CHARLES NODRUM GALLERY 267 C HURCH STREET RICHMOND VICTORIA 3121

www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au [email protected] ABN 22 007 380 136 TEL (61 3) 9427 0140 F AX (61 3) 9428 7350 H OURS : TUES – SAT 11 - 6

STACHA HALPERN

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

1919 Born Zolkiev, Poland (now the Ukraine) 20 Oct. 1938/9 Attends the School of Commercial and Fine Art, Lvov. Nazi invasion of Poland. Stacha follows his brothers to Perth but soon moves to Melbourne 1941/2 Halpern by now practising as potter and painter. Yosl Bergner stays with him. 1944/5 Meets at Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery, Murrumbeena. Works at Greenways (commercial pottery) as a mould-maker. 1946/7 Sets up as a full-time potter at Surf Avenue, Beaumaris, selling through Primrose Pottery Shop. Becomes an Australian citizen. 1948/9 Attends the George Bell School - part time, with Fred Williams, Len French and Hal Peck. Studies sculpture at R.M.I.T. (evenings) for one term. Contact with the potter H.R. Hughan. 1950 Solo show: Ceramics, sculpture and paintings at Stanley Coe Gallery, Melbourne. 1951 Travels to where he stays at the Abbey Arts Centre, Barnet, near London, (a traditional halfway house for Australian artists including Gleeson and Klippel). Visits art museums in England, Italy, Switzerland and France. 1952 Visits David and Hermia Boyd at their pottery studio, Tourettes-sur-Loup, Provence. Sam Atyeo and Peter Kaiser also living at Tourettes at this time. Visits and works in the Vence studio of Francine Delpierre and Albert Diotto, noted potters. Solo show: Ceramics, Galerie Alphonse Chave, Vence. Group show: Peintres de Tourette-sur-Loup ,Town Hall November - moves to Paris and establishes studio in the Comtessse de Baruzy's apartment, Rue de Varenne. 1953 Group show: Peintures, Galerie du Haut Pave, Paris. Visits Tourettes in the spring. Returns to Paris in the autumn and establishes a permanent painting studio near the abattoirs, Rue Maurice Rouvier. 1954 Solo show: Murs, Galerie du Haut Pave, Paris. Group shows: Paintings, at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Studio Fachetti, Paris. Galerie Prisme, Paris. 1955 Meets Cid Corman, American poet. Arthur Boyd buys Halpern's house in Beaumaris. Group shows: Les Plus Mauvais Tableaux, Galerie Prisme, Paris. Phases de l'Art Contemporain, Galerie Creuze, Salle Balzac, Paris. 1956 Summer travel to Corsica. Occupies Atelier Patrice (print workshop) for six months; produces etchings, lithographs and paintings and installs a kiln. Group shows: Reflexions a Quatre, Studio Fachetti. 1957 Solo show: Paintings at Basle. Group shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XII, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Espaces Imaginaires et Ouvertures sur le Futur, Galerie Kamer, Paris, Galerie Apollinaire, Milan, and Lausanne. 1958 Solo shows: Paintings at Galerie Pascal, Paris; Paintings at Galerie Apollinaire, Milan Group show: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XIII, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Caveau des Arts, Lausanne. Lives in Yugoslavia for three months. Moves to Gourney-sur-Marne, near Paris. 1959 Solo show: Galerie Apollinaire, Milan. Group Shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XIV, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Peintres du Geste, Galerie Pogliana, Rome. Claude Monet et le Naturalisme Abstrait, Galerie Art Vivant, Paris. Prix Lissone X, Italy. Private contract with Alexander Margulies, British industrialist and art collector. Establishes studio in a large abandoned chocolate factory, Rue de Verrerie, Paris. 1960 Solo show: Galerie Art Vivant, Paris. Group shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XV, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Prix Lissone XI, Italy. The Margulies Collection - New paintings from Paris, touring U.K. regional galleries, sponsored by the Arts Council of Great Britain. 1961 Solo show: Stanislas Halpern - Dix ans de Peinture, Galerie Breteau, Paris. Group shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XVI, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris Galerie Jeanne Fillon, Paris. La Peinture-Peinture a Paris & New York, Galerie Quatre Saisons, Paris, (with Guston, Rothko, Frankenthaler & others). Cave de la Librarie Anglaise, Paris. Galerie Art Vivant, Paris. Visits London; sees Arthur Boyd and . Visits Yugoslavia. In Paris, return visits from Boyd and Blackman. 1962 Solo shows: Formes Contemporaines, Lille. Galerie Birch, Copenhagen. Galerie Blumenthal, Paris. Group shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XVII, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Ecole de Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Paris. Donner a Voir, Galerie Creuze, Paris. Galerie Art Vivant, Paris. Visits from Arthur Boyd & Len French in Paris. 1963 Group shows: Salon des Realites Nouvelles XVIII, Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Salon de Mai, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. IV Biennale Internationale d'Arte, San Marino - wins second prize. Buys holiday house in Bouzigues, on the Mediterranean coast near Montpellier, and works there for three months. 1964 Salon des Realites Nouvelles XIX, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Salon de Mai, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Sells Paris studio. Moves to London, living and working in Shepherds Bush for six months. Further contact with Boyd, Whiteley & other Australians. Visits USA (New York, New Jersey and Boston). Returns to Bouzigues; works there for some months. 1965 Moves back to Paris; lives in Montparnasse and paints there and in a studio on the Ile St Louis. Printmaking at Atelier Clot. Group shows: Galerie Henri Lhong, Toulouse. Portraits, Galerie Sept, Paris. Les Lithographies Originales des peintres de l'Atelier Clot, Galerie Peintres du Monde, Paris and later Copenhagen. 1966 Returns to Melbourne. Visits Tasmania. Establishes painting and pottery studio at Linacre Road, Hampton 1967-8 Works with Fred Williams on ceramics and with George Baldessin on lithographs. Continues painting. Group show: Arts Vietnam, Gallery A, Sydney, 1968 1969 Prepares for an exhibition of portraits with Tolarno Gallery. Dies in Hampton, January 28th.

