artonview o art n v i ew

ISSUE No.49 ISSUE I SSUE a u t m n o.49 autumn 2007 autumn N o.49 2007 N AT ION A L 2007 a US T R A LI G A LLERYOF

The 6th Australian print The story of Australian symposium printmaking 18 01–20 05

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra John Lewin Spotted grossbeak 1803–05 from Birds of New South Wales 1813 (detail) hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra nga.gov.au International Galleries • Australian printmaking • Modern poster 29 June – 16 September 2007 23 December 2006 – 6 May 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra National Gallery of Australia, Canberra George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW Grace Crowley Painting 1951 oil on composition board National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1969 nga.gov.au nga.gov.au artonview contents

2 Director’s foreword Publisher National Gallery of Australia nga.gov.au 5 Development office

Editor Jeanie Watson 6 Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007

Designer MA@D Communication 8 International Galleries Photography 14 The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 Eleni Kypridis Barry Le Lievre Brenton McGeachie 24 Conservation: print soup Steve Nebauer John Tassie 28 Birth of the modern poster Designed and produced in Australia by the National Gallery of Australia 34 George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons Printed in Australia by Pirion Printers, Canberra 37 Travelling exhibitions

artonview i s s n 1323-4552 38 New acquisitions Published quarterly: Issue no. 49, Autumn 2007 © National Gallery of Australia 50 Children’s gallery: Tools and techniques of printmaking Print Post Approved 53 Sculpture Garden Sunday pp255003/00078

All rights reserved. Reproduction without 54 Faces in view permission is strictly prohibited. The opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.

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front and inside front cover: A provisional concept design developed by Andrew Anderson PTW Architects for the front entrance for stage one of the approved building additions to the National Gallery of Australia building director’s foreword

A provisional concept design We are extremely excited and grateful that the government appropriate space for openings and functions. Stage one for the building additions, at the end of 2006 approved financial support for stage includes a large, flexible space for nearly 1000 people to featuring a skyspace by internationally renowned one of our two-stage redevelopment. It means above attend stand-up functions, or 320 for seated functions. artist James Turrell all that the Gallery will receive its first increase in the The space, which can be divided, will also be used for permanent collection display space since the building was educational purposes during the day. The area will open conceived. Most of this will be appropriately dedicated out into an Australian garden that will eventually, in stage to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art of which the two, join up with the current Sculpture Garden. Gallery holds the largest collection. There will be special As well as the Australian Indigenous galleries, there spaces dedicated to different aspects of Indigenous art, will be a new home on the main floor for the Gallery’s from smaller galleries for the earlier and smaller dot and most iconic Australian work – the Ned Kelly series by bark paintings to larger galleries suitable for the larger dot Sidney Nolan. Stage one also includes a street level and bark paintings from the 1980s onwards. There will entrance, shop and facilities, with the Aboriginal Memorial also be a designated space for city-based Indigenous art. Poles displayed by the entrance as the first work people see In contrast with these galleries, which will be lit with when they enter the building. natural light, there will also be smaller side galleries for Construction work on stage one should begin in mid light sensitive works, lit artificially. These Indigenous 2007 after the necessary planning approvals are received, galleries will include areas for the Hermannsburg and it is anticipated that the new extensions will be watercolours, baskets, textiles and prints. They will be completed by 2009. The government has committed the first suite of galleries especially designed around the $93 million to the building program which includes different needs and scale of Australian Indigenous art. $20 million for the almost completed refurbishment of the The Gallery has long flagged the need for a more existing building. The extensions have been developed by accessible and compliant entrance and facilities worthy of Andrew Andersons of PTW working in close collaboration a national institution. We will now have such an entrance. with Gallery staff, the Gallery Council and myself. We The Gallery has also been hampered by a lack of an appreciate the valuable consultation undertaken during

2 national gallery of australia Provisional concept designs showing the interior entrance of the National Gallery of Australia

the design development in 2004 and 2005 by the architect New South Wales, and we are delighted to introduce of the original building, Colin Madigan. For a three- her remarkable work in this touring exhibition to a new dimensional fly-through of the proposed building changes generation of Australians. Many paintings have been visit nga.gov.au. especially cleaned for this exhibition and their true original We continue to receive positive feedback for the new colour can once again be enjoyed. The exhibition includes Southeast Asian Galleries (which follow on from the new several recently rediscovered paintings and the largest Indian Gallery) and especially for the radical new-look number of Crowley’s abstract paintings ever assembled, International Galleries. Visitors are keen to explore the enabling a new appraisal of Crowley’s achievement. While Gallery’s panorama of international art, Impressionism Crowley has long been recognised as one of the most to Pop Art, which investigates the story of modernism important of the ‘modern Australian women’ who revitalised from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. Australian art during the inter-war period, the later phase Impressionism to Pop Art now dominates the entrance of her career is not so well known. Abstraction was slow to level of the Gallery with each of the eight bays designed gain a foothold in Australia and Crowley’s great achievement to reflect the ambience of the artists’ visions and stories. has not received due recognition. In her late abstract works For the first time, visitors move through chronological we can see her brilliance as a colourist; one of Australia’s themes displayed in separate bays that are organised finest. In her abstract paintings of the 1950s her own voice around a range of art historical movements and stood out, a sophisticated, intelligent and above all joyous interconnected concepts. Work is now progressing on expression of her beliefs of what it meant to be an artist. the eagerly anticipated restored Sculpture Gallery, which I believe they are her best works. The exhibition is supported we expect will open in April. by a range of public programs and events including At the beginning of February Grace Crowley: being floortalks, lectures, performances and screenings. modern was formally launched by Daniel Thomas. It has As we begin to celebrate our twenty-fifth birthday it is been over thirty years since Daniel Thomas organised timely to turn our attention to ourselves with the launch the first retrospective of her work at the Art Gallery of at the end of March of the Gallery’s major twenty-fifth

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anniversary exhibition, The story of Australian printmaking Donations 1801–2005. This exhibition showcases the Gallery’s Ross and Florence Adamson largest and one of its most impressive collections – the Andrew Andersons collection of Australian prints, posters and illustrated Robyn Burke books. This unparalleled collection of over 36,000 works Charles Curran, AC and Eva Curran is the most comprehensive collection of Australian prints Joan Daley held anywhere and is the culmination of twenty-five years of inspired and rigorous collecting by curatorial Gifts staff, especially Roger Butler, judicious support by the Philip Bacon, AM Gallery’s previous Directors and Council members, and George C Baxley long-standing, generous funding from donors, particularly Jessie Birch Gordon Darling. The exhibition coincides with the Vincent Bray publication of a series that covers the history of Australian Peter Burgess printmaking from its colonial beginnings to the present, Brian Freeman told through the Gallery’s collection. The series presented Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund the Gallery with the opportunity to document, rediscover Claudia Hyles and reveal the riches of its outstanding collection. The Chips Mackinolty exhibition and books are supported by Hindmarsh and the The Orde Poynton Bequest Gordon Darling Foundation. Presbyterian Ladies College Despite the wealth of information covered in the series, Gift of the Lax Family in memory of books cannot encompass the entirety of a collection the Anthony Walter Lax 2006 size and depth of our Australian prints collection. In 1997 Theo Tremblay the Gallery initiated its Australian prints and printmaking Gift of Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth web presence and, ten years later, the National Gallery Cohen-Tyler in memory of Harry of Australia is the nation’s leading institution in providing Seidler 2006 electronic access to its collection. The sheer quantity Jill White and quality of the Australian prints collection can now Masterpieces for the be accessed through data that has been electronically Nation appeal 2006 published at printsandprintmaking.gov.au. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC, DBE In April the Gallery is hosting the Australian Print Symposium, the sixth symposium held since 1987, which Treasure a Textile provides a forum to discuss prints and printmaking in the Diana E Gregson Australasian region. Artists, print curators and art historians will present papers predominantly concerned with Sponsorship contemporary prints and printmaking practice. Casella Wines In this issue we propose two new acquisitions for Forrest Inn and Apartments the Masterpieces for the Nation appeal. One is a Gordon Darling Foundation nineteenth-century Indian pichhavai, featuring a scene Hindmarsh from the life of Krishna. The second is Jeffrey Smart’s Saville Park Suites Lovers by house 1956, an enigmatic image in the tradition of metaphysical artists such as Giorgio de Chirico. For more information, see pages 6–7. There is a particular feeling of elation throughout the Gallery at the moment as we celebrate our silver jubilee and bask in the news of our approved funding for our stage one building redevelopment. We look forward to providing a much improved and more exciting visitor experience.

Ron Radford

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Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund Hindmarsh To celebrate the official opening of the Gallery in 1982, The Gallery is delighted to announce that Hindmarsh is the Gordon and Marilyn Darling Gordon Darling, then Chairman of the Gallery Council, principal sponsor of The story of Australian printmaking John Hindmarsh and provided a donation which enabled the Gallery to 1801–2005. Hindmarsh was also a major sponsor of Bill Belinda Wise purchase contemporary Australian prints. Further gifts Viola: the passions and the National Gallery of Australia followed, culminating in the establishment of the Gordon is excited at the prospect of again working with this Darling Australasian Print Fund in 1989. This fund has leading construction, development and property company. allowed the Gallery to form an unrivalled collection of Hindmarsh is a locally established company which has prints in Australia and within the region. Gordon Darling expanded its operations both nationally and internationally. showed great foresight and understanding, realising John Hindmarsh (Managing Director of Hindmarsh) and that such a collection would require additional resources his wife, Rosanna, are also involved in other aspects of the to maintain and promote it. He therefore allocated Gallery – John is on the Board of the National Gallery of funding that provides for a Gordon Darling Fellow and a Australia Foundation and Rosanna has been a volunteer Gordon Darling Intern to assist in the preservation of the guide at the Gallery since 1984. collection, as well as funding to establish the Australian Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007 Prints website that further increases access to this Since the appeal was launched in 2003, through the extraordinary collection. generosity of our donors, the Gallery has been able to Such gestures of generosity assist in encouraging purchase three significant Australian paintings: Creation subsequent gifts from other donors. For example, this has landscape – fountains of the earth 2002 by William led to artists donating complete sets of prints to the Gallery Robinson, Near Liverpool, New South Wales c. 1908 by because they know they will be properly maintained and WC Piguenit and last year’s very popular acquisition promoted. The forthcoming major exhibition The story of Flamingoes c. 1906 by Sydney Long. This year we are Australian printmaking 1801–2005 profiles our exemplary delighted to present donors with the opportunity to collection of prints, many of which were purchased participate in acquiring two major works for the national through the Gordon Darling Australiasian Print Fund. collection – Jeffrey Smart’s Lovers by house 1956 and In addition, the Gordon Darling Foundation has Gopashtami, a nineteenth-century Indian pichhavai. provided a grant to assist with the production of a series Please see the following pages for more information of publications written by Roger Butler, Senior Curator about these works. To make a donation towards either work Australian Prints and Drawing, which will be the first please fill in the enclosed form or phone the Development to document the evolution of the print as an artform Office on 02 6240 6454. in Australia.

artonview autumn 2007 5 National Gallery of Australia Foundation

Masterpieces for the Nation appeal 2007

Jeffrey Smart’s Lovers by house Jeffrey Smart Jeffrey Smart is a leading Australian painter who has lived in Lovers by house is an intriguing example of Smart’s Lovers by house 1956 oil on board 30.5 x 38.0 cm Italy since 1965, but visits Australia regularly. He is known early work. It shows a woman standing on a veranda wit for his stark, modernist depictions of urban vistas which outstretched arms; a bird on a post; and two figures seated sometimes evoke a sense of menace, as well as for his in the foreground looking at the woman, as if she were a attention to clean lines, precise composition and geometrics. performer on a stage. Strangely, one of these figures (is it In 1999 he was honoured by a major retrospective at the a woman or a man?) is naked while the other is dressed, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Although his paintings are and the whole scene is located under a dark dream-like sometimes described as surreal, Smart suggests that it is the sky. What does the image mean? To some it might suggest world that is surreal, rather than his images of it. jealousy, to others perhaps the solitude of contemporary life.

