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research library Painted in words: the James Gleeson oral history collection It doesn't matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said. Jackson Pollock Rosemary Madigan Eingana 1968 The Research Library at the National Gallery of Australia Oral history has an interesting place in a museum carved English lime wood collects catalogues raisonn•, auction catalogues, rare serials context. It revolves around the power and reliability of 61.0 x364.8 x30.4cm and books and other printed and pictorial media relating memory and the spoken word in an environment that National Gallery of Australia, Canberra to the visual arts. In addition to bibliographic collections, more often values the written word, the document, the Purchased 1980 the library keeps manuscripts and documentary material image and the object. Spoken words have a number of Murray Griffin such as diaries, photographs and ephemera. It also holds qualities that make them different from other ways of Rabbit trapper's daughter 1936 communicating. They are able to capture the emotions linocut, printed in colour, from a collection of ninety-eight recorded interviews and multiple blocks behind what it means to be a person who is living printed image 35.0 x 27.8 cm transcripts with Australian artists created in the late 1970s, and making art at a particular time in history. And the National Gallery of Australia, before the National Gallery of Australia was built. Canberra storytelling in the interview captures both the pleasures of The interviews were conducted by the well-known memory and the act of creativity. Surrealist artist James Gleeson (b. 1915), who served as Oral history plays a vital role in keeping us aware of the chaitman of the Acquisitions Committee at the Gallery centrality of the individual artist's experience. Even after the from 1974 to 1975. At the time of the interviews, he most sensitive arrangement, it is difficult for rmariuscripts was member of the Australian National Gallery Council and photographs to reveal something as nuanced as the and the visiting curator of Australian art. The Gallery's cultural and working environment of an artist. There is also director, James Mollison, commissioned the interviews to interplay between material evidence and personal reflection collect more information for the Gallery's Research Library when Gleeson shows the artists photographs of their works collection, They were not formal interviews intended for a to prompt recollection and reflection. wider public audience but rather conversations between Painter Judy Cassab (b. 1920) was interviewed by artists. The resulting recordings are powerful on multiple Gleeson in January 1978. Born in Vienna, she was raised levels, As well as the artists' personal recollections about by her grandparents in Hungary, where she began studying how a work was made, the recordings also link to the painting. Migrating to Australia after the Second World Gallery's corporate and official memories -the history of War, she was influenced by the Australian landscape and its acquisitions, the choice of artists whose works were continued to develop her skills into an easily recognisable acquired and the histories of the works themselves, personal style. 14 national gallery of australia 'cc Fairly early in the interview, Gleeson asks her about Yes, yes ... after a while I just started to feel the picture as Merric Boyd House in country landscape 1952 capturing a likeness in portraiture: almost being like music ... in the studio where I worked, coloured pencil which was an old deserted barn, there were about forty 16.5 x 20.0 cm I think that I could express it by saying that catching the fruit bats that lived there and they had a particular sound. National Gallery of Australia, likeness or drawing the bone structure or using paint is Canberra There was the droning almost like scales on a piano now. Because I'm much more of bees that were perpetually Gift of Arthur, David and Guy around; wasps and the whole creaking sound of summer, Boyd, Lucy Beck and Mary Nolan interested in digging deeply into the character and, as I in honour of their father Merric get older, I know more about the psychology of my sitter. you know, in a sense that started to become the music of Boyd 1975 the picture But I'm still more intuitive and instinctive, I think, than (opposite) conscious of what I'm doing. Elaine Haxton At the end of the 1970s, Albert Tucker (1914-1999) and Set design for the Palace 6f Listening to Gleeson and Cassab on the audio recording, his wife donated to the Gallery a group of his paintings and Moonrays from Journey to the Moon 1960 we start to get a very strong feel for the personalities, the drawings. In his interview with Tucker, Gleeson asks him to gouache, pencil, pen and ink on paper laid on cardboard rhythm of Cassab's storytelling and her absolute delight in describe what being an artist is like and Tucker replies: 38.2 x 56,1 cm the act of painting. National Gallery of Australia, ... in a sense, I was like a zombie. I hardly knew what I was Canberra In another interview, James Gleeson asks the painter doing ... I often had the feeling that: what am I doing here. I Purchased 1977 Brett Whiteley (1939-1992) about the 'symphonic' mean this isn't life as I've expected it to be. It's something else qualities of the work Summer at Sigean 1962-63. Whiteley altogether. But I'm here and I'm breathing and acting and I've responds: got to be producing an image of some sort. artonview winter 2008 17 Elaine Haxton Costume designer Elaine Haxton (1909-1999) was heritage. The UNESCO Memory of the World program Costume design for a male interviewed by Gleeson in 1979. She had worked on sets announced the inscription at its conference Communities bird from Journey to the Moon 1960 and costumes for theatre, ballet and opera, including and Memories: A Global Perspective in Canberra, 19-22 gouache, crayon and pencil in 1960 for the Borovansky Ballet and February 2008. The Gleeson interviews join other culturally on paper Journey to the moon 52.7 x 41.5 cm Parades in 1962. Musing on why she stopped designing for significant material on the register, including the Endeavour National Gallery of Australia, journal of James Cook, the Mabo Case manuscripts, the Canberra the theatre, Haxton confides in Gleeson: Purchased 1977 Sorry books and the 1906 film The story of the Kelly Gang. It was never a very well paid job doing the theatre. One These items are all national treasures. It is suitable Grahame King did it for love and the smell of the grease paint, all that Tribal image 1965 keyed very high recognition of the significance and value of an artist's planographic printed image: sort of thing. It was ... you were always 43,0 x 30.5 cm, and you know the actors and the dancers. It was a terribly words that the interviews have been entered on the sheet: 56.0 x 43.0 cm interesting life and it was thrilling. But Australian designers register. The recordings allow the voices of these Australian National Gallery of Australia, Canberra have never been given their ... any real credit ... artists to be heard by future generations. Their words add another dimension to the understanding and appreciation (opposite) In contrast to the delicacy and lightness of touch in her Albert Tucker of the body of work they created during their life. Portraitof Adrian Lawlor 1939 ballet designs, Haxton's frank interview with Gleeson oil on paperboard mounted on reveals some of the tensions and uncertainties of theatre Jennifer Coombes composition board Special Collections Archivist, Research Library 48.2 x 35.0 cm life, the punishing deadlines and strong personalities. National Gallery of Australia, The James Gleeson oral history collection has been Canberra Interviews by James Gleeson, Canberra, 1977-79, held by the Purchased 1982 inscribed into UNESCO's Australian Memory of the World National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Canberra. register 2008 as being of significant Australian cultural artonview winter 2008 19 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION TITLE: Painted in words: the James Gleeson oral history collection SOURCE: Artonview no54 Wint 2008 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://nga.gov.au.
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