artonview

ISSUE No.44 ISSUE ISS U E o.44 summer 2005–06 summer N o.44 r 2005–06 NATIONAL 2005–06 su mm e r GALLE R Y OF Y AUST R ALIA

Transformations • helen frankenthaler The WATERFRONT

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26 November 2005 – 5 February 2006

Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji VI 1998 colour woodcut and stencil Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 4709_4 contents artonview

Publisher National Gallery of Australia 2 Director’s foreword nga.gov.au 4 Director’s vision Editor  Eve Sullivan 8 Transformations: the language of craft Designer  Sarah Robinson 22 Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler Photography  Eleni Kypridis Barry Le Lievre 28 Discovering Constable: rediscovering nature Brenton McGeachie  Steve Nebauer 31 New acquisitions John Tassie

Designed and produced  42 The magic of slow time: contemporary works on display  in Australia by the  National Gallery of Australia in the Australian galleries Printed in Australia by  Pirion Printers, Canberra 46 Travelling exhibitions: Darwin Art-port artonview i s s n 1323-4552 50 Imagining Papua New Guinea Published quarterly:  Issue no. 44, Summer 2005 © National Gallery of Australia 52 The National Gallery of Australia Photography Fund

Print Post Approved  pp255003/00078 54 Behind the scenes: installing St Petersburg 1900

All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The 56 Membership news opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or 58 The art of caring publisher. Submissions and correspondence  62 Faces in view should be addressed to:  The editor, artonview  National Gallery of Australia  GPO Box 1150  Canberra ACT 2601  [email protected]

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Correction Apologies to the artist Bert Flugelman: Caryatid Minotaur 2004–05, exhibited courtesy of the artist in the 2005 National Sculpture Prize, was incorrectly captioned ‘Private collection, Perth’ in the spring 2005 edition of artonview. This caption was a reference to the original maquette submitted for preselection to the prize. (Ed.)

front cover: Dale Chihuly Polished ivory seaform set with charcoal lip wraps 2000 blown glass © Chihuly, Inc. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra back cover: Edward Eberle Tin feathers metal wings 2001 porcelain with painted terra sigillata decoration National Gallery of Australia, Canberra director’s foreword

Ron Radford in front of a I commenced my term as Director of the National This season of exhibitions features in particular the Kota School temple hanging from Rajasthan, one of the Gallery of Australia determined to hold off making any most substantial survey yet of works from our Decorative recent acquisitions currently definitive statements about my vision for the National Arts and Design Collection in Transformations: the on display in the Asian Art Gallery of Australia until I had a sufficient overview of the language of craft, with many international and galleries. collections and issues to do with the building, staffing and Australian practitioners working in a diverse range of the management structure across the Gallery’s broad field media represented in this exhibition who were here for of operations. Eight months on, after much consultation the opening and to attend the conference and forums. with Gallery staff and Council, I have come up with a I also attended the launch in Sydney of the Decorative brief centred upon a mandate for the future development Arts and Design Collection Development Fund generously of the national collection and its presentation to the hosted by Ashley Dawson-Damer. My special thanks go public in an enhanced Gallery building that I hope is clear to Raphy Star, David Thomas and Meredith Hinchliffe for and comprehensive. As discussed in the first part of the their support of the purchase of works for the collection. Vision for the National Gallery of Australia published Meredith also volunteered many days to assist Senior here, art museums must come to terms with so many Curator, Robert Bell, with research for this extensive competing objectives to do with building the collection, project. The sponsorship of Qantas Freight, through the and serving a broad range of audience needs both now particular support of Ben Andrew, and Kingsley Mundey and in the future to perform the representative role of a of International Art Services, assisted the Gallery to ‘national gallery’. There are no big surprises here, but it cover the transport costs of bringing so many fragile and is all the same aspirational and conservative in the best delicate objects to Australia. Thank you also to Channel sense, highlighting the high and also I believe realistic Seven for their support with advertising. expectations of what can be achieved. Another highlight of this season’s exhibitions Even apart from the broader fundraising objectives is Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen and ongoing development of plans for the building, in Frankenthaler, featuring the marvellous collection consultation with stakeholders, including the Minister, of woodcuts – and some of the original woodblocks the Department, Gallery Council and Foundation, and the – produced in an extraordinary collaboration with architects, there is already a clear approach to privileging master printer Ken Tyler, joining other works from the core areas of the collection that is well underway and Gallery’s renowned Kenneth Tyler Collection, supported evident to visitors from the works on display now. You so generously by Tyler himself. Tyler’s visit at the end of need only walk into the Asian Art galleries to see old and November was a highlight for those able to attend his new acquisitions recently unveiled to see for yourself our master class and demonstration class in Canberra, and strengths in this area, along with the new acquisitions and other associated events. donations on view in the Australian Art galleries, including Another treasure that must wait till next issue to be those works recently donated by Alcoa Australia, under featured is the cycle of fifty-one prints, Der Krieg (War), the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts program. by Otto Dix which will open in the Project Gallery later this month to further draw on the riches in our collection of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books.

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Imagining Papua New Guinea, the small exhibition Donations of works on paper currently showing in the Children’s William Anderson Gallery, displays many works from a collection recently Roslynne Bracher Meredith Hinchliffe acquired by the Gallery from Ulli and Georgina Beier, Michael Joel AM further confirming our focus on art of this region and, in Simon R McGill particular, neighbouring Oceania. Kathleen Montgomery Opening in late February is the exhibition Crescent Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC DBE moon: Islamic art & civilization in Southeast Asia, Gene Sherman and Brian Sherman AM sponsored by Santos Limited, currently showing at the Art Gifts Gallery of South Australia, the outcome of a successful Bill Beresford joint curatorial collaboration, which features many Imron Cotan important works from the national collection. So, too, K David G Edwards Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky, opening Estate of Dr George Martin J Berger in March, has been organised by the National Gallery of Estate of Mrs Ruth Komon Australia and will tour to the Museum of New Zealand, Maureen and Bernard Laing Te Papa Tongarewa. In its presentation here, the exhibition Robyn Maxwell will draw significant links with the development of Daphne Morgan Mike Parr Australian landscape painting in an extended display. Jon Plapp and Richard McMillan Canberra has never been so abundant and green, Raphy Star following the generous rains, as a reminder of a previous era when our aspirations were indeed more European. Grants I would like to take this opportunity to extend to all our Gordon Darling Foundation members, donors and sponsors our very best wishes for Thomas Foundation Principal Sponsors the festive season. Santos Ltd

Supporting Sponsors Qantas Freight Seven Network

Sponsors Casella Wines Ron Radford, Hyatt Hotel Director International Art Services Malaysia Airlines Saville Park Suites The Brassey Canberra Voodoo Hosiery

artonview summer 2005 3 Vision for the National Gallery of Australia: part one

This vision statement was presented by Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, to the National Gallery of Australia Council in draft version in June and August 2005. Publicly launched at the Gallery’s birthday on 12 October, it presents the Director’s vision for  the national collection, and a concept for an improved National Gallery of Australia building.

The core functions of an art museum are ‘to preserve, Centre for Australian Art that will be both a research research and interpret works of art, and their accompanying institute and a public-education centre. The other is to information, for the public benefit’. A great art museum, set professional standards for, and provide professional- therefore, is one that collects and conserves works of development assistance to, Australia’s smaller art museums. great aesthetic excellence, researches them with rigorous A nation should first treasure its own culture, and scholarship, and then uses the results of its research to then that of its close neighbours, as well as participate in interpret works of art for the museum’s various audiences.  the world’s internationalised contemporary culture. In its A great art museum should be a powerhouse from which national art museums, a mature nation should strongly visitors and other users can always receive a charge of reflect a confident appreciation of its own art and a psychic energy. sympathetic interest in that of its neighbours. Our Australian A ‘national gallery’, especially one in the national culture, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, has always capital of a federation like Australia, Canada or the United been a highly visual one. The National Gallery of Australia’s States, has extremely various audiences – not only the local collections, exhibitions, publications and building must residents but also the nation’s entire citizenship. They are therefore proudly echo our national and international often nonattenders of museums in, say, home cities like cultural and strategic aspirations. Melbourne or Brisbane, Toronto or Vancouver, Boston or For a nation formed over only two centuries, but with Chicago but are tempted to attend while on a visit to their an ancient Indigenous past, Australia’s new National Gallery national capitals in Canberra, Ottawa and Washington. should not try to emulate the national museums of the Further, there are politically sensitive audiences, and the European Old World, formed from princely and aristocratic local embassies, which note the presence or absence of collections, or those formed by the robber barons in the honour given to the art of their own part of the world. United States. Nor should we repeat the British colonial Our vision should comprise, first and foremost, the collections formed from the mid-nineteenth century presentation of works of the highest artistic excellence. onwards in Australia’s six colonial capitals. Our inexperienced nationwide visitors are less willing I believe we should be even more unlike all other than frequent gallery-goers to enjoy academic points of national galleries than we are at present. Our geography, art-historical or cultural significance; the broad audiences our recent past and Indigenous past give the National respond less to cultural analysis than to aesthetic force.  Gallery of Australia its future direction. We should also accommodate some of the international The collections politico-cultural expectations peculiar to Canberra The collections are the core of the National Gallery of audiences. Australia – they must remain the kernel of the building There are, as well, two flagship roles. One is to be the and the central focus of the institution. No blockbuster leading research and interpretation centre for Australian  exhibition can ever be as large, as valuable, as wide- art – and in the not-too-distant future to create a formal

