trouble 152 BIG
Play On
The Art of Sport A selection of works from 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize. A NETS Victoria and Ian Potter Museum of Art touring exhibition. Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre 782 Kingsway, Gymea (NSW), 9 December 2017 – 11 February 2018 hazelhurst.com.au IMAGES IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE 1. Kerrie Poliness, Marking the field 2012, single-channel HD video, 20 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery. 2. Richard Bell, A white hero for black Australia 2011, acrylic on linen, 180 x 250 cm. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery. 3. Khaled Sabsabi, Wonderland 2014, dual channel HD video, colour, sound, 25 minutes 30 seconds. Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery Brisbane. 4. Fiona McMonagle, The ring (video still) 2014, digital video animation, 16:9 ratio, colour, sound, 7:24 minutes. Courtesy of the artist, Olsen Irwin, Sydney and Heiser Gallery, Brisbane. 5. Fiona McMonagle, Diana 2014, watercolour, ink and gouache on paper, 182 x 57 cm. & 6. Fiona McMonagle, Wonky 2014, watercolour, ink and gouache on paper, 182 x 57 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Olsen Irwin, Sydney and Heiser Gallery, Brisbane. Collection of Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery. 7. Lauren Brincat, 10 metre platform 2012 (still) photograph: Raphael Ortega, single-channel HD video, 9:16 ratio colour, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
Play On: The Art of Sport Exhibition Dates 2018/2019 Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery 02 March - 29 April 2018 Devonport Regional Gallery 07 July - 19 August 2018 UQ Art Museum 24 November - 03 February 2019 Bunbury Regional Art Galleries 08 March - 05 May 2019 Riddoch Art Gallery 24 May - 02 August 2019 Western Plains Cultural Centre 31 August - 03 November 2019
CONTENTS PLAY ON: THE ART OF SPORT
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery ......................................................................
COMICS FACE
Ive Sorocuk ...............................................................................................
THE ARCHER (AFTER CHUANG TZU)
Shaun Gladwell ........................................................................................
TRIPLE ZERO TO A DEAD END HEARTBEAT
Robert Ruckus ..........................................................................................
A VISIT TO CARRICK HILL
Inga Walton ...............................................................................................
02 13 14 16 20
DECEMBER / JANUARY SALON
Decidedly Justified ...................................................................................... 38
FINDING THE ART IN PHUKET: THE ART OF NOT GETTING DEPORTED
Anthony S. Cameron .................................................................................
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COVER: Tony Albert, Kieran Lawson and David Collins, Warakurna Superhero #1 (detail) 2017, C-type print, 100 x 150 cm. Image courtesy of the artists, Sullivan+Strumpf and Warakurna Artists. In Cahoots: artists collaborate across Country, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty St, Fremantle (WA), until 28 January 2018, FREE ENTRY - fac.org.au Issue 152 DECEMBER 2017 / JANUARY 2018 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 EDITOR Steve Proposch CONTRIBUTORS Ive Sorocuk, Inga Walton, Shaun Gladwell, Robert Ruckus, Anthony S. Cameron, love. GET from AppStore FOLLOW on issuu, facebook & twitter SUBSCRIBE at troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully. DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication. The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher. Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!
This comic first appeared in Trouble DECEMBER 2011
PLAY ON
The Art of Sport
a trouble exclusive
Shaun GLADWELL, The Archer (after Chuang Tzu) 2014; single-channel HD video, 16:9, colour, sound. Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.
Play On: The Art of Sport
A selection of works from 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize. A NETS Victoria and Ian Potter Museum of Art touring exhibition. Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 782 Kingsway, Gymea (NSW), 9 December 2017 – 11 February 2018 - hazelhurst.com.au
Triple Zero To a Dead End Heartbeat Robert Ruckus
The sirens sound down the dimly lit city streets. I lay wondering how we got here while the skaters rush by flipping tricks through the midnight hours. The grinding on concrete planter boxes is familiar to my mind as I set down on the hard yet comforting carpet floor. Here is home in this jungle, or I am at least calling it home for now. I light my joint and peer out over the balcony watching the kids spend every waking moment living, breathing, pushing, grinding. Not a dead end in sight in this city. Not on the outside, at least.
