World of Antiques & Art 78

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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