty backdrop reminiscent of Williams’s 1950s music-hall

etchings. Influenced by the uninhibited line that Williams also often employed, Baldessin adopts a loose, edgy drypoint style to articulate form.

Before his premature death in 1978, at the age of 39, Baldessin created a significant body of prints marked by his distinctive use of line and shadow, sexual ambiguity, theatricality and mystery. The recent exhibition showcasing George Baldessin’s paintings, drawings, etchings and sculptures at TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria provided an opportunity to view rarely seen works from public galleries, private collections and the artist’s estate. To celebrate the success of this exhibition a selection of prints and drawings is currently being shown in the National Gallery of Australia’s Australian art display, including four etchings from the Fred and Lyn Williams gift.

George Baldessin A recurring day in the life of MM II 1966 etching and aquatint, printed in black ink, from one plate, on thick off-white wove paper plate-mark 26.4 x 25.8 cm sheet 72.2 x 49.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Lyn and the late Fred Williams, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2009

Emma Colton Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

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acquisition

Walangkura Napanangka Untitled Walangkura Napanangka Untitled 2009 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 180 x 244 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired in acknowledgment of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations with generous support from The Myer Foundation, 2010

When we contemplate the wonderful acrylic paintings from the Western Desert region of Central Australia, we immediately think of the small Aboriginal community of Papunya, the birthplace of the contemporary Indigenous art movement. We imagine a time, some 40 years ago, when the senior Aboriginal men of the region unreservedly depicted their sacred ancestral stories in vivid, culturally rich iconography on any available flat surface. The artists of this period were Aboriginal men, cultural lawmakers and ceremonial leaders within the community. They depicted their sacred Tjukurpa (Dreamings), retelling the stories of the ancestors.

The history of the Aboriginal art movement has changed remarkably within this short period. There are many factors that have contributed to the meteoric rise of this exciting industry: the land rights and outstation movement whereby Aboriginal people began to move back to their homelands from missions and reserves and hence paint their country; the creation of the Aboriginal Art Board in 1973, which assisted in establishing and promoting Indigenous art to a wider commercial art audience; and the development of government-funded Aboriginal Art Centres whose sole purpose was to support encourage and facilitate the development of Aboriginal art in remote regions. These combined mechanisms ensured that Australian Indigenous art would no longer sit within the confines of the ethnographic museums, but would be launched and catapulted into the fine arts arena.

Today, Aboriginal women also play a major role as producers of Western Desert paintings, often following in the footsteps of their fathers, brothers and husbands.

Walangkura (Jackson) Napanangka is a Pintupi woman originally from the Tjukurla region in Central Australia.

Born around 1940, Napanangka spent the early part of her life travelling through her families’ country, between Punkilpirri near Docker River and Walukirritji rock hole on the south-west side of Lake MacDonald. In the 1960s, many Pintupi people were leaving their homelands due to an extensive drought in the region. Walangkura travelled with her family into the government settlement of Haasts Bluff and was exposed for the first time to western culture.

She later moved with her husband, Uta Uta Tjangala, to the Aboriginal community of Papunya, roughly 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs. It was here in this small Indigenous

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community that the germination of the Western Desert acrylic painting movement began. Tjangala was one of a small handful of Pintupi, Luritja, Warlpiri and Anmatyerre ceremonial leaders who initiated, with Geoffrey Bardon, this new and innovative art movement. From July 1971 to August 1972, some 620 paintings were produced for the market and later sold at the Stuart Art Centre in Alice Springs.

Napanangka was exposed to and surrounded by this proliferation of art; however, she did not begin painting until 1997 and, even then, not regularly until 2002.

The National Gallery of Australia was fortunate to acquire a beautiful work, Untitled 2009, by Napanangka in 2010. This significant painting is a very considered work, and relates to an important Aboriginal site called Yanawarri, near Tjukurla, north-west of Docker River in the Gibson Desert region in Western Australia.

Napanangka’s style is strongly influenced by her late husband; both artists depict the physical and spiritual Central Australian landscape in bold and powerful ways.

Unlike Tjangala’s work, however, there is more freedom, flow and rhythm to Walangkura’s work. It is both forthright and feminine.

