World of Antiques & Art 77

a b i a n n u a l m a g a z i n e f o r c o l l e c t o r s o f m a t e r i a l c u l t u re

FOLK ART ACROSS THE CONTINENTS FRESH PERSPECTIVES

ART IN IRAN INSIGHTS INTO A COUNTRY, ITS HERITAGE AND CHALLENGES

PLANNING A COLLECTING EXCURSION TO THE UK WHAT TO EXPECT AUGUST 2009 - FEBRUARY 2010 ISSUE 77 AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95 SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00 US $13.00 €10.50

RECENT RELEASES ESSENTIAL ADDITIONS TO A COLLECTING LIBRARY

Contents ACQUISITIONS

DECORATIVE ART AND DESIGN

130

70

132 134 135 136 138 140 142 144 146 148

Bugla ma’a’agll, prehistoric stone mortar National Gallery of Australia South Indian or Sri Lankan Female figure, c. 18th-19th century Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Joseph Hoffmann, Vase, c. 1919 National Gallery of Victoria Li Lihong, McDonald’s M, 2007 Hamilton Art Gallery Hunt & Roskell, Presentation Vase, 1864 Queensland Art Gallery Cabinet card portraits, c. 1900 National Gallery of Australia Sir William Dargie, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Second, 1954 National Museum of Australia Karl Bertsch, Table and armchair, c. 1910 National Gallery of Victoria Penleigh Boyd: Three watercolours Australian War Memorial Historical movie poster, c. 1928 Australian National Maritime Museum Iso Rae: art behind the front lines, 1915 Australian War Memorial

78 84 106 124

4

56 74

168

ART 26 32 48

102 112

62

66 116

Trompe l’oeil: art as illusion Annamaria Giusti Contemporary art in Iran Helen Musa The Conversation Piece: fashionable life in the 17th and 18th centuries Desmond Shawe-Taylor Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts Elspeth Moncrieff Preparing an exhibition: a personal appreciation Ian A C Dejardin

The North-West Passage Claire Warrior National Art Gallery for Singapore Helen Musa

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS

LIBRIS

AROUND THE AUCTIONS Auction highlights from the major houses

EDITORIAL

HERITAGE

12 152

American folk art in Britain Laura Beresford The renaissance of contemporary jewellery in Britain Corinne Julius Marine ivory and scrimshaw Christopher Proudlove Chanukah lamps from North Africa Melody Amsel-Arieli The Thomson Collection of ship models Simon Stephens

Hand written illuminated prayer books from Bohemia and Moravia Jana Vytrhlik The art of book conservation Julie Sommerfeldt Book Review: The Art and Life of Josef Herman Andrew Lambrith

Recent Releases 119 120 121 122 123

China at the Court of the Emperors: Unknown masterpieces Van Dyck & Britain A Journey into the World of the Ottomans: The art of Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737) Voices of Contemporary Glass Medals of Dishonour

PHOTOGRAPHY 10

John Gollings, New Guinea Suite, 1973-74 Gael Newton

EXHIBITION REVIEW Venice Biennale 2009 Vivienne Sharpe and Tim McCormick

ARTNEWS

COVER

82

A review of the UK’s arts fairs Duncan Phillips

88

A selection of international events to diarise

John Gollings (Australian b. 1944), New Guinea suite, 1973-74, ed 1/3 printed 2006-07; 60 colour photographs, colour pigment inkjet on paper, 61 x 100 cm.

National Gallery of Australia. Gift of John Gollings 2008

167

CONTRIBUTORS

2 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART

photography

John Gollings

New Guinea suite, 1973-74 Gollings’ photographs of Papua New Guinean 1973-74 annual cultural shows called ‘sing sings,’ were artistic interpretations of the traditional songs, music and dance, ceremonial clothing and body decorations, rather than ethnomusicological research images.

T

his work is from the National

Communication between villages

Gallery of Australia’s recent

The quest for an interpretative,

developed through yodelling requests,

animated and dramatic realisation would

acquisition of John Gollings’ New

directions, commands and challenges,

shape Gollings’ subsequent career,

Guinea Suite, photographs of Papua

yodelled back and forth by men across a

almost four decades of photographing

New Guinean 1973-74 annual cultural

ravine or a ridge, without visual contact,

ancient and modern architecture across

shows called ‘sing sings,’ that

using vantage points such as atop the

Australia, Asia and America. Sally Ingleton’s

dramatically capture traditional songs,

men’s houses, captured by Gollings.

documentary, John Gollings Eye for

music and dance, ceremonial clothing

Traditional items displayed include men’s

Architecture launched at the Melbourne

and body decorations. Gollings, an

wigs of human hair, elaborate

International Film Festival in August.

architecture student turned professional

headdresses decorated with feathers and

photographer, acting on suggestions by

shells, body painting using local dyes

his former lecturer Professor Neville

mixed with pig fat, pig tusk jewellery,

Quarry, went to Papua New Guinea to

holding stone axes and digging sticks.

photograph the dance styles and body decorations at sing sings. Gollings stayed with parents of Quarry’s Papuan students, seeing their preparations and travelling with them to the shows.

The ‘shows’ are an artificial construct of Australian patrol officers in the 1950s, as a method of integration and pacification. They continue to be massive, well attended events. The theatricality and vitality of ancient cultural practices manifest in the performances inspired Gollings. Using an array of camera and film technologies he imparted an edgy, expressive and interpretive character to images rather than detailed ethnographic reportage.

Melpa people have a patrilineal culture, living in highlands villages separated by valleys and steep mountain ridges.

10 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART

1

1 John Gollings (Australian b. 1944), New Guinea suite, 1973-74, ed 1/3 printed 200607; 60 colour photographs, colour pigment inkjet on paper, 61 x 100 cm. National Gallery of Australia. Gift of John Gollings 2008

libris 1

1 Spiritual Treasure or Catholic Prayers‌, 1760, 19. x 12.2 cm, 160 pp. This is an example of an original approach to decoration, not influenced by printed work

Rescued from obscurity: hand written, illuminated prayer books from Bohemia and Moravia

Unique to rural Bohemia and Moravia was the tradition of hand transcribed miniature prayer books. Undertaken by nonprofessionals and translated into Czech and German, a significant collection dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provides important insights into folk art traditions of the region 12 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART

JANA VYTRHLIK

lluminated manuscripts have a long

I

history in European culture. Scriptoria

(scribe’s workshops) flourished at the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century in and adjacent to monasteries.

The richly decorated miniature Catholic

art

Art in Iran:

Fajr festival and conference at the TEHRAN MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

1

Attending a conference and festival in Tehran marking thirty years of Islamic revolutionary art was always bound to throw up a few conundrums and mysteries, and so it proved to be during February when I joined a group of Australian, French, and German writers to present a paper at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art’s Fajr celebration of contemporary art. The aspirations of Iranian artists now seem all the more elusive following post election unrest.

HELEN MUSA

T

now joins the Fajr International Film

One thing that strikes you

he word Fajr carries its own

Festival and the Fajr International

immediately in Iran is a deeply-

mystery. It literally translates from

Theatre Festival to make a

embedded love of culture and the arts

triumphant triumvirate.

that goes back to the Achaemenid

Farsi and Arabic as ‘dawn,’ the dawn of the Revolution. Metaphorically, it

Not that there was a vacuum before

Empire and far beyond. The average

indicates the awakening of a national art

the Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off the

Iranian can be relied upon to throw

movement in Iran. The newcomer in a

plane from Paris thirty years ago to

stanzas from the poets Hafiz and Rumi

group of such arts festivals, this one

spearhead the Islamic revolution.

into a casual conversation—this is one

32 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART

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