Danila Vassilieff

Danila Vassilieﬀ

Vassilieﬀ: Journey to Mildura 22 November – 13 April 2014 Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery Guest curator Felicity St John Moore

Danila Vassilieﬀ: A New Art History 21 April – 7 October 2012 Heide Museum of Modern Art Curators Felicity St John Moore and Kendrah Morgan

Danila Vassilieﬀ Soap Box Derby 1938 oil on plywood 39.3 x 49.9 cm © Courtesy of Mimi Fry, Melbourne

This educaon resource has been produced by Heide Museum of Modern Art for Mildura Arts Centre. Reproducon and communicaon is permied for educaonal purposes only. No part of this educaon resource may be stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmied in any form or by any means.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 1 of 24 This educaon kit comprises informaon and tasks which introduce students to the work of arst Danila Vassilieﬀ. You may have seen this exhibion at Heide Museum of Modern Art or more recently at Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery. Diﬀerent artworks were shown at each of the galleries which is why some works in this educaon kit may not be seen at the gallery you visited.

Most important learning aims This resource aims to develop students’ knowledge, understanding and skills to develop: • confidence, curiosity, imaginaon and enjoyment to develop a personal voice through engagement with visual arts-making and ways of communicang visually • visual arts knowledge, understanding, skills, inquiry processes and crical and creave thinking to shape ideas and apply visual arts techniques, languages, materials, processes and technologies • understanding of visual arts in human experience, applying skills of crical analysis, evaluaon and aesthec understanding • respect for and knowledge of the diverse roles, tradions, histories and cultures of visual arts and arsts, and visual arts as a field of pracce and understanding, as they become crical and innovave arsts and audiences. General capabilies addressed in resources •Literacy: Students understand and use the language of the different art forms to describe, appraise and document their own artworks and those of their peers, and to respond to works. They use their literacy skills to access knowledge; make meaning; express thoughts, emoons and ideas; interact with others and parcipate in a range of communicaon acvies. •Crical and creave thinking: Students generate and analyse art forms, consider possibilies and processes, and make choices that assist them to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings creavely. In responding to art, students learn to analyse and idenfy possible meanings and connecons with self and community, and offer and receive effecve feedback. •Personal and social capability: When working with others, students develop and pracse social skills that assist them to communicate effecvely, work collaboravely and make considered group decisions. •Ethical behaviour: Students acvely engage in ethical decision making when reflecng on their own and others’ artworks. Links to other learning area: English • Language for social interacons: How language is used for different formal and informal social interacons is influenced • Evaluave language: How language is used to express opinions, and make evaluave judgments about people, places, things and texts • Listening and speaking interacons: The purposes and contexts through which students engage in listening and speaking interacons • Listening and speaking interacons: The skills students use when engaging in listening and speaking interacons • Oral presentaons: The formal oral presentaons that students engage in including presenng recounts and informaon, and presenng and arguing a point of view • Handwring: Developing a fluent, legible handwring style, beginning with unjoined leers and moving to joined handwring Suggesons for assessment and reflecon The following acvies provide suggesons that can be developed into assessment and reflecon tasks for formave and summave assessments. •Formave assessment tasks (during a project) include responses to key quesons in the Student Acvity Sheets, art work in progress, and parcipaon in discussion. •Summave assessment tasks (end of project) include producon and display of one-word concrete poem, self-evaluaon, and peer evaluaon. •Reflecon methods (individual or group) include parcipaon in small group or class discussion, viewing and responding to key quesons at the end of each acvity, responding to their own and others’ artwork.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 2 of 24 Danilla Vassilieﬀ: The exhibions

Russian émigré arst Danila Ivanovich Vassilieff (1897-1958), was one of the most dynamic figures in the development of figurave expressionism in Australian art. His direct approach and earthy humanism influenced a generaon of rebellious young Melbourne painters in the late 1930s and 1940s who became known collecvely as the Angry Penguins and were major players in the rise of local modernism —Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. Yet for many years aer Vassilieff’s death in 1958, writers, curators and collectors oen overlooked his work, and his role as a ‘father’ figure for this group remained under-acknowledged.

These exhibions seek to redress the balance and offer an opportunity for a re-evaluaon of the work and impact of this fascinang arst. They present the finest of Vassilieff’s achievements, spanning the period immediately preceding his arrival in Australia in 1935 through to the 1950s. Comprising key painngs from the mid-1930s to mid-1940s, a major representation of sculpture and a selection of works on paper, they demonstrate the calibre of Vassilieff’s work to a new generation of viewers and students. The Mildura exhibition focuses on Vassilieff’s time in the Sunraysia and Swan Hill districts, including his time teaching art at Mildura High School. Both displays are supported by substantial archival material from a recent important donation to the Heide Museum of Modern Art Archive.

The centrepiece of the Heide exhibion was the remarkable Expulsion from Paradise screen (1940, NGA collecon). Shown with a study for Sidney Nolan’s Kelly series painting Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (1946), the screen helps to elucidate Felicity St John Moore’s thesis that Vassilieff’s work was a crucial trigger for Nolan’s Kelly suite. The screen and other works also highlight Vassilieﬀ’s role in redirecng modern Australian art toward the expressive ﬁgurave tradion of Russian folk art and the arsc accomplishments of designers for the Ballets Russes.