The choice of colours and the nature of the composition are confident, intricate and intense and reference the power and heat of the desert. It is imposing and intimidating to the viewer.

It is a topographical map of the artist’s country, although painted according to a spiritual scale rather than a geographic scale: significant cultural sites are large and dominate the canvas, while discrete locations and tracks are small and disappear into the work. Australia is fortunate to have this work in the national collection.

It was acquired in acknowledgment of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations with generous support from The Myer Foundation.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

acquisition

Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation

Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation from the series on the initiation of a young Zoroastrian priest 1892 platinum photograph 32.4 x 26.6 cm National Gallery of Australia purchased 2009

Between the 1890s and 1910s, Indian photographer Shapoor N Bhedwar was prominent in the art photography salons of Europe and America. Bhedwar (Shapurjee Nusserwanjee Bhedwar) came from a wealthy Parsi family in Bombay and in his youth developed passionate interests in art and Eastern and Western literature. He was

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deeply attracted to the Zoroastrian religion of the Parsi and its origins in ancient Persia from where his people emigrated to India in the tenth century. Bhedwar was also an enthusiastic theatregoer and wrote poems and plays although apparently none were published. He was initially more successful in sport than the arts, becoming a member of the first Parsi cricket team to tour England in 1886.

Bhedwar took up photography in 1888 in India to illustrate one of his own literary efforts and soon became obsessed with the medium as an art form. Leaving his wife and son behind, Bhedwar travelled to England to study at the Polytechnic School in London in 1889. He also learnt from prominent art photographer Ralph W Robinson in Redhill, Surrey. He was soon winning medals in the Photographic Salon (later the Royal Photographic Society).

One reviewer at the time said of Bhedwar: ‘he came, he saw, he conquered’. One of the artist’s most successful projects was the series of six tableaux photographs The feast of roses, which illustrates the hugely popular poem Lallah Rookh. Written by Irish balladeer Thomas Moore and first published in 1817, the poem is a romance set in ancient India.

His most distinctive work is a series of images illustrating Zoroastrian religious life. Very few photographs of their religious ceremonies had ever been made public before this series as only Parsis would have been allowed to participate. The Naver—invocation is the first in the series and shows the initiation of a young Zoroastrian priest, the old priest calling on the Almighty to aid the young initiate in his work.

By the early 1920s, Bhedwar had apparently ceased exhibiting and sold his studio in Bombay. He slipped into relative anonymity. That is until interest in his work piqued again among Modernist photographers in India in the 1930s before once more fading in the 1960s. Bhedwar has been largely forgotten for the past 50 years. The fate of his archive is not currently known but his surviving prints have begun to be re-evaluated. What is apparent now is that rather than merely copying European-style art photography, Bhedwar adapted it to express his own cultural background. His process as well as the charm and skill of his work earn him a distinguished place among pioneering Asian photographers.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography

Foundation National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner and Weekend 2010 The 21st Anniversary of the Foundation was celebrated with a fund-raising Gala Dinner and weekend of events at the National Gallery of Australia on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 March.

The event raised over $200 000, which provided funds to acquire the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph Eldorado 1892 (see page 30). It is a rare and exceptional lithograph, which complements the National Gallery of Australia’s small but important collection of ToulouseLautrec’s works on paper. The Gallery was thrilled at the opportunity to secure this work for the national collection.

The weekend was a great success. Guests travelled from across Australia to celebrate. A luncheon in the Sculpture Garden Restaurant launched the weekend, followed by a tour of the Conservation and Registration departments.

Saturday afternoon then concluded with a talk on the exhibition Emerging Elders by Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The highlight of the weekend was, of course, the Gala Dinner on Saturday night. Guests attended a champagne reception in the National Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery, followed by a private viewing of Masterpieces from Paris.

The sumptuous five-course dinner, prepared by Ten and a Half’s Executive Chef James Kidman, was exquisite. The weekend came to a close as guests enjoyed an elegant Sunday brunch at the French Embassy, generously hosted

by His Excellency Michel Filhol, French Ambassador in Australia, and Madame Catherine Filhol.

