William Delafield Cook.A Survey

WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK. A SURVEY William Delafeld Cook. A Survey is the frst survey exhibition of this signifcant Australian artist in over two decades.

Since the late 1970s Delafeld Cook has worked almost exclusively with the Australian landscape - remarkably, from his studio in London. His paintings are characterised by a deadpan photo realism, yet they transcend the real altogether to speak of phenomena beyond our perception. Taken as a whole, his paintings elevate our understanding and appreciation of the Australian landscape to a new level.

This timely survey unites works from over a thirty year period, to provide a compelling document on the work of one of Australia’s most acclaimed and accomplished artists.

WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK. A SURVEY I have always felt that it wasn’t enough career. With his investigation into the WILLIAM to simply lope along experiencing recurring subjects of timelessness and life, and that moments of importance place achieving a new level of DELAFIELD COOK should be acknowledged, examined, refnement, Delafeld Cook has secured.1 reached the crescendo of a lifetime A SURVEY dedicated to the search for the In a practice that now spans over ffty inexplicable dynamisms that silently Simon Gregg years, William Delafeld Cook has inhabit our natural world. produced an immense body of work Curator that speaks not merely of its time, but Delafeld Cook’s vision of the transcends time altogether. His Australian landscape has intensifed Gippsland Art dedication to the Australian as his distance and time spent from landscape has led to a new Australia has increased. The emphasis Gallery understanding of the land, in which he places on the Australian we encounter the essence of place experience cannot be overplayed. His through an intensely vivid evocation work is informed by, he says, ‘the of surface and substance. amount of time I have spent in Australia, the importance I place on OPPOSITE William Delafeld Cook was born in being Australian, and the attraction I Hillside near Euroa, 1989 Melbourne in 1936 and relocated to have to the country and its Acrylic on canvas, 203 x 305cm London in 1958, and for the last thirty landscape’.2 However, what had been ANZ collection years has divided his life between intended as a short trip to London London and Sydney. In the early in 1958 turned into a second home [1] William Delafeld Cook, email to the stages of the twenty-frst century for the artist. Today Delafeld Cook author, 17 January 2011 Delafeld Cook is producing some spends part of every year in Australia, [2] ibid of the most signifcant work of his undertaking long journeys into the

landscape where, as he admits, ‘the character of the Australian “My feeling … is contrast with Europe is enormous, landscape. He afords us neither a especially on frst arrival. It is a big topographically accurate view, nor that distance hit, every time’.3 Delafeld Cook’s a landscape transformed through practice trades on this distance; emotion or energy, but the pure idea intensifes the while preoccupied exclusively with of land fltered through memory, in the Australian landscape, his work which all voices and activities are experience of is produced entirely in London. He silenced, and the spirit of the earth the place” writes: can peacefully emerge. My feeling about the process of In employing the real in his pursuit of removing oneself at intervals from the unreal, Delafeld Cook uncovers direct contact with the source of one’s something quietly surreal in his subject matter is that distancing paintings. His practice is based on intensifes the experience of the place, empirical visual experience, but he makes it in recollection more vivid. expresses a sensation of disquiet that By squirreling it away, then retrieving has nothing to do with what we see. it at a later date, you can recover it, While often very cluttered, there is repossess it, see what it is that should a sense of calm order in his pictures, OPPOSITE happen to it.4 which undergo a process of gradual Hillside, 1986 reduction until only the skeletal Acrylic on canvas, 116.8 x 213.5cm A continued fascination for Australia, structure of the land remains. The University of Melbourne Art Collection while being at once physically His vast, panoramic canvases revel removed from it, has allowed in a strange intensity whose source [3] ibid Delafeld Cook to distil the essential cannot be identifed; indeed, it is in [4] ibid painting what he sees with such