Danilla Vassilieﬀ: A life well lived

The story of how Vassilieff came to make his career in Australia reads like a script for an epic feature film. Set across several connents and featuring a changing cast of colourful characters, it is interwoven with grand themes: war, survival, adventure, love, betrayal, loss and above all, an innate drive to create. The tale begins in Kagalnitskaya, a small village in South Russia, where Vassilieff was born to a Cossack father and Ukrainian mother. He demonstrated enough potenal as a young man for his parents to send him to a military academy in St Petersburg, where he trained as an engineer. Caught up in the Russian revoluon of 1917 and ensuing civil war, he joined the Cossack cavalry and served on the Eastern Front, aaining the rank of lieutenant colonel before being caught by the Reds at Baku, on the Caspian Sea. Aer a daring escape, he slowly made his way to China, living for a me with Tartar horsemen in Armenia, learning English in the employ of an Anglo-Persian oil company, and travelling by train through India and Burma.

Arriving in Shanghai in 1923 he married a fellow refugee, Anisia Nicolaevna and the couple made their way to Australia where they bought a sugar cane farm in Queensland. Later, while working on the railway extension in the Northern Territory, Vassilieﬀ began to paint, using a child’s painng kit.

In 1929, aer the marriage ended, Vassilieﬀ le Australia to study art in Paris. Finding the City of Light in the throes of depression, he went on to Rio de Janeiro, where he received a formal academic grounding from Russian arst Dimitri Ismailovitch, a specialist in copies of Byzanne frescoes and mosaics. Eventually however, Vassilieﬀ rejected the tradional approach, seeking to painng ‘living life … people in acon and movement’ rather than inanimate objects. He le Brazil and several peripatec years followed in which he travelled through the West Indies, England, Spain and Portugal, painng street scenes, landscapes and seascapes in a lively post-impressionist manner and exhibing at every opportunity.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 3 of 24 In London he befriended Moscow-born Vladimir Polunin, a former scene painter for Sergei Diaghiliev’s Ballets Russes, and a Professor of Scene Painng at the Slade School of Fine Art. Through this important contact Vassilieff moved in White Russian circles in London and became familiar with Ballets Russes’ producons, gaining an appreciaon of his own culture’s decorave art tradion that was likely enhanced by the Exhibion of Russian Art presented in Belgrave Square in 1935. He experimented with synthesising aspects of the Russian icon and folk tradions with the simplified forms and vibrant colour of modern art. This conflaon of tradions, which similarly informed the work of early Russian modern art neo-primivists such as Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, underpinned Vassilieff’s style henceforth.

Danila Vassilieﬀ in Bristol at the age of thirty-four Photographer unknown

Despite a posive recepon for his work in Europe sales were few, and with his homeland closed to him due to the increasingly repressive Stalinist regime, Vassilieff resolved to return to Australia. His first years back in the Anpodes marked the peak of his crical acclaim. During a period in Sydney he produced an early masterpiece: Street in Surry Hills (Self Portrait in Cathedral Street) (1937), in which he portrays himself wearing his trademark arst’s beret and gazing confidently out at the viewer. He states his painter’s credenals through references to the dramac mannerist figures and composional devices of old master El Greco, whose expressive images Vassilieff had admired in Toledo, Spain. His applicaon across the surface of opaque white highlights, derived from El Greco via from the Venean Renaissance masters, lend the image a shimmering effect.

Moving to Melbourne in mid-1937 at the height of the debate between the academicians and the ‘moderns’, Vassilieff was welcomed by the younger arsts as a direct transmier of the tenets of European modernism. He lived with his lover Helen Macdonald in the inner, working class suburb of Fitzroy, and the neighbourhood’s vibrant street life provided rich subject maer. Seng his easel up in the streets, he oen aracted the aenon of the local children, whose ancs feature in many composions, such as Soap Box Derby (1938), Children Playing in Collingwood School (1939) and Street Scene with Graffi (1938), which also reflect the arst’s irreverent sense of humour.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 4 of 24 These summarily executed works in many ways exemplify Vassilieﬀ’s credo that the message of an artwork is more important than its aesthec. He eschewed laborious convenonal techniques such as preparatory drawing and building layers of paint in favour of a spontaneous approach, freedom of expression and economy of means that emphasised emoonal response. In some instances the rawness of the images keenly conveys the stark reality of the lives of those depicted, while in others the quickly applied, vibrant brushwork suggests the hecc energy of urban acvity.

Stonygrad in Warrandyte c. 1941 Photograph by Albert Tucker

On the occasion of his first Melbourne exhibion at Riddell’s Gallery Vassilieff met John and Sunday Reed, who became his friends, staunch supporters and collectors of his work. Other early supporters were the progressive educators Clive and Janet Nield, who in 1939, during World War II, opened the Koornong Experimental School in Warrandyte, then in Melbourne’s outer reaches. The Nields employed Vassilieff as the foundaon art teacher and Helen to teach music. With the prospect of a seled life at last, Vassilieff decided to build a house across the creek from the school. He quarried the hillside for stone and constructed the dwelling with his own hands. Stonygrad, as it became known, was a focal point for the young arsts associated with the Reeds and Heide, where they absorbed Vassilieff’s ideas on recording subjecve experience and loosening their techniques.