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund The work of art selected this year for the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund is Robert Dowling’s Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly) 1885–86. This is a large and impressive portrait and is included in the touring exhibition Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire. Enclosed with this issue of artonview is a brochure that provides further information on the work and the fund. All donors to the fund will be invited to a function hosted by the Director to celebrate the new acquisition. For further information or to make a donation, please contact the Foundation Office on (02) 6240 6454.

Founding Donors 2010 The Founding Donors 2010 program aims to raise $1 million to assist with acquisitions for the galleries to be

opened later this year. The Foundation is delighted with the support received so far. Donors are asked to contribute $10 000, which can be paid over two financial years. All donors will be acknowledged on the Founding Donors honour board that will be placed in the entry foyer. For more information or to receive a brochure, please contact the Executive Director of the Foundation on (02) 6240 6691.

Dr Bennett Macdonald, Ita Buttrose and Charles Curran at the 21st Anniversary Foundation Gala Dinner, 9 February 2010.

National Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle The Foundation is delighted to welcome Gunther Mau and Cream Gilda Mau as new members to the National Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle. Gunther and Cream Mau have been supporters of the Gallery for a number of years and their generous benefaction is greatly appreciated.

If you have included the National Gallery of Australia in your will, please let us know so that we can thank you.

If you are interested in joining the Bequest Circle or would like more information about making a significant and lasting contribution to the future of the national collection through a bequest, please contact Liz Wilson, Development Officer, on (02) 6240 6781.

Further information on this program is available at nga. gov.au/aboutus/development/bequests.cfm.

Dr TT Tsui The National Gallery of Australia and the Foundation were saddened to hear of the death on 2 April 2010 of Dr TT Tsui. He was one of the Gallery’s most generous benefactors and a champion of Chinese art. artonview winter 2010 39

Sponsorship and Development

(left to right) The winners and supporters of the ‘National Australia Bank Online Masterpieces from Paris Promotion’, Bree Creaser.

Novotel Canberra, Monica Davis and Christine Smith (Qld), Judith White (WA), Andy and Cherrie Kirk (SA), Avi Rebera, Senior Partner, NAB Government Business, Gillian and Bill Taylor (Tas), Natasha Furiosi and Brett Bissett (ACT), Sophie and Wendy Kleeman (NT), Isabel Hohnen (WA), Venetia and Jeremy Blackman (Vic), Lesley Hurwood and Peter Donnelly (NSW).

Ballets Russes: the art of costume The Gallery is delighted to announce that long-term supporters, ActewAGL will be a Presenting Partner for the 2010–11 summer blockbuster Ballets Russes. The Gallery is grateful to ActewAGL for their ongoing and enthusiastic support, which is testimony to their commitment to the community and to the arts.

Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire Manteena Construction is welcomed as an Exhibition Partner for Robert Dowling, which opened at the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston, on 5 March.

This travelling exhibition is currently at Geelong Gallery and will be at the National Gallery of Australia from 24 July to 3 October 2010.

This is the first time that Canberra-based construction company Manteena has sponsored an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. The Gallery is grateful for their support.

McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907–17 R.M.Williams, The Bush Outfitter, is generously partnering with the Gallery for McCubbin. This travelling exhibition is at Bendigo Art Gallery until 25 July 2010. The Gallery is grateful for the success of this ongoing partnership.

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The Gallery extends its heartfelt gratitude to long-term supporter of the Gallery the Hon Mrs Ashley DawsonDamer as Exhibition Benefactor for McCubbin.

Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art The Australian International Cultural Foundation and the Gordon Darling Foundation have awarded grants to support Life, death and magic, an important exhibition that demonstrates the Gallery’s commitment to original research, innovative curatorship and scholarly publications.

The support of these grants is essential in making this exhibition possible. The Gallery is very grateful to the trustees of both foundations for their insight, leadership and generosity.

Australian Government The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) generously support the Gallery through the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians, in particular for the exhibitions Robert Dowling, Face: Australian portraits 1880–1960 and Roy Lichtenstein.

DEWHA also provides welcome support through Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government and state and territory governments, which has provided funding for the Gallery’s travelling exhibitions Robert Dowling, In the Japanese manner: Australian prints 1900–1940 and Space invaders: Australian street stencils and posters.

Sidney Myer Fund The Sidney Myer Fund and its Trustees for this very generous grant towards the acquisition of Untitled 2009 by Walangkura Napanangka (see page 36) in the commemoration of the Australian Government’s National Apology to the Stolen Generations (Australian Indigenous).