SOLO SHOWS 1970 Stanislaw Halpern - Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria. 1971 Halpern, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne; two exhibitions: one of pottery and one of painting 1986 Stanislaw Halpern, (paintings) Tolarno Galleries. 1989-90 Stacha Halpern - The Return to Australia, Nolan Gallery, Lanyon, ACT, and touring to regional galleries - including Benalla & Campbelltown. 1993 Stacha Halpern - Survey, Penrith Regional Gallery, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Shepparton Arts Centre. 1999 Stacha Halpern – Canvas Paper Clay, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2010 Stacha Halpern, Charles Nodrum Gallery

GROUP SHOWS 1979 Autumn Exhibition 1979 and Spring Exhibition 1979, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne. 1991 Modern Australian Paintings, Charles Nodrum Gallery 1998 Art and Furniture of the 1960s, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2000 Australian Abstract Expressionist Paintings, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2002 Charles Nodrum Gallery at Deutscher Menzies, Sydney 2003 Modern Australian Painting, Charles Nodrum Gallery; Abstraction III, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2004 Modern Australian Painting, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2006 21 Landscape, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2007 Bodies and Minds, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2008 Rubik, Charles Nodrum Gallery Abstraction 7, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2011 Modern Australian Painting, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2013 Abstracting the Landscape, Defiance Gallery, Sydney 2014 Vista, Charles Nodrum Gallery Abstraction 13, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2015 Art & Furniture II, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2016 Charles Nodrum Gallery at 602 Melbourne (Art Fair) 2017 Still Life, Charles Nodrum Gallery Land, Rain & Sun (Art+Climate=Change, Climarte Festival) 2018 Heads & Bodies, Charles Nodrum Gallery Looking – and Looked at, Charles Nodrum Gallery

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY (excluding articles on ceramics)

Pierre Restany. Espaces Imaginaires (Galerie Kamer, Paris 1957) Raymond Queneau. Halpern Peintures (Galerie Pascale, Paris,1958). Pierre Restany Peintures Du Geste (Galleria Pogliani, Rome, 1959). Waldemar George Claude Monet et Le Naturalisme Abstrait, (Galerie Art Vivant, Paris, 1959). Pierre Restany Lyrisme et Abstraction (Editions Apollinaire, Milan, 1960). Alan Bowness Margulies Collection (Arts Council of Great Britain, 1960-61). Pierre Restany Stanislas Halpern (Galerie Breteau, Paris, 1961). R.V. Gindertael Halpern; oeuvres recentes (Galerie Blumenthal, Paris, 1962). Arthur Boyd et al Stanislaw Halpern – Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1970. Genesis of a Gallery, The Collection of the Australian National Gallery, Canberra A.G.P.S. Roger Butler Australian Prints in the Australian National Gallery (A.N.G. Canberra, 1985). Lanier Graham The Spontaneous Gesture: Prints and Books of the Abstract Expressionist Era (A.N.G. Canberra, 1987). Jennifer McFarlane Stacha Halpern: The Return to Australia (Nolan Gallery, ACT, 1989).