In 1944 Vassilieff’s relaonship with Helen ended, leaving him devastated. Koornong closed in 1946 and he decided to sell Stonygrad and use the proceeds to leave Australia and follow friends to South Africa. By a twist of fate he fell in love with the woman who purchased his house, Elizabeth Hamill, and with her encouragement took a new direcon, turning his hand to sculpture. Inspired by his knowledge of Russian folk carving and familiarity with the work of European modern masters such as Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, known to him from London, he began to carve in local Lilydale marble. He quarried the limestone himself, basing his selecon on colour and texture, and ulised his engineering skills and experse with hand and power tools to create some of the most remarkable pieces in the history of Australia sculpture. Semi-abstracted figures, these works, like his painngs, oen have a sarical or playful edge. The apex of his achievement in the discipline is represented by Stenka Razin (1953), a portrayal of the seventeenth-century Cossack folk hero who, not unlike Ned Kelly in Australia, led a peasant rebellion and was executed, but not before famously tossing his princess into the Volga River. Vassilieff’s double-sided portrait of Razin embodies the contradictory aspects—leader and liberne—of his character.

Vassilieff became estranged from Elizabeth and spent his last years teaching at high schools in Mildura, Swan Hill and Eltham, and fishing on the Murray River. The disparate and restless imagery of his late work reflects the fragmentaon of his semi-inerant lifestyle and his wiy, somemes scathing, observaons of provincial society. He never returned to Russia. In March 1958, on a visit to Heide, he died of heart failure in John Reed’s arms.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 5 of 24 And Vassilieﬀ the man? He was a rich and sombre presence who carried with him the odour of Byzanum and Caucasian Steppes. In his life he expressed the full pathos and loneliness, the violence and tragedy of our human condion… he was an ikon in the bush, a gi, a mystery that informed us all. From Albert Tucker, A Tribute to Danila Vassilieﬀ, 1959

Kendrah Morgan Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art

The painngs

Danila Vassilieﬀ Truth Woolloomooloo 1936 oil on canvas on board 56 x 50cm Courtesy Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

In this painng the Truth newspaper lies in the guer as an obvious clue to the meaning of the tle. Vassilieff always insisted that the message maered more than the aesthec. The noon of ‘truth’, or ‘reality’, is reiterated in the direct and summary manner of the picture’s execuon: raw strokes of colour quickly applied. Vassilieff would set up his easel on the pavement, no doubt aracng the curiosity of the children and dogs whose presence here adds to the convincing impression of real life on the streets. The exact locaon has been idenfied as the intersecon of Lile Riley and Reservoir Streets, Woolloomooloo.

• Give a short explanaon of the following terms in relaon to Truth Woolloomooloo: art elements, historical context, aesthec qualies, subject TASK maer, and style. • Explain the ways in which Vassilieﬀ has used materials and processes to make Truth Woolloomooloo. • Discuss how aesthec qualies contribute to the style of the painng.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 6 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Street in Surry Hills (Self-Portrait in Cathedral Street) 1937 oil on hessian on composion board 118 x 88cm Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales Purchased 1982

Vassilieff marked his arrival in Sydney with this emblemac self-portrait in arst uniform beret—a kind of manifesto. The symbolic locaon of the image in Cathedral Street (not far from his studio in Bourke Street, Woolloomooloo), reflects his view of art as a means of spiritual regeneraon. Vassilieff had assimilated the Russian expressionist aesthec, whereby the arst strives to transcend the commonplace through the intensity of his own expression. The figure grouping, which includes a mother and child on the arst’s right and a turning youth on his le, invokes the intersecon between the eternal and the real. The figures are borrowed from El Greco—the old master who blended the Byzanne icon tradion with a new freedom of execuon—whose art Vassilieff had admired in Toledo, Spain, in 1934.

Making art Make a quick storyboard with 5 postcard size images of a significant or interesng event in your life. Select the most interesng image to develop into a larger painng. Think about the TASK colour palee used by Vassilieff and choose colours that best represent the mood and your memories of the event. Create a larger painng on good quality water colour paper. Use lots of large gestural brushstrokes. Work quickly and don’t overwork anything. Allow to dry and display your finished painng.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 7 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Valerie and Bey 1937 oil on plywood 45 x 53.6cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Purchased from John and Sunday Reed 1980

Vassilieff had a natural affinity with children. The animated outlines and awkward figures of these girls link them to their surroundings, as do the earthy tones used for their clothing. Hands tucked behind their backs, shoes cropped by the boom edge and their long legs growing out of short skirts, they present themselves up close to the arst, eager to be painted. Through his economy of means— exposing the white ground below the rapid-fire brushstrokes—Vassilieff evokes the insecurity and deprivaon of inner-Melbourne’s working class.

Studio producon and professional art pracces • How do the artworks reﬂect the interpretaon of subject maer? • What are the ideas evident in the work and how have they been communicated TASK through materials and techniques? • Discuss the aesthec qualies of Valerie and Bey and Street in Surry Hills (Self- Portrait in Cathedral Street). • How do visual art elements such as line, colour and texture alongside principles of contrast and focal point interplay with materials and techniques to communicate meaning?