5 precision that Delafeld Cook reveals reinvent yourself every day. There’s “My interest what we cannot see. no-one telling you what to do’.6 is in the The paintings betray the distance Delafeld Cook’s canvases are from their subject, by invoking carefully attuned for maximum efect. strangeness of memory and recollection rather than In a work such as Hillside near Euroa direct observation. Throughout his (1989), mood is modulated to infer a the world, as it career, Delafeld Cook has painted place that is at once familiar and single objects and places that are frighteningly alien, while never is” embodied by an intangible, almost resorting to invention. ‘My interest is undetectable presence. ‘My paintings in the strangeness of the world, as it are not about me – they’re about the is’, he says.7 Delafeld Cook might ‘thing’’, he says of this quality. ‘It’s the be described as a landscape scientist; world being reinterpreted. Charged he calculates colour, mass, OPPOSITE 5 A Waterfall (Strath Creek), 1980 up. Renewed’. Delafeld Cook composition and tone to arrive at a Acrylic on canvas, 198.2 x 156.2cm sometimes pursues the trails left by unique formula of disquiet. Here, Art Gallery of New South Wales earlier artists, such as Eugene von nothing is left to chance. Every Guérard (both artists painted the particle of paint is deeply considered [5] William Delafeld Cook, in Strath Creek waterfall, in 1862 and with the result that the overall work conversation with the author, 1980 respectively). But when it comes resonates like a fnely calibrated 6 December 2010 to painting he is decidedly studio- orchestra. Despite their outward [6] William Delafeld Cook, in based. His practice dictates that he sterility, his paintings are rich in spirit conversation with the author, 11 March 2010 spends long hours at the easel, and the tangible substance of life. [7] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in sometimes working for years on a Delafeld Cook outlined the agenda Deborah Hart, William Delafeld Cook, single work. ‘Being a painter is a for his art in 1975, writing that he Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p.65 lonely business’, he says. ‘You have to sought:

…to isolate fragments of reality and to expanse. The collision of the two “The subjects present them reduced to their essence, produces a condition that could seeking an image which will endure only manifest in Australia. Without are … a means and which will carry with it some of the need to call upon cliché he the strangeness and intensity which fathoms an Australian Sublime that of conveying I myself have felt when experiencing is majestic and boundless. It infers them in nature. The subjects are not in a religiosity that makes one believe a view of themselves important and are selected in Creation again; that nature was simply as a means of conveying or designed according to a plan, and the physical expressing a view of the physical that there is a divine order amidst the world which transcends the obvious, chaos. This is one of Delafeld Cook’s world which the particular and leads towards the great achievements; in his classical metaphysical.8 compositions, rich in balance and transcends the symmetry, he unleashes a profound Increasingly, however, we see that sense of the biblical within the obvious” subject and site have taken on greater secular, and of the supernatural meaning for Delafeld Cook, as his within the natural. There is a sense practice has matured from his early that the forces of the cosmos have OPPOSITE A Quarry near Euroa, 1990 abstract subjects. His later choice of aligned in paintings such as Kiah River Acrylic on canvas, 162 x 294.5cm landscape as a subject was infused near Eden (1977), which was the frst Art Gallery of New South Wales with longing for a place that was major landscape painting produced as timeless and elemental as his by the artist. Even at this early stage, [8] William Delafeld Cook in a letter painting. we detect a brittle stillness in the air, to Dr Bernd Krimmel, Darmstadt, permeated by an electric tension, as if Germany, 7 April 1975, reproduced in Delafeld Cook’s art is one of infnities: everything, at this moment, has ibid, p.88 of infnite detail and of infnite frozen in a unique harmony that the

