Australian Art

Selected works of art from the Art Gallery of South Education Services Resource

The following selection of key works within the Elder Wing are designed to introduce students to aspects of Australian art.

Due to the rotating nature of Gallery displays, please note that Education Services is unable to guarantee that all works of art included in this resource are currently on view.

Please contact Education Services to book your visit and discuss whether particular works are on display.

Mark Fischer DECD Eduation Manager Art Gallery of South Australia e: [email protected] ph: 08 8207 7033

Image: A break away!, 1891, Tom ROBERTS, Australia,1856-1931, Elder Bequest Fund 1899

Outreach Education is a team of specialist DECD teachers based in major public organisations. Each teacher creates and manages curriculum-focused learning programs for early years to senior students and teachers using the expertise, collections and events at their unique site. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 1

A View of the artist’s house and garden, in Mills Plains, Van Diemen’s Land, 1835, Tasmania JOHN GLOVER Britain/Australia, 1767-1849 Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1951 English artist John Glover migrated to Tasmania from his home in London in 1830. He bought land and set up a farm near Launceston.

Glover’s Tasmanian landscapes often showed his liking for the natural bushland, and his interest in the disappearing indigenous peoples who once lived on the land he now owned.

This painting shows a summer’s day at Glover’s new farm. A shingle- roofed stone house and wooden studio look out onto his extensive cottage garden full of flowering plants. The size of this garden shows Glover’s dedication to familiar plants from his home country. He had brought plants and seeds with him on the long journey in a sailing ship, and planned the garden while on the ship, even though a fellow passenger’s monkey ate many of his seedlings.

Glover painted the natural bushland beyond the edges of his garden. The hilly bushland shows the soft olive greens of the Tasmanian manna gum trees. At the front of the garden we see he has made formal pathways, and a small pond or lake, and there is a vegetable plot to the right of the house.

Glover’s garden is a display of introduced plants thriving in their new environment. Some of them are easy to identify: willows, roses and hollyhocks. Most of Australia’s problem weeds began as escaped garden plants introduced by immigrants, travellers, and later by plant nurseries. Weeds often threatened and smothered the growth of native plants by doing too well in this new country.

Focus • Look closely at the painting. Where do you think the water for household and garden use came from? • Would any part of Glover’s garden have needed more water than other parts? Do non-native plants have the same water needs as the native plants?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Gallery 1 EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus • What sea creatures, other than trepang, might be a source of food for people in this area? by these early traders? might have been used • What navigation ‘tools’ look for other works that show sea As you walk through the Gallery, • travel and trade. This work represents how water is important for trade and cultural This work represents how water is important a Malay sailing boat or prau. From contact between peoples. It shows 1900s, men from Macassar at least the early 1700s until the early year to Australia each to northern (Sulawesi), part of Indonesia, sailed delicacy traded to China. gather trepang (sea cucumber), a seafood and cultural relations with The Macassans established trading areas. Exchanges were made Aboriginal people from northern coastal knives and axes, rice and of exotic materials such as cloth, metal first export industry. Australia’s This was tobacco. Aboriginal men also travelled across the water to Macassar Many after the wet season’s (particularly to Ujung Pandang, on Sulawesi) Australian the northern off harvest of trepang. On Groote Eylandt, in language, landscape and beliefs coast, Macassan influences remain through introduced words and plants, incorporation of boats into creation stories, and the adoption of boat and wind ‘totems’. The Malay prau Territory Groote Eylandt, Northern 1948, Umbakumba, MINIMINI MAMARIKA Australia, 1904-1972 Territory Anindilyakwa people, Northern Mountford 1960 Gift of Mr Charles P 2011 Agency, Artist Aboriginal © Estate of the artist, Licensed by SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL Gallery 1 c1799, probably painted in Britain from sketches c1799, probably EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus • What can you see in the painting that would need/use water? • How would the water for household use have been collected at this time? This is a painting about the past, about arriving in a new colony and • having to start everything from scratch. When new towns or cities are the problem remains of providing water developed and settled now, Australian cities are centred on and sewage to households. Most natural water features such as deep harbours, and rivers. But some water come Adelaide’s Where does water needs to come a long way. stormwater and sewage? Adelaide’s And what happens to from? At the time of European settlement when Captain and Arthur Phillip when Captain At the time of European settlement on January 26, 1788, about 34 the arrived from England region close to waterways such Aboriginal groups lived in the Sydney Aboriginal people had managed the water as the River. and were careful not to pollute the sustainably for thousands of years, and supported food drinking water, water supplies which provided fresh such as fish, crustaceans and birds. colonial population Sydney’s The first managed water supplies for flowed through the Stream that Tank were holding tanks cut into the By 1826 the stream at Circular Quay. settlement into Sydney Harbour, and was abandoned in favour of was polluted with sewage and rubbish Bore, a convict-built tunnel from Lachlan swamps water from Busby’s the city by water The water was distributed throughout to Hyde Park. carts. time Over All cities, towns, and settlements have to manage water. they have developed complex systems for collecting, distributing and rainwater tanks, needs. Using stormwater, treating water for people’s desalination plants, and recycling, means that communities can reduce their reliance on rivers and dams for water supplies. View of the town of Sydney in the colony of New South of the town of Sydney in the colony View Wales after THOMAS WATLING Australia, 1762-c1814 AO Collection MJM Carter SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 1