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Gopashtami Over the past two years, the Gallery has focused on Indian with celestial chariots containing divine couples on each Gopashtami (Festival of the Cattle) narrative paintings to illuminate the history of Asian art side of the full moon. The gleaming white colour of the Nathdvara, Rajasthan, India through accessible imagery. The most vibrant pichhavai cattle emphasises the dazzling image of Krishna, who is 19th century opaque watercolour (loosely translated as ‘something at the back’ since they weighed down with garlands and jewellery and decked out on cotton 223.0 x 220.0 cm sometimes form the backdrops for sculptures within in characteristically flamboyant dress – a scarf, an ornate shrines) are large, almost square, cotton paintings depicting layered dancing skirt with horizontal bands of colour, and scenes from the life of Krishna, the popular avatar of the a decorative turban from which a large peacock feather great Hindu god Vishnu. protrudes. Gopashtami is a painted hanging created in Rajasthan Aesthetic enjoyment and the ‘pathway of pleasure’ for the late autumn Festival of the Cattle. It marks are essential elements of Krishna worship, where poetry, the promotion of Krishna from herder of calves to full painting, music and dance are considered religious pursuits cowherd. The scene features Krishna standing on a lotus, and keys to spiritual awakening. his evocative fluting summoning and entrancing the cattle. This is your chance to make a donation to add to the A row of peacocks, a metaphorical allusion to Krishna, can national collection – please fill in the enclosed donation form be seen in the foreground, while the heavens are filled or telephone the Development Office on 02 6240 6454.

artonview autumn 2007 7 international galleries

Looking (a)new: from Impressionism to Pop Art

The 19th century gallery Jean Tinguely’s Méta-mecanique (Méta-Herbin) 1954 had more light sensitive mezzotint can now be hung adjacent shown at left and right of the panorama; the other a special ‘viewing’ on the evening of 20 November 2006. to each other on the same wall. three spaces in the Loti and The quirky contraption of coloured discs, flags, cogs and The display brings together artists from four ends of Victor Smorgon Gallery are at centre wheels was set in motion for the opening of the displays in the earth. Their works are motivated by a huge variety of the international galleries. In the recent past the collection factors and reveal many influences: from the impact of

[opposite l–r] Pablo Picasso spaces changed often, compressed to accommodate a busy portable paint tubes, European migration and colonialism, Still life with bottle 1912, temporary exhibition schedule, dictated by the demands to urbanisation and city life, modern industrial material drypoint and his untitled pen and ink drawing of 1920 with of individual works, or reinterpreted into themes. Over and techniques. One of the earliest works on display, a Louis Marcoussis’ Bar time, they gradually lost much of the vibrancy possible stereo daguerreotype produced c. 1852 by Jules Duboscq, c. 1920, etching and drypoint and his Portrait of Guillaume with integrated displays. As Council member and donor suggests new ways of looking. It shows dual images of a Apollinaire 1912–20, etching, drypoint and aquatint; Roslyn Packer remarked in launching the new display, many partially clothed woman seated in boudoir-like surrounds. Sonia Delaunay and Blaise works of art now seem more marvellous: the differences She soaks her feet and lowers her newspaper, as if to Cendrars Prose of the Trans- Siberian 1913, hand-coloured between the spaces are remarkable. We now offer visitors ask the viewer: what prompts this interruption? With the stencil, letterpress; Vladimir an exceptional story of modern art – a combination of old development of photography from the 1840s, art began Stenberg KPS no.6 1919–20, steel, glass, lacquer and favourites, recent acquisitions and generous loans. to relinquish one of its major roles as a record of people, plaster on wood; Juan Gris The Loti and Victor Smorgon, and Gordon Darling places and things; painters in particular were no longer tied Checkerboard and playing cards 1915, oil on canvas galleries on the entrance level have been reconfigured, to mimetic representation. Realism, the direct observation with each gallery now divided into four rooms featuring of daily life and everyday truths, brought artists into conflict new walls and showcases. This allows the richness of the with the Academies, and so the avant-garde was born. collection to be shown to advantage, with long vistas As shown in the panoramic images reproduced here, and a range of more intimate spaces. The display walls the new display is a vibrant mix of sculpture, photographs, of these large galleries are painted in a palette of warm glass and silver objects, drawings, costume and paintings. greys and dark whites, the texture of the paint providing The nineteenth-century gallery (shown at left and right in a sympathetic transition to the bush-hammered concrete the first panorama) features Claude Monet’s Waterlilies of the building’s interior. By lowering the walls, the c. 1914–17, prints and drawings by Vuillard, Degas, ceiling structures exist in a separate space and are seen Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard and Cézanne, as well as a sculptural entity. The new lighting system discreetly as sculptures by Bourdelle, Rosso and Rodin. Impressionist complements these structures, while allowing greater and post-impressionist landscapes by Russell, Sisley, Seurat control of levels and better viewing of individual works. If and Monet are juxtaposed with paintings by Cézanne and it were desirable, an oil painting or acrylic on canvas and a Courbet, while the showcase presents art nouveau objects,

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international galleries

[above] The African and European sections of the dada and surrealist case

[above l–r] Joan Miró Landscape 1927, oil on canvas; Sidney Nolan Boy and the moon c. 1939–40, oil on canvas on composition board; Giorgio de Chirico Costume for a male guest 1929, wool, cotton grosgrain, rayon ribbon, ink; Hannah Höch Imaginary bridge 1926, oil on canvas; Christian Schad Portrait of a woman 1920, painted wood and metal (Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth); James Cant Objects in a landscape 1936, oil on canvas; Jean Arp Shirt-front and fork c. 1922, painted wood; and James Gleeson The attitude of lightning towards a lady mountain 1939, oil on canvas (on loan from the Agapitos/Wilson Collection, Sydney)

10 national gallery of australia and a selection of fine items produced for domestic use as Lobster telephone 1936. The African works, as well as Several Vollard Suite are visible at the extreme left part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. From the entrance, objects from the Pacific region and the Zuñi and Hopi of the panorama, which there are also glimpses of twentieth-century movements kachinas found elsewhere in this cabinet, were once also shows the wall of nineteenth-century prints such as fauvism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism and owned by the German-born surrealist Max Ernst. The five and photographs, a view into the dada and surrealism constructivism. In the newly acquired Roy de Maistre New volumes of his book, A week of kindness, are displayed room, part of the cubism and Atlantis c. 1933 surrealist, cubist and abstract elements open, stacked vertically like a magazine stand, alongside expressionism display and, at right, fauvism and the School meet. Duchamp’s Bicycle wheel 1913, Man Ray’s Pain peint 1958 of Paris The view back into the nineteenth-century display is (also known as Blue bread: favourite food for bluebirds) seen in the second panorama; we also look into the room and a 1936 box construction by expatriate English artist devoted to dada and surrealism. Drypoints and etchings Paule Vézelay. by modern masters – Kandinsky, Braque, Picasso and If Tinguely’s ‘machine’ (seen in the third panorama Marcoussis – hang alongside the joyously coloured ‘travel flanking the giant Fernand Léger canvas Trapeze artists poem’ Prose of the Trans-Siberian 1913 by Sonia Delaunay 1952) remained switched on, it would eventually collapse and Blaise Cendrars. Gris’ Checkerboard and playing and destroy itself, with the motor either burning out or the cards 1915 and constructivist sculptures produced by the sprockets becoming so bent that the cogs could no longer Stenberg brothers, Vladimir and Georgii, are nearby. The turn. Other works remain on the move – either literally, fauvism and School of Paris room, as seen in the right as in the case of Alexander Calder’s mobile, Night and half of the second panorama, brings together paintings day 1964, or figuratively, as in the photograph by Lisette by Pechstein, Derain, Matisse, Goncharova, sculptures by Model, Running legs, Fifth Avenue, New York 1940–41. Modigliani and Epstein, and selections from Matisse’s Jazz Elsewhere in this sweep of abstraction, Amédée Ozenfant’s and Picasso’s Vollard Suite. This room leads into a special pearlescent overlaid painted vessels and a Giorgio Morandi ‘theatre’ designed to showcase the Gallery’s rich holdings still life hang adjacent to a showcase with highlights of the of Ballets Russes costumes. decorative arts collection such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1912 Standing rather forlornly in the centre of the dada and window, made for the Avery Coonley Playhouse. surrealist room is the Male guest, a costume produced Around the corner is Pollock’s Blue poles 1952 and by de Chirico for the 1929 production of The ball. He Totem lesson 2 1945, alongside early and late works faces the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ which runs along one by Rothko, while the brass sculpture by Donald Judd entire wall of the gallery. We might conclude the subject features in the display of minimalism and conceptual art. of his contemplation is the map of the world according Cy Twombly’s exquisitely patinated bronze, another new to the surrealists, as published in the Belgium magazine acquisition, has found a temporary home in this bay until Variétés in 1929. This map also provides the layout for the Sculpture Gallery is ready. The monumental base and works arranged in an old-style museum case: masks intriguingly constructed, block-like forms stand in sharp and sculptures made by the Bamana, Baulé, Senufo and contrast to the work’s attenuated upper half, seemingly Chokwe peoples confront an icon of surrealism, Dali’s anchoring it to the floor. Finally, the pop extravaganza

artonview autumn 2007 11 international galleries

[above l–r] Jackson Pollock Blue poles 1952, oil, enamel, aluminium paint and glass on canvas, and Totem lesson 2 1945, oil on canvas, Mark Rothko 1957 #20 1957 (also known as Brown, black on maroon) and Multiform 1948, both oil on canvas; Louise Bourgeois C.O.Y.O.T.E. 1941–48, painted wood, is in the foreground

12 national gallery of australia gives the American print collection the opportunity to shine, Abstraction and modernity are explored in the first with the recently purchased Warhol Campbell’s soup cans bay of the Gordon Darling sharing a wall with his Elvis 1963 and Electric chair 1967. Gallery, while glimpses of the New York School and the Another moving sculpture, the Icebag by Oldenburg, puffs minimalist works are seen at quietly away at the centre of the room, expanding and far right deflating like a disembodied lung. The permanent collection display encourages visitors to take another look at modern art. Tracing the development of modernism – from Courbet’s painterly realism, Daumier’s political relief sculpture and the early use of photography, to the mechanics of a Warhol screenprint and the teasing austerity of Judd’s boxes – the works of art present a range of subject matter, diverse approaches to tradition, and a wealth of materials and techniques. The display at once demonstrates the breadth of the collection, while providing historical context for the Gallery’s masterpieces and placing key works of art by Australian artists within a global perspective. While a peep at the Duboscq nude may not be possible next visit and Méta-mecanique is once again silent and stable, the new display will not remain static, with loans returning from overseas, and the prints, drawings, photographs and costumes changing regularly. The opening of any new display or temporary exhibition represents a great deal of work behind the scenes – this time the sigh of relief was almost audible! On that November evening in Canberra, as Tinguely’s mischievous homage to early abstract art flapped happily, shuddering away through each [top l–r] Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup 1 1968, screenprints (partially obscured) and rotation, it seemed a fitting encapsulation of the preceding Electric chair 1967, synthetic polymer paint on months of planning. a canvas; Claes Oldenburg, Icebag (scale B) 1971, moulded plastic sheet, fabric, electric motor; and three lithographs by Robert Rauschenberg Lucina Ward Banner 1969 and two versions of Sky garden Curator, International Painting and Sculpture 1969 from the series Stoned Moon 1969–70

[bottom l–r] Frank Stella Flin Flon 1970, fluorescent and synthetic polymer paint, pencil on canvas; Sol Lewitt Cubic modular piece no.3 1968, synthetic polymer paint on steel, and Donald Judd Untitled 1974, brass (both partially obscured) artonview autumn 2007 13 The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005

30 March – 3 June 2007

John Lewin Roger Butler has been very busy. As Senior Curator of website before moving into the waiting room to await the Spotted grossbeak from Birds of New South Wales Australian Prints and Drawings, he is hosting a reunion cue for their grand entrance. with their natural history of the class of 1801–2005, gathering together old and While they gather, there are surreptitious sidelong Sydney: G. Howe, printer, 1813 hand-coloured etching new friends from across the Gallery’s extensive collection glances as costumes and accoutrements are examined printed image 23.6 x 21.0 cm of Australian prints to share with you The story of National Gallery of Australia, and compared. Due to the size of this exhibition, there is Canberra Purchased 1996 Australian printmaking. an impressive array of techniques and textures on show, The celebrations will begin on 30 March and there will including glimpses of the fine tracery of copperplate be many familiar faces amongst the crowd – John Brack’s engravings and the stately rich blacks of the mezzotint; stormy-faced Third daughter, armfuls of Margaret Preston the characteristic burred line of the drypoints and the soft bouquets and frog-chorused Olsen waterholes – along sweep of the lithographic crayon. with some guests of honour that many of you will not Gathered together, the works begin to talk among have met before as they have only recently moved into themselves, with the tales of the colonial works drawing an the Gallery or have previously been too fragile to attend instant audience. These prints were made during a time of such events. But a get-together like this only occurs every discovery and hardship, and they document the beginnings so often, and this one has been twenty-five years in the of settlement – of strangers in a faraway land – often making – with the guest list showing the extent of the commemorating the achievements and, with hindsight, journey the Gallery has taken since Roger began in 1981 revealing devastating failings. Despite their significance, filled with an enthusiastic vision for the future of the some of the early prints are a little nervous as they have nation’s collection. Over the years, with the support of not been seen in public for almost 200 years and are easily different directors and the Gallery Council, and assisted recognised in the huddle of men tugging at their starched with generous funding from philanthropist Gordon Darling, collars and women conferring behind their fans. This is in he has worked steadily to fill the gallery with historical marked contrast to many of the works made towards the rarities and works by overlooked artists, expanding the end of the nineteenth century, when artists such as Tom collection to over 36,000 prints, posters and illustrated Roberts and Lionel Lindsay began to make prints as an books. With so many significant prints to choose from for adjunct art form to painting and drawing. This shift in the this exhibition, Roger has focused on a shortlist of almost intention moved printmaking from being a functional tool 600 individuals who have played significant roles in this (hi)story – and has invited them to tell you their tales of for recording and reproducing information to an inventive exploration and adventure, of innovation and desperation, approach to translating personal experience into images. of fears well founded and hopes realised. This change is easily appreciated in the flattened designs Caught up in the excitement and whirl of activity of modernist works during the 1920s, such as the self- associated with such an undertaking, the prints have been assured relief prints of Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor and busy preparing for their social debut. Many have been in Dorrit Black. Preston’s 1936 woodcut Banksia and fungus Conservation, soaking a century or two of dirt and grime strides confidently into the room and shakes your hand from their papery skin, having age spots lightened or small firmly as you take in the boldly outlined banksia candles tears in their fabric mended. With their colours revived and the branch enveloped in the luminous orange brackets and their garments freshly pressed, they are wheeled of fungi. The candour and strength of the work stems downstairs to have their measurements recorded and from the artist’s unerring eye for the possibilities within the are fitted for their framing. Then it’s off to have their organic forms of the local vegetation, and openness to the photographs taken for a series of publications and the beauty that is contained within imperfection.