Council Circle and the Corporate Members Program Rupert Myer AM, Chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Council, and other members of the Council hosted the annual Council Circle dinner at the Gallery on 28 April. The evening included current sponsors along with special invited guests.

On 19 May, the Corporate Members Program and Yalumba Wines held a dinner in conjunction with Hans Heysen. The evening was hosted by raconteur and international spokesperson for Yalumba, Jane Ferrari, and will be the forth such event at the Gallery as part of the ongoing partnership with Yalumba. The Gallery welcome Barlens to the Corporate Members Program. Barlens generously supported the 2010 Sculpture Garden Sunday, which attracted over 1800 people to participate in the many activities. We thank them for their contribution in making the day such a success.

and Fiona Dewar from Cox Inall Ridgeway for their professional management of the consultation project.

National Australia Bank Art Education and Access Partnership The National Australia Bank (NAB) supports the National Summer Art Scholarship and the annual Sculpture Garden Sunday. Like the National Gallery of Australia, National Australia Bank is passionate about supporting Australian communities and helping young people reach their creative potential. The success of these two programs have been hallmarks of that commitment. The Gallery is grateful to NAB and their staff for their support and involvement in these annual art education and access programs.

American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia The American Friends generous grant of US$200 000 was made possible with the very generous support of Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler. The grant will support the Gallery’s department of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books to provide access to the Tyler collection through the Gallery’s Kenneth Tyler collection website and publications.

Thanks go to Judith Ogden Thompson, who recently resigned as Director from the Board of Directors, for her longstanding contribution to the American Friends.

The Gallery looks forward to her continuing friendship and advice as a member of its Advisory Board.

Senior Curator of Pacific Art Michael Gunn’s compelling talk about the major exhibition he is currently developing on Polynesian art was warmly received by American Friends at the Australian Consulate-General, New York. The Gallery greatly appreciates the support of the American Friends and the Australian Consulate-General in hosting this event.

The Gallery is very grateful to the American Friends for their continued and unwavering support and has been delighted to see them visit the National Gallery of Australia this year. In particular, Susan Talbot, President of the American Friends; Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards and her partner Michael Crane; Judith Ogden Thompson and her son Edward Cabot.

Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship continues to develop. The Gallery is grateful to Wesfarmers for its keen interest and generous investment, of both time and resources, to see this important phase of the project complete. Thanks also to the consultants Aden Ridgeway

The Gallery would like to thank all its partners. If you would like more information about Sponsorship and Development at the National Gallery of Australia, please contact Frances Corkhill on +61 2 6240 6740 or frances.corkhill@nga.gov.au and Belinda Cotton on +61 2 6240 6556 or belinda.cotton@nga.gov.au.

Neilma Gantner and Lady Marigold Southey AC in the Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room, which was generously supported by The Yulgilbar Foundation.

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development program

Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship A partnership between the National Gallery of Australia and Wesfarmers

Katie Maguire, Daisy Andrews and Rosie Goodjie in Broome. © AAANKA

In 2007, Wesfarmers Limited partnered with the National Gallery of Australia to develop an Indigenous Fellowship to support Indigenous leadership within the visual arts sector.

The Indigenous arts industry is recognised as one of Australia’s most dynamic and successful contributors on the international stage—culturally and economically. However, the number of Indigenous Australians currently employed in the arts is relatively small. According to the 2006 census, approximately 2538 Indigenous Australians work in cultural industries as their main area of employment—representing about 2.1% of all employed Indigenous Australians.

Of these, 182 work in the creative arts as practitioners and 652 work as visual arts and craft professionals. In an industry where Australian Indigenous art and culture contributes over $400 million to the Australian economy, these statistics reveal significant imbalances.

This situation is what the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship aims to address by increasing the number of Indigenous visual arts professionals.

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In Wesfarmers’s Reconciliation Action Plan, Managing Director Richard Goyder provides valuable insight into the organisation’s philosophy and priorities, which are strongly reflected in the partnership between Wesfarmers and the Gallery and in the fellowship: This Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a commitment

by Wesfarmers to ensure our businesses are places where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples feel welcome and valued, as employees, customers and citizens. In particular … to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with greater opportunities to participate in our country’s economic prosperity, through sustainable employment.