Fish catch and Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour c1813, Sydney John William LEWIN Australia, 1770-1819 Gift of the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation and Southcorp Holdings Limited on the occasion of the Company’s Centenary 1988

The artist John Lewin was a trained natural history painter who made many illustrations of Australian flora and fauna. Several kinds of fish Lewin officially discovered were named after him, and among them was a hammerhead shark. Its official (scientific) name is Sphyrna Lewini.

This is the first known oil painting to be made in Australia. The fish species in this still-life arrangement have all been identified. From the top: snapper, hammerhead shark, crimson squirrel-fish, estuary perch, rainbow wrasse and sea mullet.

Focus • How many of the listed fish do you recognise? • What story do you think is being told by the artist? • What impression does this realistic painting of ‘dead fish’ painting leave on you?

Later • Imagine that you have just caught these fish at Dawes Point, on Sydney Harbour. Write a wall label about your day of fishing with your friends.

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Gallery 1 EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus locate his To Cook used the finest navigation science of his time. position he would have measured the angle between the sun and the horizon. Daily handwritten logs of these measurements and the route Any new land forms found of the ship were precisely drawn on a map. map. were also plotted on the ship’s • Research how the magnification of a telescope works. • Research Pacific peoples used the stars for navigation on the sea. Captain Cook on the coast of , 1860 New South Wales, Captain Cook on the coast of JOSEPH BACKLER 1813-1895 Foundation Australia Art Gallery of South AO Collection through the MJM Carter 125th anniversary 2006 to mark the Gallery’s in London before he was caught Joseph Backler was a talented forger Australia’s he was sent to making false money orders. For punishment for life in 1832. Once in Sydney his talent colony of New South Wales a special convict and assigned for drawing meant he was treated as After he was department as a draughtsman. to the Surveyor general’s person, often in trouble pardoned in 1847 he remained a mischievous for work. Backler’swith the law as he travelled looking talent for drawing and portrait painter. provided him with income as a landscape painted from life, this portrait of Unlike many of his portraits that were the famous English explorer and navigator Captain James Cook was appearance, as Cook was long dead, made from copies of Cook’s having died in 1779 aged only 50. in the distance, see Cook standing on a rocky ledge with cliffs We near the Heads of Sydney suggesting the East coast ocean cliffs Cook is seen resting his hand globe of the world on the Harbour. This northern hemisphere, likely to be England from where he came. Australia in 1770s (90 years discovery of gesture signifies how Cook’s earlier) was very important in the expansion of the British Empire. He is also holding a brass and wood telescope, an essential tool for looking at distant objects or land when sailing in unknown waters. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL Gallery 2 EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus • What happens to these micro-environments when old growth forests are cut down? Are • How much rainfall a year does a rainforest require to survive? Australia? there any rainforests in South In the Sassafras Valley, Victoria In the Sassafras Valley, 1875, ISAAC WHITEHEAD Australia, 1819-1881 1996 Australian Government MJM Carter Collection and the South landscape to show the scale and Isaac Whitehead painted this large the Dandenong Ranges, east of mystery of the magnificent forests of landscape Australian how the Melbourne. He was interested in showing of its European settlers, as matched the imaginations and perceptions wilderness. being an ancient and impenetrable forest valley where the The painting shows a thickly-wooded is a crystal clear creek shaded There undergrowth is damp and ferny. micro-environments exist within by huge, ancient eucalypt trees. Many the general forest area here. The figures are figures of loggers clamber over mossy logs. Tiny This painting was dwarfed by the towering trunks around them. Forest with Loggers’. Unlicensed loggers were originally titled ‘Victorian starting to degrade the forest by cutting down these giant, old-growth new furniture and building Australia’s trees for their valuable timber. industries depended on these beautiful timbers. In this work Whitehead was responding to an international mania for ferns from the Dandenongs. Ferns were so popular that patterns and images of them were often incorporated into decorative arts in silverware, pottery and textiles. Look around the room to see some of these objects. People are drawn to watery locations, and will picnic, bushwalk and camp by rivers, dams and in rainforests. Some people also enjoy such locations for bird-watching and animal-spotting. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 2