4 national gallery of australia ranging and as consistently high in quality as the collection There is a small but high-quality collection of the art  Ron Radford in front of Guan Wei’s Dow Island 2002 in displays. The three-billion-dollar collections of the National of our closest Pacific neighbours – the regions of Polynesia, the Australian Art galleries Gallery of Australia are owned by all Australians for the Melanesia and Micronesia which include Maori art from following the launch to the press of his Vision for the enjoyment of all Australians and international visitors. Those New Zealand and the art of New Guinea, the Solomon National Gallery of Australia Photographer: Chris Lane audiences expect to find the collections well maintained and Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii and /Fairfaxphotos imaginatively used. other Pacific islands. Apart from major paintings by the The collections have many strengths. They include the great Colin McCahon, and various works on paper, New sole strong twentieth-century European and American Zealand’s pakeha (settler) art is not yet well represented. collection to be found not only in Australia but also Australia’s own visual culture looks extremely impressive in the Asia-Pacific region – a collection that covers all in a strong and representative collection from all periods media. Besides painting and sculpture it embraces modern and all regions and cultures. We have by far the largest European and American decorative arts and design. The Indigenous Australian art collection of any art museum.  holdings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European The collection of Australian art from the l940s onwards and American prints and photographs are among the very is unrivalled. Our collections are strong in all media. The largest and most important in the world. Australian print collection is the Gallery’s only near- The Asian collections also have considerable strength encyclopaedic collection. The twentieth-century Australian and they represent most Asian cultures, with an emphasis drawing collection is unrivalled, and the Australian on India and South-East Asia. The Indonesian textile decorative-arts collection, which includes folk arts, is also collection and the Indian trade-cloth collection are the very strong. largest and finest in the world.

artonview summer 2005 5 No state gallery needs to aspire in this way to such and Melbourne’s significant Japanese collections. In this a large and comprehensive collection of Australian art way, while emphasising our immediate region, we will as the National Gallery of Australia. Our attention to all not be competing in the main collecting areas of the state regions means that visitors from, say, Queensland, Western galleries. Indeed our collections should, where possible, Australia, the Northern Territory or Tasmania, are already complement theirs. pleasantly surprised by the excellence of their own art in the To complement, not compete with, the state collections context of the whole of Australian art. The collection can is particularly important as the buying power of the effectively give the Australian people a sense of ownership combined Australian art museums is now more limited than of, and contribution to, a great tradition of art-making. formerly in comparison with the wealthier museums of The regional comprehensiveness is a base on which future Europe and America. It is desirable that Australia’s limited audience-building can occur, both in bringing audiences combined acquisition resources be used carefully and to the national capital, and then bringing them on from strategically. The National Gallery of Australia should always the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House to the be seen to be doing the right thing nationally in this way. National Gallery of Australia. No state gallery concentrates on art, past and present, In conclusion, Australian art, Asia-Pacific art, and of the Pacific region. Those in Melbourne and Sydney are modern art worldwide are the strengths on which we more committed to North Asian art than South-East Asian should build. art. Brisbane concentrates on contemporary Asia-Pacific art. Only Adelaide has a sizeable Middle Eastern Islamic Collection focus collection. The National Gallery of Australia already holds a A central focus of the national collection should be the few Middle Eastern and Mughal Islamic objects and is well Australian collection. The Asia-Pacific region should also positioned to further develop a small, high-quality collection be a major focus. It can mirror the strategic importance of of work from this artistically rich culture, hitherto neglected our geographic neighbours and our special allies. Canberra, by Australia’s collecting institutions. Such a collection is also the capital of Australia, is a twentieth-century city created relevant to our holdings of South-East Asian Islamic art. by Australians for Australians. Canberra does not have the European and American twentieth century art British colonial history of the state capital cities. The six state As noted, the National Gallery of Australia holds the only art galleries were all founded during the British colonial major collection of European and North American twentieth- period, and began with British collections that remain century art in our part of the world. For a national gallery for them a strength. This is also the case for some of the starting late in the twentieth century, it made sense to focus large Australian regional galleries formed in the nineteenth on this area. In Canberra, mid-to-late-nineteenth-century century such as those at Ballarat, Bendigo, Warrnambool, European art has been collected as a precursor to the Geelong and Launceston. twentieth century, an area not especially well represented The National Gallery of Australia’s collections were by the state galleries. (Before the then conservative state formed largely in the last quarter of the twentieth century; galleries realised the importance of many of the major the building opened in Canberra in 1982, in the second- twentieth-century artists, it was already too late to afford last decade of that century. Its collections rightly reflect a full range of major works in this area.) Indeed, early- recent Australian history and, situated in the national twentieth-century Modernism and late-nineteenth-century political capital, should also be highly relevant to Australia’s European art have been the most expensive kinds of art for contemporary strategic engagements. over sixty years, and still remain so. Australia and our region The early-twentieth-century International collection, It is crucial therefore that the National Gallery of Australia otherwise representative, only lacks paintings by Kandinsky be strongly focused on Australian art, including Australian (the first abstract painter), Mondrian, Braque, Klee and Indigenous art, from all states and territories. The Gallery Beckmann. It also lacks a major Picasso. Our fine American represents all periods of Australian art, from the late- collection of the second half of the twentieth century only eighteenth to the twenty-first century, supremely well. lacks works by the major artists Barnett Newman and Cy The collections should also embrace the art of our Twombly. Considering how large and important the existing nearest neighbours – New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, collection is, these gaps are few but significant, and it will the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, other South-East Asian require enormous financial resources to fill them. Australia countries and India. badly needs major paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and China, Japan, Korea, the Himalayan countries, the Barnett Newman. The National Gallery of Australia is the Middle East and Central Asia should be represented but only art museum in Australia that could conceivably afford they are further to the periphery. It is unnecessary, and works by such significant artists in the future, and its too late, to duplicate Melbourne and Sydney’s more collection is the only one that provides a very strong context comprehensive Chinese collections, and Adelaide, Sydney for their display.

6 national gallery of australia It is interesting to note that when the National Gallery of American Indigenous holdings are the only such high-quality Australia began, from the early 1970s, to buy American art public collections in Australia. These collections can be with enthusiasm, America led the world in cutting-edge art, added to by the occasional gift. They could be displayed in as had been the case since the mid 1940s. small groups – there are hallway possibilities for showcase It is essential that the Gallery continues buying good display – and they may be displayed occasionally in various contemporary art worldwide, and not only from the Asia- contexts in the temporary exhibitions galleries; for example, Pacific region. America can also be seen as part of the Indigenous objects that came from the collection of the Pacific Rim and, as it happens, America’s emergence in the surrealist artist Max Ernst deserve to receive a focused study l940s as an art power coincides with Australia’s powerful within the context of Surrealism. In the case of the art of and continuing defence and economic alliance with the Africa and the Americas, we could consider the possibility United States. The Gallery’s well-developed American that some works be lent from time to time to other collection, and its continuing worldwide attention to Australian institutions perhaps for three-year periods. contemporary art, can be regarded as politically strategic. In the more attention-getting area of European Old In filling major gaps in the International, Asian, Pacific, Masters, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney have relatively and Australian collections, it is important that the Gallery substantial collections. Melbourne and Adelaide in particular buys works of the highest quality, which can always be on have been collecting Old Master pictures since the end of display. To this end we should acquire fewer objects of better the nineteenth century. The National Gallery of Australia quality. Buying objects for study storage should not be an has fewer than twenty European Old Master paintings and option. If a costly work cannot be considered for permanent sculptures, an Australia public collection fifth in size after display, then its acquisition should be questioned. Brisbane’s. Although there are some fine individual works in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection of European New Acquisition Policy and Ten Year Acquisition Old Masters, it is not cohesive and looks out of place in Strategy a contemporary building with such strong contemporary The Gallery is in the process of adapting the previous collections. Twenty works can never represent 500 years of Acquisitions Policy (1994). The new policy will be an European painting and sculpture. Even though Old Master important public document. Concurrently, the Gallery paintings are usually much less costly than nineteenth- and should also develop a confidential Ten Year Acquisition twentieth-century Modern Masters, it would now require Strategy. The latter, an innovative, competitive and strategic impossibly huge resources to equal Melbourne, Adelaide document (or series of documents for each curatorial area), or even Sydney’s longstanding Old Master collections. We will outline in detail the serious gaps in the collections, could consider lending our European Old Masters to the and even highlight known works, in private collections, three Australian state galleries that have long made a which the Gallery needs. The weaknesses of the collections commitment to collecting in this area. Even Melbourne, should be fully documented, particularly the limitations Adelaide and Sydney’s collections are small compared of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Australian with European and American collections of the same collection, the lack of depth in the Indian and South-East material – yet supplemented with our works they have a Asian sculpture and painting collection, the currently limited better chance to show a fuller history of European art for contemporary Asia-Pacific collection and the twentieth- and Australian audiences. The National Gallery of Australia twenty-first century International design collection. Once would be regarded as generous and truly national by approved, this Ten Year Acquisition Strategy should be lending works for long-term display to the state galleries, strictly adhered to. always to be labelled as on loan from the National Gallery Dormant collections of Australia. Long-term loans of Old Master paintings and The Gallery’s collections, put together recently, over just sculptures could be rotated between Melbourne, Adelaide three decades, cannot be expected to geographically cover and Sydney. Any works they don’t want to borrow could be most areas of world art in historical depth, as do many long- offered to other state galleries. We could borrow them back established national museums overseas. In order to focus occasionally for exhibitions in context. a the acquisition resources (and limited display space), we Part two of the 2005 Director’s Vision for the National need to concentrate on what is central to Australia’s national Gallery of Australia will be published in the autumn issue collection, and do this exceptionally well. The collection areas of artonview and is available online at nga.gov.au/Vision we concentrate on should look highly credible not only to Quotations are from the 1966 Lindsay Report from a ‘National Art Gallery the rest of Australia but also to the rest of the world. Committee of Inquiry’, our founding document commissioned by Prime Minister Menzies. The Lindsay Report placed its greatest emphasis on Therefore, we should not direct further acquisition modern art worldwide, on the whole of Australian art, and on ‘works of resources to the small but excellent African, Mesoamerican, art representing the high cultural achievement of Australia’s neighbours in southern and eastern Asia and the Pacific Islands’. Similarly the 1994 Incan and North American Indigenous collections, or to the Acquisitions Policy: National Gallery of Australia, the most carefully- considered such document developed and published by the National tiny and imbalanced European Old Master collection. The Gallery Council, also emphasised Australasian (i.e. Pacific) art. The present four dormant collections contain many fine works and vision statement is therefore partly a reaffirmation of past Council policies that have not yet been fully implemented. will be held in trust for Australia; the African and North