By creating opportunities, by showing respect and by developing relationships, we can play a part in wiping out the unacceptable gap that exists between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community.

Both Wesfarmers and the National Gallery of Australia recognise the importance of creating opportunities through

the fellowship that encourage the exchange of knowledge between individuals, communities and cultural institutions.

The first phase of the project has been an extensive national consultation process completed in February this year. Over 220 visual arts professionals (Indigenous and non-Indigenous), community members, government and private organisations, artists, art centre workers and others from across Australia contributed their views, advice, evaluation and experience towards refining the goals and structure of the fellowship.

This extensive consultation process has been invaluable in shaping the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship, which will initially run over four years as a professional program for long-term development, networking, exchange and mentorship. During those four years, four Fellows will undertake a high-level, project-based fellowship program for up to two years in their field of interest. In addition to the principal fellowship, a further 20 candidates will participate in a shorter accredited Indigenous arts leadership program.

Stephen Gilchrist, from the Inggarda language group, who is currently the Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria is one of the new generation of Indigenous visual arts professionals. Stephen’s career demonstrates the critical role that mentorship and professional development play in creating a viable career path for Indigenous Australians in the visual arts. For Stephen, it also began at the National Gallery of Australia, where he worked as a Trainee Assistant Curator in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art department.

and received in Australia and internationally and its contribution to a national visual identity. The traineeship helped to accelerate my career trajectory and led to my appointment as Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria … viewed cumulatively, it was an incredibly exciting and inspiring time in my formative career … I had also never worked in an institution where Aboriginal ways of doing things were seen to enhance rather than undermine the institution. Part of my longterm personal and career goals is to contribute to the advancement of Aboriginal people, and I feel strongly that Aboriginal Art has the capacity to increase a greater level of understanding of Aboriginal culture to the wider community. That idealistic seed was planted and nurtured at the National Gallery of Australia, and the core value that was shared by me and many others was that art matters.

Benson Saulo, Brian Stevens, Franchesca Cubillo and Elizabeth Liddle in Melbourne.

Nada Rawlins and Aden Ridgeway, Cox Inall Ridgeway, in Broome. © AAANKA

Person to person, organisation to organisation, community to community—the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship program is an initiative of promise, encouragement, excellence and engagement.

The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship will be launched and open for applications in June 2010. The Gallery is grateful to Wesfarmers for its keen interest and generous investment, both in time and resources, and acknowledges the work carried out by Cox Inall Ridgeway as well as principal consultants Aden Ridgeway and Fiona Dewar for their management of the consultation project.

Belinda Cotton Head of Development

Throughout the traineeship, I gained invaluable curatorial experience and learned much about the Indigenous visual arts industry, how it is critically interrogated

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credit lines Includes donations received from 22 January to 22 April 2010.

Grants The American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia Inc, New York, made possible with the very generous support of Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth CohenTyler.

Australian Government: Department of Health and Ageing’s Dementia Community Grants Program Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts through: The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through Art Indemnity Australia.

Australian International Cultural Foundation The Gordon Darling Foundation The Sidney Myer Fund

Sponsorship ABC Radio Accor Hospitality (Novotel Canberra) ACT Government (through Australian Capital Tourism) ActewAGL The Age Barlens The Brassey of Canberra The Canberra Times Casella Wines Champagne Pol Roger Eckersley’s Art & Craft Forrest Hotel and Apartments JCDecaux Manteena Mantra on Northbourne National Australia Bank National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund Nine Network Australia Qantas R.M.Williams, The Bush Outfitter The Sydney Morning Herald Wesfarmers Limited WIN Television Yalumba Wines Yulgilbar Foundation

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Gifts Aranday Foundation Ben Frankel Gordon Darling Foundation Heather Green and Jock Smibert Emmanuel Hirsh Sue Lovegrove Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer Betty Nathan Penelope Seidler AM The estate of Leslie John Wright Jason Yeap