Evening shadows, backwater of the Murray, South Australia 1880 H.J JOHNSTONE 1835-1907 Gift of Mr Henry Yorke Sparks 1881 This painting shows a twilight scene along a backwater of the Murray River. There are Aboriginal people in their bark dwelling, and standing by the water. It was the first painting to enter the Gallery’s collection and is the most copied. The artist painted one or two very similar works as well.

It is an extremely smooth and realistic painting. Johnstone was a clever photographer who painted many of his works from photographs. It is thought he painted this in London or Paris. This was unusual for the time.

Compare the way ‘Evening Shadows’ is painted with some of the other Australian works you look at today.

Focus • How was the paint applied? • Are the colours bright or subdued? • Describe how this use of colour makes you feel. • Observe the people in the painting. What are they doing? What mood does the scene set?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Gallery 3a EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus In the process of mining for one particular mineral other valuable There have been many examples of this in minerals can be recovered. When copper was discovered in Burra, mining history. Australia’s South the very beautiful semi precious stone malachite was also found. • Research the materials and the jewellery making techniques that Steiner has used to create his Perfume bottle holder. be working with a raw material like • What would some of the difficulties emu eggs and beans in comparison to a metal like silver. Perfume Bottle Holder, c1875 Perfume Bottle Holder, JOHANN HEINRICH STEINER 1835-1914 in its centernary year 1988 through the Gift of the Southern Farmers Group Ltd Australia Foundation 1988 Art Gallery of South and was part of a large group Steiner migrated from Germany in 1858 Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley. of immigrants who settled in the silversmith and jeweller. most prolific colonial Australia’s He was made silver and gold jewellery There was a great demand for locally items from overseas could and presentation pieces. Ordering these colonies. Steiner was clever to take up to six months to arrive in the smith with outstanding skills. build his business by being a local silver The discovery of silver at Broken Hill in 1883 along with the mining locally of semi-precious and precious stones like malachite, jasper, amethyst, agate and garnets provided colonial jewellers with much needed materials. More unusual local materials were also used such as emu eggs, indigenous seeds and pods. Steiner made many presentation pieces using Emu eggs which he Aboriginal figures and Australian motifs such as combined with uniquely This work uses all the characteristic materials native flora and fauna. and symbols of Steiner and showcases the success and progress being Australia. Steiner’s pieces are presentation made in the colony of South examples of colonial pride and extravagance and are beautifully crafted highly developed skills. examples of this jewellers’ SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 3a

The First Lesson 1857, Adelaide Charles HILL Australia, 1891-1951 Gift of Mrs I Ruck 1966 The wife of the artist is shown with three of her children at the door of their home. An Aboriginal woman has asked for food, and the mother is teaching her eldest child Henrietta about the way a good Christian ‘gives to the poor and does charitable works’. Henrietta’s younger brother Charles peeps around the corner of his mother’s skirts.