artonview summer 2005 7 exhibition galleries

Transformations: the language of craft

11 November 2005 – 29 January 2006

YO AKIYAMA KEIKO AMENOMORI-SCHMEISSER GIAMPAOLO BABETTO GORDON BALDWIN GILES BETTISON JULIE BLYFIELD MICHAELBRENNAND-WOOD ALISON BRITTON HARLAN BUTT TANIJA & GRAHAM CARR CLAUDI CASANOVAS JOHN CEDERQUIST SCOTT CHASELING DALE CHIHULY SHARON CHURCH DEB COCKS PATRICK COLLINS LIA COOK MARILYN DA SILVA EDMUND DE WAAL GEORG DOBLER PIPPIN DRYSDALE EDWARD EBERLE BERN EMMERICHS MERRAN ESSON ARLINE FISCH DONALD FORTESCUE ROBERT FOSTER DAVID FREDA WARWICK FREEMAN TETSUO FUJIMOTO SUEHARU FUKAMI KEVIN GORDON PATRICK HALL BETH HATTON YASUO HAYASHI BRIAN HIRST AGNETA HOBIN SERGEI ISUPOV RITZI JACOBI HERMANN JÜNGER JUN KANEKO TSUKASA KOFUSHIWAKI DANIEL KRUGER SARA LINDSAY NEL LINSSEN JESSICA LOUGHLIN HELMUT LUECKENHAUSEN BODIL MANZ IVAN MAREŠ ROBERT MARSDEN KARL MILLARD KLAUS MOJE MASCHA MOJE RON NAGLE KIMPEI NAKAMURA JIRI NEKOVÁR ALBERT PALEY GWYN HANSSEN PIGOTT PETER PRASIL WENDY RAMSHAW KIRSTIE REA DAVID REGAN KRISTINA RISKA CHRISTOPHER ROBERTSON GERD ROTHMANN MICHAEL ROWE BILL SAMUELS ADRIAN SAXE HELEN SHIRK ROBERT SMIT MARTIN SMITH BETTINA SPECKNER IVANA ŠRÁMKOVÁ KEN THAIDAY SNR CATHERINE TRUMAN GRANT VAUGHAN TONE VIGELAND IRENE VONCK TONI WARBURTON DAVID WATKINS ALICE WHISH SUSAN WRAIGHT GULUMBU YUNUPINGU TOOTS ZYNSKY

Marilyn da Silva For the past 130 years, the philosophies, virtues and Seeking to locate craft practice in the broader Rock, paper, scissors teapot 2003 sterling silver and processes of craft have occupied art, craft and design discourse of contemporary arts, craft writers and enamel paint theorists, writers and practitioners alike. The promotion practitioners have engaged with its theories and Lent by Marilyn da Silva Photographer: M Lee and celebration of craft fostered design and the decorative language to open new avenues of critical inquiry and Fatherree arts as an alternative to what was seen by many critics debate. Investigating the relationship between theory and design reformers in the late-nineteenth century as and practice has given many artists working in craft debased industrial manufacture. Dialogue was promoted media new ways to understand their work and to through the Arts and Crafts movement in the United articulate it to a wider audience. Learning to experience Kingdom and the United States, and its subtext in the and understand the tacit language of the crafted object various expressions of national romanticism in northern as it presents itself to our senses, and interacts with our and eastern Europe: in Kunsthandwerk in Germany, in preconceptions and experiences of the world of things, skønvirke in Denmark, in the nuances between bijutsu- can be intensely pleasurable and persuasive. kogei and mingei in Japan, and in the widely disseminated This strategy of persuasion defined the concept of ideas behind vackrare vardagsvara (more beautiful things Transformations. The exhibition is a celebration of the for everyday use) in Sweden. Such discussions helped recent work of eighty-five Australian and international to focus attention on craft as a way of thinking across artists working in the area of studio craft who are forging the spectrum of art and design, moving the word itself new expressions within the fields of glass, ceramics, from an adjective to a noun, and the practice from its textiles, wood, metalwork, and (through a variety of traditional anonymity to its more interrogative, interpretive materials) in furniture, jewellery and sculpture. The work potential as a celebration of individual expression. of international artists most prominent and influentialin

8 national gallery of australia artonview summer 2005 9 Toots Zynsky these fields is seldom seen in Australia; this exhibition Beginning in the early 1970s craft organisations Pennellata 2005 glass filet de verre offers visitors a chance to encounter their unique and and government funding agencies, such as the Australia Lent by Toots Zynsky compelling objects that challenge our perceptions of Council Crafts Board and later the Visual Arts/Craft Photographer: Toots Zynsky design and function, and the meaning of materials. Board, offered networking and financial assistance for Georg Dobler Such works reveal the creativity, skill and imagination visits to Australia by overseas artists, often in the form Brooch 2000 of the contemporary craft practitioner in the negotiation of workshops, residencies and lecture tours coinciding silver and amethyst National Gallery of Australia, and articulation of materials, structure, and production with the inclusion of their work in survey exhibitions. Canberra technologies; the passionate expression of the languages A number of the artists in Transformations undertook Photographer: John Carlono of abstraction, narrative, design and ornamentation; such engagements and have had a significant influence Patrick Hall and the skills that transform materials from the everyday on craft practice in Australia as a result of their visits. Bone china 2005 plywood, aluminium, glass to the extraordinary. The work of these international This exhibition of recent work creates a bridge to and ceramic artists is shown with that of Australian artists engaged their earlier work that has remained in Australia in National Gallery of Australia, in similar themes and concerns. the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, and Canberra Photographer: Peter Whyte The modern concept of individual studio craft state and regional art museums. Such artists include practice took root in Australia at the beginning of the Giampaolo Babetto, Michael Brennand-Wood, Alison twentieth century. Initially it reflected and built upon Britton, Dale Chihuly, Edmund de Waal, Arline Fisch, the ideals and philosophies of the Arts and Crafts Warwick Freeman, Yasuo Hayashi, Ritzi Jacobi, Hermann movement before acquiring meaning as a strand of Jünger, Jun Kaneko, Albert Paley, Wendy Ramshaw, modernism. The studio craft resurgence from the early Gerd Rothmann, Michael Rowe, Helen Shirk and David 1960s reflected broader conceptual and technical Watkins. Many artists built enduring networks with explorations in all media by craft artists in North the Australian artists who hosted them or who worked America, Europe and Japan. International work initially with them during their visits, facilitating subsequent started to gain currency in Australia through publications opportunities overseas. and exhibitions, then as a result of visits and workshops, Over the past forty years, the expansion of and later from the experiences of Australians who had tertiary training in craft-based artforms has involved begun working in studios and with artists overseas. practitioners in the wider concerns of contemporary art, While there is still a lingering perception that studio and has brought new expectations for the role of craft craft is something of a new movement in the context of skills in interpreting and articulating them. It has done contemporary art in Australia, its strong development so through the focused work of individuals who have over the past forty years has resulted in a vibrant and developed their practice with the knowledge that their diverse range of practices. These have positioned work is valued as an alternative to a plethora of look- Australian artists to become active and influential alike manufactured products. participants in international dialogues about directions and developments in craft and design.