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I see my own reflection in the window lit up by the never ending night light, offering comfort to the uncomfortable on hot sheets, and wonder if it’s me or some stranger. Human, muser, filmmaker. In an environment that is as suffocating to the brain as the smoke is to my lungs, I inhale more eagerly than I exhale, letting it draw out through my senses like a lover holding my hand. Her touch is soothing, real, even godly at times. That one moment of utter beauty and revelation that never ceases to leave your mind, like a child witnessing his first, second, third film, it never ends and nor do I want it to. This moment is perfect, surrounded in the swallowing madness we just know as the industry. For us we call it life itself and living is always easier when it’s through the screen. The reality is sometimes different. “I lost my day job, the other day,” says film friend A-Z. I sit down and write, send emails, plot, predict, plan, sweat, smoke, depress, redress, compress, rework, rewrite, repeat, reignite, fret, fear, cry loudly out for it all to come true. The genie never comes so i rub the lamp a little harder. Stiff luck. When I look back over the balcony I see endless opportunity glowing with the slam of trucks against concrete. Skaters scream out with each triumphant fall, stumble, moment of victory. Repeat, repeat, never admit defeat until you can no longer stand up and never, ever be beaten. It doesn’t matter what level I’m on, even looking down I feel grounded as if my footsteps were sounding on the roadside. Grounded, or at least padded between air cushioned soles and the dirt on the pavement, I glide by different cultures, facades, faces, smokers. I see them and they see me, at least when I am in front of them, washing by as quickly as I chose to move my feet. The hustle of daytime events seems vacant in the early AM. A Porsche drives by with *insert generic middle aged white guy here* in the driver’s seat, alone but uncaring as the music blares out, echoing the driver’s lack of fucks given against the brick walls and closed shop windows. “Got a smoke bro?” asks homeless guy X. “Yeah holmes.” I pass him my spliff. DEEP, GRATEFUL PUFFS. “Damn that’s the magic. Thanks brother, I hope you have a real good night.” “Stay warm my friend, I hope it gets better for you soon.” “It will because I want it to,” he says. “This is just a moment in time bro, but they’ll never know what hit ‘em when I get out of this mess. We’re all in this together.”
Triple Zero / Robert Ruckus
Robert Ruckus attended The Dead End Film Festival at Coburg Drive-In, Friday 24th November 2017. The inaugural festival was presented by BabySteps. For more info : vimeo.com/8a8ysteps instagram.com/8a8ysteps facebook.com/8a8ysteps
a visit to
Carrick Hill Inga Walton
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On 12 February, 1935 in a quiet ceremony at St Peter’s College Chapel Edward (Bill) Waterfield Hayward (1903-83) married Ursula Barr Smith (1907-70), thus uniting two of South Australia’s most socially prominent families. Hayward was the younger son of Arthur Dudley Hayward (1874-1953), the chairman and managing director of John Martin & Co. Ltd, Adelaide (est. 1866). One of the largest and best-known stores in Australia of that period, John Martin’s was generally regarded as one of the ‘old family’ institutions of South Australia. (It was re-branded as David Jones in 1985 and operated until 1998). Hayward joined his father at the store in 1931, becoming joint managing director (with his brother Ian) in 1946, and was appointed chairman in 1964 – a post he held until 1983. Hayward is fondly remembered for establishing the John Martin’s annual Christmas Pageant in 1933, to give pleasure to children suffering from the effects of the Depression. He had seen something similar in a department store in Ottawa during a business development trip. Over the forty years Hayward developed and nurtured the concept, the store designed and produced floats and costumes, as well as constructing the ‘magic cave’. Commissioned in the Militia in 1939, Hayward performed intelligence duties at Keswick Barracks, Adelaide, before joining the Australian Imperial Force the following year. He arrived in the Middle East in February, 1941 and served at Tobruk, Libya, with the 2/43rd Battalion. In August he transferred to the Australian Army Canteens Service (AACS) as a Major. Returning to Australia in 1943, Hayward was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed a deputy director in the AACS, whose duties took him to Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Morotai and Labuan. He was twice mentioned in despatches and was awarded the American Bronze Star for his work; in 1945 he transferred to the Reserve of Officers. Hayward’s business acumen had not been dimmed by the years of war: he had taken notice of the popularity of Coca-Cola with American soldiers. He acquired the franchise, and in 1950 founded Coca-Cola Bottlers (Adelaide) Pty. Ltd. with the help of other local businessmen: Hayward was to remain chairman of this company until 1983.1 Hayward’s bride was the youngest of six children born to the pastoralist and financier Tom Elder Barr Smith (1863-1941), and his Scottish wife Mary Isobel Mitchell. Ursula Barr Smith was brought up in the cultured atmosphere of the family mansion, ‘Birksgate’, at Glen Osmond, and made her first visit to England in 1911 at the age of four. She had a life-long interest in art, and was taught as a child by the noted watercolourist Gwendoline La Vance (Gwen) Barringer (1882-1960).2 The Germanborn Australian artist Sir (Wilhelm Ernst) Hans Heysen, OBE (1877-1968) was a friend of the Barr Smith family, and a regular visitor to Birksgate. His daughter Nora Heysen, AM, (1911-2003), the first woman to win the Archibald Prize, and the first Australian woman to be appointed as an official war artist, was a close friend to the future Ursula Hayward. Following her tuition with Barringer, Ursula Hayward was later a student of Sir Ivor Hele, CBE, (1912-93), and received private tuition in painting from the LatvianPREVIOUS SPREAD: Exterior view of Carrick Hill (rear). Photo Inga Walton.