This family and many like it would have found it difficult to accept at the time that colonial settlement and the clearance of Aboriginal land had created a situation where Aboriginal people were forced to beg for food.

Focus • What do you think Henrietta might have been thinking or feeling during her lesson in 1857? • Has Hill’s story made you think about the importance of sharing and giving to people less fortunate than ourselves?

Later • Research traditional ‘hunting and gathering’ practices. • The bread being offered to this woman has lard spread onto it. Find out what, and how lard is made. • What might have been the impact of forced change of diet on the health of Aboriginal people at this time?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 3b

At last! 1896, Melbourne Hugh RAMSAY Australia, 1877-1906 Gift of James & Diana Ramsay 1991 Born in Scotland, Hugh Ramsay arrived with his family in Victoria in 1878. Considered to be one of Australia’s finest tonalist painters Ramsay trained at the National Gallery School (1895-99) before setting out for Europe in 1900. Unfortunately, due to ill health, Ramsay returned to Australia in 1902 where he tragically died of tuberculosis four years later at the age of 28.

This painting was submitted for the National Gallery School Travelling Scholarship in 1896. Ramsay, still in mourning for his mother, who had died in March that year, painted a deathbed scene.

The work of art shows a great deal of tone, light and shadowing that adds to the drama. This style of painting is in keeping with the sentimentality of the Victorian period. Common subjects for paintings were: love, death, beauty and desire. Death was commonplace and affected children, young men and women, the healthy and apparently robust, not just the old and sick. The model for the little girl is the artist’s youngest sister, Jessie, aged eight, who was also to die young. Focus • Why do you think Ramsay called this painting ‘At last!’? • How has the artist used light in this painting and why? • Who do you think the figures coming to help this young family are? • What can you read from this painting that tells you about how wealthy this family was? • What conversations might taking place in the room?

Later • Poverty, sickness and hunger - the Victorians’ fear of tragedy was real and justified, and found expression in art. Research what life was like during the Victorian period. • Research the disease tuberculosis.

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA PAGE 11 SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 3b

A holiday at Mentone 1888 Charles CONDER Australia, 1868-1909 South Australian Government Grant with the assistance of Bond Corporation Holdings Limited through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation to mark the Gallery’s Centenary 1981

Charles Conder became a friend and painting companion of Tom Roberts. Roberts met Conder in Sydney and invited him to join a group of artists camping and painting outdoors around Melbourne.

Mentone was a popular sea-side spot for people living in Melbourne. In this painting people have caught the train down for the day and are dressed 1880s style!

Conder used techniques learnt from Roberts, such as using jetties to divide up the composition into smaller sections. An Impressionist device was to use mauves and blues in the shadowing, replacing the browns and blacks that had been used in earlier Colonial works. Conder added something which was contemporary to the time. The woman in the foreground is reading a newspaper called ‘The Bulletin’.

Focus • Imagine the same scene today. What changes might there be? • Notice how Conder has used perspective in his work of art. Can you find the horizon line and vanishing point in the painting? • Notice Conder’s use of colour. List the primary and secondary colours Conder has used to animate the painting.

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 3b

A break away! 1891 Tom ROBERTS Australia,1856-1931 Elder Bequest Fund 1899 This work was painted in a shearing shed in the Riverina, New South Wales. It is very much a ‘country’ painting. The subject is a stampede of sheep racing towards the dam at the bottom right. If the stockman riding away from us is unsuccessful in ‘cutting them off’, many sheep will be crushed and drown in the dam.

Roberts never saw this ‘break away’ happen. He travelled through the area and camped out with drovers - who told him yarns of adventures in the bush.

Roberts drew the stockman from a ‘model’. He paid a man to sit on a box with arm and leg outstretched while he drew him in his studio. Some critics at the time didn’t like this painting because it looked ‘too Australian’ and the composition (arrangement of everything) was too loose. What do you think this means?