Personal reflecon to support the individual design process • Throughout your design process, how have you explored materials, developed and refined techniques to effecvely communicate individual ideas within your individual design process? • How have you developed the subject maer you have selected to explore? • What are the conceptual ideas that are evolving in your design process and how can they be developed aesthecally to support meaning idenfied in your exploraon proposal?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 8 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Street Scene with Graﬃ 1938 oil on plywood 45.5 x 61.1cm Private collecon, Melbourne

Vassilieff enjoyed the spontaneity of graffi in the streets and laneways of Fitzroy, regarding it as part of the everyday life of the locale. Here the crude humour of the scrawled text and imagery is accentuated by its actual physical locaon on the back walls of neighbourhood dunnies. Vassilieff’s expressionist aesthec reflected the humanist, popular neo-primivism of leading Russian arsts such as Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova.

Danila Vassilieﬀ You Yang Mountains 1938 oil on canvas 49 x 54.5cm Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

The ancient contours of the You Yang Mountains reminded Vassilieff of the post-impressionist landscapes of French master Paul Cézanne. Here the pyramidal form rises, as in Cézanne’s celebrated depicons of Mont Sainte-Victoire, above the sparsely wooded foothills and organic shapes of the rocky outcrops. Yet the quick brushstrokes and energec swirls lend a fleeng and fugive quality to the scene, and the presence of Vassilieff’s friends, their A-model Ford and the occasional animal or bird, accentuates the temporary rather than the meless. The You Yangs landscapes were exhibited in Geelong when the arst was staying with teachers Clive and Janet Nield at Geelong Grammar School in 1938.

Ideas and styles in artworks • Compare and contrast ways art and design elements have been used to produce aesthec qualies and communicate ideas in artworks by Danila Vassilieff and Paul TASK Cézanne. • Evaluate how art elements have been used to create a disncve style or aesthec quality to communicate ideas. What does Cézanne’s painngs of Mont Sainte- Victoire have in common or is different to Vassilieff’s You Yang Mountains?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 9 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Peter Macdonald 1938 oil and pencil on canvas 56.6 x 50cm Naonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gi of Helen Klausner 1985

Relaonships between the arst and their subject Consider the angle or posion we are viewing the subject of this artwork from. How has the arst decided to present the figure? TASK • Look at the objects around the figure. What do these clues in the painng tell us about the subject? • Speculate a guess as to the nature of the relaonship between the figure in the painng and the arst.

The sier for this portrait was the brother of Helen Macdonald, the arst’s de facto wife. Peter introduced his musician sister to Vassilieﬀ when the two men were working together as engineers on the Woronora Dam, south of Sydney in 1936. Peter later lent Helen the money to buy the land at Warrandyte on which Vassilieﬀ would build their stone house. In this tenderly rendered image, Peter is seen as a centre of life, nurture and stability.

Characteriscs of Vassilieff’s art works include: • Spontaneity • Vibrant colours TASK • Expressive, vigorous brushstrokes • Figures distorted features • Denial of tradional illusionism – one point perspecve • Feeling of uncertainty and anxiety • Sense of instability and imaginaon Can you idenfy these qualies in the painngs and sculptures? Choose two Vassilieff artworks that make the use of these characteriscs. Briefly describe how these characteriscs apply.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 10 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ The Expulsion from Paradise 1940 tempera on coon four panels screen (approx.) 167 x 321.4cm Naonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1984

This decorave screen was commissioned by Warrandyte art collector Connie Smith and her husband Alec. Vassilieff painted it when the Russian Ballet toured Australia in 1940, and its imagery conflates the biblical story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden with the ballet tale of Petrouschka, a puppet clown that comes to life. The expelling archangel with the flaming torch in the third panel is modelled on the decorave figure of the Blackamoor, complete with Turkish slippers, in Alexandre Benois’ set design for the Moor’s Room in the Ballets Russes’ producon of Petrouschka. The stage- costumed figure of God the Father, enthroned in the right panel, doubles as the charlatan Showman, whose magic controls the puppet.

Vassilieﬀ’s crude and mildly irreverent approach to religious themes had a profound impact on younger arsts who admired him. It liberated the ferle imaginaons of, for example, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval, who went on to draw and paint their own idiosyncrac versions of biblical subjects

For Sidney Nolan, Vassilieﬀ’s work was parcularly important. In late 1946 Nolan stayed at Stonygrad for several weeks and had access to further, decorave ballet scenes on the back of the Expulsion screen that Vassilieﬀ had added later, which is upside down. It has only been in recent years that the compelling link between these composions and Nolan’s famous Kelly series has become evident.

How does one arst inﬂuence the work of another? Look at painngs made by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan very carefully. For example Boyd’s The expulsion (1947-48) and Nolan’s Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (1946). TASK Describe the similaries between them. Refer to the elements; colour, line, tone, texture, space, value, me, and the principles; repeon, direcon, rhythm, contrast, variety, emphasis, proporon, balance, harmony, movement, unity, proporon, perspecve and juxtaposion. Compare the diﬀerences that make each arst unique in their own right.