born Margarita Stipnieks (1910-2010).3 Several of Ursula Hayward’s works are preserved at Carrick Hill, which attest to her predilection for floral themes, and love of gardens. As a wedding gift, Tom Elder Barr Smith gave the couple a parcel of land at Springfield, which had previously been a dairy.4 They commissioned a family friend, the architect Sir James Campbell Irwin (1906-90), to build a large ‘Jacobethan’-style house, constructed of local Basket Range stone. The property was named ‘Carrick Hill’ after the Brown Carrick Hill in South Ayrshire, near Sauchrie, the home of Mary Barr Smith. The newlyweds took a year-long honeymoon in England, and five months into their stay they came across the demolition sale of ‘Beaudesert’, a predominantly Tudor mansion in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Cannock Chase. Use of the site dated from around 1135 and may have originally been a Cistercian monastery. The first Beaudesert Hall was occupied as early as 1292 by the Trumwyns family of Cannock. By the early fourteenth-century it had become the palace of the Bishops of Lichfield and Coventry. Following the Reformation, Henry VIII dispersed a large number of Church-affiliated properties to his loyalists. In 1546, Beaudesert was gifted to Sir William Paget, 1st Baron Paget (1506-63), his Secretary of State (1543-48). Paget, a wily political operator who held prominent positions in the service of three Tudor monarchs, prudently retired from public life on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. At the time the Haywards saw it, Beaudesert was owned by the 6th Marquess of Anglesey, LieutenantColonel Charles Henry Alexander Paget (1885-1947). Crippled by heavy taxation after World War I, Anglesey could no longer afford to maintain the estate, and the property was placed on the market in 1931. Although the nine outlying lodges were sold, including the Grand Lodge (1814), the main residence failed to attract a buyer, and the sad decision was made to opt for architectural salvage.5 Beaudesert was one of thousands of important and historically significant properties throughout the United Kingdom driven to extinction by an increasingly hostile government taxation regime. Ursula Hayward was particularly fond of oak furniture, which the couple purchased either side of World War II, predominantly from London dealers.6 At the Beaudesert sale held on-site, 18-19 July, 1935, the Haywards bought up a large quantity of the 20,000 square feet (1858 m²) of oak panelling on offer. This included the so-called ‘Waterloo Staircase’, the original version of which was installed at Beaudesert by Field Marshall Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey (17681854) after the battle of Waterloo (1815). During the battle, Anglesey’s right leg was hit by a cannonball, necessitating its amputation. This incident gave rise to the famous exchange with the Duke of Wellington, “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!”, to which Wellington is said to have responded, “By God, sir, so you have!”. The new staircase with broad treads and shallow risers made it easier for Anglesey to negotiate the stairs with his articulated artificial limb. The Waterloo Staircase was destroyed by fire in 1909, and was replaced in 1912, this being the version transported out and installed at Carrick Hill, along with various carved architraves. Ironically, this iteration of the staircase would also be damaged by a fire that started in the library, 1 June, 1958, while the Haywards were away. The library was Ursula Hayward’s favourite room, and
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the fire all but destroyed the original collection of books, as well as artworks by Sir William Dobell, OBE (1899-1970) and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88).7 Richard Heathcote, the former Director of Carrick Hill (2004-17), observed that, “during their honeymoon ... they began to understand that their South Australian home would need to stand as a symbol of their own cultural origins and as a link with another life so geographically distant from the one into which they were born”. The Beaudesert sale allowed them to emulate the style of living and entertainment typical of upper class English households. It was a bold and extraordinary act to acquire fittings that dictated so forcefully the shape of the dwelling into which they would be incorporated. Bill and Ursula were the first to transport back to Australia sufficient doors, windows, fireplaces, oak panelling and a great staircase from one great English house around which to build a complete home. What better way for a couple with loyalties both in South Australia and Britain to bridge the vast physical distance between the two locations?8 While the main residence was under construction from 1937 to 1939, the Haywards purchased adjoining parcels of land from Springfield Real Estate in 1936 and 1938 respectively.9 This brought the total size of the Carrick Hill estate to 100 acres (forty hectares), including approximately sixty-four acres (twenty-six hectares) of native bushland. Ursula Hayward designed Carrick Hill’s inner formal garden, with the intention that its vistas and the extensive landscaped grounds echo those of her childhood home at Birksgate.10 She chose specific aspects of an arts and crafts Edwardian style garden to be part of her grand view at Carrick Hill, particularly in the use of hedges, lawn terracing and stone paving. The surrounding grounds, modelled on the English country park, featured groves of trees, including hawthorns, quinces, medlars and nut trees. Olive groves were planted along the west perimeter, and on the other slopes grew crepe myrtles, Irish strawberries and a Moreton Bay fig. Ursula Hayward was particularly fond of roses, and had rose beds planted along the entrance drive, and around the tennis court. In 1990, the Alistair Clark Rose Garden was created at Carrick Hill in tribute to Alistair Clark (18641949), one of Australia’s greatest rose cultivators. At the rear of the property, below the elm trees and between two flower gardens, is a feature unique in Australian garden design – the pleached pear arbour. The term ‘pleach’ is derived from the Latin plectere meaning ‘to plait’ or ‘weave together’. Pleaching is an ancient technique that was known to the Romans and much admired in mediaeval Europe. Hornbeam and lime were favoured, but the inspiration for using pear trees at Carrick Hill was possibly a result of the Haywards visiting Batemans (c.1634), the Jacobean sandstone manor house in East Sussex owned by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). During the Hayward’s time, a large team of gardeners and groundsmen were employed to look after the estate. One of those gardeners, Cliff Jacobs, began working at Carrick Hill in 1936 and retired in 1986, the year the property was officially opened to the public by H.M Queen Elizabeth II. > Derwent Lees (1884-1931), The Yellow Skirt (c.1914), oil on wood, 50.7 x 38.3 cm. (Collection of the Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide, Hayward Bequest.)