Focus • This is a drought landscape. How has the artist indicated this? • Imagine you are one of the stockmen. What thoughts are going through your mind right now? • Roberts’ A break away! is an Australian icon. What does this mean? • The ‘real Aussie’ is a bushman. It is a man (not a woman). What do you think of this statement? • After the European explorers came the pastoralists with their sheep, cattle and fences. The inland, even by the turn of the century, retreated further towards Australia’s ‘Dead Heart’. What does this term mean? • Some people say that the ‘real’ Australia is inland, not on the coast. What do you think?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 4

The Olive Plantation 1946 Dorrit BLACK 1891-1951 Bequest of the artist 1951

Adelaide-born Dorrit Black travelled overseas in the early part of last century and studied in both London and Paris. Her training in Cubist art influenced her style.

The subject of ‘The Olive Plantation’ is olive groves in the Adelaide foothills at Magill. Dorrit Black has not painted this work to look very real, as in a photo.

The artist has focused on the sculptural forms of the hillsides and the rows of trees. By reducing details, simplifying the colour scheme, and adding dramatic interest by use of light and shade, she has made this work into what we call a modern work of art.

Look for the strong sense of movement created by repeated patterns and curves. The shape of each olive tree has been simplified (i.e the details are left out). Notice how the artist has made it easy to see the overall patterns of the plantation. She has simplified forms and used bright flat colours.

Focus • Create a list of the things you can see in this painting. • The cloud on the horizon takes the eye back to the vanishing point. • Describe how the rows of olive trees help to show perspective in the work. • Are there any other works by Dorrit Black near this one? Is her style in these works similar or different?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 4

The Bridge 1930, Sydney Dorrit BLACK Australia, 1891-1951 Bequest of the artist 1951 Dorrit Black was an Australian modernist painter who was born and died in Adelaide. Her painting shows a new way of depicting shapes. Instead of being rounded and natural there is a geometric shape to the land, the trees, and the buildings. The bridge is of course geometric in shape.

Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, had earlier introduced the style of Cubism to painting, and Black had studied his work in France. She was also aware of painters such as Cezanne who used geometric shapes.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the world’s largest steel arch bridge. The two half arches were held back in the construction phase by steel cables anchored underground. On one of the arches a creeper crane can be seen at work. Two cranes working from either side travelled slowly forward, laying arch sections in front of them as they progressed. As the two sections grew closer together excitement grew. Some people thought that when the last section was put into place the Bridge would collapse into the Harbour!

For many Australians at the time, the Bridge became a symbol of Australia as a modern, ‘can do’ nation. The Bridge was a very popular subject for artists at this time. It was seen as a symbol of the new Nationalism which emerged in Australia after World War I. Focus When this was painted it was considered to be among the most modern paintings in Australian art. • Do you think it looks modern now? Is the subject easily recognised? • Look at the different shapes Black used. Make a list of all the geometric, organic and abstract shapes you can find in this painting.

Later • Research the design and construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. • Write a wall label about this Australian icon.

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 4

Landscape at Pentecost 1929, Sydney Grace COSSINGTON SMITH Australia, 1892-1984 South Australian Government Grant 1981 Grace Cossington Smith was one of a number of Australian artists who early last century experimented with new forms of art expression. This style of art was given a general name, modern art. Modern artists used colour in the same way that composers use musical notes. In this painting the natural colours of the ground, grass and sky have been exaggerated to give the picture more energy. The warm, earthy colours of the road are balanced by the cool greens and blues of the hillsides.

All two-dimensional images such as paintings have a sense of space or distance. In traditional paintings this space is usually deep. Things look close or distant, or look solid or three-dimensional. In modern style paintings this space is flattened. Here are some of the things the artist has done to give the work of art a flatter or more designed look: • creating outlines around the edges of things • using brush stokes to make strong surface patterns • using thick or wide brushes.

This painting uses traditional approaches to composition in that nearest things are the largest and sit at the bottom of the picture, and distant things are placed higher. Notice how the composition is divided into three parts: the road up close, the farmland and hillsides in the middle distance, and the sky. Objects become smaller the closer they are to the vanishing point. The vanishing point sits on the horizon line.