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Walter Preston engraver print after John Eyre Absalom West publisher Port Jackson Harbour, with a distant view of the Blue Mountains, taken from South Head from Views in New South Wales Sydney: West, 1813 engraving plate-mark 27.4 x 40.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2005

Walter Preston engraver print after John Eyre Absalom West publisher Botany Bay Harbour, with a view of the Heads from Views in New South Wales Sydney: West, 1813 engraving plate-mark 27.2 x 39.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2005

16 national gallery of australia Preston’s use of native flora catches the attention of Fanny de Mole Gum wattle and silver wattle the small group of nineteenth-century flower books by from Wild flowers of South watercolorists including Fanny de Mole, Annie Walker Australia Adelaide: Paul Jerrard & Son, 1861 and Marian Ellis Rowan. The earlier entrance of these hand-coloured lithograph lithographed beauties had drawn gasps of admiration printed image 28.0 x 22.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, at their corsage-like sprays of delicate wildflowers, with Canberra Purchased 2006 each botanical species sensitively hand-coloured. These Margaret Preston ornamental lithographed gift books combined the demure Banksia and fungus 1936 hand-coloured feminine pastimes of flower arranging with watercolour woodcut printed image 19.0 x 25.4 cm drawing, but due to the inclusion of Latin nomenclature National Gallery of Australia, these books also became aligned with the emerging Canberra Purchased 1976 science of botany. They are also anxious to make the acquaintance of the works by the natural historian John Lewin and the appearance of the 1813 edition of his pioneer publication – Birds of New South Wales and their natural history – causes a flurry of excitement with everyone jostling to catch a glimpse of this rare attraction. It was the first illustrated book to be published in Australia, and contains proofs from the 1803 edition, the first etchings printed in Sydney. Inside are detailed etchings of eighteen species of birds encountered by Lewin following his arrival in 1800, including the three-toed kingfisher, the warty-face honeysucker and a pair of spotted grosbeaks – with each hand-coloured etching singing from the page.

artonview autumn 2007 17 William Nicholas This work begins an unexpected conversation with tales of his unusual feats of pedestrianism, including his William Baker publisher The flying pieman a series of allegorical lithographs produced in 2004 signature act in which he would sell pies to passengers (William Francis King) from by Aotearoa New Zealand artist, Shane Cotton, at the boarding the steamer at Circular Quay in Sydney, before Heads of the people Sydney: Baker, 1847–48 lithograph Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne. Their animated walking eighteen miles at speed to meet them as they printed image 21.4 x 11.4 cm discussion reveals that both use birds as an intermediary National Gallery of Australia, alighted at Parramatta. Canberra Purchased 2006 to show the meeting of two cultures, with the English- As more and more prints are wheeled into the waiting Shane Cotton Martin King born Lewin documenting the unfamiliar native Australian area, the atmosphere becomes one of expectation as printer Kikorangi 2004 bird life around the settlement in the name of science, lithograph printed image Views in New South Wales (the first set of views printed 47.3 x 58.0 cm and Cotton creating a dialogue between Maori and National Gallery of Australia, in Australia) is rumoured to make a rare appearance. Its Pakeha (non-indigenous New Zealander) perspectives Canberra Gordon Darling story begins with its publication in 1812–13 by pardoned Australasian Print Fund 2005 using the shared spiritual symbolism of birds including the entrepreneur Absalom West, and has the added curiosity goldfinch and the swallow. In Kikorangi, which translates of the twenty-four cloud-laden panoramas having been as ‘firmament’, a pair of these tiny birds appears either side meticulously engraved by convicts Philip Slager and of a mokomokai – sacred shrunken heads of the Maori Walter Preston. These inauspicious beginnings cause a that were later traded with the colonists for muskets in the stir as the Views enter the room, and those gathered eighteenth century. press forward eagerly to inspect the finely engraved The tale of this practice causes worried expressions to landscapes, which show some of the earliest images of the appear on the portraits within the 1847 illustrated journal, Heads of the People, sending a wave of laughter rippling Indigenous population interacting with the new settlers. through the crowd. The publication contains numerous The prints detail the beginnings of the Port Jackson skilful lithographs by William Nicholas of notable men colony, with Botany Bay Harbour, with a view of the Heads of the day, including The governor (Sir C.A. Fitz Roy), capturing the event as the English ships sail through the and The inspector of nuisances (T.Stubbs). A crowd has Heads towards local aborigines hunting and fishing by gathered around The flying pieman (William Francis King). the foreshore, while Port Jackson Harbour shows the The celebrated long-distance walker strikes a pose in his Indigenous population separated from the fast-expanding customary outfit of knee breeches and staff, and recounts colony sited across the bay.

18 national gallery of australia Dennis Nona Kala Lagaw Ya people Theo Tremblay printer Awai Thithuiyil (Badu Island Story) 2004 hand-coloured linocut printed image 125.6 x 106.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2005

John Carmichael engraver print after Thomas Mitchell Chart of the Zodiac, Including the Stars of the 4th Magnitude, Between the Parallels of 24°½ Declination North & South c. 1831 mezzotint plate-mark 40.0 x 60.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2004

artonview autumn 2007 19

The details within these scenes momentarily fill the The sight of the stars gives rise to many different Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Desolation, Internment camp, air with memories of salt spray, wood smoke and sweat associations among those assembled. For Badu Island Orange, N.S.W. 1941 causing a succession of stories to start up about the scarcity printmaker Dennis Nona, they tell the story of his woodcut printed image 21.8 x 13.4 cm of materials in the early days of printmaking. West’s Views homeland, and his large 2004 linocut print, Awai Thithuiyil, National Gallery of Australia, speak of being printed on a wooden press built by workmen is named after the western Torres Strait Island name for the Canberra Gift of Olive Hirschfeld 1979 in the colony, then Lewin’s Birds of New South Wales pipe Pelican constellation. This intricate work shows the position Mike Parr up with a chorus of anecdotes about the days of printing of the stars during the turtle-mating season. Above the John Loane printer with copper plates salvaged from the hulls of sailing ships hand-coloured turtles stands the spirit figure, Zugubau LAMD [Lamella, Australopithecus, Manic- and Lewin’s own printing ink being made from charcoal Mabaig, who is the custodian of the stars. He is teaching Depression] 2001 carborundum and mixed with gum and shark oil. This is quickly answered the story to the next generation, represented by the five woodblock printed image by etchings by Lionel Lindsay who describe how the artist human figures below him. This rich narrative is (overall) 268.0 x 726.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, made a press from a recycled knife-sharpening machine part of Nona’s cultural heritage, with the intricate details Canberra Purchased 2006 during the early 1900s. These tales of ‘making do’ with cut from a large roll of linoleum using the traditional humble materials are joined by a group of works produced wood-carving skills taught to Nona as a young boy. during the Second World War in internment camps in Hay, This southern sky was mapped almost two centuries Orange and Tatura by German and Italian-born artists earlier by Thomas Mitchell in his Chart of the Zodiac including Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, Erwin Fabian and and expertly engraved by the deaf and mute artist Bruno Simon. The Bauhaus-trained artist Hirschfeld Mack John Carmichael in 1831. The pinpricks of light shine taught some of his fellow detainees the technique of out from the deep black of the mezzotint, showing the monotype printing, using old windowpanes or discarded position of the stars used as markers to guide the travels of Masonite, and printing ink made from black shoe polish. the new settlers. Astronomy was a practical navigational The shortage of materials in these barren surroundings skill that helped men voyage across the inky black sea made woodcuts another popular technique, and Mack’s or find their way through miles of shadowy bushland at 1941 print, Desolation, Internment Camp, Hay, is one of the nightfall. The unfamiliarity of the terrain kept early settlers simplest but strongest statements made in this medium. In clinging to the coastline until explorers such as Burke and this eloquent print, the silhouette of a solitary figure is seen Wills ventured into the unknown interior – terra incognita. at night looking at the Southern Cross through the barbed Henry Sadd’s sombre mezzotint portraits of these iconic wire fence of the camp. Made by an artist far from home, figures were produced as commemorative works in 1861 there is a palpable sense of despair and isolation beneath from earlier daguerreotypes by Thomas A Hill. They were the alien night sky.

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conservation

etched the year after the explorer Robert O’Hara Burke and Poster Collective during the 1980s, using feisty Henry Samuel Sadd print after Thomas A Hill his surveyor, astronomer William John Wills, set off on their Day-Glo inks to shout protestations about issues including R O’Hara Burke 1861 ill-fated expedition from Melbourne to cross the inland Indigenous health, land rights, nuclear disarmament and mezzotint plate-mark 40.1 x 30.3 cm deserts of Australia. The deep funereal blacks afforded AIDS awareness. Exhibited in plain sight – pinned up in National Gallery of Australia, by the mezzotint technique lend a poignancy to the community centres, stapled onto telegraph poles and Canberra Purchased 2006 images, which show Burke sitting with folded arms, gazing glued onto hoardings – the intensity and passion of these Henry Samuel Sadd print after Thomas A Hill thoughtfully off to one side while the younger Wills stares voluble posters remains undiminished more than twenty William John Wills 1861 directly out of the oval frame. years later. mezzotint plate-mark 40.1 x 30.3 cm Their reflective mood is echoed in Mike Parr’s Their infectious energy has caused the volume in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Puchased 2006 introspective woodcut, LAMD [Lamella, Australopithecus, waiting area to rise, with the air thickly woven with Marie McMahon Manic-Depression]. This massive print of 2001 continues assorted threads drawn from a roomful of stories. Peter Curtis printer the artist’s ongoing self-portrait project, which turns his When Roger arrives he has to shout to make himself Redback Graphix print workshop unflinching gaze upon himself. He carved his likeness into heard above the hubbub. ‘It’s time’, he bellows, pausing Empty kids 1987 twelve large woodblocks, later assembled as six mirrored his guests mid-sentence. And like old friends who need colour screenprint printed image 49.0 x 73.8 cm identities. Lamella refers to the plate-like structures found no telling, they begin to move towards the waiting National Gallery of Australia, in nature, which is repeated in the horizontal grid, whilst gallery, falling into chronological order like clockwork. Canberra Gordon Darling Fund 1989 Australopithecus was a distant primate ancestor that They take their places, whispering with their neighbours roamed the earth millions of years ago. The allusion to in anticipation of the conversations ahead – the sharing manic depression is underscored in the deeply gouged of experiences that leads to connections being formed marks that contain an intensity of emotion within their between old ideas and new possibilities. gestural line work. Printed in dark, impassive black on an Suddenly everyone is hushed and there is no more algal-coloured background, this work is at once huge and fidgeting; Roger nods his encouragement as the doors quiet – in marked contrast with the confrontational aspects open; and as the exhibition begins his guests smile a warm of Parr’s performance pieces. His politically questioning art welcome as they move forward to greet you. is in good company with a mass demonstration of socially Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax orientated posters that have gathered in a rowdy group Gordon Darling Intern, Australian Prints and Drawings to the left. These screenprints were produced in print workshops such as Redback Graphix and the Earthworks Further information at nga.gov.au/AustralianPrintmaking