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Gerd Rothmann In choosing to work within the constructs and retrospection, fantasy, satire, desire and subversion; the Ten fingers at the neck necklace 2004 disciplines of craft-based practices, artists and designers ethics and consequences of the production, processing gold align themselves not only with the rich narrative of human and disposal of materials; the recycling of materials of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra history, but also with the language of invention and all kinds; and the allure of new materials and imaging technological exploration. Over time, social and industrial technologies. All are connected through the sheer revolutions have turned on the development and use of pleasure of creating and working with materials that are specific materials. Responding to necessity and fuelling sensual, intimate and visually engaging. desire across cultural and economic barriers, designers It is a paradox that while we have become a society and makers have interpreted the possibilities of new with an ability to quickly assimilate new technology and ideologies, materials and manufacturing technologies. find value in a plethora of new types of functional and Great centres for processing, manufacturing, design decorative objects, we are doing so with a diminishing and distribution sprung up around craft practices and understanding of the history and development of have attracted designers, artists and craft specialists for design and the decorative arts. We rely increasingly on centuries, connecting industrial towns and local craft advertising and celebrity endorsement as a substitute traditions with metropolitan ideologies concerned with for the understanding and discrimination that comes design and fashion. Many of the artists in this exhibition from direct experience. For many, such experience of have gravitated to such places to connect with and learn significant unique craft works is rare, resulting in a limited from those great traditions, and to integrate something comprehension of the rich cultural, formal and material of that spirit in their practices. values that such objects represent. While such values Increasingly, however – in a world connected less by can be interpreted in the context of the visual arts, they geographic destination than by technology, ideology and may also be understood by considering them in the invention – artists and designers, theorists, technologists framework of the performing arts. The understanding of and commentators work in fluid dialogues across dance and music suggests ways of interacting with crafted cultures. Their work draws from many of the currents objects and the unseen ‘performer’ behind them. We can that activate society: the semiology of craft; global sub- consider and enjoy these objects by engaging with the cultures and counter-cultures; the place of craft skills in shared concepts of spatial organisation, time, rhythm, the construction and nurturing of kinships and family; body control, and the confidence and skill in the use of

12 national gallery of australia tools and instruments. By engaging with the nuances and offers a complex set of relationships where the meaning David Regan Eagle 2004 performance of materials, the framework of tradition and of one can be inflected by our experience of others. porcelain the theatrics of presentation, object makers can heighten Objects accrue meaning in the landscape of our own Lent by David Regan, courtesy Frank Lloyd Gallery, our experience of their work. imagination, despite the juxtapositions and relationships Santa Monica and Garth Clark Gallery, New York Transformations encourages visitors to encounter suggested by their placement in a particular exhibition. Photographer: Chris Autio the eloquence of crafted objects as mediators of space These objects trigger associations that draw us into a and experience, and to consider the place of craft skills, potentially haptic, intuitive relationship with them. traditions and values in an increasingly dematerialised, Narrative, the exhibition’s first section, explores yet regimented, culture of consumption. The works in this translation, transience and memory as points of departure exhibition are drawn together in the themes of Narrative, for a variety of visually complex objects. They employ Materiality and Structure, creating settings in which metaphor and realism to explore cultural resonances, unique crafted objects give form to innovations in the mythology and our relationship with the natural world. use of materials and technologies, offer commentaries Works in the second section of the exhibition, Materiality, on nature and the urban environment, express personal are defined by an expression of their material qualities, narratives, and reflect regional identity. shown in objects where the sensuous, physical properties An examination of the works in each section of of materials are explored. Through their orchestration the exhibition reveals connections across a diversity of of process, artists bring a poetic physicality to the work practices, approaches to materials and personal transformation of raw materials such as clay, metal, backgrounds. The disposition of the works in the exhibition wood, glass and fibre. The third section, Structure, brings

artonview summer 2005 13 Alice Whish together works that are defined by a concern with the Milky Way constellation 2004 organisation of elements, through rhythm, reductiveness, powder-coated, balance and the nature of time. Other objects in this laser-cut mild steel National Gallery of Australia, section can be understood through their relationships to Canberra space and light, or through the nuances of groupings, Grant Vaughan placement, and variations of forms, colour and texture. Ovoid form 2005 Australian white beech With its continuous evolution and traditions of (Gmelina leichhardtii) functionality, ornamentation and ceremony, craft has and lacquer Purchased 2005 with funds always reflected human experience. Through the skill and from the Meredith Hinchliffe ingenuity of its practitioners, craft manifests in objects that Fund National Gallery of Australia, help us navigate our way through our lives, offering us new Canberra ways to imagine being in the world. Our perception of the Sueharu Fukami world is continually being reshaped through the exposure Scene II 2004 porcelain with celadon to fragmented visual information and discontinuous glaze on mikiage stone, episodes, many stressful and destructive, yet others and copper-plated stainless-steel stand transcendent and inspirational. In a world increasingly Purchased 2005 with funds from Raphy Star dominated by commercial design and branding, and global National Gallery of Australia, industrial manufacture – where location and means of Canberra Photographer: Takashi production are determined by economic rationalism rather Hatakeyama than tradition – the practices of craft exist as signs of

achievement and personal narratives that can re-locate us in time, place and experience. a

Robert Bell Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

This article is an extract from the exhibition catalogue Transformations: the language of craft, published in 2005 by the National Gallery of Australia

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RECH0036 Transformations: narrative, materiality, structure

Michael Brennand-Wood The three themes of Narrative, Materiality and he re-investigates and reworks them. Brennand-Wood works Died pretty – flag of Structure create a logical framework through which intensively and for several years has been studying pattern convenience 2005 embroidered flowers, acrylic, to view Transformations: the language of craft. in textiles, while creating his own highly patterned works. toy soldiers, wire, paint With eighty-five artists represented in the exhibition, Historically, as people moved around the world, the tubes, fabric and resin on wood panel this framework helps to make the connections between patterns in the fabric of their clothes were transferred to Lent by Michael Brennand- the artists, the materials used, and the works themselves. others. They were copied and reworked, absorbed into Wood Photographer: Stephen By exhibiting the work of Australian artists alongside the ever-growing populations, and through historical Brayne the work of international artists, we can investigate the clothing we can follow migration paths.

Sergei Isupov language used by artists living in environments different Working in this context, Brennand-Wood draws on To be object of attentions to our own. Their spoken language is different, but is the a vast range of interests including historical lace, maps, 2004 language of their art also different? music, flowers and scientific experiments to create his painted and glazed porcelain Lent by Sergei Isupov, The artists included in the first section, Narrative, deal own patterned work. Building an intense and dense courtesy Ferrin Gallery, with myriad themes. Michael Brennand-Wood is an artist three-dimensional picture, he addresses other issues. Lenox, MA Photographer: Katherine from the United Kingdom, embroidering by hand and by We know this artist is concerned with global issues Wetzel sewing machine. Using fabric in fine art is unusual, and through the titles of his work: Died pretty – flag of is indicative of the way Brennand-Wood sets challenges convenience points to this. It is brought home to us when for himself. He says ‘the things that are most difficult are we see toy soldiers scattered among the embroidered the things that sustain you’ and is happy breaking new flowers, reminding us that war is not a pretty sight, ground. His concepts recur over and over in his work as no matter how it might be disguised.

16 national gallery of australia artonview summer 2005 17 18 national gallery of australia The marriage of pattern and form can tell us a great deal. Viewers will read their own meanings into this painted David Freda Stag beetles, grubs and As Soetsu Yanagi said in The unknown craftsman: a surface. Perhaps the female is not being tortured, as one raspberries necklace 2001 Japanese insight into beauty, ‘to divine the significance might initially assume, and while she does not look happy, fine and sterling silver, 24- and 18-carat yellow gold, of pattern is the same as to understand beauty itself … she appears to be resigned rather than in distress. Isupov and glass enamels The relationship between beauty in the crafts and pattern distils his own feelings and observations into his imagery Lent by David Freda is particularly profound’. – and we can only speculate what he may have been Photographer: Barry Blau Artists have represented the human figure in three- thinking about when creating this work. Nel Linssen dimensional form in clay for thousands of years. The figure In his fine enamelled jewellery David Freda, also from Necklace round 2001 reinforced paper and itself and its surface ornamentation may convey aspects the United States, portrays his feelings for creatures, many elastic thread of the human condition or the figure might, as in Sergei of which make us uneasy. His fascination with wildlife Lent by Nel Linssen Photographer: Peter Bliek Isupov’s case, be a tabula rasa. of all sizes since he was a small boy has taken Freda into Russian-born and now living in the United States of a world of natural history. He wants his viewers to see America, Isupov is exhibiting two works: To be object the world as he does, a world that parallels our own of of attentions and Firebird. To be object of attentions is ‘mating, hatching, feeding, and fighting’. As an artist he a porcelain sculpture of a human head with two small uses the vast colour palette of enamels as others might horns. For this artist the material is almost irrelevant and, use precious and semi-precious stones. as his dealer Leslie Ferrin says, ‘his work is 3-D sculpture Stag beetles, grubs and raspberries, a necklace in with 2-D painting’. However, he would not achieve the silver, gold and enamels, shows the life cycle of the same impact on a flat surface. The nose of the sculpture stag beetle. Raspberries are the beetles’ favourite food gives body to the pleated skirt on the female figure and they are linked with pupae to form the chain on stretched across its face. The legs of the anthropomorphic which the beetle hangs. Unlike many other enamellists figure holding her right arm dissolve into cracks on the Freda works sculpturally, using colour to replicate nature side of the sculpture’s forehead, creating visual tension and enhance his creations. He has developed specialist between the form and its painted surface. metalsmithing techniques to create realistic necklaces