Focus • Can you locate the horizon line and vanishing point in this painting? • Just imagine all the lines, outlines and edges in this painting are roadways for your eyes to travel on. Start anywhere and see how far you can travel without taking your eyes off the painting. • Can you find the techniques the artist has used to create a modern style, flattened painting? • The road is important in this composition. Why do you think this is?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Gallery 4 c1931, Melbourne EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus There is a fixed amount of water on earth and it is constantly moving from one place to another in a process called the water cycle or The water cycle works when water evaporates hydrological cycle. from oceans, rivers and vegetation into the air as water vapour, Air temperature and which builds up forming fog, mist or clouds. pressure cause the clouds to rain and water falls back down to the ground. At school, draw the water cycle showing evaporation, condensation, • Where are mist and fog on this precipitation and collection/run-off. cycle? Passing trams, CLARICE BECKETT Australia, 1887-1935 Art Gallery of South the Friends of the Edna Berniece Harrison Bequest Fund through Australia 2001 Sometimes it is less always visible as ocean, lake or river. is not Water paintings often show. obvious, as Clarice Beckett’s most important Australia’s of Clarice Beckett is recognised as one landscapes: ‘everyday’ Modernist artists. Her paintings are or rain often suggesting an suburban scenes that feature fog, mist, illusion of reality. tops near her seaside home cliff Beckett often walked the streets and with her painting cart loaded with easel, paint and canvasses. She in all weathers. She died at the age of 45 and painted incessantly, after contacting pneumonia following a spell of painting outside during a storm. favoured painting times were dawn and dusk. Her paintings Beckett’s or misty; objects are made shiny - and foggy often seem blurry, shows a Melbourne city streetscape in This painting - by rain. different mist and fog. Fog is tiny droplets of water which are light enough to float in the air. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 5

Recollection of the artist as a small boy riding a goat 1942-43, Melbourne John PERCEVAL Australia, 1923-2000 Acquired 1993 This painting shows a little boy riding a goat, although it does not look exactly like a goat. As the title implies it is a story the artist recalls when he was a young boy.

It is set in a farmyard scene perhaps similar to the farm where Perceval grew up in Western Australia, and where his father grew wheat. The old man with the cart seems to have bags of something on his cart, and it could be wheat. While some objects in the painting look to be real, the dogs and the black chook for instance, the goat, the pig and the boy have strange toothy grins. The little boy stares at us. It is difficult to say if he is happy or sad. The artist is known to have had a sad childhood.

Perceval later made many ceramic angels that resemble the boy in the picture. Can you find one of these angel sculptures nearby?

Focus • How does this painting make you feel? • Describe the texture used by Perceval to create this painting. • What story does it tell you about the artist’s childhood? • Perceval was a friend of artist . Does the painting look like Arthur Boyd’s work or Albert Tucker’s? • Look at other works of art in this Gallery. They all belonged to a group of artists who were affected by the Great Depression and the Second World War. They also followed the style of work favoured by German painters called Expressionists. One of the points of their work is that they show emotion. Do you get a sense of this?

Later • Recount a story about something that made you happy when you were younger.

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE Gallery 5

Installation photo of works by Australia, 1917-1992 Gift of Sidney & Cynthia Nolan 1974

Sidney Nolan was an artist with a wide range of interests, and this is reflected in his art. He experimented with different forms and styles, including portraits, landscapes, narrative paintings, in abstract, surrealist and expressionist styles.

These ‘heads’ are of people the artist knew – friends, other artists, writers. Nolan painted these ‘heads’ at Heide. Here he was free to draw and paint, and also to enjoy the country life. This tranquil environment was important for his artistic endeavours.

Nolan used a paint called Ripolin and Dulux enamel house paint, bought at the local hardware shop. This was a paint which was generally used on houses and boats. Ripolin had a glossy effect which Nolan particularly liked (it was very luminous) but it was also very ‘fluid’ and dried quickly, so he had to work rapidly. He worked generally on boards from packing cases, or on cardboard. Sometimes he laid his canvases flat to minimize the likelihood of the paint running.