artonview autumn 2007 23 conservation

Print soup

Water and works on paper, given the right circumstances, of the framing process. The discolouration resisted washing can be an unexpectedly good combination. A feature of in cold water and bleaching. However, after being floated paper conservation treatments which constantly surprises on a hot water bath, the coating solubilised and rinsed out, is the extent to which water can be used, often producing leaving a chemically stable and visually unified work. tremendous positive changes both visually and physically. George Rowe’s 1858 View of the city of Melbourne As part of exhibition preparations for The story of Australian required other forms of stain reduction. This large printmaking 1801–2005 the paper conservation section lithograph on machine-made paper was created using a examined hundreds of prints, many of which required combination of printed black ink, printed colour and attention before they could be displayed. Each work was hand-applied watercolour. The darkening of the paper condition checked and tested to establish whether the support together with loss in vibrancy of the pigments support or media would be adversely affected by the resulted in a complete lack of contrast in the image. proposed techniques, particularly sensitivity to water. Artificial light bleaching, which can be used with great A high level of acidity is the single most damaging success for monochromatic prints, was not an option due factor for works on paper such as prints. In this state to the potential for fading. As an alternative, two different paper becomes brittle and darker and the image is increasingly obscured, peppered with brown spots known diluted chemical solutions were applied in sequence to as foxing. Poor quality fibres and chemicals used in paper the back of the work to avoid alteration to the pigments. manufacture are the main causes of inherent acidity, but it One of these solutions, which visually enhances the image, can also be attributed to inadequate mounting and framing, also improves strength and flexibility in degraded paper compounded by a poor environment. Fortunately much of by repairing broken molecular bonds in the cellulose. the discolouration and staining associated with acidity is Chemical residues were removed by further rinsing and the water soluble and can be removed through the application original colours now shine through. of various washing techniques. Previous unsympathetic restoration treatments can Depending on the severity and type of staining, washing present different challenges. The engraved views of Sydney may take several days using a series of slightly alkaline commissioned and published by Absalom West from 1812 solutions of deionised water. This treatment achieves a onwards were sold individually and never issued in bound cosmetic enhancement but, more importantly, it improves book form. As a result they have been more susceptible chemical and physical stability in the paper in the long term to damage and subsequent restoration. A group of George Rowe by returning it to an alkaline state. WS Percy’s Hollyhocks View of the city of twenty-four of these prints were treated for the exhibition Melbourne 1858 lithograph 1922, an etching in brown ink on machine made paper, was printed image 23.0 x 71.0 cm to alleviate a range of damage which included disfiguring visibly discoloured around the edges and on the reverse. National Gallery of Australia, white, chalky deposits on the black ink surface. The prints Canberra After an initial washing the colour in Hollyhocks remained had also been lined, a technique which involves adhering an Thomas Balcombe uneven so a gentle form of bleaching with artificial light The Five Dock Grand extra layer of paper to the back of the work. Unfortunately Steeple Chase 1844. was used to reduce the stains and allow restoration of the this treatment had flattened the plate marks and destroyed No 1 the first leap 1844 original soft cream colour of the paper. lithograph the characteristic texture of the original paper. To revitalise printed image 32.0 x 46.4 cm There are occasions when warm water can be used to National Gallery of Australia, the ink surface, the white chalky deposits were removed Canberra great effect, particularly for materials containing proteins using a chelate. This chemical targets and binds specific Absalom West View of part such as some glues. The extreme discolouration in the of the river in Sydney. Taken hand-coloured lithograph, The Five Dock Grand Steeple compounds (in this case calcium carbonate), allowing them from St Phillip’s churchyard 1813 intaglio plate-mark Chase (one of a pair by Thomas Balcombe) was due to the to be safely extracted. The additional paper linings were 28.7 x 35.8 cm edges of the paper having been folded and coated with an removed and, after washing, the texture and colour of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra animal glue as part original supports were greatly improved.

24 national gallery of australia

Conservator Fiona Kemp Image reintegration is a technique used by conservators working on Frederick Schoenfeld’s to replace missing sections of the support and image. Reptiles and fishes 1878 Repair paper of a similar weight and texture to the Conservator James Ward original is shaped to match the missing area and is then supervising the float washing of prints for the adhered. Sometimes the infill is toned with media such upcoming exhibition as watercolour or pencil to restore coherence to the image. An example of this type of treatment can be seen in the printed colour engraving by Frederick Schoenfeld Reptiles and fishes 1878. Localised retouching may also be necessary but this is always carried out in a medium that can be removed in the future. The aim of the conservator is to prevent or slow down deterioration in works of art as well as to make the image more accessible to the viewer. Not every image in The story of Australian printmaking is pristine. Regardless of the treatment undertaken, many works have an inherent patina of age which remains as an acknowledgement of accumulated history and as testament to the surprisingly enduring nature of paper.

Andrea Wise, Caitlin Granowski, James Ward and Fiona Kemp Paper Conservation

26 national gallery of australia THE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN PRINTMAKING 1801–2005

THE HISTORY OF A NATION CAPTURED IN PRINT

Thea Proctor The rose 1927 woodcut © Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

Hindmarsh is a privately-owned group of companies which is passionate about Australia’s future and committed to the preservation of our national heritage – through its contribution to the built environment, its investment in clever, young Australian companies and its commitment to creativity and the arts.

Hindmarsh is delighted to be associated with the National Gallery of Australia as principal sponsor of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 (30 March – 3 June 2007).

Canberra | Sydney | Melbourne | Adelaide | Shanghai | Beijing www.hindmarsh.com.au artonview autumn 2007 27

28149 HIG 267x198 Printmaking ad1 1 21/12/06 3:13:45 PM Birth of the modern poster

10 February – 13 May 2007

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Born in 1836, Jules Chéret is widely regarded as the flamboyant energy that is uniquely, identifiably his own. Jane Avril 1893 lithograph 125.0 x 92.0 cm ‘father’ of the modern poster. Chéret began studying Indeed, without Chéret we would not have Pierre National Gallery of Australia, lithography at the age of thirteen and at sixteen was Bonnard as a poster artist – the debt to Chéret of Canberra Gift of Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1996 taking classes at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin [National Bonnard’s first poster, France-Champagne 1891, for School of Art] in Paris. He made his first black-and-white example, is obvious. And without Bonnard, we would not posters in 1855 and from 1859 to 1866 studied colour have the poster masterpieces of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. lithography in London. It was largely through Chéret that While only ever producing approximately thirty posters lithography, which had fallen into disrepute among artists in the period 1891–1901, Toulouse-Lautrec’s works are of the mid nineteenth century, was revived in the 1890s some of the most brilliant in the medium. They are also in a spectacular renaissance that would become known as vastly more human than Chéret’s work. Toulouse-Lautrec’s the ‘colour revolution’. Without lithography, and without poster of Jane Avril (a dancer at the Moulin Rouge), for Chéret, posters as we know them would simply not exist. example, while displaying the sense of caricature common In addition to being a technical innovator, Chéret was a to much of his work, has about it an indisputable aura of poster designer of great genius, producing more than 1000 individuated character. We have the impression that this is of them over his very long career. Among his most well Jane Avril dancing, Toulouse-Lautrec perfectly capturing, known works are the posters he designed for the famous in a work of considerable compositional sophistication, Moulin Rouge in Paris (including the posters advertising her coquettish, mid-stepped, black-stockinged sensuality. its opening in 1889) and for the Folies Bergère. In 1893 And yet the barely articulated features of her face reveal the American dancer Loïe Fuller made her debut at the an underlying melancholy. Avril, who was in fact small, Folies and commissioned Chéret to design the posters to pale and unusually shy, was one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s advertise the event. These, and the subsequent designs he great friends and Jane Avril, his homage to her, was his did for her, were to become some of Chéret’s most famous penultimate poster. He would produce only one other and best-loved works. poster, in 1900, and die in 1901. Fuller’s repertoire at the Folies Bergère comprised four For all of Chéret’s technical brilliance, his flamboyant dances: the Serpent Dance, the Violet Dance, the Butterfly use of colour and the formal eloquence of his work, the Dance and the White Dance. Each had its own lighting women in his posters, as indicated above, remain ciphers, and Chéret’s poster, Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller 1897, mere empty reflections of the false and superficial gaiety of perfectly captures the mood of diaphanous light and fin-de-siècle Paris. Chéret was imprisoned by a view of swirling movement of Fuller’s performances, and is rightly women that was the product of a particular historical considered one of the masterpieces of the form. mind-set. By way of comparison, one only has to look at While Chéret produced posters for a wide variety of Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster La passagère du 54 – contexts – for publishers, milliners, entertainments and to promenade en yacht 1896 to see what real, human advertise lamp oil – he did so using a very limited range of insight is. On a cruise he undertook in 1895 in France figurative forms. His posters invariably feature a ‘chérette’ – from Le Havre to Bordeaux, Toulouse-Lautrec became a pretty, blond, rosebud-lipped young woman whose infatuated with the beautiful young occupant of cabin 54, association with the product she advertises is, as is often still so much so that he refused to get off at Bordeaux despite the case, tenuous at best. Today, Chéret’s generic, cartoon- the exhortations of his friends. Instead, he sailed on to like women strike our modern sensibilities as cloyingly Lisbon, Portugal, hoping all the while – but failing – to be sentimental, adolescent and naively saccharine. Despite introduced to her. La passagère du 54, which advertised this, his posters have an undeniable presence, a sense of the Salon des Cent exhibition of 1896, recalls this incident.

28 national gallery of australia

Jules Chéret It shows us the partially obscured object of the artist’s In Job, Mucha’s extravagantly stylised depiction of hair, Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller 1897 lithograph desire. She is neither particularly attractive nor young, known at the time as macaroni or vermicelli, served as an 119.6 x 82.4 cm and sits, prosaically, in a deckchair; serenely absent and essential decorative component while also reinforcing the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of quietly oblivious to Toulouse-Lautrec’s tortured longing, sensuousness and eroticism of the woman and therefore Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1996 his crippled inability to approach her. In a work of supreme, the poster. Closer examination of Job, however, reveals several coded sexual references, such as the curled up toe Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec self-ironic understatement, Toulouse-Lautrec documents La passagère du 54 – that peeps from beneath the woman’s flowing gown – promenade en yacht for us all our own idiosyncratic perceptions of beauty, our [Passenger from (cabin) failures of courage, our nostalgia for opportunities missed, a symbol of female sexual arousal – and the raised tip 54 – on a cruise] 1896 of her cigarette. Job intentionally pursues a subliminal lithograph 60.8 x 40.2 cm for futures untold, irretrievably lost. National Gallery of Australia, link between cigarettes and oral fixation; circles and Canberra Purchased with the The other great artist of the 1890s to feature aureoles featured in all of Mucha’s designs. A detail assistance of Orde Poynton women as an integral part of his poster designs was Esq. CMG 1992 often overlooked in the poster is the repeated use of the Alphonse Mucha. Born in Moravia in 1860, Mucha moved interconnected letters spelling out the name Job. The to Paris in his twenties and went on to become one of brand name Job developed from the initials of the French the greatest exponents of the Art Nouveau style, of craftsman Jean Bardou who invented the idea of a booklet which Job 1894 is a superb example. Job displays all of of rolling papers made from rice paper. Originally the Mucha’s trademark symbols and design characteristics. initials ‘JB’ were separated by a diamond, and as the brand The poster, which advertises Job cigarette papers, shows a grew in popularity people began to refer to it as Job. In the woman sensually involved in the act of smoking. Although poster Mucha uses the letters as the background pattern, ‘respectable’ women did not smoke at the turn of the as well as in the shape of the clasp which holds the century, there was a popular custom in France of linking woman’s dress together, drawing the eye to her breasts. l’amour, le vin et le tabac [love, wine and tobacco] and of Job exemplifies a very identifiable characteristic of Mucha’s using images of women to advertise tobacco in order to work: what at first appears to be a rather sweet and give the product a sense of illicit glamour. innocent image is, in fact, a very sexually charged one.