slightest disturbance could rupture. – and distilling the absolutely His works speak at once of magnitude unknowable essence of the perfectly and quietude, and describe small, familiar’. barely detectable sensations amplifed to the level of grand history Looking at a chesterfeld couch, or a painting. He quotes liberally from haystack … is akin to seeing them for the past – from classical painting the frst time, with all their qualities and classical architecture through intensifed in a way that the mere to Romantics such as Friedrich and application of paint with a fne sable Surrealists such as De Chirico. brush or a graphite pencil can’t explain.9 While anchored forever in the empirical, Delafeld Cook’s works Delafeld Cook evokes photo realism, transcend the descriptive to ofer but his works are not photo realist. PREVIOUS LEFT something purely metaphysical and While born from the language of Kiah River near Eden, 1977 Acrylic on canvas, 124.7 x 304.5cm speculative. His Hanging Rock (1985), photography they transcend that Art Gallery of South Australia for instance, encompasses the medium to bespeak another kind of uncanny disquiet of this haunted site. realism altogether; a hyper-realism, PREVIOUS RIGHT Hillside, 1978 Stripped of the quasi-supernatural where the undercurrents of Acrylic on canvas, 126.5 x 370.5cm narrative of Joan Lindsay’s novel and atmosphere are rendered as chillingly Bendigo Art Gallery Peter Weir’s flm, Delafeld Cook as surface detail. By heightening presents Hanging Rock with a shrine- the depiction of reality to an [9] Patricia Anderson, William like ambience. Patricia Anderson unimaginable degree, he reveals what Delafeld Cook and Jonathan Delafeld wrote in 2006 that his work ‘is a is beyond our perceptual feld. The Cook, exhibition catalogue, Rex Irwin testament to the pursuit of combined efect of such elemental Art Dealer, Sydney, 2006, unpag. composing pictures about stillness compositions and purifed palette is

12 images that whisper of another level They are presented as matter-of-fact “We observe of consciousness. We observe not so realisations of the natural world. much the thing that is depicted, but Delafeld Cook deploys a kind of not so much the essence of the thing. In her 1998 deadpan Romanticism, where monograph on Delafeld Cook, sublime topography is rendered in the thing Deborah Hart noted the artist’s fat acrylic hues. A generation ago attraction to ‘convey something of Romanticism was considered not depicted, but the essence of … natural structure’. merely dead but ‘unpaintable’, as When painting a hedge, for instance, Hart has said.12 Nevertheless in 1974 the essence of he sought to express ‘the hedge-ness Delafeld Cook produced Mountains of a hedge’.10 Further, she wrote (Newcastle Region Art Gallery), in the thing” that Delafeld Cook’s oeuvre is which he attempted to capture the characterised by: awe of a sublime mountain peak, in an obvious reference to earlier artists …his grasp of a sense of the such as Eugene von Guérard and extraordinary within the seemingly W.C. Piguenit. Retrospectively, we commonplace, not through extreme may observe how Delafeld Cook’s distortion but through the Mountains signalled the beginning of concentrated focus on isolated aspects a new engagement with the sublime. of the real.11 Many of his visual tricks would characterise the neo-Romanticism By rendering what is visible with that followed: its large scale, its such obsessive detail, we are drawn fatness and its calculated distance [10] Deborah Hart, op.cit., p.104 intuitively to what is not visible. from the source of sublime terror. [11] ibid, p.84 Hillsides, boulders, trees and dams [12] ibid, p.94 all conform to a fat homogenisation.

The same kind of neo-Romantic noir have exacted the same toll upon his “Technique characterises a work such as Obiri I canvasses. The acrylic paint allows (1987). This striking portrait of a Delafeld Cook a level of exactitude, is, of course, natural rock formation immerses the but it also suggests an uncommon viewer in its presence. At over three dryness. Even where he depicts the least metres in length the canvas waterfalls and rivers, the paint is wet envelopes the viewer, and with its raw in illusion only – any moisture here interesting simplicity and symmetry it intimates a evaporated centuries ago. The acrylic powerful divinity. The work was allows the substance of the work itself part of the completed following a visit to Kakadu to somehow disappear, and we National Park in the Northern become aware only of the subject of exercise” Territory, which Delafeld Cook the work. Delafeld Cook says: explored by helicopter, four-wheel drive and by foot. He distils and Technique is, of course, the least magnifes the sheer mass of the rock interesting aspect of the whole exercise. strata in his work so that it As a realist, one always has to contend overwhelms the senses, yet in his with the issue of the technique and detached, formal paint work he means employed in attempting maintains our position at a safe to achieve the kind of intense OPPOSITE distance from the sublime spectacle. concentrated image one is seeking Obiri I, 1987 without the technique itself somehow Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 304cm Delafeld Cook exclusively employs becoming the subject.13 Private collection acrylic paint in his works. His hillsides littered with boulders have a fat, [13] William Delafeld Cook, email to polished look, as though the forces of the author, 17 January 2011 eternity that have weathered the land