Can you think of any contemporary arsts working today whose work is also similar? Describe the visual similaries you see. Is the subject maer also similar?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 11 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Koornong Donkey 1941 oil on plywood Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Bequest of Marjorie Chamberlain 2002

Colour vocabulary Think about your overall impression of the colours used in this painng; how they look and make you feel? How the colours work together (or not)? How they ﬁt with the TASK subject of the painng? How the arst has mixed these (or not)? Are there any speciﬁc colours you can idenfy? List them in your visual journal.

Consider the words below to use in describing how you would talk about the use of colour in Koornong Donkey. Write a brief paragraph to describe how Vassilieff has used colour. • Natural, clear, compable, disncve, interesng, lively, smulang, subtle, sympathec, arficial, clashing, depressing, discordant, garish, gaudy, jarring, unfriendly, violent, bright, brilliant, deep, earthy, harmonious, intense, rich, saturated, strong, vibrant, vivid, dull, flat, insipid, pale, mellow, muted, subdued, quiet, weak, cool, cold, warm, hot, light, dark, blended, broken, mixed, muddled, muddied, pure, complementary, contrasng, harmonious.

Danila Vassilieﬀ Schoolroom at Koornong 1942 oil on plywood panel Private collecon, Melbourne

In 1939 Vassilieﬀ was invited to be the foundaonal art teacher at the experimental Koornong school in Warrandyte. Although he lacked formal training, his laissez-faire approach suited the school’s emphasis on educaon through experience well. Naturally, the transion from an urban to a bush landscape had a direct inﬂuence on both the subjects and handling of his work.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 12 of 24 Noce and record your emoonal experience or how you feel as you view Vassilieff’s artworks. Make notes as feelings and responses come to mind, for example, bright, fluid, cheery, mean, organic. TASK • What specific visual elements of each individual artwork contribute to your experience and understanding of the artwork? • How does the installaon of the collecve works impact on the aesthec qualies of Vassilieff’s artwork?

Reflect and Analyse: What are the aesthec qualies that Vassilieff created with his artworks? Refer to your notes to assist your idenficaon, drawing upon the materials and specific art elements such as colour, texture and form and principles of contrast to support your discussion.

Danila Vassilieﬀ Interior with Figures 1942 Oil on canvas 45.6 x 39.5cm Private collecon, Melbourne

The seng of this vital and organic interior composion is the large drawing room of George Bell’s house in Toorak, Melbourne. George Bell was a modern art teacher and the art cric for the Sun newspaper, and regarded Vassilieff as a ‘natural’. Vassilieff responded perhaps to Bell’s respect for painng’s formal values and subjects from contemporary reality in this work, which is also mindful of Masse—with the figures carefully arranged in a ‘conversaon’ of colours, contours and paerns. The trio of women includes Helen Macdonald (at the piano), with Bell’s wife and his daughter, Toinee, holding her ancipated child. Vassilieff’s inclusion of the child is a play on Bell’s doctrine that the arst’s task is to go beyond surface effects and look for ‘significant form’.

Look at how the elements in Interior with Figures are arranged, the underlying structure (shapes) and relaonships between the diﬀerent parts. Think about how your eye moves around the composion. TASK • Draw the movement of your eyes on a small piece of paper, the same size. • Compare your line drawing with your classmates. Is it the same or diﬀerent? Consider how and why the arst has directed our gaze to certain elements within the painng.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 13 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Mildura Wedding 1954 oil on composion board 91 x 122 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Purchased from John and Sunday Reed 1980

An ambious allegory of the eternal bale between the sexes, Mildura Wedding was intended to make a splash at the annual exhibion of the revived Contemporary Art Society in 1953. In the foreground, the arficial culture of Mildura is almost jammed against the picture plane. The figures of the bride and groom have mismatched features and resemble a pair of poker machines, with lever-like arms and rows of buons or openings that reveal their respecve choices: women and gambling for him; pares and a future child for her. In the lower le, the line of red buons suggests trouble ahead; while on the right, the picture-book seng of the Murray River is idenfied by the presence of the local paddle-steamer, Avoca.

The ny image that flanks the central figure—of a male dropping a female figure into the river under a night sky—is a key to memory and legend. It connects the piracal figure of a Mildura husband to Vassilieff’s greatest sculpture Stenka Razin (1953), of the Russian bandit and Cossack hero who famously tossed his princess into the Volga River. In this feisty allegory, Vassilieff goes beyond his immediate exile to link myth and reality, painng and sculpture, the Volga that he misses and the Murray he loves.

When you are evaluang an artwork there are a number of things to consider. Looking at Mildura Wedding (1954) and Valerie and Bey (1937) write a paragraph on each painng. Take into account the following things: TASK • Size: Look at the painng on display in the gallery. (Or get out a tape measure to see to mark out the size to get a sense of how large or small it is. Imagine what it would be like to stand before the work in a gallery.) Describe the size of it in relaon to you. Does this impact on the viewing experience? • Shape: What shape is the canvas? Is it oriented as a portrait or landscape? Does that bear any relaonship with the subject maer? • Artwork tle: What is the artwork called? Does this assist you to understand or know what the painng is about? Might you interpret it diﬀerently if it was called something else? For example, ‘Untled’. • Subject maer: What is the painng of? Is it unusual, unexpected, controversial or intriguing? Does it lend itself to comparison to another work by a famous painter? Does the arst use symbolism to represent other things in the painng? Do you understand the symbolism in this painng? • Emoonal response: What is the overall mood of the painng? • Elements and principles: How have the elements and principles of art been applied in this painng? Describe how the arst has done so. • Skill: What level of technical skill does the arst possess?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 14 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ At the Swan Hill Show 1956 watercolour and gouache on paper 30.3 x 40.4cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Gi of the Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art and Design of Australia, to the Naonal Gallery of Victoria 1981. Transferred to Heide Museum of Modern Art by the Council of Trustees of the Naonal Gallery of Victoria 2005