30 national gallery of australia Of a completely different order to Chéret, Mucha or breakaway art movements which characterise the age, the Alphonse Mucha Job 1894 lithograph 141.0 x 93.8 cm Toulouse-Lautrec is the work of Théophile-Alexandre most significant being the Secessionists in Germany and National Gallery of Australia, Steinlen. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1859, Steinlen Austria. With these movements came a new, if short-lived, Canberra Purchased 1971 moved to Montmartre, Paris, when he was twenty-one and idealism which was exemplified by the many references E. McKnight Kauffer Soaring to success! Daily stayed there for the rest of his life. He had initially studied to Ancient Greece in the posters produced to advertise Herald – the early bird 1919 philosophy and literature, and this informed many of his the exhibitions of the artists associated with them. lithograph 76.4 x 39.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, depictions of the everyday life of Montmartre. Like the work In Franz von Stuck’s poster of 1897 advertising the Seventh Canberra Gift of the estate of Honoré Daumier, much of Steinlen’s art is concerned with International Art Exhibition in Munich, for example, he of Garry Anderson 1997 the underlying social realities of the day. He was an overtly shows Athena, the multi-portfolio-ed goddess of wisdom, political artist and had a great sympathy for the ‘social- war and the arts and crafts, holding Nike, the goddess realist’ works of the writer Emile Zola. of victory, in one hand, and the staff of judgment in the Steinlen’s huge poster Le locataire [The tenant] of 1913, other. A helmeted Athena – an image that reappears in with its sombre, low-key, unglamorous text which simply Stuck’s poster advertising the Sixty-first Exhibition of the states, ‘Appearing on 1 October against the privileges Vienna Secession in 1921 – looks on from the right-hand of landlords “The Tenant”, a publication of the Union of panel, while on the left we see the classically influenced Tenants under the direction of G. Cochon’, has a sense of emblem of the Künstler Genossenschaft [Artist’s Co- immediacy that is reinforced by Steinlen’s depiction of the operative]. Similarly, Stuck’s poster advertising the Munich desperate poverty and despair of the working classes in International Exhibition of 1913 features an Apollonian turn-of-the-century Paris. horse-drawn chariot. The message is clear: the tinsel-and- With the start of the twentieth century, however, came glitter fake gaiety of fin-de-siècle Paris is finished with, and a time of growing upheaval – social, political, economic and a new, more rigorous, more ambitious and revolutionary aesthetic. This upheaval found its expression in the many age is being heralded – in Germany and Austria at least.

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Back in France, however, the first decade of the twentieth century was to see its own revolution in poster design with the arrival in Paris in 1898 of the Italian-born Leonetto Cappiello. Cappiello’s work became so influential that he is often referred to as the ‘father’ of modern advertising. His revolutionary insight into the art, an insight which remains a staple of advertising today, was based on the psychological phenomenon of image association. He was the first to deliberately unite a product with an instantly recognisable icon or image. Thus, when a viewer saw the icon they remembered the product. In Maurin Quina 1906, a poster advertising a French aperitif of the same name, Cappiello has depicted a devilish a work by Chéret, such as Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller, Leonetto Cappiello green figure sneakily uncorking a bottle of the advertised Maurin Quina 1906 which was made little more than twenty years earlier, we beverage while grinning at the viewer. It is said that lithograph 150.2 x 108.2 cm seem to be looking back across an historical abyss. On one National Gallery of Australia, there is a little devilry in any alcoholic drink and Cappiello Canberra The Poynton side we have an age of trivial innocence; on the other we Bequest 2005 became known for using infernal imagery in a number of have the beginnings of a vastly more complex, modern John Hassall Skegness is his liquor-advertising posters. In Maurin Quina the cheeky era, the aspirations of which, in defiance of the cataclysms SO bracing 1908 lithograph green sprite recalls the nickname and effects of that most 97.8 x 123.0 cm National of the First World War, Soaring to success! seems no less Gallery of Australia, Canberra infamous beverage of the Belle Époque, la fée verte [the Purchased 1981 innocently to articulate. green fairy] or absinthe. There are many other fine examples of the emerging Cappiello was also the first poster artist to realise that art of advertising in this exhibition, from Jean Carlu’s modern transport had fundamentally changed the way famous poster advertising Peugeot bicycles, which he people perceived the visual world and that something designed as a young man in 1922 before embracing the fleetingly seen while in transit could be used in an geometric abstraction for which he would become famous; associative way. Having registered and deciphered an image Jean Cocteau’s monumental homage to the Russian ballet close up – as a pedestrian might – the advertising message dancer Vaslav Nijinsky of 1911; John Hassall’s brilliant, and product could be instantly re-invoked by the mere fat-man, comic-ironic take on Chéret’s dancing figures, glimpse of the image from a moving bus or train, hence Skegness is SO bracing 1908, which became one of the his use of bright and easily recognisable forms and colours. most successful advertising posters ever; and the simpler, Maurin Quina is Cappiello’s most famous poster. It is also yet equally memorable, images published by the British the finest example of his manipulation of brand identity, Parliamentary Recruiting Committee in support of the First and of his adaptation of poster art to meet the demands of World War effort. a new and modern era. Birth of the modern poster takes us, then, on a journey Cappiello’s work was continually evolving – see, for from one age to another, with each of the more than example, the re-emergence of the ‘devil’ motif in his forty works in the exhibition, all originally conceived as beautifully stylised Becuwe poster of 1927. This poster ephemeral posters, representing a step along the way. echoes in its modernity the work of another artist included The exhibition is the precursor to a much larger show in this exhibition, that of the American born, London- scheduled for 2010 at the National Gallery of Australia based E McKnight Kauffer. His Soaring to success! Daily which will be devoted to the past 100 hundred years of the Herald – the early bird of 1919, with its flock of birds in the art of the poster. extreme upper reaches of the picture plane, seemed at the time, and perhaps it still does today, to embody something Mark Henshaw quintessentially modern about the age. It was an image, Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books Simeran Maxwell like many of the images in the posters on display here, that Intern, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books would have a long advertising shelf-life. The remarkable Further information at nga.gov.au/ModernPoster thing about it, however, is that when we compare it to

artonview autumn 2007 33 forthcoming exhibition

George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons

29 June – 16 September 2007

George Lambert George Lambert (1873–1930) was one of Australia’s Australian. Some suggested that Lambert’s posing was a Chesham Street 1910 oil on canvas 62.0 x 51.5 cm most brilliant, witty and influential artists. The exhibtion shield against his sensitive nature, and others maintained National Gallery of Australia, George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons is the he had two personalities, one for his friends (gentle, kindly Canberra most comprehensive showing of Lambert’s work for over and sympathetic) and another for his acquaintances and fifty years. It will present the diverse range of Lambert’s the public (brilliant, witty and flamboyant). His wife, Amy, work – from his Australian bush subjects to his Edwardian agreed that Lambert’s theatricality and love of laughter portraits and figure groups, from his sparkling oil sketches was a mask behind which he hid his sadness. to his major battle paintings and large sculpture. It will Lambert was a versatile artist, with great audacity show the full breadth of Lambert’s approaches to image and considerable finesse, a more broad-ranging artist making and the variety of his handling of pencil, pen and than any other in Australia at this time. George Lambert paint. It will demonstrate his sure draughtsmanship and the retrospective is the result of generous inter-gallery seductive glamour and sensual appeal of his paint surfaces. cooperation. It will selectively draw together around 110 But who was George Lambert and what was he like? works by Lambert that are scattered throughout major art That is a difficult question to answer. His stunning image museums and collections in Australia, as well as private of himself baring his chest, Chesham Street 1910, like the collections in Britain. It will present us with the opportunity man himself, is an enigma. It appears to have a meaning to look at the full scope of his work, including three of but is not strictly narrative. It invites us to provide our own Lambert’s large-scale battle paintings, kindly lent by the interpretation. He sits boldly in front of the viewer, holding Australian War Memorial, and viewed for the first time in up his shirt and revealing his entire torso. The painting is a many years alongside other icons such as The squatter’s metaphor: this man seems to have nothing to hide, to be daughter and A sergeant of Light Horse in Palestine. literally and metaphorically baring his chest, exposing his heart and soul to the world. But was he? Anne Gray Head of Australian Art Many writers have referred to Lambert’s extrovert personality, characterising him as an entertaining raconteur Together with the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery of Australia is presenting a symposium and mimic, with a keen sense of humour. on the life, work and times of George Lambert on 29 June Some found Lambert’s flamboyance appealing, while 2007. This will coincide with George Lambert retrospective: others objected to it or sought to explain it away as if it heroes and icons (National Gallery of Australia, 29 June – 16 September 2007) and the focus exhibition George were something disagreeable – frivolous and effete, a Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine landscapes divergence from the typical easygoing, hardy, resolute (Australian War Memorial, 30 March – 29 July 2007).

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From Gallipoli to Gaza, this exhibition provides a unique insight into two very George different, yet powerfully evocative, battlefi eld landscapes that moulded the experience of LAMBERT Australians in the First World War. Gallipoli& AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL Palestine 30 MARCH — 29 JULY 2007 LANDSCAPES Free admission

AN AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL TRAVELLING EXHIBITION www.awm.gov.au travelling exhibitions autumn 2007

An artist abroad: the prints of Michael Riley: sights unseen James McNeill Whistler Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian James McNeill Whistler was a key Government Program supporting touring exhibitions figure in the European art world of by providing funding assistance for the development the 19th century. Influenced by the and touring of cultural material across Australia French Realists, the Dutch, Venetian and Michael Riley (1960–2004) was one of the most Japanese masters, Whistler’s prints are important contemporary Indigenous visual artists sublime visions of people and the places of the past two decades. His contribution to the James McNeill Whistler they inhabit. nga.gov.au/Whistler Michael riley untitled from the Portrait of Whistler 1859 series cloud [cow] 2000 contemporary Indigenous and broader Australian (detail) etching and drypoint Geelong Gallery, Geelong Vic., (detail) printed 2005 visual arts industry was substantial and his film National Gallery of Australia, chromogenic pigment Canberra 7 June – 19 August 2007 photograph National Gallery and video work challenged non-Indigenous of Australia, Canberra Courtesy perceptions of Indigenous experience, particularly Queen Victoria Museum & of the Michael Riley Foundation among the most disenfranchised communities in Art Gallery, Launceston Tas., and Viscopy, Australia the eastern region of Australia. nga.gov.au/Riley 1 September – 4 November 2007 Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo NSW, 12 May – 8 July 2007, and concurrently Stage fright: the art of theatre Moree Plains Gallery, Moree NSW, (Focus Exhibition) 19 May – 15 July 2007 In partnership with Australian Theatre for Young People Supported by Visions of Australia, an The Elaine & Jim Wolfensohn Gift Australian Government Program supporting Travelling Exhibitions touring exhibitions by providing funding Three suitcases of works of art: Red case: myths and assistance for the development and touring rituals includes works that reflect the spiritual beliefs Loundon Sainthill Costume of cultural material across Australia of different cultures; Yellow case: form, space, design for the ugly sister from Cinderella 1958 (detail) Stage fright: the art of theatre raises design reflects a range of art making processes; and gouache, pencil and watercolour Blue case: technology. These suitcases thematically on paper the curtain on the world of theatre and National Gallery of Australia, dance through works of art, interactives present a selection of art and design objects that Canberra and a program of workshops conducted Sri Lanka Seated Ganesha may be borrowed free-of-charge for the enjoyment 9th–10th century (detail) from of children and adults in regional, remote and by educators from the National Gallery Red case: myths and rituals and Australian Theatre for Young People. National Gallery of Australia, metropolitan centres. nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn Canberra Worlds from mythology, fairytales and For further details and bookings telephone fantasy characters intended for the 02 6240 6432 or email: [email protected] ballet, opera and stage are shown in exquisitely rendered finished drawings Red case: myths and rituals and alongside others that have been Yellow case: form, space and design quickly executed capturing the essence Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, of an idea, posture, movement or Bathurst NSW, 3 February – 24 March 2007 character. nga.gov.au/StageFright Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, The Academy Gallery, University Port Pirie SA, 2 April – 6 May 2007 of Tasmania, Launceston Tas., Blue case: technology 9 February – 1 April 2007 Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Walter Nicholls Memorial Gallery, Bathurst NSW, 3 February – 24 March 2007 Port Lincoln SA, 5 May – 3 June 2007 Merriwa Central School, Merriwa NSW, 2 April – 26 May 2007 Imagining Papua New Guinea: prints from the national collection Exhibition venues and dates are subject to change. Karl Lawrence Millard Imagining Papua New Guinea is an Lizard grinder 2000 Please contact the gallery or venue before exhibition of prints from the national (detail) brass, bronze, copper, your visit. For more information please phone sterling silver, money metal, collection that celebrates Papua New Peugeot mechanism, stainless +61 2 6240 6556 or email [email protected] Guinea’s independence and surveys steel screws National Gallery of Australia, Canberra its rich history of printmaking. Artists

Mathias Kauage whose works are in the exhibition Independence celebration I include Timothy Akis, Mathias Kauage, 1975 (detail) stencil David Lasisi, John Man and Martin National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Morububuna. nga.gov.au/Imagining Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Geraldton WA, 14 April – 17 June 2007

The National Gallery of Australia Travelling Exhibitions Program is generously supported by Australian airExpress.

artonview autumn 2007 37 new acquisition International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