15 While the temptation is to focus on picture is the set, pregnant with “It’s the stage what Delafeld Cook paints, it is easy possibilities’.15 He leaves us poised to overlook what he does not paint, indefnitely in a moment of suspense, that we’re such as fgures, or any form of human and of perpetually held breath. activity. His scenes often betray the living out our signs of human habitation – houses, Delafeld Cook exerts a strange power roads, fences – but there is often over objects, seemingly imposing a lives in” a sense not merely of their having new cosmological order over all recently departed, but of their never matter, compelling it to align and having existed at all. What Delafeld harmonise. The cacophony of the Cook gives us, instead, is an insight natural world – composed of disorder into himself. ‘I won’t paint people’, he – becomes a symphony of divine says. ‘I won’t do that. I can’t do that. unity. The ecstatic buzz of life It’s me in the landscape’.14 In becomes hushed under Delafeld Hillside (1985), we observe the signs Cook’s brushstrokes, and vast tracts of of man, of his scarring upon the earth, earth that had overwhelmed the OPPOSITE while his actual presence remains senses suddenly take on an elemental Hillside, 1985 mysteriously absent. This absence of edge; a benign purity where Acrylic on canvas, 195.5 x 216cm Commonwealth Bank of Australia people serves to draw the landscape everything is cleansed. The to centre stage. Without any apparent nonsensical becomes not merely narrative or movement, there is a sensible, but accountable to a higher [14] William Delafeld Cook, in heightened sense of drama at play order of logic altogether, furnished conversation with the author, 11 March 2010 that recalls a theatrical stage awaiting with a newfound universal poetry. [15] William Delafeld Cook, in the entrance of its protagonists. ‘It’s This composure is particularly conversation with the author, the stage that we’re living out our evident in the series of Dams that 6 December 2010 lives in’, he says of this quality. ‘The Delafeld Cook produced between

2007 and 2008. Here we observe He writes: “I had not gashes in the surface of the earth, ruptures that might have suggested a … I took time out to revisit old subjects changed at all, breaking down of order. Instead, the one year recently to check them out, artist imparts a sense of deliberate to see what had happened to them still loved it, authority. While describing a pocket and at the same time seeing what of absence in the earth, flled with had happened to me in the time that still wanted to perfectly still liquid, the dams whisper had elapsed since I painted them. Like no less presence than the towering Gundagai Revisited. Since 1980, It paint it” rock forms, such as A Quarry near was much changed by further building Euroa (1990), or Earthwork 2 (2007-8). development, but me, I had not The Dams are unique in Delafeld changed at all, still loved it, still wanted Cook’s oeuvre, in that they concern to paint it , felt all the afection for the recessions in the earth, rather than place that I recall from my frst visit protrusions. nearly 30 years earlier.

A further development of his work in The House painting is similar, seeing recent years has been the revisitation in 2006 a subject that I painted in 1977 of earlier subjects. In these, Delafeld and again wanting it, wanting to secure OPPOSITE Cook reasserts the timelessness of it, record it and reconstruct it in the Gundagai Revisited, 2006 particular places, in spite of their studio 29 years later.16 Acrylic on linen, 76 x 183cm physical evolution. The return to Private collection subjects such as House (1977) and Gundagai (1980) reveals Delafeld [16] William Delafeld Cook, email to Cook’s dedication to a singular vision. the author, 17 January 2011