Sometimes these works of art are referred to as ‘heads’ rather than portraits. What’s the difference? A portrait is painted from life or perhaps from a photographic image, whereas a ‘head’ is drawn from memory. Nolan drew these heads from recollections of his friends, rather than having them ‘sit’ for him. Focus • What do you think Nolan was trying to capture in these images? Can you get a sense of emotions, or personalities? • Have you ever drawn or painted or taken a photo of a portrait? If you were painting a portrait of yourself, what features would you concentrate on? Would you try to paint an accurate likeness? • Nolan’s early works of art were sometimes labelled ‘avant garde’. Do you know what this term means?

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Gallery 5

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus Perceval developed his skills in working with clay and glazes to such a degree that he was very secretive about some of the processes he had developed to produce his amazing glaze finishes.It was only his understanding of the technology of his kiln that allowed him to achieve such results. • Why didn’t Perceval use metal supports to prop up his clay models during construction? • How has heat generated by fire contributed to other great advances in technology related to art? • Create your own set of angels in the classroom using a variety of card, wire to clay. materials from paper, Angel Winkie 1959 John PERCEVAL Australia, 1923-2000 AO 2003 Gift of Diana Ramsay Australian artist who painted as well as John Perceval was an called He made about sixty angels, some were created works in clay. Angel Winkie Angels. Angels and Hypnotic Angels, Fighting Delinquent children, the baby Celia, whose was named after one of Perceval’s nickname was Winkie. clay then use earthenware paper, Perceval would start with a sketch on Angel Winkie was thrown on The torso of the to model the final angel. fashioned from hollow balls of the pottery wheel, the head and arms clay and then attached to the body. Pieces of balsawood and match sticks were used to support the most delicate sections of the figure. Perceval always glazed his figures and Angel Winkie was glazed with sang-de-boeuf (ox blood) to create the The clay itself changes from a soft, non permanent, rich, red colour. pliable material which would dissolve if placed in water to a permanent shape which can absorb water yet still retain its shape and if glazed it becomes waterproof. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL Gallery 5

1948 EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus work often focused on travelling to a country far away from Marek’s Europe both in distance and culture, the ship he and his family were travelling in, and and the problems of navigation over vast distances gaming tables, removing the one of the ships’ of ocean. He ‘borrowed’ green felt from one side and put down his thoughts on both sides of the wooden table top. The land of Down under”- do you think Australia is sometimes called “ placement on a world map? Australia’s this is an accurate description of • Using an atlas find out the longitude and latitude location of some Australia. important places in Equator, Equator, DUSAN MAREK Australia, 1926-1993 Australian Government Grant 1972 Sourh and painting tells the story of Dusan, his brother Voitre Dusan Marek’s Australia, as refugees, fleeing Czechoslovakia voyage to his wife Vera’s in the mid 1940’s. in organising for them to be Their cousin Milena played a key role Milena is the women depicted smuggled out of their country of birth. part of a black ships hull which in the centre of the painting, she is Australia. refugees travelled in to represents the migrant ships the three In the top left hand side of the painting there is a white globe with refers to the latitude lines painted across the globe, one line with an ‘O’ line of the equator which passes around the world at O latitude. The refugees travelled across the equator going from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere- going ‘down under’ to painting he has added a small upside down half Australia. In Dusan’s man half insect creature attached to the globe, suspended from the southern hemisphere like a fly on the ceiling. SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL Courtyard

EDUCATION SERVICES, ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA OF SOUTH GALLERY ART SERVICES, EDUCATION Focus are walking You a visual game. • Consider how the artist has created look How has the artist made the stone slate on, or through, water. like water? • Back at school, using plasticine and/or cardboard, create your own fish or sea-creature sculpture. South Australian Government Grant 1996 South artist who is well Australian is a contemporary South Truman Catherine The Australia and internationally for her finely-crafted objects. known in work – are used here by the artist fish – a recurrent symbol in her early as a metaphor for the human spirit. water is an inspiration for artists. This work provides an example of how of the has imagined playful fish leaping in and out Truman Catherine or become the slate ‘pool’ The bronze fish seem to dive into water. of the gateway. caught in the ‘net’ Slate pool walkway 1993-1996, Adelaide TRUMAN CATHERINE SMALL TALK EDUCATION RESOURCE EDUCATION TALK SMALL Australia, 1957