JOURNAL AND BOOK REFERENCES Pierre Restany, “Halpern”, Art International, Vol IV, 2-30,1960. Pierre Restany, “Triomphe de la figure”, Art International, Vol 10/1, Jan 1966. Arthur Boyd, “Stanislaw Halpern Retrospective Exhibition”, Architecture in Australia, Vol 60, no 2, April 1971, p 232. Jennifer MacFarlane, “All artists are heroes whose mother is earth”, Art and Australia, Vol 25, No 3, Autumn 1988. Jennifer MacFarlane, “A Fresh Look at Nationalism in the Work of Stacha Halpern”, Artonview, National Gallery of Australia, No 8, Autumn 1997, pp. 14-16

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES Pierre Restany, “Halpern: Une Peinture de Sensation”, Argus de la Presse, 27.06.1963 Paul Waldo Schwartz, “Paris Show Features Abstracts”, The New York Times, 17.02.1963 Ken Bandman, “Stanislaw Halpern”, Australian Jewish News, 30.09.1970 Anne Galbally, The Age, 16.9.70 Alan McCulloch, The Herald, 16.9.1970; Margaret Plant, “Impressive Abstractions”, The Australian, 19.09.1970 Alan Warren, The Sun, 16.9.70; Rod Carmichael, “Sculptures of Skill and Wry Humour”, The Sun, 13.11.1986 Gary Catalano, “Painters Have all the Luck”, The Age, 14.10.1986; Ronald Millar, “The Crushing Fields”, The Herald, 13.10.1986; Robert Rooney, “It’s Business as Usual at Brown’s Gallery”, David Hough, “Market Awakes to Halpern’s Art”, Australian Financial Review, 30.05.1989 “Halpern’s Work Exhibited at Nolan Gallery”, The Canberra Times, 24.08.1989 Sonia Barron, “Halpern Earns Reprieve from Neglect”, The Canberra Times, 25.08.1989 Christopher Heathcote, “Stirring Images Recall the Existential”, The Age, 22.11.1993

COLLECTIONS

National Gallery of Australia Shepparton Art Gallery National Gallery of Victoria McClelland Art Gallery Art Gallery of South Australia Penrith Regional Art Gallery Queensland Art Gallery Museum of Modern Art at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel Leopold Comte de Lannoy, Belgium The Alexander Marguiles Collection, UK Jacques Guerin, Editions Gallimard, Paris Leopold Prinz von Croÿ, Belgium Raymond Queneau, Paris Princesse Olga Scherbatow, Belgium Comte et Comtesse Baruzy, Paris Private Collections in Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom and USA

After ten rough and jolting years in Paris, Halpern's painting has survived. It has summed up its internal contradictions, for better and for worse, without excuses and without evasions. It spared itself neither the anguish of doubt nor the awareness of failure. It had a hard life, but any admissions of helplessness were short lived. And it was always the true expression of his temperament. Pierre Restany, Stanislas Halpern - Dix Ans de Peinture (Galerie Breteau, Paris 1961)

For Halpern, painting is like an agreement that leads to good neighbourliness - an alliance between the self and the universe. This organic landscape artist is no analytic painter breaking his subject down into its component parts. Rather, and at risk of losing all the formal stability in the painting, he seeks to bring out and raise up through gesture and colour both both the intuitive feeling we have for the landscape as well as its own internal structure. Pierre Restany, Art International, Vol IV, 2-30, 1969.

Extracts from the artists sketchbooks September 25, 1958 Paris. I cannot sleep. It's already four. A lot of things on my brain. No, it's not to do with my work. It's all about galleries, exhibitions, making a living. Pity, but that's the reality of my existence and nothing I can do about it. Donc. The work suffers. Goes slower than it should. Progress is nil. A standstill. And so let's push this thing as fast and as hard as I can, one way or another, right or wrong. We shall see. November 18, 1963 For me an homogenous show in the accepted conception of the thing is only possible as a show of an extremely short period of work, of a week's activity and even then only forcing oneself to do it. The whole thing is exactly the opposite to my temperament, to my psychological, mental, temperamental make up. And as far as the show of work, of my work, it should be the very opposite to this conception. I want a painting as good as a palette.