Whether it be dams, hillsides, While only rarely does Delafeld Cook “He captures waterfalls or rock formations, actually depict ruins in his work, the Delafeld Cook deals with time in vast, aura of ruins permeates his landscapes. not so much incomprehensible measures. His The smooth boulders and craggy works court our lingering ache for rocks that dot his hillsides are like the instances of eternity, and anticipate what it may remnants of a lost civilisation, and be to be dead. It is a curious efect throughout is the sensation of quiet time, but time that in so attentive a scrutiny of erosion; a silent paring back of matter material, Delafeld Cook’s paintings to its molecular components. Like immemorial” lead us to contemplate the ruins, Delafeld Cook’s landscapes immaterial, and in projecting an have the appearance of having existed exaggerated consciousness, they at for all time. He captures not so once recall the unconscious. We are – much instances of time, but time in Delafeld Cook’s bone-dry painting immemorial. There are discernable – technique and elemental even recognisable motifs – in Farm compositions – reminded constantly (2005-11), and Vineyard (2010-11) – but of ruins; of the ruins of man and the the implication is of no fxed time or ruins of nature. The succulence of skin place. His paintings are of nowhere PREVIOUS LEFT and fesh has rotted away leaving and of no-when. In their glacial House, 2007 skeletal land forms, where the forces proportions and timeless subject Acrylic on canvas, 87 x 181cm of eternity come into play. The matter, we feel the full measure of Rex Irwin Art Dealer importance of time comes to bear in eternity in their presence. PREVIOUS RIGHT his work, in both his laborious Dam 1, 2007-8 craftsmanship and in the efect Common to all of Delafeld Cook’s Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 182cm generated by his vacuous voids. works is the search for elemental truth. Rex Irwin Art Dealer

22 We sense a yearning for knowledge, and an acknowledgement that there is something missing – while attempting to supply it. This basic human quest for an underlying universal truth is not particular to one era or one locality, it pervades all humanity. The art of William Delafeld Cook speaks of these eternal problems and eternal experiences, through the identifable visual code of landscape. In his enduring revelation of the surreal within the real, his art has become as timeless as the very subjects that inhabit it.

FOLLOWING LEFT Farm, 2005-11 Acrylic on linen, 101.5 x 122cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

FOLLOWING RIGHT Waterfall, 2004-6 Acrylic on linen, 106 x 92cm Private collection

PREVIOUS LEFT Dam 4, 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 182cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

PREVIOUS RIGHT Dam 5, 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 182cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

28 FOLLOWING LEFT Earthwork I, 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 181cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

FOLLOWING RIGHT Earthwork 2, 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas, 112 x 150cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

On one level my work might be seen the artist depicts, whereby the once INTIMATIONS as about some kind of reassuring, familiar and known attains the air comfortable landscape painting – a of the unfamiliar and unknown. OF MORTALITY banal thing … I’ve never felt that This efect is perhaps the result reassured. I’ve always felt the whole of the way that Delafeld Cook’s IN THE WORK thing of our human existence is very compositions, through the isolation precarious. The landscape is part of and framing of the subject and the OF WILLIAM our time span here; it asks all the big intensive amassing of detail, arrest questions because there is this whole or apprehend our gaze, enticing DELAFIELD COOK mystery about reality out there and our us to focus on objects until they mortality.1 become imbued with a heightened Anthony signifcance. In drawing our attention — William Delafeld Cook to the act of perception itself, these Fitzpatrick canvases invite us, as viewers, to Beneath the surface of William reconsider the way we apprehend Curator Delafeld Cook’s meticulously our surroundings, how we defne the rendered and seemingly benign landscape and, ultimately, how the TarraWarra paintings of the Australian landscape defnes us. landscape lurks a troubling sense Museum of Art of apprehension. Despite the great In his recent works, Delafeld Cook’s pleasure, even solace, aforded by fascination with the interrelationship the contemplation of a beautiful vista between the natural and the man- or timeless expanse of countryside, made has once again come to [1] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in there remains a lingering sense of the fore. Despite the continued Deborah Hart, William Delafeld Cook; unease, a disquieting and uncanny absence of human fgures in these Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 203 atmosphere that pervades the scenes compositions, paintings such as