Founding Donors 2010 Dr Michael Armitage and Susan M Armitage Lauraine Diggins John Grant AM and Inge Grant Richard Griffin AM and Jay Griffin Peter Hack Brand Hoff and Peta Hoff Dr Colin Laverty OAM and Elizabeth Laverty Ann Lewis AO Macquarie Group Foundation Graham Mapp AM and Sue Mapp Dr David E Pfanner David Shannon and Daniela Shannon Lady Marigold Southey AC

Gala Dinner ActewAGL Rick Amor Dr Michael Armitage and Susan M Armitage Charles Baillieu and Samantha Baillieu Betty Beaver AM Jane Bradhurst Sir Ronald Brierley Ann Burge Christopher Burgess and Christine Burgess Julian Burt Nick Burton Taylor and Julia Burton Taylor John Calvert-Jones AM and Janet CalvertJones AO Terrence Campbell AO and Christine Campbell Campbell Campbell-Pretty and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty Maurice Cashmere Santo Cilauro and Morena Buffon Laurie Cox AO and Julie Ann Cox The Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer Warwick Flecknoe and Jane Flecknoe June Gordon John Grant AM Maurice Green and Christina Green Andrew Gwinnett and Hiroko Gwinnett Michael Hamson and Susie Hamson The Hon Justice Kenneth Handley AO and Diana Handley Meredith Hinchliffe John Hindmarsh and Rosanna Hindmarsh

Michael Hobbs and Doris Hobbs The Hon Robert Hunter QC and Pauline Hunter John Ingham and Frances Ingham Peter J Jopling QC Nick Kelly and Susie Kelly Sir Richard Kingsland AO, CBE, DFC, and Lady Kingsland Lou Klepac OAM and Brenda Klepac Richard Longes and Elizabeth Longes Alasdair MacLeod and Prue MacLeod Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer Baillieu Myer AC and Sarah Myer Dr Margaret Olley AC Roslyn Packer AO Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell Ralph Renard and Ruth Renard John Schaeffer AO and Bettina Dalton Peter Scott and Ofelia Scott Penelope Seidler AM Paul Selzer and Linda Selzer Rosemary Simpson Zeke Soloman AM Simon Swaney and Carolyn Kay Aida Tomescu Lang Walker and Sue Walker Ray Wilson OAM Jim Windeyer and Peronelle Windeyer Mark Young

Melody Gough Memorial Fund Charles Curran AC and Eva Curran Simon Elliott Margie Kevin Denise Officer Liz Wilson

Masterpieces for the Nation 2010 Michael Bartlett Suzanne Elshoufi Brian Jones Robert Logie-Smith and Sue Logie-Smith Alistair McLean Graham Reeve

Members Acquisition 2009 George Alexander and Dydy Alexander Robert Allmark Robin Amm AM Cynthia Anderson Ian Anderson Susan Arnott Margaret Aston John Austin and Helen Austin Jim Bain AM Ronald Bannerman Berenice Bannister Betty Beaver AM Peter Belling Dora Berman

Beryl Bevis Richard Bialkowski and Robyn Bialkowski Alan Bishop Michele Black and Rodney Black (Creations Jewellers) Catherine Bosser Stephen Box and Deirdre Box Adrienne Bradney-Smith Geoffrey Brennan and Margaret Brennan Mary E Brennan Bill Brisbane and Joan Brisbane Diana Brookes John Bruce and Barbara Bruce John Buckingham Marion Helena Burden Billie Burke OAM Robert Cadona Robyn Cairns and Alex Cairns Dr Berenice-Eve Calf Debbie Cameron John Campbell and Yvonne Campbell Katrina Chapman Vikki Clingan Michael Cockburn and Margaret Cockburn Graham Cocks and Elizabeth Cocks Mrs Compton Edith Gwen Cooper Hunter Cordaiy Kerry-Anne Cousins Anne Coventry Barry G Cowdell Michael Creswick In memory of Philippa Crossley Jean Cruickshank Marlene Danza Rowena Danziger AM and Ken Coles Dianne Davies Anne De Salis Angela Delaney Peter Di Sciascio Sue Dobbyns Susan Doenau Rosemary Dupont Desley M Eaton Peter Eddington and Joy Williams Dr Murray Elliott AO and Gillian Elliott Annette Ellis MP Pauline Everson Ian Falconer and Mary Falconer Ilma Ferguson Gillian Foley Roslyn Francis Henry Thomas French Helen Fyfe Neilma Gantner Michael Gillespie and Nicole Gillespie Marya Glyn-Daniel and Charles Glyn-Daniel Robert Gnezdiloff and Moya Gnezdiloff June Gordon Eileen Gorst Pauline M Griffin AM