artonview summer 2005 19 Tanija and Graham Carr and brooches of orchids, hatching snake eggs and fish. Artists explore the different qualities of their chosen Untitled bowl form 2001 leather Through his acute observation we learn about the beauty materials and create a dialogue between the materials National Gallery of Australia, of nature and perhaps question why we squirm at the and the viewer in the second section of the exhibition, Canberra bugs and reptiles he portrays. Materiality. Yasuo Hayashi In 1947, when Japanese ceramicist Yasuo Hayashi was Nel Linssen, who lives and works in the Netherlands, Memory of the house ’05-1 nineteen years old, he was one of a group of potters who creates sensuous jewellery using folded paper. She takes 2005 glazed stoneware formed Shiko-kai, an avant-garde group promoting a new an intuitive approach to her bracelets and necklaces made Lent by Yasuo Hayashi ceramic art movement in Japan. His work is not vessel- from paper. It is, however, an approach based on years of Photographer: Yasuo Hayashi based, and this was almost unique in Japan at the time. research, and haptic knowledge of her material, and of Keiko Amenomori- Since those early days, he explored new ways of creating the way it must be cut, folded, drilled and fitted together. Schmeisser Ripples 1999 a dialogue with his audience, using reality and graphic The relationship between the wearer and Linssen’s paint and dye on linen, illusion, and has always intended that we should be fully necklaces is closer than in jewellery made from most shibori technique involved with his work. other materials. As the wearer moves, the viewer sees National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Through the use of shade and light, defined by lines the nuances of change in colour and texture. While the on the surface, flat surfaces appear to curve towards wearer is aware of the sensuous nature and movement the viewer and to have volume. While his ceramics have of the jewellery, the viewer is drawn to the constant become more three-dimensional, as seen in Memory of changes wrought by the slightest movement of the body. the house ‘05-1, he continues to use graphic techniques Light and shade play on the surfaces of the thick coils of line and colour to create perspective. Hayashi that wrap around the wearer’s neck or arms, conveying a incorporated several viewpoints into earlier works, sense of solidity and weight. In this way, Linssen’s work taking the exterior into the interior of the work, creating is evocative of traditional jewellery made from precious imaginary spaces through visual illusions. metals and stones, belying the light paper from which it is In Memory of the house ‘05-1 he conveys the volume constructed. of the house on the surface of the work, which has a Leather is not commonly considered a sculptural distinct front and back. Three or four lines indicate several material: it so much a part of our lives through functional different spaces or rooms and he takes us through them. uses, that we take it for granted. Australian artists Tanija Blocks of colour – blue, red, black and white oblique and Graham Carr use leather, carving its thick surface stripes – and texture further delineate the rooms. as though it were timber or stone. Theirs is a truly Hayashi recalls the home of his childhood, returning to collaborative partnership. Both trained as architects. the security of his family, and he continues to invite us They draw on this training and discuss each piece, from to join him and at the same time to explore our own the first idea of form and concept to the last line of memories of childhood homes. decorative surface. This mode of practice is unusual,

20 national gallery of australia even among those who make objects, such as those that are included in Transformations. There is a timeless quality about the Carrs’ Untitled bowl form, which has a strong sculptural presence. It is carved to give a richly textured surface. The patterning is intricate, ordered and repetitive. The repetition brings rhythm and order to the ornamentation of the form. Protruding lugs give it the appearance of having been made of wood joined together with rivets, as if to serve a functional or ritual purpose. Artists included in the third section of the exhibition, Structure, are concerned with the arrangement and organisation of elements in their work. Keiko Amenomori- Schmeisser is a Japanese–Australian artist working primarily in textiles and specialising in shibori. She has lived and worked in Germany, Japan and Australia and her work is influenced by each of these places. Her first design lessons were a consequence of being taught at eleven years old the pictographs and culture of Japanese calligraphy. She learned the importance of the white space on the page and the need for balance and tension between the black and white within a given space. Shibori is the Japanese term given to both the process and the product of fabric that is tied, knotted and otherwise manipulated to create a resist pattern when dyed. The structure of Amenomori-Schmeisser’s work is created by folding and stitching. Through stitching she shapes the fabric, changing the direction of the stitches, using different thicknesses of thread and different stitching to achieve the amount of colour and texture she requires. Surface paint adds to the structure of Ripples and gives the cloth rigidity that allows three-dimensional forming to create tension and movement. Her work is influenced by memories, observations, experiences and travel to many parts of the world. Coincidentally, she has said that ‘transformation’ is a key concept for her work. Viewers will find that the language of craft transcends the spoken word. This exhibition brings together artists who deal with similar issues, no matter where they live. The vocabulary is both aesthetic and technical. New technologies have opened further avenues for exploration by individual craft artists, as well as opportunities for more intense communication between artists living in different countries. Transformations: the language of craft will make a contribution to the exchange between artists around the world. Just as importantly, viewers will increase their knowledge and understanding of craft in the twenty-first century. a

Meredith Hinchliffe

Meredith Hinchliffe is an arts advocate and writer living and working in Canberra.

artonview summer 2005 21 orde poynton gallery

Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler

26 November 2005 – 5 February 2006

There are no rules, that is one thing I say about every medium, every picture ... that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about. Helen Frankenthaler

In 1950, at the age of twenty-two, Helen Frankenthaler filled it with large, lyrical gestures – a style that has since met the art critic Clement Greenberg and began become her signature. The technique, described by the mixing with the New York School of artists. Two things artist as ‘soak-stain’, was a fusion of image and ground immediately set her apart from her contemporaries – her that resulted in the ultimate flat surface. This experimental gender and her age. Frankenthaler was one of a handful method was a radical digression from what had come of female artists who successfully contributed to the before and was the breakthrough that propelled Helen artistic territory dominated by such giants as Jackson Frankenthaler into the spotlight of the New York art scene. Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Much younger than these Frankenthaler was well-equipped for this sudden artists, Frankenthaler emerged as one of the first in what attention. Born in New York in 1928, the youngest of has come to be known as the ‘second generation’ of three daughters to wealthy Jewish parents, she was Abstract Expressionist painters. Frankenthaler accompanied educated at the prestigious Dalton School, New York, and Greenberg to many exhibition openings, visited the studios Bennington College, Vermont. She studied at Dalton under of other artists and frequented the (now legendary) Cedar the Mexican muralist Rufino Tamayo and at Bennington Street Bar and the Artists’ Club. She was adept at analysing, under the American Cubist Paul Feeley. It was Feeley who discussing and deconstructing the robust action painting directed Frankenthaler in the development of her early produced around her and actively participated in the artistic Cubist-derived style and, more importantly, gave her an dialogue of the 1950s. Yet, she knew she was alone in her understanding of pictorial composition and space. Feeley quest to develop an individual style. Frankenthaler began taught Frankenthaler to stand in front of a work of art her search for a departure point – a method of mark- and dissect it: ‘We would really sift through every inch of making that was uniquely hers. She found it in 1952 with what it was that worked; or if it didn’t, why. And cover a large-scale oil painting entitled Mountains and sea. up either half of it or a millimetre of it and wonder what Mountains and sea was created after Frankenthaler was effective in it … in terms of paint, the subject matter, returned to her New York studio from a trip to Nova the size, the drawing.’ Early encouragement to become Scotia, where she had painted numerous watercolours of involved in the arts, in combination with Frankenthaler’s the rocky seascape. She spread her canvas on the floor, a meticulous training, led to the development of her technique adopted from Jackson Pollock, but it was what unwavering determination to become an artist. she did next that made that crucial, radical departure from Determination is an essential characteristic of the his work. Frankenthaler, in the habit of working quickly artist whose work evolves from experimentation. It is and using watercolour washes, applied paint diluted with Frankenthaler’s intrinsic sense of exactly what is required to turpentine directly onto the unprimed canvas. The artist balance line, form and colour within a given pictorial space has recalled that she felt ‘the landscapes were in my arms that permits her to unleash a spontaneous, yet controlled as I did it’. Working instinctively, she allowed the diluted gesture: ‘you have to know how to use the accident, how mix to soak into the canvas and using subtle washes she to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it