Harkening back to Bill Hayward’s establishment of the Christmas Pageant, Carrick Hill’s parkland now includes the ‘Children’s Storybook Trail’, mainly focusing on characters and scenic references from classic tales that reflect the Hayward’s era, such as The Wind in the Willows (1908), The Secret Garden (1911), The Hobbit (1937), The Magic Faraway Tree (1943), The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), and Charlotte’s Web (1952). Figurative and abstract sculptures from the likes of Inge King (1915-2016), Greg Johns, Guy Martin a’ Beckett Boyd (1923-1988), Kimpoh Okamoto, Will Kuiper and Lenton Parr (1924-2003) are installed throughout the grounds. Adjacent to Carrick Hill’s front door is the somewhat truncated and comical Falling Man (1962) by the Scottish-born Alexander Leckie (1932-2010). During his time in Australia (1955-66), Leckie was President of the Contemporary Art Society of South Australia, and better known for his ceramic work.11 Carrick Hill was completed during the winter of 1939, but the couple did not move in owing to Hayward taking up his position in the militia and continuing with his war service. Ursula Hayward moved back to Birksgate to live with her parents, and then relocated to St. Lucia after her husband was posted to Brisbane with the Australian Army Canteens Service (AACS) in 1942. The couple did not take up residence at Carrick Hill until 1944, which was one of the four homes they came to own. In 1925, Hayward had purchased a ‘bachelor’ property, ‘Wairoa’ at Narrabri in New South Wales, which he sold during the war. With those funds he purchased a country property at Delamere on the Fleurieu Peninsula where the couple established Silverton Park Heritage Stud, breeding prize-winning Poll Hereford cattle, Border Leicester sheep, and polo ponies. There was also a two-storey beach house at Port Willunga bought in 1952, and a townhouse in London’s Mayfair, conveniently located close to the art and antique dealers they patronised, among them Partridge’s in New Bond Street, and Arthur Tooth & Sons. The significant collection of furniture and artworks amassed by the Haywards attests to their ready access to the European art world and mutual love of creative expression. Modernist works by British artists enlivened Carrick Hill’s conservative interior, including the controversial Nude With Pearl Necklace (c.1931) by Sir Matthew Smith, CBE (1879-1959), one of Haywards’ favourite works.12 Paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings, KCVO, PRA (1878-1959), Eve Kirk (1900-69), Paul Nash (1889-1946), and Walter Sickert (1860-1942) contrasted with more sedate and conventional works by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) and John Dicksee (1817-1905). With two artists, the Haywards “developed particular relationships as patrons”.13 They acquired ten works (1934-53) by Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE, RA (1891-1959), whose studio at Cookham they visited. Ursula Hayward particularly enjoyed his adventurous botanical and flower studies, of which there are six. There are also two beautifully realised landscape works, including the stark A Wet Morning at St. Ives (1937). The Haywards purchased the bronze portrait head Neander (1933) by the American-born Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) on their honeymoon. They would eventually meet the artist, NEXT SPREAD: The upper landing of Carrick Hill with the famous Waterloo Staircase. Photo Inga Walton.