In memory of Marjory Hackworth Rosemary Halford Aileen Hall Natasha Hardy David Harper and Jenny Harper John Harrison and Danielle Kluth Sue Hearn and Alex Byrne Suzanne Hecker Bruce Heiser Marian Hill Rachel Hilton and James McKenzie L Holcombe Yvonne Honnery Jim Humphreys and Clare Humphreys Tom Humphreys and Barbara Humphreys Dr Joseph Johnson CSC, AAM, and Madelaine Johnson Brian Jones Pamela Jupp and David Jupp Margaret Keogh Ilse King Ron Kirkland and Christobel Kirkland Reg Kitchin and Joan Kitchin Grace Koch Betty Konta Ted Kruger and Gerry Kruger Brian Lamb and Lynette Lamb Ruth I Langley OAM Hendricka Lussick Liz and Mike Lynch Steensen Varming (Australia) Pty Ltd Bronwen Macnamara and Michael Macnamara Gwenyth D Macnamara Tamara Makeev OAM John Malone Deborah Malor and Ron Malor Bruce Marshall and Robin Coombes Ernie Marton Margaret J Mashford Stewart May and Wendy May Fleur McAlister and Douglas McAlister EA McCarthy and MJ McCarthy Tony McCormick Ruth McKay Dr Stephen G McNamara Trish McPherson Tina Merriman Joan Miskin and Barry Miskin Beth Monk and Ross Monk Meg Mooney Margaret Morrow Alan Morschel and Ruth Morschel Janet Munro Peter Murphy Pauline Murray Robert Nairn Colin Neave AM Prof and Mrs Barry W Ninham Barbara Noden Linda Notley

Janet Oakley Brian O’Keeffe AO and Bridget O’Keeffe AM Robert Oser John Parker and Joss Righton Mervyn Paterson and Katalin Paterson Tom Pauling and Tessa Pauling Vladimir Pavlovic David Pearse and Elizabeth Pearse John Playoust and Therese Playoust Patricia Porcheron and Robyn Porcheron Preventative Medicine and Rehabilitation Centre Helen Rankin Gavin Roberts Dr Pamela Rothwell Jennifer J Rowland John Salmons and Leonie Salmons Annette Searle Fabia Shah Richard Shand and Tonia Shand Roy Smalley Vivian Spilva and Andrew Spilva Christopher Haddon Spurgeon Dr Richard Stanton Keith F Steward Gay Stuart and Charles Stuart Judith Sutton Elinor Swan Robert Swift and Lynette Swift Alan Taylor Claudette Taylor (for Dunstan) Sue Telford Dr DA Thomas Jacqueline Thomson Helen Todd Sylvia Tracey Norma Uhlmann Brenton Warren Ray Watt and Jenny Watt Mo Wedd-Buchholz Christine Wellham Helen White Dr Stephen Wild Yvonne Wildash Muriel Wilkinson Dr Elizabeth Williams Forreste Williams Andrew L Williamson David Williamson and Angela Williamson Gratton Wilson Alison Witter Bill Wood Prof Robin Woods AM Ellen M Woodward Diane Wright

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faces in view For more images of programs and events held by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, visit flickr.com/photos/nationalgalleryofaustralia.

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Adam Hill with his work Not everyone’s cup of tea 2009 at the National Gallery of Australia.

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Tarek El-Ansary with his family during the all-night opening of Masterpieces from Paris, 17 April.

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Director Ron Radford with ABC Radio National’s Rod Quinn during the 36-hour opening period for the final weekend of Masterpieces from Paris, 18 April.

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Tanya Hird, Morena Buffon and Prue Macleod at the National Gallery of Australia Foundation’s 21st Anniversary Gala Dinner, 20 March.

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Local entertainers tickle the funny bones of security on the final Saturday of Masterpieces from Paris, 17 April.

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Christopher Pease speaks about the process behind his Cow with Body Paint 2007 at the Gallery, 28 January.