Farm (2005-11), Gundagai Revisited and the exclusion of others, means “You are wanting (2006), House (2007), Earthwork I that he is necessarily implicated in (2007-08), the Dam series from 2007- the scene. In this way a tension arises to structure 08, and Vineyard (2010-11), present in these works between the realistic, the landscape as the site of cultivation, seemingly faithful and accurate it and fnd construction and the place in which portrayal of the landscape, and the people and communities build their more calculated aspects involved in something that lives. However, even in works which cropping, editing and re-presenting contain no visible traces of activity the scene. has a classical there remains an undeniable human presence. The reason for this is that a For Delafeld Cook, the dichotomy element” landscape can only exist if there is an between the natural and the agent to admire or behold the vista. As contrived is present at the outset. a phenomenon to which we are all very In sourcing material for his work, PREVIOUS RIGHT Poplar Trees, 1979 accustomed, it is easy to overlook the the excitement of discovering Acrylic on canvas, 119 x 116.5cm simple fact that for a landscape to connections with the natural world Private collection come into being it requires a ‘point and to particular places is tempered of view’, a subjective consciousness with the deliberate hunt for OPPOSITE Bank, 1993 to frame a particular expanse of the topographic features that convey a Acrylic on canvas, 106.7 x 304.8cm natural world. Although Delafeld Cook strong formal and structural presence: Private collection minimises his presence through his fne, almost invisible brushwork – he On the one hand you are going with a [2] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in sometimes uses sandpaper ‘to erase kind of romantic alertness, on the other Hart, 1998, p. 184 the trace of the hand’ 2 – the very act of as a formalist artist. You are wanting to [3] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in selecting a view and making choices structure it and fnd something that has Hart, 1998, p. 168 over the inclusion of certain features a classical element.3

35 In using a camera ‘like a sketchpad’,4 the Sometimes I’m trying to record a place, “I loved the artist is able to select and capture the to re-create it. I loved the idea of getting objects of his interest for later reference everything in and orchestrating all idea of getting in the studio. Working from these the parts; the details accumulate and photographs from a distance, both gradually you get to a restatement of everything physical and temporal, from the the thing, not only by editing out but by original encounter in the landscape, an accumulation in …6 in and these objects, removed from their surrounds, undoubtedly generate a Through completely focused orchestrating peculiar efect for the artist whereby attention and the slow, precise and the immediacy of the reproduced painstaking application of acrylic, all the parts” image interacts with his own Delafeld Cook instils a sense of recollection of that moment. As the order on nature to reveal its timeless art historian Ann Galbally suggests, qualities, transfxing the landscape the resulting scrupulously re-created with his gaze and rendering it painting is really ‘a double image, motionless. However, these qualities OPPOSITE reality twice-interpreted, twice fltered, of stillness and quietude that pervade Vineyard, 2010-11 twice-heightened’ which generates ‘a his work are just as much a product Acrylic on canvas, 121 x 243cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer peculiar stillness and sense of isolation of what the artist leaves out as the about the imagery’.5 Moreover, what minutiae of substances and forms the separation from the environment that are represented. [4] ibid also afords the artist is a sense of [5] Ann Galbally, ‘William Delafeld Cook’, Art International, Spring 1977, detachment, a classical perspective One of the recurring responses to p. 33 from which he can survey and scrutinise Delafeld Cook’s landscapes is despite [6] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in the scene in order to manipulate and their visual immediacy and apparent Hart, 1998, p. 189 re-state it in his own terms: fdelity, they appear frozen in time,

sufused with a sense of calm and and eternal space, an undercurrent “The span of tranquillity that is difcult to infltrate. of anxiety and uncertainty can also In many ways, this timeless quality be generated by the landscape’s a human life is achieved through the absence ability to expose our limits and bring of any references to the transient into sharp relief the fnitude of our pales into or temporal in his compositions. existence. The span of a human life Clouds, those ubiquitous expressions pales into insignifcance in the face insignifcance” of the mutable and ephemeral, are of an ancient and monumental rock banished from the sky, bodies of formation, dramatically isolated from water produce nary a ripple, and, the surrounds of Kakadu National although landforms, stones and Park, in the painting Obiri I (1987), OPPOSITE valleys have clearly been carved, while one senses that it is just a Promontory, 1981 shaped and worn by the elements matter of time before the narrow Acrylic on canvas, 121.5 x 209cm over millennia, the elemental forces track that runs across the middle of Private collection of nature – rain, wind, and fre – have Hillside near Euroa (1989) is absorbed FOLLOWING LEFT been quelled. Although, in rare back into the land from which it was Tree, 1999 instances, the artist will admit a wisp cut. As the artist admits, part of his Acrylic on canvas, 136 x 136cm of smoke (Hillside, 1985) or a thin motivation for fastidiously recording Private collection stream of water (A Waterfall (Strath and meticulously recreating a place FOLLOWING RIGHT Creek), 1980) to break the spell, it is springs from ‘acknowledging your Tree, 2001 as though time has been arrested – mortality’ and ‘attempting to leave Charcoal on canvas, 136 x 136cm landscape rendered as still life. As the something behind after you are Private collection opening quote attests, Delafeld Cook gone.’7 However, more than mere is clearly aware that, although there is testaments to having been here, [7] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in an element of reassurance provided Delafeld Cook’s paintings remind Hart, 1998, p. 184 by the contemplation of a timeless us that, despite the illusion that we