Relaonships between the arst and their subject Consider the angle or posion we are viewing the subjects of this artwork from. How has the arst decided to present the figures? How does the painng technique or style impact on our reading of the painng? TASK • Look at the objects around the figures. Do these provide the viewer with clues in the painng that tell us something about the subject? • Speculate a guess as to the nature of the relaonship between the figures in the painng and the arst. Drawing on what you see in the painng, provide reasons why you think this.

The earthy humanism of Vassilieff’s art entered a more anguished and strident phase in his later years. Having le Stonygrad, which was his creaon but no longer his property, he taught art at high schools in Mildura and Swan Hill, in northwest Victoria. Facing a society largely insensive to arsc endeavour, he expressed his scorn for his uncomprehending audience, using wilful distoron, mutated facial features and blinkered or vacant eyes. He wrote to his estranged wife Elizabeth in 1954 that the school inspectors were not convinced of his effecveness as a teacher, while he was more concerned about his own atude: ‘My report was not a happy one, it said that [my] control [is] not good—I don’t know how long I will be kept if I cannot control one or two forms of devils.’ This delighul arrangement of hats, eyes and nostrils is one of Vassilieff’s more playful observaons of life in a country town.

Applying paint Arsts make many choices when creang a painng. Somemes you may not be able to see any details of the brushwork or mark making if if the brush marks have been carefully eliminated by the arst. You may have noced that Vassilieff’s painngs TASK demonstrate different painng styles, but we are always aware of the textures and marks made by the paintbrush. Look at the following list of words and consider which words best describe Vassilieff’s painng technique and style. • Visible, impasto. blended, smooth, thick, thin., bold, mid, heavy, light, edgy, smooth, glazes, washes, scumbling, dry brush, sppling, hatching, splaered, layered, flat, precise, refined, regular, straight, systemac, quick, sketchy, uneven, irregular, vigorous, regularity and paerned. In a brief paragraph, describe Vassilieff’s painng technique.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 15 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Cocky and Darling Scene 1957 Gouache on newsprint 30.1 x 40.3cm Mildura Arts Centre Collecon

Cocky and Darling Scene and Reﬂecon in the Darling are from Vassilieﬀ’s Mildura years. Their mood is more sombre and restless than in earlier painngs, in keeping with the arst’s declining health, advancing years and increasing sense of exile from his homeland. Nonetheless they project a sense of freshness due to the fact that they were painted directly onto wet butcher’s paper, with only one chance to get it right.

These watercolours are associated directly with Vassilieﬀ’s teaching at Mildura High School where he taught students to paint out of their own experience. He set them to work with large brushes on wet newsprint and also encouraged them to paint with their ﬁngers. He told them that it was beer to make use of everything they knew and felt, than to simply copy from nature. This humanist approach made for an art that was personal, vital and therefore free, a kind of spontaneous expression that transcended the everyday.

The riverbank watercolours were painted in the last months of Vassilieﬀ’s life when he was living, for the most part alone, in Colin Wilson’s shack at Buronga. The days were spent ﬁshing in the Murray, seeking ‘the big cod’ that had eluded him for years. These nights he spent brushing his thoughts and feelings onto paper by the light of a kerosene lamp on paper from the Sunraysia Daily. He put down the simple events of the day: a white cockatoo returning to the nest under a lowering sky; an eagle aacking a cockatoo; a cod evading shag; but each event is so felt and understood that it seems to imply a more general truth about the rhythms of life, of creatures and their environment.

Personal reflecon to support the individual design process • How have you explored materials, developed and refined techniques to effecvely communicate personal ideas within your own design process? TASK • How might you use found objects or recycled materials to support the communicaon of your ideas? • What are the conceptual ideas that are evolving or have evolved in your design process and how can they be developed aesthecally to support the meanings you want to create?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 16 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Reﬂecon in the Darling 1958 Gouache on newsprint 29.9 x 40.3cm Mildura Arts Centre Collecon

Take a long look at the works in the exhibion (or this resource). • What emoonal response does the work evoke in you? What thoughts, ideas and feelings come to mind when you view this work? TASK • How do the materials and techniques employed in this work reinforce any themes raised? • How does the scale of the work engage you in the subject maer?