Soup can mania

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (born Andy Warhola) became a significant and Roy Lichtenstein. During a visit to Castelli’s Warhol was Campbell’s Soup 1 a series of 10 colour figure in the American Pop Art movement, which emerged dismayed to see Lichtenstein’s comic strip paintings – screenprints in the 1950s and came to prominence in the 1960s and subjects which Warhol himself had explored. Warhol was each sheet 91.8 x 61.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, 1970s. Pop was notable for its subject matter, which was devastated, particularly as his cartoon paintings preceded Canberra Lichtenstein’s by about a year. What was equally distressing The Poynton Bequest, 2006 drawn from popular culture, including film, television, advertisements, newspapers and pulp magazines, and the for the artist was that Castelli rejected Warhol’s overtures. A distraught and frustrated Warhol lamented that ‘It’s too adoption of mass production techniques in the making. late for the cartoons. I’ve got to do something that will This included screen printing, a printing process frequently have a lot of impact, that will be different from Lichtenstein used in the commercial world. and Rosenquist’. Warhol was to become one of the most talented When Warhol asked gallery owner Muriel Latow what exponents of Pop Art, becoming a contemporary artist subject he should choose (as he often did with friends) of ‘everyday life’. Warhol’s subjects resonated because of she proposed that Warhol should choose a subject ‘that their familiar origins. Celebrities were a favourite – everybody sees every day that everybody recognises … Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Mick Jagger, Chairman Mao and like a can of soup’. In late 1961 Warhol began his images Muhammad Ali all appeared and reappeared in his art of Campbell’s Soup cans, sometimes as individual cans in single or multiple images. So too, the ever-present and sometimes in series, and explored the entire range of products in our daily lives, such as the ubiquitous humble Campbell’s Soup. can of Campbell’s Soup. The repetitive nature of many of That a soup can could be the subject of art astonished his compositions and series suggests an art of the assembly everybody. Although he had been previously rejected by line, and Warhol’s expressed ideal to make use of mass the New York art gallery scene, Warhol gained instant production techniques such as screen-printing for his notoriety as an artist and received an offer of an exhibition canvases and prints. by the art dealer Irving Blum at his Ferus Gallery in Los From 1960 Warhol began painting cartoon characters Angeles. He became an instant success because of the in a deadpan manner, enlarging comic imagery and sheer bravura of his choice of subject matter. Warhol continued to develop this theme in his paintings and later consumer products onto unstretched canvases using a in two series of prints produced during 1968 and 1969 that projector. From these projections he usually painted directly featured different soup flavours. The series Campbell Soup onto the canvas or sometimes used photostats of the 1, recently acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, is projections as the preliminary drawing. Initially, Warhol notable for its brilliance of colour and banal subject and had worked in a painterly, gestural manner. As his work has become a key icon for Pop Art. Many years later, in evolved, however, Warhol wished to distance himself from 1977, when interviewed in High Times, Warhol reflected the methods of the Abstract Expressionists and sought that the Campbell’s Soup cans remained his favourites of initially to conceal the human touch in his art. all his work. Warhol originally made his name as a commercial artist, Warhol’s art was never simply a reproduction of a which became a significant drawback in his career as many commercial product, which was a criticism made of his work failed to consider him a legitimate artist. In order to be during his lifetime. Years later we can consider Warhol’s considered an artist in his own right, he would frequent art as one with a distinct style and radical choice of subject the New York galleries in the hope his own work might matter – and one which has withstood the test of time. be accepted. In particular, he courted Leo Castelli, whose Jane Kinsman gallery was the stable for many of the young emerging Pop Senior Curator, International Prints, artists, including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg Drawings and Illustrated Books

38 national gallery of australia artonview autumn 2007 39 new acquisition Australian Art

John Glover

John Glover John Glover is undoubtedly Australia’s most important further inward and extending the distant headland. He also Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833 colonial artist before 1850. In 1767 he was born at changed the shape and number of clouds and rearranged oil on canvas 72.5 x 111.5 cm Houghton-on-the Hill, Leicestershire, and developed an the trees, foliage and animals. Moreover, he brought Claude National Gallery of Australia, Canberra early love of pastoral landscape. During the first two into the nineteenth century by introducing the figure of a John Glover decades of the nineteenth century he painted mostly in Regency gentleman in a blue frock coat. Rural landscape with watercolour, contributing to the popularity of this medium, herdsman, milkmaid Rural landscape with herdsman, milkmaid and cattle and cattle c. 1810 and achieving considerable critical and financial success. c. 1810 is a characteristic example of Glover’s English work, oil on canvas 51.5 x 71.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, After 1812, when the watercolour boom subsided, Glover reflecting his admiration of Claude and demonstrating how Canberra returned to working regularly in oils, painting in a more Gift of JRC Smiley, 2006 he saw English subjects through a Claudian framework. realistic manner. He emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land, The idealised, Arcadian scene, framed by trees with curving arriving in Hobart in 1831, aged sixty-four. limbs on the left, has similarities with Claude’s Landscape In the last eighteen months the Gallery has significantly with piping shepherd – and, consequently, Glover’s own improved its holdings of Glover’s work, adding three interpretations of this painting. The Claudian aspect is important oil paintings to the national collection. These enhanced by Glover’s depiction of the setting sun glowing are the magical Mr Robinson’s House on the Derwent, over the tranquil landscape. In its domestic and pastoral Van Diemen’s Land c. 1838 bought from the auction of the subject it provides a link between his English imagery and Foster’s collection in May 2005 (and discussed in artonview his rural views of Australia. Glover probably painted it in no. 43), the English Rural landscape with herdsman, 1810, before he made his first (exact-size) copy of Claude’s milkmaid and cattle c. 1810 generously gifted to the Landscape with piping shepherd. However, despite its Gallery by JRC Smiley in June 2006 and, more recently, the Claudian structure, there is something distinctly cosy and purchase of Glover’s re-interpretation of a Claude painting, English about the view, the herdsman, milkmaid and cattle Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833. quietly inhabiting the grass in the middle distance. Glover responded to the work of the seventeenth- Glover’s accomplishments as an artist after his century French landscape painter Claude Lorrain, and arrival in Australia are significant, and his oil paintings of particularly to his mastery of light. He sought to capture this Tasmanian landscapes are painted with a new confidence. atmosphere in many of his paintings, including Australian Nonetheless, his career as a painter in watercolours and oils works such as Mr Robinson’s House on the Derwent, in London was also important. Any significant collection Van Diemen’s Land. He was known by many during his of his paintings must reflect the breadth and diversity of lifetime as an ‘English Claude’. Glover made two ‘variations’ his output. These new additions to the National Gallery’s on a painting by Claude which he owned, of which Glover collection enable us to better demonstrate his Landscape with piping shepherd (after Claude) 1833 is one. remarkable achievements. In this painting, Glover borrowed from Claude to make his

own statement, adopting a more horizontal composition Anne Gray than that of the Claude original, moving the tree on the left Head of Australian Art

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new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

Roy de Maistre New Atlantis

Roy de Maistre Roy de Maistre’s New Atlantis is an exceptional work in its In 1932 Bacon designed a large round mirror that is New Atlantis c. 1933 oil on canvas painterly and conceptual daring and sophistication. It is one most likely the one that appears so prominently in 135.5 x 153.0 cm of the largest oil paintings by de Maistre and indeed by New Atlantis. The mirror reflects the interplay of smooth National Gallery of Australia, Canberra artists of his generation such as Roland Wakelin and and rough textures. It is the circle that we complete in our Grace Cossington Smith (and their British counterparts). mind’s eye. The vertical divide of the doorway anchors Painted after he migrated from Australia to England in the animated composition, while the dark space adds 1930, this is an ambitious extension of his earlier work a mysterious dimension to the stage-like arena. and conveys his broad, ongoing interest in modernism. The subtleties of colour, tone and luminosity in New The painting has affinities with aspects of British abstraction Atlantis call to mind de Maistre’s long-held interest in the (including works by artists such as Paul Nash and Ben spiritual, psychological effects of colour, revealed in his Nicholson) and with the European surrealism (including the ‘colour music’ paintings shown in a famous exhibition metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico). There are also Colour in Art with Roland Wakelin in Sydney in 1919. In echoes of spare, linear drawings by Picasso and Matisse – in the catalogue for the show he drew directly on Beatrice the fine outline of a figure etched into the dark aperture of Irwin’s New science of colour, first published in Britain in the studio doorway. 1916. Irwin outlined parallels between colour and states of In the early 1930s de Maistre shared his interests in mind, noting for example that tones of grey, puce, russet, modernist ideas – in painting and in design – with the green or brown were physical sedatives while night blue is young British artist Francis Bacon, whose studio provided the basis for New Atlantis. He painted numerous versions a spiritual sedative. of different studios that Bacon inhabited around this time, The first version of New Atlantis was owned by the reflecting a crisply delineated modernist aesthetic (so Irish-born collector Gladys MacDermot (a great supporter different from Bacon’s grunge-filled later studios). of modernist artists, including de Maistre and Cossington To repeatedly paint another artist’s studio is to paint their Smith). The work, destroyed in the bombings in the Second intimate world – not only its physicality but also the ideas World War, was reproduced in the journal New Atlantis, that inform it. It is a way of metaphorically joining hands; of edited by Dimitrije Mitrinovic who commissioned the establishing reciprocal viewpoints. present painting for himself. In de Maistre’s New Atlantis, When de Maistre arrived in London at around the title, along with an implicit sense of mystery – of things thirty-six years of age Bacon was twenty-one and had been partially revealed and concealed – corresponds with the painting for only a short while. He had been working as notion of a new world beyond the one we immediately an interior designer, an interest shared by de Maistre, whose perceive. As a complex amalgamation of many aspects, designs of ‘furniture for a man’s bedroom’ had appeared New Atlantis is testimony to a spirit of the times, to a close in The Home magazine in Australia in December 1929. artistic friendship and to the dynamic interactions between Photographs of Bacon’s studio showing circular rugs as well works of this Australian-born artist and those of his English as glass and tubular steel tables he designed inspired by and European peers. It is fitting that it should now be Le Corbusier (among others) appeared in the August edition displayed so prominently in the National Gallery’s displays of the British journal Studio. An invitation for a show in of international modernism. November 1930 in Bacon’s Queensberry Mews studio notes

the inclusion of Bacon’s furniture and rugs, de Maistre’s Deborah Hart paintings and Jean Shepheard’s watercolours and drawings. Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture

42 national gallery of australia new acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

John Martin Tipungwuti Tuitini

John Martin Tipungwuti is a skilled carver and artisan of the Tiwi people. He is from Melville Island, about 60 kilometres north-west of Darwin in the Northern Territory. Tipungwuti’s Tuitini, or Pukumani pole, is an artistic and cultural expression of the Pukumani ceremony – a ritual mourning to mark the death of a loved one. Many months or years after the deceased person is buried, the family commission the in-laws to carve and decorate an elaborate tutini for the deceased. These are traditionally made from bloodwood but cured ironwood is the preferred timber for commercial carvings because of its durability. The pole is placed at the gravesite during an elaborate song and dance performance and then painted and decorated with ornate tunga (bark bags) which are placed upside down on top of the poles to signify the end of life. The tutini is then left to the elements to decay. As Melville Island is in the tropics, Pukumani ceremonies are only performed in the dry season from May to November of each year. The current practice of carving Pukumani poles is an expression of the artist’s cultural heritage through contemporary art. Although Tipungwuti’s Tuitini was made for the art market its significance and power as a cultural object is evident, acting as a marker to help share his knowledge and the art of the Tiwi people.

Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

John Martin Tipungwuti Tiwi people Tuitini [Pukumani pole] 2006 natural earth pigments on ironwood 260.0 cm (h) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

44 national gallery of australia new acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Djambawa Marawili Baraltja, Baykuldji, Munurru

Djambawa Marawili Djambawa Marawili lives at Baniyala, an outstation three Mardarrpa people hours drive from Yirrkala which is 800 kilometres east of Baraltja, Baykuldji, Munurru 2005 natural earth pigments Darwin in the Northern Territory. He is a senior law man on bark 220.0 x 81.0 cm and ceremonial leader for the Mardappa people from National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Blue Mud Bay in north-east Arnhem Land. In his early life, Marawili learnt to paint from his father, Wakuthi, and his uncle, the renowned bark painter, Narritjin Maymuru. Marawili is now a senior artist who has experienced huge success in mainstream society. In 1996 he won the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for best bark painting. The underlying themes of Marawili’s paintings are associated with ancestral narratives and the creation of the land. Using geometric designs and intricate rarrk (cross-hatching) this painting describes the physical landscape adjacent to Blue Mud Bay at the outlet of the watercourse known as Baraltja which extends from Munurru (the open ocean) depicted at the top of the painting. This painting is about the journey of fresh water through country to the sea, and the mixing of fresh water into salt water. During the torrential wet monsoons fresh water enters the tidal mud flats of Baraltja and floods it. Baraltja, which is fed by two spiritually significant river systems – the Koolatong River (known as Baykuldji) and the Gangan River – is also the sacred place of residence for the Lightning Snake, Burrutji. The Lightning Snake can be seen in the painting, awakened, facing upstream and tasting the incoming fresh water. After provoking the lightning, the brackish waters become salt water at the horizon where Wangupini, the feminine wet season thunderhead, takes up the water, to rain it back over the hinterland in a cyclical rebirth. Thus the water traces the spiritual kinship connections of the artist’s identity, and leaves a metaphor for the cycle of life. The painting records both of these aspects as well as the political and physical geography of this area. Acknowledgments to Djambawa Marawili and the Buku - Larrngay Mulka Art Centre, Yirrkala, Northern Territory.