are in control and can manipulate Although there are a few more the landscape to suit our needs, buildings present and the trees and in profound and lasting ways, the gardens are more established, his landscape also shapes us. second take on the subject, Gundagai Revisited (2006), painted from the In 2006 Delafeld Cook made a return same distant vantage point as the journey to the quintessentially original, again captures the sense Australian country town of Gundagai, of a community striving to defne NSW to re-capture a subject he had itself through its interaction with the painted over a quarter of a century wider surrounds of the countryside. earlier. In Gundagai (1980) tiny houses However, behind the scenes, one huddle closely together, seeking gets the sense that it is the artist’s comfort and companionship amongst identity that is also being shaped by the vast expanse of the rolling the landscape. More than an exercise hillsides which are largely cleared of in nostalgia, Delafeld Cook’s return vegetation. The artist’s interest in this to previous locations and subjects subject the frst time around was to point to the deep signifcance that document the precarious nature of life particular sites have played, not only eked out in remote, rural communities: in the development of his skills and OPPOSITE sensibilities, but also in making sense Hanging Rock, 1985 In a way it expresses something of the of his place in the world. Acrylic on canvas, 122.3 x 198cm human predicament in Australia that is TarraWarra Museum of Art collection constantly a battle … just to keep intact an orderly way of life …8 [8] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in Hart, 1998, p. 179

43 As the following comment reveals, his continuing dialogue with the exterior, physical realm plays a crucial role in forming and reshaping his interior landscape:

For me they are not just ‘landscape’, they are part of my life. If I’m painting Australia … I’m painting, among other things, my thoughts, my childhood, my sense of place, where I belong.9

As much as they speak directly to the very powerful human urge for transcendence, the landscapes of Delafeld Cook are also grounded in the here and now of existence, evoking our deepest yearnings, our longing to belong. OPPOSITE A Haystack, 1978 Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 214.9cm TarraWarra Museum of Art collection

[9] William Delafeld Cook, quoted in Hart, 1998, p. 167

1. Kiah River near Eden 6. Promontory LIST OF WORKS 1977 1981 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 124.7 x 304.5cm 121.5 x 209cm Art Gallery of South Australia Private collection Works marked * for exhibition at South Australian Government Grant, 1978 TarraWarra Museum of Art only 7. Hanging Rock 2. Hillside 1985 1978 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 122.3 x 198cm 126.5 x 370.5cm TarraWarra Museum of Art collection Bendigo Art Gallery Gift of Marc and Eva Beson, 2001

3. A Haystack * 8. Hillside 1978 1985 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas PREVIOUS LEFT 150 x 214.9cm 195.5 x 216cm Hillside I, 2004-11 TarraWarra Museum of Art collection Commonwealth Bank of Australia Acrylic on canvas, 162 x 380cm Gift of Marc and Eva Beson, 2001 Rex Irwin Art Dealer 9. Hillside 4. Poplar Trees 1986 PREVIOUS RIGHT Hillside 2, 2004-11 1979 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas, 162 x 346cm Acrylic on canvas 116.8 x 213.5cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer 119 x 116.5cm The University of Melbourne Art Collection Private collection Purchased by the Finance Committee, 1986 OPPOSITE Tree, 1992-3 5. A Waterfall (Strath Creek) 10. Obiri I Acrylic on canvas, 152.4 x 243.8cm 1980 1987 Private collection Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 198.2 x 156.2cm 122 x 304cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Private collection Purchased 1981