who at that time had not had a public commission for twenty years, in London in 1948. Epstein’s interpretations of the human form, several now grouped in the main entry hall at Carrick Hill, serve to offset the imposing formality of the heavy oak panelling and furniture. The couple would purchase twelve Epstein works, including a bust of Albert Einstein, the full-length sculpture Standing Mother and Child (1911/1960), and the painting Lillies (1936), making him the most represented artist in their collection. This private fascination for discovering and collecting art infiltrated Hayward’s business endeavours. Under his auspices, John Martin’s also opened an Art Gallery at the Rundle Street store in 1945. For many years it was the only commercial gallery in Adelaide, from which the then National Gallery of South Australia (now the Art Gallery of South Australia) bought many works. Along with the Royal South Australian Society of Arts Gallery in Kintore Avenue, these were the chief venues at which contemporary works were available for purchase during that period.14 Hayward’s widely acknowledged patronage of the arts and support of cultural organisations made him an obvious choice for the later role as a founding member of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1960-66). Hayward’s duties at John Martin’s did not preclude his involvement in other civic and business concerns. He joined the South Australian Centre of the St. John Ambulance Association committee in 1947, and served as inaugural chairman of the St. John Council for South Australia (1950-76). In 1951, Hayward arranged for the council to take over the State’s ambulance services, and served as president of the council from 1976 up to his death in 1983. He was appointed a Knight of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (K.St.J.) in 1959. Hayward was also a board member of the Bank of Adelaide (1970-78), and of Bennett & Fisher Ltd (1962-83), the livestock, wool and produce brokers. Other roles Hayward took on included the chairmanship of South Australian Telecasters Ltd. (1966-70), South Australian Insurance Holdings Ltd (1972-75), and as deputy chairman of the Finance Corporation of Australia Ltd (1963-78). Recreational pursuits were also acknowledged: Hayward continued to play in the State polo team until middle-aged, and was president of both the South Australian Polo Association (1956-60) and the Adelaide Polo Club (1958-60). His polo boots, mallet and riding paraphernalia are still displayed at Carrick Hill. For his contribution to business and philanthropy in South Australia, Bill Hayward was knighted in June, 1961. The Haywards’ wealth and social position, coupled with their reputation as cultural arbiters, meant that they entertained many famous visitors to Adelaide. The Czechborn conductor and composer Rafael Jeroným Kubelík (1914-96) was welcomed in 1946, two years before the Communist coup in his homeland led to his defection while on a visit to Britain. A soirée for the Chilean concert pianist Claudio Arrau León (1903-91) in 1947 gave Hayward the opportunity to show off his amateur drumming skills and fondness for jazz. Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-89), and his then wife Vivien Leigh (1913-67), were guests during the six-month Old Vic company tour of Australia
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and New Zealand in 1948. During his brief stay at Carrick Hill in February, 1949, Sir Kenneth Clark (1903-83), Director of the National Gallery, London, decided he would rehang their painting collection after dinner.15 Other luminaries to grace the residence included the actor and director Sir Anthony Quayle, CBE (1913-89), South Australia’s own Dame Judith Anderson, AC (1897-1992) and Sir Robert Helpmann, CBE (190986), as well as the actor John McCallum, AO, CBE (1918-2010) with his British wife Georgette “Googie” Withers, CBE, AO (1917-2011). In Australia, many of the Haywards’ circle of artistic friends, including the publisher Sydney Ure Smith, OBE (1887-1949), artist and designer Adrian Feint (1894-1971), sculptor John Dowie, AM (1915-2008), and Charles William Bush (1919-89) were more regular visitors. Nonetheless, the couple’s social obligations in Adelaide often left Ursula Hayward feeling stifled, as she wrote to Nora Heyson, “Adelaide never leaves you anything to yourself and it has somehow made me go to the other extreme – Bill says it makes me seem indifferent which is never the case with people I am fond of ”.16 Born and educated in Adelaide, as a teenager the painter Jeffrey Smart, AO (1921-2013) watched Carrick Hill being built, and later became a close friend of Ursula Hayward.17 He noted that the couple embraced the unconventional and preferred the company of artists, writers, and musicians. It was Smart’s contention that the Haywards owned, “the best private art collection in Australia: two Rouaults, a Goya, Vuillard, Renoir and Gauguins, as well as a lot of Augustus John, Stanley Spencer and various Australian painters”.18 The Haywards’ collection of Australian art is in many ways more intimate and representative of their local ties, “rather than reflect a modern world and a second life overseas, as the French and British works do, the Australian collection instead has its roots in those friendships”.19 Works by Horace Trenerry (1899-1958), Jacqueline Hick (1919-2004), and Kathleen Sauerbier (1903-91) demonstrate the Hayward’s steadfast support of South Australian artists, both at home and abroad.20 They also acquired works from other important national figures such as Sir Russell Drysdale, AC (1912-81), Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865-1915), William Beckwith McInnes (1889-1939), and (Harold) John Baily (1927-2015). The Haywards’ owned three works by Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (1867-1943) that still hang at Carrick Hill, including The Blue Mountains (c.1920s) and The Australian Alps (nd). Streeton was a leading member of the so-called Heidelberg School of Australian artists, a term coined by the American critic Sidney Dickinson in 1891. More recently ‘Australian Impressionism’ has been used to describe this local manifestation of the International Impressionism movement.21 One of the works in the Carrick Hill collection with a Barr Smith provenance, Streeton’s Venice, Bride Of The Sea (1908), was probably gifted to or inherited by Ursula Hayward.22 This sparkling and evocative painting was produced during a period of great personal fulfilment for the artist. After successful exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne in 1907, he was finally in a position to marry the Canadian violinist Esther Leonora Clench (1876-1938). They met in London in 1899 while both were trying to establish themselves, and she had encouraged the despondent NEXT SPREAD: Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton, Venice, Bride of the Sea (1908), oil on canvas, 54.1 x 92.1 cm. (Collection of the Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide, Hayward Bequest.)