Chantelle Woods Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

artonview autumn 2007 45 new acquisition Australasian Photography

Peter Peryer Datura

This image, an exquisitely observed image of the seed capsule of a datura plant, illustrates Peter Peryer’s continuing interest in formal qualities in his photographs. Comparing it to an image of a tomato made in 2006, one with very similar composition, Peryer commented: ‘What interests me most is that they are in terms of their shapes, identical images. It seems that I have templates that I try to fit over existing subject matter.’ During the 1980s in particular, Peryer’s interest in photographing plants was intense, in terms of formal considerations as well as focusing on those species unique to New Zealand. Peryer’s oeuvre has developed that way; areas of interest often continuing to evolve over many years. It does have a quality of being like a very unusual, very personal photo album of his life. As Peryer has observed: ‘My photographs are self-portraits. The photographs are somehow related to my past. I don’t know why or how’. There is certainly little doubt that they are manifestations of his subconscious, of memories and feelings explored intuitively. Other images by Peryer may have a greater sense of foreboding and immediate strangeness than this image and yet Datura represents his photographic style well, seemingly straightforward and displaying a precise balance of content and form. And yet onto this, as with everything he photographs, Peryer unexpectedly and unobtrusively overlays himself: idiosyncratic, sometimes humorous, often melancholic. You could almost say that his photographs are emotionally time-bombed. It may seem like a contradiction but there is a quality that you find in the work of the great modernist photographer Edward Weston as well, a photographer Peryer admires greatly: a detached and yet at the same time a powerfully passionate view of the world. Peryer imbues talismanic weight and significance into everything he photographs. This strange, enigmatic and otherworldly intensity of his vision that has been distilled through contemplation makes careful observation of his imagery Peter Peryer Datura 2002 a rewarding and often surprising experience. gelatin silver photograph 41.0 x 30.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Anne O’Hehir Canberra Curator, Photography

46 national gallery of australia new acquisition International Photography

Lionel Wendt Still life

Modernist art photographer Lionel Wendt was born in Wendt’s work as a regional modernist in the Asia– Lionel Wendt Still life 1942 gelatin silver photograph Pacific region parallels the surrealist work of Australian 1900 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to a prominent family of 30.4 x 20.1 cm Dutch and Sinhalese origin. He qualified as a barrister in modernist Max Dupain in Sydney during the 1930s and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra England in 1924 where he also trained as a classical concert 1940s. Wendt’s image of a classical statue and what pianist. By 1928 Wendt had abandoned law for music, appears to be the head of a bodhisattva is similar to works developing an interest in modern art as well as avant garde by Dupain in its strange counterpoints of objects. The music. However, by 1932, while still giving piano concert image, however, also seems to refer to Wendt’s European recitals, Wendt had turned to photography as his major and Sinhalese heritage. medium of artistic expression. (His father was a judge but Wendt died prematurely in 1944. A memorial also an amateur photographer and had taught his son publication on his work was published in the 1950s and the craft.) Wendt exhibited his work in many international a relatively small number of his prints survive. Wendt’s negatives were destroyed by an executor. In 1963 the photography salons and had several solo exhibitions. Lionel Wendt Art Centre was established in Colombo. Artistically Wendt was influenced in particular by It is dedicated to the performing arts, painting, sculpture surrealism and experimented with various techniques and photography. and processes, including montage and solarisation.

He is principally a figurative artist and even his still-life Gael Newton studies have a human interest character. Senior Curator, Photography

artonview autumn 2007 47 new acquisition Asian Art

Ganesha

Ganesha is the Hindu god of wisdom and intellect, the remover of obstacles and the bearer of good fortune. He is worshipped before important undertakings and is one of the most popular Indian divinities. The son of Shiva and Parvati (also called Uma), Ganesha is said to have been modelled by Parvati using sandalwood or turmeric paste scraped from her body. In one of many stories explaining his appearance, Ganesha began his life as a little boy. Parvati asked the child to stand guard while she took a bath. At that time, Shiva, who had not yet met Ganesha, returned home and demanded to be let in. When Ganesha refused, an enraged Shiva decapitated him. Parvati was devastated and, in remorse, Shiva replaced Ganesha’s head with that of the next creature to pass – an elephant. In the form of a stele, this dynamic sculpture was carved during the medieval period (700–1200) in northern India, probably in Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh. Temple architecture and sculpture at that time were intimately connected and this work would once have filled a niche in a temple dedicated to Shiva. It shows a corpulent eight-armed Ganesha dancing on a lotus above a tiny image of his vehicle, the rat. Richly adorned with jewellery, Ganesha appears to hold round modaka sweets in two of his hands – one sweet is about to be popped into the deity’s mouth, while the other is being snaffled by his spiralling trunk. He holds an axe in another of his hands and is depicted surrounded by representations of celestial beings, musicians, dancers and elephants, as well as a pair of rampant vyala, mythical creatures with lion bodies and composite heads, and what may be legendary makara water monsters. This delightful image joins another important recent acquisition, a twelfth-century Chola period sculpture from southern India of Ganesha’s six-headed brother Skanda (also known as Karttikeya) seated astride a peacock.

Ganesha possibly Rajasthan Melanie Eastburn or Uttar Pradesh, India Curator, Asian Art 10th–11th century sandstone 108.3 x 61.0 x 25.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

48 national gallery of australia new acquisition Asian Art

Li textiles

Woman’s skirt Run Li people late 19th – early 20th century cotton, silk, dyes supplementary weft weaving 37.0 x 28.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

A group of rare nineteenth and early twentieth-century Traditionally, the patterning is produced using a quill to textiles from the Li people was recently added to the pick out the combinations of the warp yarns through which Gallery’s impressive collections of Southeast Asian textiles. supplementary wefts are inserted. The Li peoples are from Hainan Island, off the south coast The traditional Li woman’s dress comprises a dark indigo of China in the South China Sea, and are related culturally jacket emblazoned with elaborately woven or embroidered and linguistically to the various Tai groups of Laos, panels and insets, sometimes incorporating frogs, humans Thailand, north Vietnam and southern China. and dragon-serpents, and a small tubular skirt (known The collection of thirty-four traditional items of as rin or lin), made of wild hemp or cotton. This skirt is costume and textiles includes tunics, skirts, loincloths covered with intricate supplementary brocade designs, and ceremonial hangings. Li women are skilled weavers combining geometric shapes with anthropomorphic figures and design complex patterning in supplementary weft in the lower border. The motifs in the central band possibly weaving. Other textiles are decorated with warp ikat. The depict ships manned by little figures.The traditional women weave narrow bands of cloth, the widths of which religious practice of the Li peoples centres on ancestral are generally narrower than the maximum stretch of the worship and animism. weavers’ arms. Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

artonview autumn 2007 49 children’s gallery

Tools and techniques of printmaking

14 April – 1 July 2007

George Baldessin The word ‘print’ has many meanings – from a handprint Techniques of printmaking can be divided into Personage and window II 1972 intaglio plate-mark on a cave wall to the written word. Photographs and four categories: 91.0 x 70.6 cm posters are also often called prints. However in connection ° relief processes in which the ink is applied to National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of with fine art the word ‘print’ has a special meaning. raised surfaces George Baldessin 1975 Artists’ prints are handmade multiple images produced ° intaglio processes in which the ink is held in grooves and hollows using a variety of printing techniques, usually on paper. ° planographic (or lithographic) processes in which Printmaking differs from painting and drawing because the inked surface is level with the un-inked areas the image can be produced in multiple copies and, unlike using the natural repulsion of grease and water photography, the image is made from the delivery of ° stencil processes in which the ink is applied through pigment to a surface rather than as a result of a chemical a barrier rather than from another surface. reaction on a light sensitive surface. Relief printing is one of the earliest print techniques in Tools and techniques of printmaking is an educational western art, dating from the fourteenth century. Blocks exhibition which displays the tools and explains the of either wood or lino are normally used but recently techniques that have been used by printmakers both artists have experimented with polystyrene and other recently and in the past. Designed to support the major contemporary materials to create a surface of different survey exhibition The story of Australian printmaking levels. The areas to be printed stand higher than the 1801–2005, this didactic exhibition displays many of the background and the print is created either by rubbing a materials and tools from the Gallery’s collection of over sheet of paper over the inked surface or by placing the 1000 artists’ plates, blocks and stencils. paper and block under vertical pressure in a press.

50 national gallery of australia Intaglio techniques rely on an incised line in a metal plate holding ink and releasing it to soft damp paper under pressure. Engraving, drypoint, mezzotint, etching, soft-ground, aquatint and lift-ground are all intaglio methods. In some cases, such as etching, acid is used to bite into the plate. Aquatint is chiefly used to create tone and was created in the late eighteenth century to capture the effects of watercolour wash. Resin particles, usually too tiny to be visible, are dusted and fused onto the plate creating minute channels. These are eroded by the acid creating a fine rough surface that holds the ink, leaving a subtle tone when printed. The two prints by George Baldessin, in which large areas of aquatint were used, show the same image in different colours. Planographic printing was invented at the end of the eighteenth century. The image is not cut or incised but depends on the antipathy of grease and water. A greasy Will Dyson The grooms, Happy Valley, liquid drawing medium called tusche (also available in a Franvilliers 1918 lithograph printed image 43.2 x 60.0 cm solid crayon form) is applied to a thick slab of limestone National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the or, more commonly today, specially prepared metal plates. Australian War Memorial During the printing process the stone or plate is dampened 1989 with water so that when the oil-based ink is applied it Alan Sumner Church School, Carlton adheres only to the drawn image and is repelled by the rest 1948 stencil printed image 26.2 x 29.0 cm of the stone or plate. Lithography is a very flexible medium National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the artist and the exhibition displays a number of prints that vary 1993 from the intricate graphic style seen in this print by Will Dyson to prints that are bright, hard edged and abstract. Stencil techniques are the oldest forms of printing. Colour is applied through an area cut out of a metal or oiled paper mask. During the twentieth century screenprinting or serigraphy was developed. Initially it was a commercial process but artists soon experimented with a wide variety of stencil materials from cut paper to photography to create innovative prints. The stencil is fixed to a fine mesh stretched within a frame and the ink is pushed through the stencil with a squeegee onto the paper beneath. These two prints by Alan Sumner demonstrate the difference between a print from two stencils and one from four stencils. Each stencil adds another overlay of colour to the image. The exhibition introduces these four main printmaking techniques alongside examples of blocks, plates and tools used by artists. Some prints are exhibited with the matrix the artist used; others have been selected in order to demonstrate traditional or innovative use of the medium.

Jenny Manning Project Coordinator, Education

artonview autumn 2007 51 A Film Australia National Interest Program in association with Early Works. Produced with the assistance of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

SCREENING ON ABC TV THURSDAYS AT 6.50PM FROM 22 FEBRUARY 2007

HIDDEN [15 x 5 mins] TREASURESwith Betty Churcher ^ch^YZi]ZCVi^dcVa

To purchase the DVD, please contact Film Australia Sales on (02) 9413 8634 or visit our website www.filmaust.com.au

betty.indd 1 29/1/07 3:14:38 PM Children enjoying Sculpture Sculpture Garden Sunday Garden Sunday 2006

Sunday 4 March 2007

This year the Gallery is hosting the third Sculpture Garden Sunday family event, which celebrates creativity and the arts. Sculpture Garden Sunday encourages visitors to look at, think about and make art, with workshops held for various age groups, particularly children aged 12 years and under. The beautiful setting of the Sculpture Garden provides inspiration throughout the day as well as an excellent opportunity to use a wide variety of media, some of which cannot be used in indoor gallery spaces for art conservation reasons. Art making workshops such as junk sculpture, clay, drawing and painting are held during the morning, from 10.30 am until 12.30 pm, using quality art materials and methods. These workshops are facilitated by artists, educators, conservation staff and voluntary guides who also facilitate various demonstrations and sculptural installations throughout the day. The involvement of artists in these workshops and demonstrations is central to the event. One of the highlights of the day is artists and visitors working together to create an installation piece. Other activities include a Sculpture Garden children’s trail which enable families to explore the sculptures in the garden, and a workshop with Gallery conservators to educate children and families about how the Gallery cares for its outdoor sculptures. In the afternoon visitors can relax and enjoy lunch under the trees by the lake and listen to local band The Cashews and various performances by children’s musical groups. Families are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch or to make the most of the coffee cart and sausage sizzle. Sculpture Garden Sunday is hosted by the Education and Public Programs Department and the hard work and dedication of voluntary guides and other Gallery staff help make the day a success. It’s a fantastic opportunity for families to explore and enjoy art together. Further details about the Sculpture Garden Sunday event can be found on the National Gallery of Australia website nga.gov.au. It is free of charge and subject to weather conditions.