49 11. Hillside near Euroa 16. Tree * 1989 2001 Acrylic on canvas Charcoal on canvas 203 x 305cm 136 x 136cm ANZ collection Private collection

12. A Quarry near Euroa 17. Hillside I 1990 2004-11 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 162 x 294.5cm 162 x 380cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Rex Irwin Art Dealer Gift of Westfeld Limited, 1995 18. Hillside 2 13. Tree * 2004-11 1992-93 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 162 x 346cm 152.4 x 243.8cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer Private collection 19. Waterfall 14. Bank * 2004-6 1993 Acrylic on linen Acrylic on canvas 106 x 92cm 106.7 x 304.8cm Private collection Private collection 20. Farm 15. Tree * 2005-11 1999 Acrylic on linen Acrylic on canvas 101.5 x 122cm 136 x 136cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer Private collection

50 21. Gundagai Revisited * 26. Dam 4 2006 2007-8 Acrylic on linen Acrylic on canvas 76 x 183cm 76 x 182cm Private collection Rex Irwin Art Dealer

22. House 27. Dam 5 * 2007 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 87 x 181cm 76 x 182cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer Rex Irwin Art Dealer

23. Earthwork I 28. Vineyard * 2007-8 2010-11 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 76 x 181cm 121 x 243cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer Rex Irwin Art Dealer

24. Dam 1 * 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas 76 x 182cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

25. Dam 3 * 2007-8 Acrylic on canvas 76 x 182cm Rex Irwin Art Dealer

William Delafeld Cook. A Survey, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS has grown and evolved over a two year period, in a process that has involved a number of people. Chief among those is William Delafeld Simon Gregg Cook, who has provided advice and enthusiasm at every stage of the Curator process. My heartfelt thanks goes to the many lenders who have parted Gippsland Art with artworks to make this exhibition possible. Rex Irwin and Brett Stone Gallery of Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, have provided assistance in hunting down elusive artworks and photographs, and have also been instrumental in aiding the logistics of the project. I am grateful to Marc Besen AO and Eva Besen AO and Jane Scott, former director of TarraWarra Museum of Art, for initially programming this exhibition, and to Maudie Palmer AO and Anthony Fitzpatrick for their OPPOSITE ongoing support in the realisation of Dam 3, 2007-8 this project. My thanks also to Anton Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 182cm Vardy, Director, and my colleagues Rex Irwin Art Dealer at Gippsland Art Gallery for their support of this exhibition.

53 WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK Published by Cover: A SURVEY Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale Hillside, 1985 [detail] 68 Foster Street A Gippsland Art Gallery Sale 3850 Victoria National Library of Australia Travelling Exhibition www.wellington.vic.gov.au/gallery Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Gregg, Simon Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale First published 2011 William Delafeld Cook: A Survey / 16 July – 11 September 2011 Simon Gregg All rights reserved. This publication TarraWarra Museum of Art is copyright. Apart from any fair ISBN 978-0-9870490-1-8 (pbk.). 15 October 2011 – 12 February 2012 dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, Delafeld Cook, William, 1936 – Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale as permitted under the Copyright Exhibitions Director: Anton Vardy Act, no part may be reproduced Landscape painting – Australia – Curator: Simon Gregg by any process without written Exhibitions permission. Enquires should be TarraWarra Museum of Art directed to the publisher. Other authors/Contributors: Inaugural Director: Maudie Palmer AO Gregg, Simon Curator: Anthony Fitzpatrick © William Delafeld Cook, Simon Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale Gregg, Anthony Fitzpatrick and Fitzpatrick, Anthony Photography: Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale TarraWarra Museum of Art, Page 3 by Andrew Wuttke Healesville Page 7 by Brenton McGeachie First printing edition of 1,000 Pages 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 759.994 27, 30, 31 by Max Taylor Design by Lesley Scott and Pages 33, 34, 40 supplied by Simon Gregg William Delafeld Cook Printed by Whirlwind Pages 37, 46, 47 by Eloise Calandre Pages 38, 42 by John Brash All other photos supplied by the lender