Exhibion reflecon You may have seen this exhibion at Heide Museum of Modern Art or Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery. Different artworks were shown at each of the galleries which is TASK why some works in this educaon kit may not be seen at the gallery you visited. The exhibion in Mildura was tled ‘Vassilieff: Journey to Mildura’ and Heide’s exhibion ‘Danila Vassilieff: A New Art History’. • What is the role or purpose of Heide Museum of Modern Art and Mildura Arts Centre? Describe the differences between the two galleries? • How do the exhibion tles at each gallery support the themes and ideas of the artworks represented in the exhibion? • For the exhibion you saw, how have the artworks been grouped and presented, and how does this configuraon support the themes and ideas of the arst? • How did the organisaon of the artworks, posioning of walls and wall colour, installaons and display boxes support your navigaon through the exhibion? • Did the lighng affect the mood of the viewer, and has this had an impact on how you read and understand the themes in the exhibion? • How have didacc panels helped you to understand more about the artworks? The arst? The issues presented by the arst in the exhibion? • Has your experience of vising the exhibion impacted your thinking about the themes, issues and ideas presented in the artworks?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 17 of 24 The sculptures

In the late 1940s Vassilieﬀ transferred his energies to sculpture, perhaps as a release for the energy previously spent on building Stonygrad. He visited the Thomas Mitchell quarry in Lilydale to obtain blocks of limestone, basing his selecon on colour, the pictorial potenal of the form, and durability. His experse with tools enabled him to carve directly into the limestone without preliminary drawings and he soon progressed to power tools, which were faster and allowed him to respond to the grain of the material.

Over a decade Vassilieff produced approximately thirty major sculptures. Variously whimsical, asserve and sarical, these expressive carvings are reminiscent of the lively characters and types of folk art. But their taclity is unique—a product of their domesc scale; their relaonship to the hand; and their smoothly polished surfaces that reveal the depth and intricacy of the moled limestone, a marine deposit. An important influence was the raw vitality and simplified forms of the work of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915), which Vassilieff had come to know during his years in London.

Danila Vassilieﬀ Boy 1950 Lilydale marble, cream, grey 47.5 x 34 x 23.4cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Bequest of John and Sunday Reed

The distorons and simplified forms of Vassilieff’s sculptures have an affinity with examples of children’s art chosen by psychologists to represent ‘hapc’ tendencies, where the most emoonally significant part of the subject is physically exaggerated. This work also exemplifies the rich textural and tonal possibilies inherent in the Lilydale limestone, which the arst polished to reveal the intricate configuraons of the mole and create a sense of movement throughout the figure.

Drawing on the folk art tradions of his homeland, his structural comprehension as a trained engineer, and his knowledge of modern art antecedents, Vassilieff created sculpture that defies the convenonal categorisaon. These pieces reference high and low art sources while reflecng Vassilieff’s unique vision of the world around him.

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 18 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Mechanical Man 1953 Carved and waxed Lilydale marble 48 x 20 x 24.5cm Naonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1973

The compressed energy and precision of this carving, Mechanical Man, with its interlocked mechanical and organic forms, suggest that Vassilieff has translated a folk object into the language of modern European art. His stone carvings have affinies with the work of the Vorcists, Henri Gaudier-Brzseka and Jacob Epstein, and also with the Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine, a friend of Vladimir Polunin, set designer for the Russian Ballet. The brilliant finish, essenal to revealing the paern of the marble, increases the aesthec appeal of the work.

Interpretaon of ideas and use of materials • What is the subject maer explored in Boy (1950) and Stenka Razin (1953)? • How has Danila Vassilieff used materials and techniques to support the TASK communicaon of these ideas? • Reflect on Danila Vassilieff’s pracce and describe how it is reflected in these artworks. • What is the significance of the materials Vassilieff has used for these sculptures? • How are they different to or an extension of his pracce as a painter? • Describe the historical influences on Vassilieff in these sculptures. Are the same influences evident in the painngs?

Personal reﬂecon on developing Ideas and materials and techniques How have you ulised the expressive qualies of materials and techniques to convey individual ideas in your own artmaking exploraons? • Has Danila Vassilieﬀ‘s work inspired any thinking or ideas that you could invesgate through exploring materials and techniques?

©Heide MoMA 2014 Educaonal use only Page 19 of 24 Danila Vassilieﬀ Stenka Razin 1953 carved and waxed Lilydale limestone 57 x 40 x 13.5cm Naonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1973

Back in the classroom the teacher may facilitate a discussion. Students refer to the notes they have taken when viewing the exhibion. It is valuable for the group to share their experiences and observaons as individual student interpretaons may offer TASK interesng viewpoints to promote a deeper inquiry. Use the following to begin discussions; • How have the techniques of sculpture been applied to create parcular aesthec qualies of Vassilieff’s artworks? • How have Vassilieff’s life experiences influenced the technical aspects of these works?

Developing language • Record a list of words that come to mind as you view the work. For example; bright, sunny, funny, gestural, ﬂeeng, happy, organic, natural spontaneous. TASK Back in the classroom, teachers may ulise the students’ recorded lists to support a group discussion that provides a rich resource for individual wrien task development. Students are invited to remember their experience of the work triggered by the recorded words.

Use the words to link to an invesgaon. As a group or individually, lists of descripve words can be developed and organised collecvely under the following headings. • Materials and techniques • Ideas and themes • Techniques and processes • Aesthec qualies.

Some words may fall under mulple categories. This supports students’ understanding that concepts and experiences can be intertwined in the analysis of the work.