Streeton to pursue strategies to promote his work. They married in January, 1908 and moved to St. John’s Wood: at the end of April they journeyed to Venice on their honeymoon. Streeton would return to Venice in September-October that year in preparation for a themed exhibition he was planning. James S. MacDonald’s The Arthur Streeton Catalogue (1935) lists over eighty paintings of Venice23, attesting to the artist’s abiding fascination for La Serenissima. Anna Jug, the Associate Curator at Carrick Hill, has used this aspect of the Hayward Bequest as the basis for Arthur Streeton: Blue and Gold (until 25 February, 2018), a concise exhibition of just over twenty works. The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) has loaned the largest number of items to the exhibition: three paintings, a sketchbook (1923-28), and nine works on paper with Venetian scenes from 1908. The titular painting, Blue and Gold (c.1900-05), was probably produced between June and December, 1903 while Streeton was renting Louise Villa in Windsor with the British-born artist Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930). The work shows Windsor Park and the River Thames, and was acquired by the National Gallery of South Australia prior to Streeton’s solo exhibition in Melbourne (1907).24 Streeton made his first visit to London, via Egypt and Naples, in 1897, and endured a difficult period trying to gain recognition in the competitive and often isolating art scene there. He persisted, and even told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1906, “Every man has to undergo an apprenticeship in London. I don’t care who he is”.25 Indeed, this was something of a right of passage for many young men looking to establish their credentials. In 1931, the twenty-eight year old Bill Hayward had travelled to London to work for John Martin’s office there.26 The Victoria Tower, Westminster (1912) is a striking work painted looking from the Tate Gallery, and was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1913. Streeton was the first Australian-born artist to exhibit there with Golden Summer, Eaglemont (1889) shown in May, 1891, and became a regular contributor up to 1924. The Haywards had a lengthy association with the Art Gallery of South Australia: in 1953, Ursula Hayward became the first woman appointed to the Board, on which she served until 1969.27 They loaned thirty works from their collection to the Royal Visit Loan Exhibition (1954), and in 1958 donated funds towards the purchase of a suite of prints by Georges Henri Rouault (1871-1958).28 They donated works by Sir Ivor Hele, Augustus John, OM, RA (1878-1961), and Clarice Beckett (1887-1935) to AGSA in their lifetime. As a bequest, Lady Ursula left the Gallery a self-portrait by Augustus John (c.1936), and a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Coco (The artist’s youngest son, Claude) (c.1905). Other institutional lenders to Arthur Streeton: Blue and Gold also have historical connections to the Hayward family. From 1928, Bill Hayward was a member of The Adelaide Club: they have loaned their Streeton, Dunkeld (c. 1930). The University of Adelaide has loaned View from Barrett’s Point, Portsea (1921). Lady Ursula’s family made substantial donations towards what became, in 1899, the Barr Smith Library at
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the university. Her grandfather Robert Barr Smith (1824-1915) was a member of the University Council for nineteen years and donated an initial £9,000 to purchase books. In 1920 the Barr Smith family gave a further £11,000 to the university in the form of an endowment. Lady Ursula’s father, Tom Elder Barr Smith, donated a whopping £30,000 in 1928 towards erecting the Georgian building to house the library, designed by architect Walter Hervey Bagot (1880-1963). He also assisted in the founding of St. Mark’s College in 1925, the oldest residential college associated with the university. By 1970, the year of Lady Ursula’s death, the couple had made the decision to bequeath Carrick Hill to South Australia upon Hayward’s death. He subsequently remarried in London in 1972 to Jean Katherine Bridges (née Folder), herself a widow. Despite being childless, in 1973 Hayward was named South Australia’s ‘Father of the Year’ in recognition of forty years of the annual Christmas Pageant. He died suddenly at Carrick Hill, 13 August, 1983, with the property and the majority of its contents passing to the State. The Carrick Hill Trust Act was assented to in State Parliament, 28 March, 1985, and the property was formally listed on the Register of State Heritage Items in August the following year. In subsequent years Carrick Hill has served as an ongoing testament to the style and generosity of a couple descended from civic-minded families, who were conscious of their good fortune, and did much to endow the city of Adelaide and its institutions. The Haywards had seen first hand the demolition of many manorial estates, including the Barr Smith home of Birksgate, and the tragic loss of over 600 years of history at Beaudesert. It was perhaps with this in mind that they resolved to keep their aesthetic vision, including the bulk of their paintings, textiles, decorative art, antiques, and furniture, intact. Richard Heathcote agrees that it was, “an act to keep the collection together as a whole entity, to safeguard the sense of pleasure which it had provided them and prevent its destruction and dispersal; and secondly, to further the Haywards’ sense of responsibility as philanthropists in bequeathing to the public, for the benefit of others, those things that they had acquired through their wealth”.29 As with other ‘house museums’ that now welcome thousands of visitors a year, elements of nostalgia, voyeurism, and mythmaking inevitably come into play. There is still an underlying tension concerning how various personal items and private passions should be interpreted in a public context, and at what stage such a collection begins to resemble a shrine. The Haywards created a particular ambience at Carrick Hill, one that could not fail to make an impression on their friends and guests; of culture, refinement and hospitality. Essentially, however, it was still their principal home, one that suited and was directly shaped by the tastes of the couple, “... they collected for their own enjoyment. They were serious about their acquisitions and not in the least concerned about public opinion or the status of what they were assembling. It is an approach to collecting largely ignored in today’s world of celebrity and symbols of wealth”.30 Carrick Hill, 46 Carrick Hill Drive, Springfield (SA) - carrickhill.sa.gov.au > Sir Matthew Smith, Nude With Pearl Necklace (c.1931), oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92.6 cm. (Collection of the Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide, Hayward Bequest.)