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Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, first lady of Indonesia, Thérèse Rein and Ron Radford on tour in the exhibition Emerging Elders with Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, 10 March.

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Will Minchin, the 250 000th visitor to Masterpieces from Paris, with his wife Miriam and their daughter Mathilda, 26 February.

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Activities to keep visitors entertainted while queuing for Masterpieces from Paris at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 3 April.

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10 Children get their hands dirty and test their creativity at Sculpture Garden Sunday in the National Gallery of Australia’s Sculpture Garden, 14 March. artonview winter 2010 47 10

Starry Nights ‘It’s nice to do gigs like this, it reminds you why you do these things in the first place.’

Tim Rogers, musician Held over four nights in March, Starry Nights—a National Gallery initiative in association with ACT Tourism—was conceived as a unique way for audiences to experience the exhibition Masterpieces from Paris. The event combined late-night viewings, live entertainment, shopping, food and wine.

The night was designed to appeal to a broad demographic seeking to extend their exhibition experience into a fulsome night’s entertainment, the line-up of live acts— Joe Camilleri, Clare Bowditch and Tim Rogers—did not disappoint.

The Gallery’s beautiful Sculpture Garden was the venue for the evening’s Starry Nights action with headline acts commencing at 9.00 pm, preceded by music from local DJs and the ANU School of Music. Before the concert, Starry Nights ticket holders could view the exhibition at their leisure. Then, as the sun set over the Gallery building, its concrete facade came alive with projections of exhibition images above the stage and superb performances by leading Australian musicians.

Starry Nights drew on the Gallery’s history of staging live music in the oasis of the Sculpture Garden. May well it continue … (top) Clare Bowditch Trio and (centre) their audience. (bottom and opposite) Tim Rogers Band. photographs: Murray Foote

artonview winter 2010 49

At play in van Gogh’s bedroom The Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room ‘I liked the children’s room. And I love art. It was fun’.

Rebecca, aged 6 A spectacularly successful aspect of the recent Masterpieces from Paris exhibition was the fun and educational Family Activity Room. Located midway through the exhibition, it provided children with a stimulating and safe place to consider and creatively respond to the works of art they were seeing. Families returned to viewing the exhibition refreshed and with new insights. A family visit to the exhibition was also enriched by a childrens trail and childrens audio tour.

The Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room was a collaboration between the Gallery’s Education and Exhibition Design departments. Recreated as a threedimensional play space, Van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles provided the concept and the setting for the room. One parent said it was ‘like being inside van Gogh’s head, being in his picture’.

Children could enter the painting and recreate puzzles of works of art printed on each side of cubes on van Gogh’s large bed. Along the opposite wall, children created origami stars to add to an interactive mural of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry night.

Portraits and still-lifes from the exhibition became the inspiration for self-portraiture and still-life drawing. Visitors enjoyed sharing time reading childrens stories and reference books about the art and artists in the exhibition.

Activities were plentiful and were designed to be adapted for children of all ages and interests. The approach was one of kinaesthetic learning—learning through hands-on experience and direct physical engagement, making the experiences more concrete and lasting, more enjoyable and meaningful.

Over the four-and-a-half months of the exhibition, over 61 000 people visited the Family Activity Room and 13 407 children registered for activities. Given its spectacular success, the Family Activity Room concept is set to be taken up in Ballets Russes: the art of costume in December.

Self-portrait by Ellin, made in the Family Activity Room.

Peter Naumann Head of Education and Public Programs artonview winter 2010 51

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National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach (NCITO) program is an Australian Government initiative providing $1 million annually to improve access for all Australians to our national collections.

NCITO supports exhibitions from Australia’s national collecting institutions to tour within Australia and overseas, with particular emphasis on increasing regional access to the collections.

The following NCITO-supported exhibitions are currently touring metropolitan and regional Australia: • Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire (National Gallery of Australia) • The National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 (National Portrait Gallery) • Symbols of Australia (National Museum of Australia) • Little shipmates – seafaring pets (Australian National Maritime Museum) Other approved exhibitions will commence touring later in 2010 with a further funding round expected to be announced in June-July.

For more information on NCITO and current NCITO-supported exhibitions visit: www.arts.gov.au/collection/ncito_program.

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