Joanna Krabman Educator, Family and School Programs

artonview autumn 2007 53 1 2

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faces in view

1 A student from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 2 Deborah Jones and Dr Robert Edwards AO at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 3 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 4 & 5 Visitors at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 6 Esther and Sophie Constable at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 7 NGA Director Ron 16 Radford AM, Musée du Louvre Director M Henri Loyrette, and Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 8 Joe and Silvana Colucciello and Bob Powell at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 9 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 10 Roslyn Packer, Ray Strange and Chris Lane at the media preview for Impressionism to Pop Art 11 Brian McIntyre and George Sexton at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 12 Andrew Andersons and NGA Director Ron Radford AM at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 13 His Excellency Muhammad Taufik, Egyptian Ambassador, and Sarah McKay at the dinner for Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 14 Roslyn Packer at the launch of Impressionism to Pop Art 15 Students from the Orana School at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 16 Robijn Alexandra and Sheena Parkinson at Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre 17 Andy Busuttil and John Robinson from Blue Mountain Sound performing at the launch of Egyptian antiquities from the Louvre

17 Convenor Roger Butler, Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings; Keynote speaker eX de Medici

This symposium brings together artists, art critics and curators to present papers on printmaking in Australia and the region.

It coincides with the major exhibition The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 (30 March – 3 June 2007) and the publication of Printed images in Colonial Australia 1801–1901.

Held over three days, the symposium includes formal papers and informal discussions as well as the viewing of associated exhibitions and events at local print workshops and galleries.

$250; $190 members/concession; $110 students (includes all sessions, exhibition entry, lunch and morning and afternoon tea) Bookings essential For more information updates & online bookings visit printsandprintmaking.gov.au

Supported by the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund

Principal sponsor

eX de Medici United spectre #3 2006 (detail) etching printed by Ros Atkins at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne Private collection

Printed images in colonial Australia 1801–1901

Printed images in colonial Australia 1801–1901 reveals some 

2OGERæ"UTLERæISæ3ENIORæ#URATORæOFæ!USTRALIANæ0RINTS æ0OSTERSæANDæ -1%+)7v-2v'3032-%0v9786%0-%vxwxYx€wx 0RINTEDæIMAGESæINæCOLONIALæ!USTRALIAæn æTHEælRSTæOFæTWOæVOLUMES æ )LLUSTRATEDæ"OOKSæATæTHEæ.ATIONALæ'ALLERYæOFæ!USTRALIA æ#ANBERRAæ/VERæ ISæCONCERNEDæWITHæTHEæHISTORYæOFæPRINTMAKINGæINæ!USTRALIASæFOUNDATIONALæof the remarkable colonial works that form the cornerstones THEæLASTæTWENTY lVEæYEARSæHEæHASæESTABLISHEDæATæTHEæ'ALLERYæTHEæNATIONSæ PERIODæ4HEæEARLIESTæINTAGLIOæPRINTSæWEREæPRODUCEDæINæ.EWæ3OUTHæ7ALESæ lNESTæCOLLECTIONæOFæPRINTEDæART æNUMBERINGæOVERæ æWORKS BYæAæFREEæSETTLER æ*OHNæ,EWIN æWHOSEæEXQUISITELYæHAND COLOUREDæETCHINGSæ OFæMOTHSæANDæBIRDSæWEREæPUBLISHEDæINææANDææ4HEælRSTæ !NæAUTHORITYæONæ!USTRALIANæPRINTMAKING æHEæHASæWRITTENæDElNITIVEæ VIEWSæOFæTHEæCOLONYæTOæBEæPRINTEDæLOCALLYæWEREæPUBLISHEDæINææBYæof the National Gallery of Australia’s collection of Australian CATALOGUESæONæTHEæPRINTSæOFæ4HEAæ0ROCTOR æ-ARGARETæ0RESTONæANDæ ANæENTREPRENEURIALæEMANCIPISTæANDæENGRAVEDæBYæTHEæCONVICTSæASSIGNEDæ #HRISTIANæ7ALLERæFROMæTHEæTWENTIETHæCENTURY æANDæ!UGUSTUSæ%ARLEæANDæ TOæHIMæ&ROMæAæCULTUREæOFæ@MAKINGæDOæINæTHEæEARLYæDECADESæOFæTHEæ 4HOMASæ"OCKæFROMæTHEæCOLONIALæPERIODæ(EæHASæCURATEDæNUMEROUSæ PENALæSETTLEMENT æTHEæEXTENT æQUALITYæANDæSCOPEæOFæPRINTæPRODUCTIONæ KEYæEXHIBITIONS æINCLUDINGæ4HEæ%UROPEANSæ%MIGR£æARTISTSæINæ!USTRALIAæ INCREASEDæEXPONENTIALLYæANDæKEPTæPACEæWITHæDEVELOPMENTSæOVERSEASæ4HEæprints. Inspired collecting over the past twenty-five years has næ æ)SLANDSæINæTHEæSUNæ0RINTSæBYæ)NDIGENOUSæARTISTSæOFæ BACKGROUNDSæOFæTHEæPRINTMAKERSæWHOSEæWORKæISæDISCUSSEDæVARIEDæGREATLY æ !USTRALIAæANDæTHEæ!USTRALASIANæREGIONæ æANDæ4HEæSTORYæOFæ!USTRALIANæ WITHæPROFESSIONALæTRADEæWORKERSæANDæARTISTSæMAKINGæEQUALLYæIMPORTANTæ PRINTMAKINGæ  CONTRIBUTIONSæ"YæTHEæMID NINETEENTHæCENTURY æPRINTMAKINGæWASælRMLYæculminated in an unparalleled collection of more than 36,000 ESTABLISHEDæINæKEYæAREASæOFæCOMMERCIALæENTERPRISE æSCIENCE æARCHITECTURE æ !æPASSIONATEæADVOCATEæFORæWORKSæOFæARTæONæPAPER æ2OGERæ"UTLERæINITIATEDæ ART æADVERTISING æILLUSTRATEDæBOOKSæANDæNEWSPAPERSÊ4HEæDISCOVERYæOFæGOLDæ THEæTRIENNIALæ!USTRALIANæ0RINTæ3YMPOSIUMSæINææ(EæHASæRECENTLYæ ATTRACTEDæMANYæTHOUSANDSæOFæIMMIGRANTS æPRINCIPALLYæTOæ6ICTORIAæTHESEæ DEVELOPEDæTHEæMAJORæWEBSITEæPRINTSANDPRINTMAKINGGOVAUæTOæGIVEæ INCLUDEDæTHEæPROFESSIONALæPRINTERSæANDæARTISTSæWHOæPUBLISHEDæLITHOGRAPHEDæworks. The 377 images reproduced in this publication, many ACCESSæTOæTHEæ'ALLERYSæCOLLECTIONæANDæPROVIDEæRESOURCESæFORæTHEæSTUDYæANDæ BOOKSæOFæVIEWS æSIGNIlCANTæPRINTSæOFæTHEæNINETEENTHæCENTURYæ4HROUGHæ APPRECIATIONæOFæPRINTMAKINGæINæ!USTRALIAæANDæTHEæREGION THEæSECONDæHALFæOFæTHEæCENTURYæPRINTMAKINGæINæ!USTRALIAæCONTINUEDæTOæ  MATCHæDEVELOPMENTSæOVERSEASæ/NEæPARTICULARæHIGHæPOINTæFORæWOOD -1%+)7v-2v'3032-%0v9786%0-%vxwxYx€wx ENGRAVERSæWASæTHEæPRODUCTIONæOFæTHEæLAVISHæof 0ICTURESQUEæ!TLASæOFæ!USTRALASIAthem exceedingly æ rare or long overlooked, are presented PUBLISHEDæBETWEENæn æTOæCOINCIDEæWITHæTHEæCENTENARYæOFæ%UROPEANæ SETTLEMENTæ0RINTEDæIMAGESæINæCOLONIALæ!USTRALIAæCONCLUDESæWITHæTHEæ PHOTOGRAVUREæOFæ4OMæ2OBERTSSæPAINTINGæCOMMISSIONEDæTOæCELEBRATEæTHEæalongside Roger Butler’s original research and information FEDERATIONæOFæTHEæ!USTRALIANæSTATESæINææ

4HEææIMAGESæREPRODUCEDæHERE æMANYæOFæTHEMæEXCEEDINGLYæRAREæORæLONGæ OVERLOOKED æAREæPRESENTEDæALONGSIDEæ2OGERæ"UTLERSæORIGINALæRESEARCHæANDænot previously assembled in order to give full weight to the INFORMATIONæNOTæPREVIOUSLYæASSEMBLEDæINæORDERæTOæGIVEæFULLæWEIGHTæTOæTHEæ IMPORTANTæROLEæOFæTHEæPRINTEDæIMAGEæINæ!USTRALIANæARTæANDæCULTURE

4HISæBOOKæREVEALSæSOMEæOFæTHEæREMARKABLEæCOLONIALæWORKSæTHATæFORMæTHEæimportant role of the printed image in Australian art and culture. CORNERSTONESæOFæTHEæ.ATIONALæ'ALLERYæOFæ!USTRALIASæCOLLECTIONæOFæ!USTRALIANæ PRINTSæ)NSPIREDæCOLLECTINGæOVERæTHEæPASTæTWENTY lVEæYEARSæHASæCULMINATEDæ INæANæUNPARALLELEDæCOLLECTIONæOFæMOREæTHANæ æWORKSæ RRP A$89 To purchase National Gallery of Australia publications, please contact the Gallery Shop on 02 6240 6420.

ISBN 0642541802

9 7 8 0 6 4 2 5 4 1 8 0 2 VIPS: photofocus forum

Saturday 26 May 11 am – 6 pm

Collecting: just what makes a photograph so important, so valuable?

International and Australian curators and appraisers discuss the commercial and personal value of photography. The forum includes talks on the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Photography and mortality, and the National Gallery of Australia’s VIPS.

$25; $15 members/concession Includes afternoon refreshments Bookings essential

Max Dupain Sunbaker 1937 gelatin silver photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1976

JANET DAWSON SURVEY a Bathurst Regional Art Gallery travelling exhibition

This exhibition examines Janet Dawson’s remarkable career from 1953 to 2006 and confirms her place as one of Australia’s most accomplished living artists.

Curated by art historian Christine France, the exhibition will tour nationally in 2007:

Drill Hall Gallery ANU, Canberra 15 February–25 March S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney 30 April–10 June Queensland University Art Museum, Brisbane 7 July–19 August Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart 6 September–21 October Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery 30 October-2 December

Image: Janet Dawson, Moon at dawn through telescope January 2000, oil on canvas, 122.0 diameter, collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Janet Dawson. Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia 2006.

Publication sponsor Inspired by No Wood, Water, Limits Rock & Rhythm

Saturday 24th March, 2007 to Friday 20th April, 2007 A joint exhibition Thursday to Monday 10am to 5pm of artworks by This is a unique opportunity to see the work of Southern Highlands based artist, John Kirton & John Kirton on display in the cellar door at Bou-saada Vineyard & Wines. This exhibition is based upon John’s belief that creatively there are “no limits” - if Margie Mullins you work from your heart and imagination all manner of revelations are possible. Bou-saada has wines for tasting and purchase, with lunch available Saturday and Sunday. 1 May to Why not take the time to view this exciting exhibition, taste some wine and stay for lunch? 31 May, 2007 Bookings available for small groups.

Sydney Antique Centre 531 South Dowling St KELLS CREEK ROAD, MITTAGONG Surry Hills NSW 2010 Off Wombeyan Caves Road Tel: 02 9361 3244 TEL: 4878-5399 www.bousaada.com - www.johnkirton.com.au DM_NGAJan07 25/1/07 1:22 PM Page 1

THE LEADING AUSTRALIAN OWNED ART AUCTIONEERS AND VALUERS www.deutschermenzies.com ENTRIES NOW INVITED MAJOR FINE ART AUCTION SYDNEY JUNE 2007

Deutscher~Menzies’ December 2006 Auction viewing Sydney Melbourne Adrian Newstead Litsa Veldekis John Keats Tim Abdallah Veronica Angelatos tel 02 8344 5404 tel 03 9822 1911 [email protected] [email protected]

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29 June – 16 September 2007 23 December 2006 – 6 May 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra National Gallery of Australia, Canberra George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW Grace Crowley Painting 1951 oil on composition board National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1969 nga.gov.au nga.gov.au artonview o art n v i ew

ISSUE No.49 ISSUE I SSUE a u t m n o.49 autumn 2007 autumn N o.49 2007 N AT ION A L 2007 a US T R A LI G A LLERYOF

The 6th Australian print The story of Australian symposium printmaking 18 01–20 05

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra John Lewin Spotted grossbeak 1803–05 from Birds of New South Wales 1813 (detail) hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra nga.gov.au International Galleries • Australian printmaking • Modern poster