Interpretave texts about each artwork in this educaon kit are based upon the exhibion labels and wrien by Felicity St John Moore and Kendrah Morgan.

What do you think you Is there a parcular artwork What quesons or puzzles know or what have you or aspect of the arst that do you have about the discovered about the arst you want to explore or arst and his artwork? and about his artwork? know more about?

Step 1: Work with classmates and find someone who knows an answer to any of the quesons you have idenfied. Write the answer in your own words and have your partner sign the sheet in the appropriate space. Offer your fellow student an answer you know to one of their quesons.

Step 2: Join another pair and swap partners to share new informaon, perspecves and viewpoints that answer any of the quesons on your sheet.

Teachers: This acvity enables students to demonstrate their conceptual understanding of Danila Vassilieﬀ’s work and it aims to provide a structure for showing the relaonship among key concepts evident in this exhibion.

Cut out the cards below. The student then shuﬄes the cards and deals them out randomly in three rows of three. The student is then asked to think about, write out or speak a single statement connecng each group of three words across, down and diagonally, resulng in eight separate statements demonstrang the relaonships between these concepts or terms.

city children materials

home nature experience

war adventure sculpture

painng love life

truth journey Australia

Students may work in pairs to develop statements, once developed they can then share their statements in groups and collecvely build paragraphs that address the key knowledge areas; • discuss ways the artworks reflect subject maer • discuss Danilla Vassilieff’s influences and how they may have affected his communicaon of ideas and meanings • analyse the use of materials, techniques and processes

Felicity St John Moore, Vassilieff and his Art, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2012. This expanded and updated second edion of Vassilieff and His Art (first published 1982) contains addional chapters and reproducons that confirm the essenal place of Cossack émigré arst Danila Vassilieff in the development of modern Australian art. Richly illustrated, and with a new preface by Dr Margaret Plant, the book sets the record straight on Vassilieff’s significance not just for the next generaon, but for art lovers everywhere. Felicity St John Moore outlines for the first me connecons between Vassilieff’s work and set designs for the Ballets Russes companies that toured Australia between 1936 and 1940. She examines his role in re-direcng Australian arsts towards the expressive neo-primivism pioneered by the Russian moderns and provides compelling new visual evidence that highlights a vital link between the art of Vassilieff and the invenon of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series. Available for purchase at heide.com.au

Haese, Richard, Rebels and Precursors: the revoluonary years of Australian art, Allen Lane, Melbourne, 1981.

Harding, Lesley and Kendrah Morgan, Sunday’s Garden: Growing Heide, Heide Museum of Modern Art, State Library of Victoria and the Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2012.

Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieﬀ and his art, Oxford University Press, London, 1982.

Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieﬀ: A retrospecve exhibion of painngs, sculptures and watercolours, exh. cat., Heide Park & Art Gallery, 1985.

Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieﬀ and his art, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2012

Morgan, Kendrah, ‘Danila Vassilieﬀ, A New Art History’, The Melbourne Review, May 2012, hp:// www.melbournereview.com.au/read/404/ .

Palmer, Maudie (ed.), Heide Park and Art Gallery, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 1981. (see Richard Haese’s essay in this publicaon)

Reid, Barre and Nancy Underhill (eds), Leers of John Reed: Deﬁning Australian Cultural Life 1920– 1981, Viking, Melbourne, 2001.

Heide’s oﬀers a range of educaon programs that draw on its unique mix of exhibions, architecture and landscape to provide a rich learning experience that goes beyond the classroom.

A visit to Heide: • provides a smulang environment which helps to put learning into context, and promotes an understanding and appreciaon of our rich, cultural heritage • encourages movaon, by srring curiosity and developing an intrinsic fascinaon for art that can only be sasﬁed by ﬁrsthand experience • nurtures creavity and enables social learning • is a cultural experience that all pupils can enjoy

Looking at original works of art with a suitably trained educator also encourages the development of the following skills: • literacy: by encouraging discussion and extending vocabulary • observaon: by focusing concentraon on detail • crical thinking: by demanding quesons and informed conclusions • reﬂecon: by considering raonales behind thinking processes

Programs for teachers Heide oﬀers a range of professional development programs for teachers of all year levels, including lectures, guided tours and workshops. Programs are designed to meet the VIT Standards of Professional Pracce and Principles for Eﬀecve Professional Learning.

Further informaon about Heide’s educaon programs is available at Heide.com.au/educaon

Bookings Bookings are essenal for all programs. For more informaon or a booking form visit Heide.com.au/ educaon or contact Heide Educaon: (03) 9850 1500 educa[email protected]

• Teachers are encouraged to visit Heide prior to a booked school visit (complimentary cket available) to familiarise themselves with the exhibions and facilies. • Heide is commied to ensuring its programs and acvies are accessible to all. Schools recognised as having a low overall socio-economic proﬁle on the Government School Performance Summary are eligible to apply for a reduced fee. Please contact Heide Educaon for more informaon.

Keep up to date with the latest Heide Educaon news and special oﬀers by subscribing to the Heide Educaon e-bullen at heide.com.au/subscribe

Heide Museum of Modern Art 7 Templestowe Road Bulleen VIC 3105 T 03 9850 1500 heide.com.au Open daily 10am–5pm Closed Mondays (except public holidays)