22 national gallery of australia artonview summer 2005 23 so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.’ Frankenthaler recognised early in her career that to grow as an artist and to develop aesthetically it was crucial that she continually challenge herself and work outside of her comfort zone. Painting was Frankenthaler’s primary artistic passion, but an obsession to push her creative limits led her to turn her attention to print media. Frankenthaler created her first prints in 1961 with Tatyana Grosman at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) in West Islip, Long Island. It was in this intimate lithographic workshop, where artists were treated as personal guests and for whom Grosman would go to any lengths to facilitate artistic needs, that Frankenthaler began to experiment with print media. There was a long period of print education and technical trial and error for Frankenthaler: ‘Whether it be graphics, sculpture, tapestry, ceramics – whatever the medium – there is the difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials … [a] translation of my image in a new vocabulary.’ While Frankenthaler also created her first woodcuts at ULAE it was not until 1976, when she commenced collaboration with master printer Kenneth Tyler, that she began a sustained investigation of the woodcut medium. Kenneth Tyler was exactly the master printer Frankenthaler required to transpose her bold gestural experiments into the realm of the technological. The artist’s first woodcut with Tyler was Essence mulberry, produced in 1977. The inception of this stunning, eight- colour woodcut was inspired by two factors. The first was an exhibition of fifteenth-century woodcuts that Frankenthaler had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was particularly struck by the colour of the prints and determined to discover all she could about the ancient medium. The second was when the artist, working with Tyler at his Bedford workshop, noticed a mulberry tree growing outside the studio. She commented upon the vibrant colour of the berries and Tyler squashed some of them into juice. Frankenthaler dipped a paintbrush into the juice and proceeded to paint onto a piece of Japanese calligraphic paper. The resulting mulberry colour against the delicate paper was the starting point for the development of the print. With Essence mulberry both the artist and the master printer recognised the start of an extraordinary collaboration. Frankenthaler has confessed that even today she will look at Essence mulberry and say to Ken, ‘How did we do it? How did we get it?’, believing that, ‘It is one thing for the artist to have a certain magic and produce a certain magic but for the technicians and the press and Ken to get it’ was something truly special. She admits that she ‘wanted things that I couldn’t at times articulate … but between our exchange we got this music’. Essence mulberry is seen today as a watershed, the first

24 national gallery of australia opening page: Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji IV 1998 colour woodcut and stencil on light rose handmade TGL paper Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Helen Frankenthaler / Tyler Graphics Ltd

opposite page: Helen Frankenthaler Essence mulberry 1977 colour woodcut printed on buff handmade Maniai gampi paper Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Helen Frankenthaler / Tyler Graphics Ltd

Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji VI 1998 colour woodcut printed on light sienna handmade TGL paper Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Helen Frankenthaler / Tyler Graphics Ltd

of Frankenthaler’s woodcuts to employ the traditionally in mind, Tyler suggested to Frankenthaler that she could graphic medium in the production of an image of abstract communicate to the workshop of printers and, more and inspired beauty. importantly, remain true to her unique style by painting The woodcut, a notoriously difficult and rigid medium, her ideas for the printed works onto pieces of wood. could not be further from the artistic realm of a gestural, Supplied with wood, paint and brushes, Frankenthaler spontaneous painter. As a painter, Frankenthaler’s creative worked alone in the artist’s studio at Tyler Graphics process is driven by the development of a dialogue with painting the maquettes for the Tales of Genji. From the the work itself, ‘a fighting, loving dialogue with this piece painted studies, tracings were made and woodblocks were of material. You force something on it and it gives you an carved by the ukiyo-e trained Japanese carver, Yasuyuki answer back … until you know that this is right’. Kenneth Shibata. The watery nature of Frankenthaler’s paintings Tyler has recalled that with the Tales of Genji, a series created an immediate problem for printing. In order to of six woodcut prints that Frankenthaler began in 1995, create the lush transparent washes of colour, the printers ‘it was apparent from the beginning that what was needed had to work quickly with wet sheets of paper that, under was a new approach and technique for making what Helen the pressure of the printing press, would force the inks strove for: a woodcut with painterly resonance’. With this to bleed and blend into one another. Tyler recollects that,

artonview summer 2005 25

‘None of us knew what we were doing … and half the time we didn’t know what we were saying. The technique had absolutely no history. We were making it up as we went along’. Through trial and error and laborious proofing sessions, the workshop overcame these technical difficulties. Despite the leap into the creative unknown, the six resulting Tales of Genji woodcuts are truly seductive prints. It is with awe that one looks at these works and realises that the project took the artist and the workshop a mammoth three years to complete. It is the Tales of Genji woodcuts that form the pinnacle in experimental print collaboration between Frankenthaler and Tyler Graphics, and the series that forced the development of new printmaking techniques that were perfected two years later in Frankenthaler’s final woodcut with Tyler Graphics, the triptych Madame Butterfly. Frankenthaler has stated that: ‘A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image … one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute.’ With Madame Butterfly, Frankenthaler has triumphed in her attempt to encapsulate a ‘born in a minute’ feeling with a print so painterly in its delicate washes of colour and transient floating forms that it resembles a watercolour. Madame Butterfly is a virtuoso display of 102 colours, printed from forty-six woodblocks, in a work spanning three panels of paper and measuring over two metres in length. Once again, the artist communicated her ideas to the technicians of the print workshop by painting on three pieces of specially selected wood. The paper was skilfully handmade by Tyler Graphics to resemble both the texture and look of the wood grain. The woodblocks used to print the image were carved by Frankenthaler and Yasuyuki Shibata with Frankenthaler marking the wood using her ‘guzzying’ technique, a technique that involves scratching the wood with items including sandpaper and dental tools. Frankenthaler was determined to ensure that her wrist, and thus her unique sensibility, be evident in every Helen Frankenthaler Madame Butterfly 2000 aspect of the print’s creation, just as it is in her paintings. colour woodcut printed on The resulting work is one of exceptional beauty. With three sheets of handmade TGL paper Madame Butterfly we see Frankenthaler’s impulsive soak- Purchased with the assistance stain technique realised in the most graphic of print media. of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, The ‘spontaneous print’ that Frankenthaler has pursued Canberra throughout her print career has finally been achieved. © Helen Frankenthaler / Tyler Graphics Ltd 2000 Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler reveals the experimental nature of an artist who, by deliberately casting the rules aside, has maintained her innovative edge for over five decades. a

Jaklyn Babington Assistant Curator International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

Further information on the Kenneth Tyler Collection is at nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler

artonview summer 2005 27 forthcoming exhibition

Discovering Constable: rediscovering nature

Anna Gray, Assistant Director, Australian Art, explains why the Gallery is working on a major new exhibition of the work of John Constable for 2006.

John Constable You want to know why we’re doing a Constable show? If you think Constable’s art belongs to the past, then Cloud study 1822 oil on paper Constable lived around 200 years ago – the time of Jane I encourage you to come to our exhibition, and look and © The Frick Collection, Austen, William Wordsworth and mad bad Byron. He look again. Because I believe if you take the time to absorb New York died just before Queen Victoria came to the throne. My yourself in his art you’ll be transported into a place of great-great-grandfather George Bonamy was still living in great joy – you’ll discover a world full of air and light and England then. Indeed, Constable was born twelve years atmosphere. You’ll feel the wind in your hair, and sense before Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet arrived in the delights of being in touch with nature. And you’ll look Sydney Cove; but during Constable’s lifetime settlements at clouds like you’ve never seen them before. were established in Hobart, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne I remember the Tate’s Constable exhibition of 1991, and Adelaide. when I was amazed at the energy of his paint surfaces. You might think Constable’s art belongs to another Then I saw the British Council show in Paris in 2003 – the place, another time, just like that of Austen and all those one that Lucian Freud selected and my co-curator John others. But we – or at least some of us – love to read Gage worked on. French artists such as Géricault and Austen, see Emma Thomson’s movie version of Sense Delacroix were inspired by Constable back in the 1820s. The and sensibility or watch the BBC version of Pride and English-born French art critic PG Hamerton wrote in 1866 prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy (or the recent film that Constable ‘did not see lines, but spaces, and in the version). We enjoy looking at a people living in a time when spaces’ he saw ‘an immense variety of differently coloured things seemed a lot simpler – but also many of Austen’s sparkles and spots’. He added, ‘all the best modern French people seem just like us and people we know, and their landscape is due to the hints he gave’. The French saw the predicaments are similar to those we experience. (Bridget importance of Constable’s work back then, and the French Jones’s diary makes just this point.)

28 national gallery of australia appreciated him in 2003. The Grand Palais exhibition was the one work, and other works related to it. The obvious John Constable Salisbury Cathedral from a huge success. People loved the big canvases and the way example was A boat passing a lock 1826; it was the painting the Bishop’s Grounds Constable had painted the full-scale studies for them with Constable selected to give to the Royal Academy as his 1822–23 oil on canvas so much energy, but they adored the small impressions Diploma picture when he was elected Royal Academician Victoria & Albert Museum, London painted en plein air. These were still as fresh as the day they in 1829 – and there was another version of it in the National were painted. Gallery of Victoria. We would look at a number of his plein The Paris exhibition inspired us to think about bringing air sketches which were so full of life and contributed to Constable to Australia. It was about ten years since the the freshness of his work. We would have a focus on his Gallery presented the magnificent Turner exhibition curated innovative cloud studies. We would also look at some of the by Michael Lloyd; and there had not been a Constable copies he made of Claude and Ruisdael and others – as well exhibition in Australia for thirty years. It was time to show as some of the works which Constable painted under the his work again. So we asked Constable expert John Gage inspiration of these artists, such as the magnificent Vale of – who had worked on the Paris exhibition – to join us in Dedham 1827–28 from the National Gallery of Scotland, a preparing a Constable show for Australia, and the Gallery’s work that Constable considered to be one of his best. We exhibition manager and designer Adam Worrall and I would also look at the mezzotints and how David Lucas began to discuss the scope of the exhibition with John. translated Constable’s paintings into mezzotint. At this time We agreed we would focus on Constable as an artist, a we also discussed how a number of Australian artists had maker of pictures, and select works which emphasised been influenced by Constable and how we should have a this. We would select one of his six large paintings of the small accompanying exhibition showing a group of works Stour Valley and show this in depth – show two versions of by Australian artists which reflected this influence.

