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
CELEBRATING PIONEER WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS MELDING KNOWLEDGE & INFLUENCE Alex Reid, Van Gogh & the Glasgow Boys
INSPIRED COMICS Retelling India’s epics
AUSTRALASIAN INDIGENOUS ARTS Tommy Watson, a leading Australian Indigenous artist Treasures from Borneo Batik: ancient craft for modern designers Prized New Guinean artefact
FEBRUARY - AUGUST 2010 ISSUE 78 AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95 SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £9.50 US $13.00 €10.50
Contents ACQUISITIONS
ARTNEWS
132
80
134
Mutuaga, The drummer
A selection of international events
Crispin Howarth – National Gallery of Australia Canberra
Review of the UK’s arts fairs
J&L Lobmeyr Vienna
Tony Keniston
Florian Knothe – Corning Museum of Glass 136
Hilda Rix Nichols, In the bush
159
CONTRIBUTORS
Tracy Cooper-Lavery – Bendigo Art Gallery 138
139
Albert Tucker, Image of modern evil
DECORATIVE ART AND DESIGN
Warwick Heywood – Australian War Memorial
32
Nymphenburg Porcelain Munich Robert Reason – Art Gallery South Australia
140
142
Helen Musa 42
Mangkaja Arts, Ngurrara 1; Matumili Ngurra Michael Pickering – National Museum of Australia
Batik: an ancient art form transformed
English neoclassical silver Christopher Hartop
54
Sherpard Fairey, USA Presidential Campaign
Treasures from Borneo Niki Van Den Heuvel
Melanie Pitkin – Powerhouse Museum Sydney
58
AROUND THE AUCTIONS
62
The underestimated okimono Christopher Proudlove
144
Auction highlights from the major houses
Sue Prichard 66
The art of Tommy Watson
126
The Nabis: From Paris to Australia Emilie Owens
36
72
4
EDITORIAL
160
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
Artists resale rights: The AAADA stance Warwick Oakman
46
Van Gogh’s Scottish ‘twin’ Frances Fowle
PHOTOGRAPHY
James Fardoulys: A Queensland naïve artist
10
Glenn R Cooke 110
A conversation with Mark Weiss Elspeth Moncreiff
114
Royal Crown Derby: Merging art and craft Hugh Gibson
Marie Geissler 26
Hiroshi Suzuki: Ceramics made of silver Timothy Schroder
ART 18
Quilts 1700-2010: Hidden histories, untold stories
Pioneering women photographers Melody Gough
106
An interview with Shaun Gladwell Cherrie Prosser
The Wyeths: Three generations of American art Ian A C Dejardin
118
100
Heroes and villains: the battle for good in India’s comics Julie Romain
COVER
EXHIBITION REVIEW
Thilly Weissenborn (Indonesia/Netherlands 1889-1964) ‘I Goesti Agoeng Bagoes Djelantik, Anakagoeng Agoeng Negara, Karang Asem,’ 1931 [The King of Karangasem, Bali and consort] gelatin silver photograph in decorated mount 14.0 x 9.7 cm Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Probing the Spanish paragone Edward Payne
2 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
photography
1
Pioneering women photographers Anne Brigman, Thilly Weissborn, Hedda Morrison Prior to the 1970s critical reception of work by women photographers was scant. History books championed the
MELODY GOUGH
omen were working in the medium
patriarchal figures of each movement in photography since
W
the 1840s with passing comments about a few exceptional
inception, but in the nineteenth century
women. With the advent of the feminism in the 1970s a re-
of photography almost from its
they were mostly behind the scenes as studio workers or supportive wives. After
writing of the history of the arts took place in the 1980s and
convenient roll films and compact
90s, this time with the inclusion of influential women artists.
cameras were developed in the late
10 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
art
Kandinsky and Klee in
The art of Tommy Watson 1
Tommy Watson is one of Australia’s leading Indigenous artists. Each painting tells a specific story, but even more noteworthy is his masterly use of colour which has been compared to that of western abstract artists like Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian and Rothko. He shares their expressive use of tonality reflecting the underlying spiritual content in his work.
desert sand paintings and body
distinctive styles and traditions
decoration during the ancient ceremonial
contributing to the rich diversity of
I
practices of indigenous Dreamings.
desert art that is known today.
2001 when contemporary desert art
school teacher, Geoffrey Bardon, the
was a collection of paintings that gave
was already regarded as one of
Honey Art Dreaming mural for the walls
visual form to a culture that had been
Australia’s if not the international
of the local school building was the first
handed down through oral and
community’s most exciting art
major collaborative work. It was
ceremonial tradition for 40,000 to
movement of the twentieth century.
followed by over a thousand individual
60,000 years. The paintings reflected on
Seeding this extraordinary outpouring
paintings on board.1 Very soon acrylics
the Dreaming and the actions of Spirit
of Indigenous talent were paintings
and canvases became the materials of
Beings who at the beginning of Creation
from the remote Central Desert
choice. As the influence of the Papunya
emerged from beneath the land,
outstation of Papunya in the Northern
art movement spread to remote
fashioned its topography and made all
Territory. They were inspired by the
communities, new art movements were
living things. Indigenous legend tells of
sacred iconography which was used in
launched. Each region drew on its
their epic journeys, their making of
MARIE GEISSLER
rrunytju artist (Yannima) Tommy Watson began his painting career in
18 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
Under the direction of Papunya
The legacy of these first thirty years
art 1
The Nabis are one of several groups of artists represented in the National Gallery of Australia’s landmark exhibition, Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond: PostImpressionism from the Musée d’Orsay. radical new possibilities that the tiny
The Nabis
experimental painting of 1888 represented. It soon became known as
From Paris to Australia
The talisman and a brotherhood was born. Sérusier, Paul Ranson, Maurice
EMILIE OWENS
‘
Post-impressionism is not an art
Denis, Pierre Bonnard, Edward Vuillard
movement as such, and cannot be
and Félix Vallotton, among others,
ow do you see these trees? They
classified by a particular style. Instead
adopted the name ‘Nabis’ for their close
are yellow. Well, then, put down
the term refers to the range of
artistic circle. The term is a Latinised
yellow. And that shadow is rather blue.
techniques and approaches adopted in
interpretation of the Hebrew word for
So render it with pure ultramarine.
reaction to Impressionism. The term was
‘prophet,’ signifying ideas of the future
Those red leaves. Use vermillion.’1 With
coined in 1910 when English art critic
and the progressive mindset of these
these simple instructions Paul Gauguin
Roger Fry struggled to come up with a
idealistic artists.
guided Paul Sérusier in the creation of a
suitable title for an exhibition: ‘Let’s just
small, astonishingly abstract painting.
call them post-impressionists; at any
Nabi costume, 1890, suggests the
Sérusier took this work back to Paris to
rate, they came after the impressionists.’
group’s tendency toward mysticism,
H
show the disaffected young art students
Sérusier’s fellow students at the
Sérusier’s Portrait of Paul Ranson in
and demonstrates the fusion of
who would later call themselves the
Académie Julien were disgruntled with
influences that characterise their work.
Nabis: it was a revelation.
the teaching there, and embraced the
The bold areas of flat colour echo those
26 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
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