FOOTNOTES : 1 Coca-Cola Bottlers had 17% of the Australian market, but after Hayward’s death the business was taken over by Amatil. | 2 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, “Portrait of a place”, in Richard Heathcote (Ed.), Carrick Hill: A Portrait, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, 2011, p.38. | 3 Christopher Legoe, “A Renaissance Lady”, in Ibid, p.15. | 4 Ibid, p.11. | 5 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.27-29. | 6 Christopher Legoe, op cit, p.10-11. Hayward also had a keen eye for oak, and would later establish a small department of John Martin’s for the importation of good pieces. | 7 Jane Hylton, “Chronology: Carrick Hill”, in Richard Heathcote (Ed.), p.142. | 8 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.27 & 29. | 9 Jane Hylton, op cit, p.138. | 10 Ursula Hayward’s brother, Sir Thomas Elder Barr Smith (1904-68), later demolished Birksgate, which had stood since 1851, and subdivided the land. | 11 see, Damon Moon, “The Flying Scotsman”, The Journal of Australian Ceramics, July, 2010, p.27-30. | 12 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.42. | 13 Ibid, p.41. | 14 Jane Hylton, op cit, p.140. | 15 mentioned in a letter from Ursula Hayward to Nora Heysen, 11 March, 1949, quoted in Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.36-37. | 16 letter from Ursula Hayward to Nora Heysen, undated (c.1947), Ibid, p.33. | 17 Ibid, p.31. | 18 Ibid, p.3134 & Jeffrey Smart, Not Quite Straight: A Memoir, Random House, Sydney (1996) 2008, p.123-25. | 19 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.43-44. | 20 Ibid, p.47. | 21 Terence Lane, Australian Impressionism, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007, p.14. | 22 Richard Heathcote & Jane Hylton, op cit, p.38, 49. | 23 Geoffrey Smith, Arthur Streeton, 1867-1943, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995, p.148. | 24 Ibid, p.142. | 25 Sydney Morning Herald, 31 December, 1906, p.6, quoted in Ibid, p.133. | 26 Jane Hylton, op cit, p.136. | 27 At the time of Ursula Hayward’s appointment to the then National Gallery of South Australia’s Board, the only other woman holding a similar position in Australia was Mary Alice Sheffer who was on the Board of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She was the wife of the prominent lawyer and parliamentarian Justice Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt, QC (1894-1965). See, “First Woman Member of S.A. Art Gallery Board”, The Advertiser [Adelaide], 8 May, 1953. | 28 Jane Hylton, op cit, p.142. | 29 Richard Heathcote (Ed.), op cit, p,7. | 30 Ibid, p.4-5.
> Sir Stanley Spencer, The Monkey Puzzle Tree, Northern Ireland (1952), oil on canvas, 50.8 x 76.3 cm. (Collection of the Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide, Hayward Bequest.)
dec / jan salon
1. Jessie Yvette Journaud-Ryan with her winning work, Nowhere is a Destination too 2017, ceramic, grout. 2017 Burrinja Climate Change Biennale Award, Burrinja, cnr Glenfern Road and Matson Drive, Upwey (VIC), until 11 February, 2018 - burrinja.org.au 2. Lin Onus, Kaptn Koori 1985, comic book cover. & 3. Jade Kennedy, Through the Artists Eyes. Marramb-ik, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Culture Centre at Melbourne Museum, Nicholson Street Carlton (VIC, until 18 February 2018 - museumsvictoria.com.au 4. ‘Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose’, Dirs. Del Kathryn Barton and Brendan Fletcher. Prod. Aquarius Films, 2015. Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, Del Kathryn Barton: The Nightingale and the Rose, Horseshoe Bend, Swan Hill (VIC), until 28 January 2018 - gallery.swanhill.vic.gov.au 5. Art Orientè Objet (Marion Laval-Jeantet & Benoît Mangin), May the Horse Live in Me! 2011, film and relics of original performance, New Alchemists, Curated by Dr Alicia King, Devonport Regional Gallery, 45-47 Stewart Street Devonport (TAS) 9 December 2017 – 7 January 2018 - devonportgallery.com 6. THISISPOPBABY, RIOT, part of Midsumma Festival, Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio 100 St Kilda Road Melbourne (VIC), until 9 February 2018 - midsumma.org.au/program/riot18
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FINDING THE ART IN
Phuket The Art of Not Getting Deported by Anthony S. Cameron
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Phuket wakes up to the sound of roosters crowing, the Muslim call to prayer and the thwack of a thousand hammer drills making their first mark in the concrete for the day. The traffic hasn’t really kicked in yet, but a thousand cups of Nescafe three-in-ones have, and another day in this strange tropical paradise lurches forward. The art of this place for me lies in the ordinary moments, and often in the innocent early morning moments, moments yet to be sullied by the bold and unrelenting light of the day. It is trapped in the sounds of this developing South east Asian country waking up, like the splash of water coming off a thousand bodies wrapped in sarongs, in the metal clanging of a thousand spoons on a thousand woks, in the decisive thud of a thousand knives on a thousand chopping boards, and it is in the collective sighs of a thousand humans going about the business of building a first world tropical holiday experience. Of course, the experience of the tourist barely brushes past this excellent stuff on their way to the jewellery emporium. Beach culture is the dream being sold here, and it comes with beach chairs, endless cocktails, jet skis, parasailing, kitesurfing, the odd reggae bar and a thousand ocean view restaurants to test the strength of your stomach. But there is something strangely hollow about it, something kind of fake about it. A feeling that, if you peer behind the curtain you will see the timbers holding up the set. I guess that’s what you get when you transpose a lifestyle concept on an otherwise sleepy, unassuming little tropical island. The middle of the day is to be avoided, having been blasted clean of subtlety and left to rot in the baking heat. The nights, on the other hand, are to be treasured, for not only do they come to you significantly cooler, but they can house rare moments of beauty that, if you are lucky, resonate and synchronise with the tiredest of hearts, in the most delving of moments. The other night I was sitting out the front of a bar called Bebop in a funky little street in Phuket Town, watching the rain coming down, listening to some truly inspiring music battle with the tropical deluge for aural dominance, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it hit me. Maybe it was the music that did it, maybe it was the saxophone placed dead centre of our table that spoke to me with its misshapen, worn bell resonating with riffs long since past. Maybe it was the sheets of rain falling on the worn pavement that stirred my soul. Maybe the cocktails my wife and I were drinking were having their magical effect or the ridiculously comfortable chair was having its wicked way with me. It could’ve Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron
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been the artfully sour-faced waitress sitting opposite us, under a display of miniature musical instruments lit by tea light candles, looking soulfully out at the rain-soaked street, or it could’ve quite easily been the brilliant chalk drawing of two old jazz dudes jamming on the wall next to us. I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that a rare insight had taken a hold of me. I fumbled nervously with my drink, stared through the broken saxophone at my lovely wife, who had pre-empted the rave that would take a hold of me and our night by raising an eyebrow expectantly and sighing in mock exaggeration. I didn’t know much, but what I knew right at that moment tumbled out of my mouth with an urgency I hadn’t felt for quite some time. I watched the rain coming down, watched the people scurrying around under umbrellas, or darting between verandahs, and realised that I had been feeling comprehensively saturated by life of late. And it wasn’t this mad little island that was doing it, although I am sure the relentless scramble for the foreign dollar on every street corner didn’t help me much. No, it was a global kind of feeling, a general sense of exhaustion at the amount of information, images, comments, opinions, feeds, blogs, etc that are out there at any one time. I was drowning in a sea of information that no longer made any sense. Maybe it never did. All this potential knowledge was strangling me, suffocating my soul, stretching my spirit out like pizza dough on a busy Friday night. And I realised that I probably wasn’t the only one. I got the feeling that there were others that had grown tired of the too easily accessible information on any subject you cared to mention. Had the information revolution actually imprisoned humanity, chained them to a feeling of insignificance in the face of the multitude of individual experiences that were so easy to tap into? Was there anything new to contribute? Had everything already been said, quoted, paraphrased, plagiarised, then dished up to a new generation as a new thing? Was it time, I wondered, for things to remain unsaid, for experiences not to be committed to Instagram moments? Was it time to stop putting every possible fucking experience or near miss experience in the millennial social media straight jacket? Was it time to just wander aimlessly down a street without google maps, without the crushing awareness that a million had walked here before? Could it be, I wondered, that I was completely and utterly insignificant, and that no-one gave a shit whether I was having an existential moan in a cool little bar on the edge of banality? And finally, did it matter at all? One thing I knew for sure, my drink needed topping up. So, here I was, on an innocent street in a dirty little whore of a town, having global insights as some of the coolest funk/ jazz fusion squeezed itself out of Photos by Roxy Cameron.
the speakers above my head and spread itself over my words like some sort of exquisite treacle on a unpronouncable dessert in a wanky restaurant with a five star rating on fucking Trip Advisor. And I realised that I had come across a rare place indeed, an oasis in a sea of easily duplicated experiences, a place of respite for me, something that is nearly impossible to find on this island. This place was original, an anomaly in the land of the eternal copy. I decided to hang on to it like a life-buoy.
ANTHONY S. CAMERON is an Australian ex-pat living in Phuket, Thailand, and the author of two novels, Driftwood (2014) and Butterfly on Bangla (2015). His books are available on Amazon here. You can find his sculptural furniture on Facebook here.