artonview summer 2005 29 valuable about working with their collection was being able to look at a broad range of Constable’s work in one place – from small intimate plein air sketches to large six- foot paintings. They have country house portraits such as Malvern Hall: the entrance front c. 1820 and images of rural harmony like Ploughing scene in Suffolk (A summerland) 1825; and they have a large group of drawings which includes Landscape with trees and deer, after Claude 1825. Among the many works I looked at, and fell in love with, I think my favourite was Stormy sea, Brighton, 20 July 1828 – a work Constable painted just four months before his wife died from pulmonary tuberculosis on 28 November. It is a small sketch, but huge in its emotion. It is full of energy and vigour, with thickly and quickly applied paint capturing the stormy weather Constable experienced at Brighton, and his own personal turmoil. While in the United States I visited colleagues at the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art to talk with them about our exhibition. Their paintings include a small early sketch, View towards the rectory, East Bergholt, 30 September 1810, with the red morning sun glowing over and through John Constable  By pure chance John and I were going to be in London the fields at East Bergholt. This painting was included in The Vale of Dedham 1827–28 oil on canvas  at the same time and we would be able to spend a week an exhibition of the work of the Barbizon painters a few © The National Gallery of together visiting galleries, talking to colleagues about our years ago – to reflect how these artists had admired and Scotland exhibition and possible loans. We began with the Tate, been inspired by Constable, and to show how innovative his where John particularly urged the cause of a small painting, work was. Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead Heath, with boy sitting on On my one day in New York en route back to Australia, a bank c. 1825, because it had a similar sky to that which I visited the Frick Collection where the curatorial staff Constable painted in the two horizontal versions of A kindly arranged to show me their two magical cloud boat passing a lock. At the Victoria & Albert Museum we studies. Constable’s sky studies are wonderfully observed, argued the case for a large group of works including their recording the time of day, date, wind direction and weather magnificentSalisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds conditions under which they were painted. After viewing 1822–23, with the cathedral enclosed within a sylvan these works I went into some of the public rooms there and vista, and Old Sarum 1834, one of Constable’s rare large sat looking at their Constables and thought about what lay exhibition watercolours. John had taught at Cambridge  behind the magic of his work. Various scholars express a for some years, and knew the Fitzwilliam and its staff range of views – but for me the answer that afternoon was well. We wanted to borrow their masterly drawing for A that Constable managed to capture the air, in a way that boat passing a lock, and examples from their mezzotint no one else has done. People talk about the way in which collection – some with annotations by Constable which he captured atmosphere, the dew, the dampness. I think showed his process of working with his printmaker, Lucas. he went even further to convey the air and the breeze. At the Royal Academy we asked for A boat passing a lock He doesn’t just paint light – although he does magically – his large six-foot Diploma picture, which would be the capture light in the sky, on the ground, glistening on water, keynote of our exhibition – as well as one of Constable’s and in the trees – he goes further and paints the light and small gems, his spectacular sketch Rainstorm over the sea the air in between the leaves, behind the trees. Constable 1824–28. Our colleagues in the various British institutions animates the landscape and makes you feel it is alive, and in could not have been more helpful, and after a week of talks doing so makes you feel alive. we began to think that the exhibition was a real possibility. Constable may have lived some time ago in another Back in Australia we refined the list of works which country, and the world may have changed in many ways we would request for loan. I began to prepare for my next – but the clouds still float on high, daffodils still flutter in Constable adventure – a trip to the United States for a the breeze, and our hearts can still delight at what we see. a month at the Yale Center for British Art on a Fellowship. It was wonderful to meet up again with former Art Gallery of Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky opens  3 March 2006 in Canberra. Organised by the National South Australia curator Angus Trumble, who is now Curator Gallery of Australia in partnership with the Museum  of Paintings and Sculpture there. What was particularly of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Further information at nga.gov.au/Constable

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

John Mawurndjul Mardayin

John Mawurndjul is Australia’s foremost bark painter and also widely acknowledged as one of the country’s leading contemporary artists, which was confirmed when he was awarded the prestigious Clemenger Contemporary Art Prize at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2003. Mawurndjul’s people are the Kuninjku in western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. A member of the Kurulk clan, Dhuwa/Duwa moiety, Balang subsection, Mawurndjul has been living and working in his traditional country at Milmilngkan, an outstation near the larger settlement of Maningrida since the early 1990s. Mawurndjul’s early paintings were highly figurative with representations of Ngalyod, the Rainbow Serpent, Yawkyawk spirits, animals and ancestral beings, but also including many more schematic visual references to the culturally sacred Mardayin ceremonial design. Mardayin designs were originally painted on young initiates bodies to indicate their connections to their ancestral homelands, mapping their country in physical form. As Mawurndjul’s recent bark paintings and larrikitj [hollow funeral poles] have become more refined in their intricate detailing, the Mardayin designs have come to dominate his oeuvre. Still embedded within these increasingly abstracted Mardayin forms and gracile lines are sacred stories of law. The mesmerising visual effect of the thin and delicate rarrk, uniformly maintained across the whole length of the bark, is hypnotic and suggests the incredible ancestral power inherent in Mawurndjul’s art. It reiterates the power of the ancestral beings who inhabit western Arnhem Land, demonstrated by Mawurndjul’s masterful and dynamic arrangement of rarrk [cross-hatching] within prismatic grids. Far from settling into a simple signature style his painting has consistently evolved, showing an immense degree of innovation. Mawurndjul considers himself to be an international artist, and wants to see his work exhibited alongside his peers in major public institutions. a

Brenda L Croft Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

John Mawurndjul Kuninjku people, Kurulk clan, Dhuwa/Duwa moiety, Balang subsection Mardayin 2004 natural pigments on eucalyptus bark National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

artonview summer 2005 31 new acquisition Asian Art

The child-saint Sambandar

When he was three years old Sambandar sat hungry and crying outside a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva while his father took a ritual bath. Looking down and feeling compassion for the child, Shiva’s consort Uma [Parvati] offered him a bowl of milk from her breast. On returning, Sambandar’s father was surprised to see milk dripping from his contented son’s chin, and a golden bowl beside him. When questioned, Sambandar simply pointed to an image of Uma and Shiva on the outside of the temple and began singing their praises. From that moment Sambandar was devoted to worship. One of sixty-three Shaivite saints, he spent his life wandering Tamil Nadu in southern India singing and dancing in honour of Shiva and Uma. He is credited with composing thousands of hymns, many of which are still sung. Sambandar, who lived in the seventh century, was only eighteen years old when he died and is almost always depicted as a child. In this sculpture, he is shown dancing on a lotus base with his right hand raised towards the source of the heavenly milk. Images of the child saint are found in most Tamil temples devoted to Shiva. Portrayed here laden with jewellery and with his hair elaborately styled, Sambandar can also be represented as a simply adorned standing child, an example of which was acquired by the Gallery in 1989. Both Sambandar figures are from the Chola period (9th–13th century) and were cast in bronze using the lost wax technique. From the tenth century, deities were obliged to participate in public life in much the same way as human royalty and bronze sculptures, such as this dancing Sambandar, were periodically paraded through the streets dressed in rich cloth and draped with floral garlands.

Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art

Chola dynasty (9th–13th century) Tamil Nadu, India The child-saint Sambandar 12th century bronze National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

32 national gallery of australia new acquisition Asian Art

Goddess Pratyangira

Pratyangira is a fierce Hindu goddess with the head and mane of a lion and the voluptuous body of a woman. She protects her followers from evil forces and is worshipped in the pursuit of magical powers rather than as an act of devout spirituality. The goddess has the ability to grant her devotees victory, can eliminate illness, and is considered a protector of armies. She can also bestow the power of flight, as well as the capacity to change size, read and control minds and create rain. When enraged, however, she can inflict hardship, destitution, disease and even death. Represented here with four arms, Pratyangira has her right foot raised and appears to wear a garland of skulls. She beats the rhythm for her dance on the small drum in her upper right hand while her lower right hand holds a trident, its prongs unusually pointing towards the ground. The trident and drum are attributes associated with the god Shiva and with manifestations of the great Hindu goddesses, in particular the ferocious goddess Kali. Pratyangira’s downward-pointing trident suggests a tantric or mystical origin for the sculpture. In keeping with this cosmic aspect, the missing lower left hand of the sculpture would probably have held a severed head Chola dynasty (9th–13th century) Tamil Nadu, or a bowl made from a skull, into which could be poured India Goddess Pratyangira 12th century stone blood or other libations. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Carved from a single block of stone, this sculpture of Pratyangira was made in the twelfth century in Tamil Nadu, southern India. Images of the goddess, who flings the stars into chaos when she shakes her mane, are extremely rare and the Gallery is delighted to welcome this impressive sculpture of Pratyangira into the collection.

Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art

Chola dynasty (9th–13th century) Tamil Nadu, India Goddess Pratyangira 12th century stone National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

artonview summer 2005 33 new acquisition International Painting and Sculpture

Larry Poons Mover

Larry Poons Mover 1972 In the late 1960s Poons began to pour paint thickly onto has a sense of spontaneity derived from the original splash synthetic polymer on canvas Gift of Jon Plapp and Richard canvases on the floor, a complete departure from his of paint, yet this apparent impulsive freedom of execution  McMillan 2005  earlier precise, analytical, Op Art works. By accident, he is the result of painstaking layering and overpainting. In National Gallery of Australia, discovered that he could more easily achieve the effect the juxtaposition between impulsiveness and attention Canberra of layering and banding that he desired by tacking his to detail, Mover hovers on the cusp of Poons’ transition canvases to the wall and throwing paint at them, allowing from studied illusion to the seeming abandonment of paint and gravity to work together to create what has deliberation that later characterised his work. been described as a cascade motif, which can be seen Postwar American painting has a major presence in Mover 1972. Mover represents a new phase in Poons’ in the Gallery’s collection and Mover builds on that oeuvre, one that was pursued for a further two decades. strength, broadening our understanding of the evolution Paintings of this period show Poons coming to grips with of American art. Poons was a contemporary and friend tactility and painterliness, leaving behind his characteristic of a number of artists such as Robert Indiana, James restraint and optical illusion, and paving the way for his Rosenquist, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, and Jules later explorations of texture. Olitski, all of whom are represented in the collection. a Mover is painted on unprimed canvas, a flat wash Bronwyn Campbell background soaked with a brilliant diagonal splash of Assistant Curator orange that forms the basis for the central motif. The work International Painting and Sculpture

34 national gallery of australia new acquisition International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

Bernard Villemot Orangina

Bernard Villemot began his professional career as a designs, including Orangina 1983. In an ironic, witty way Bernard Villemot Orangina 1983 lithograph student at Paul Colin’s graphic design school in Paris and it also refers to the development of modern painting, The Poynton Bequest from the 1930s onwards established a reputation as a in particular the School of Paris, by directly drawing on National Gallery of Australia, premier poster designer. Villemot produced some of the Matisse’s famous painting La dance 1909–10. Canberra most iconic commercial images in the period following Orangina 1983 is one of many designs Villemot the second World War for clients that included the French produced for this manufacturer. Made from crushed mineral water Perrier, the shoe manufacturer Bally and, of oranges, Orangina was first presented to the world at course, Orangina. He went on to win many major graphic the Marseille Fair of 1936 by a Spanish chemist named design awards throughout his working life, including Dr Trigo. Initially marketed in Algeria under the name of the prestigious Martini Prize Gold Medal award, and Naranjina, the commercial rights to the product were continued to make posters right up until his death in 1989. bought by Léon Beton who re-named it Orangina. The Villemot came out of a generation of French graphic drink and its characteristic squat little bottle soon became designers all of whom were influenced by the great famous throughout France. Villemot produced his first Parisian poster designer Leonetto Cappiello (1875–1942). design for the product in 1952 in an alliance that would Cappiello is generally recognised as the father of last up until his death in 1989. Orangina 1983 is one of modern advertising. His revolutionary insight into the Villemot’s most famous works. a art of advertising was built around the psychological Mark Henshaw and Gwen Horsfield (Intern) phenomenon of image association. We can see this International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books insight playing a central role in many of Villemot’s

artonview summer 2005 35 new acquisition International Photography

Shu-Min Lin Glass ceiling

Shu-Min Lin By creating images of depth on a plate of glass, I can connsider a shift in perception, for the work is a ‘ceiling’ only Glass ceiling 1997–2001 12 holograms installation explore a world between the real and unreal, giving from the point of view of the figures in the work. Purchased with the assistance a dream-like quality to my work. Shu-Min Lin The illusory nature of self and reality is central here as it of the Gene and Brian is in all of Shu-Min Lin’s works which are underpinned by a Sherman Contemporary Shu-Min Lin began working with holograms in Taiwan in Buddhist philosophy. The world is in three layers: by always Asian Art Fund 2005 the early 1980s. Glass ceiling is a work which evolved slowly National Gallery of Australia, looking up (striving for goals in the future) or down (living Canberra over a number of years, and was the work shown in the lost in memories of the past) we lose track of what is around Taiwanese Pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennale. It is one of us (the present). The title refers on one level to the corporate his most well-known and popular works. notion of being stopped from career advancement beyond a Due to the three-dimensional nature of the holographic certain position due to prejudice; but the spiritual, humanist medium, the work gives the impression that people are aspect is as important, for we are all trapped in samsara, trapped under the floor looking up. Attempting to see a cycle of rebirth and suffering – trapped as Shu-Min Lin the people beneath their feet, viewers often obscure with has stated in the ‘compartmentalized, frantic and desperate their shadows that which they are trying to see. Hence the spaces we inhabit’. a work explores ideas around the difficulty of really knowing oneself – and others. Where do we place ourselves and our Anne O’Hehir importance in relation to others? The title suggests we might Assistant Curator, Photography

36 national gallery of australia new acquisition Australian Photography

Robert McFarlane Dawn service, Anzac Day, Thirroul, NSW

Photojournalist Robert McFarlane is best known as the broader platform of social issues such as a focus on Robert McFarlane Dawn service, Anzac Day, doyen of film and theatre stills photography in Australia Indigenous leaders and communities. Thirroul, NSW 1978 and as a photography critic and writer. Over the past Dawn service was a self-elected assignment of gelatin silver photograph National Gallery of Australia, year he has been reviewing his documentary archive and special significance for McFarlane for while he had Canberra Dawn service is from a group of works recently acquired photographed many Anzac Days marches he had never by the Gallery from the 1960s–70s. Looking through made it to a Dawn service. He was, however, intrigued the images in McFarlane’s archive it was noticeable how by the association with Thirroul on the south coast and he returned again and again to Anzac Day marches British writer DH Lawrence who spent time in Australia and subjects that evoked an ‘older’ simpler Australia. in a cottage in the seaside hamlet in 1922. McFarlane has commented that his literate and musical Perhaps it was McFarlane’s own love of words and parents had a strong sense of family and extended writing that made him stay up all night so he wouldn’t miss community which translates in his own work to an the gathering of local veterans on 25th April 1978. a empathy with their generation. Yet McFarlane has also Gael Newton sensitively documented the subcultures of the younger Senior Curator, Photography generation and his own contemporaries, amongst a

artonview summer 2005 37 new acquisition International Decorative Arts

Harlan Butt Earth beneath our feet: horizon #1

Harlan Butt has for a long time used the form of the enamelled vessel for his work. In doing so he draws directly from his experiences in Japan, where he studied traditional metalworking and enamelling and their relationships to the cultural traditions of Zen Buddhism and the tea ceremony. Earth beneath our feet: horizon #1 references the traditions of the Japanese koro incense burner, in which forms of the natural world and the simple objects of everyday life are elevated to become vehicles for contemplation. This work is inspired by the flora, fauna and wild terrain of Colorado, where Butt spends part of each year. Through it he describes a landscape in which the viewer is an active participant, rather than a passive spectator. He expands the metaphor of the garden to explore the beauty and wildness of the natural world, encouraging intimacy and involvement. Also evoked in this work are the traditions of Japanese ikebana, with its concept of visible imperfection in remembrance of the harmony of living things. The snake on the vessel’s lid is unobtrusive, seeming to sense our presence as much as we recoil from its appearance. a

Robert Bell Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

Harlan Butt Earth beneath our feet: horizon #1 2003 silver, enamel, copper and paint National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

38 national gallery of australia new acquisition Australian Decorative Arts

Bern Emmerichs Who are you?

The quizzical looks exchanged by the two central figures The latter’s bright blue eyes are firmly, though almost Bern Emmerichs Who are you? 2003 in Bern Emmerichs’ ceramic work Who are you? provide secretly angled towards his neighbour, who in turn stares earthenware with underglaze a humorous insight into the complex history of relations into the distance, perhaps trying to discern the future. painted decoration between Indigenous Australians and Europeans. Both It is telling that neither figure looks directly at the other, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra the title and the semi-naive depiction of the figures leaving each of them to covertly wonder, imagine, and inject an immediacy into historical events, the apparently speculate rather than approach each other openly. light-hearted treatment of which belies the serious The form is reminiscent of a large meat platter, repercussions that are still being felt today. commonly exported to Australia from Britain during the This imagery captures the early days of contact, before mid-nineteenth century in the early days of the colony. curiosity turned into mistrust and violence. Emmerichs Along the rim a different kind of history is evoked by depicts the coming together of two very different worlds combining animated action figures that recall ancient by representing these divergent cultures as a collection of Greek vases alongside figures that resemble those artefacts: the man-made environment populated by grand from medieval English tapestries. It is this multiplicity residences crowned by flags of ownership on one side; the of references, rendered in Emmerichs’ characteristically didgeridoo, boomerang, spear and sacred places marked vibrant palette, that have produced an engaging work by natural landmarks (Uluru) on the other. which depicts serious themes with a lightness of touch. a The central figures also characterise these differences: Sarah Edge the wide eyes and questioning face of the Aboriginal is Curatorial Assistant, Decorative Arts and Design juxtaposed with the sharp, pale features of the European.

artonview summer 2005 39 new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

John Barker Mother’s sorrow

John Barker This powerful narrative work by John Barker draws a witness to this private moment, creating an uncomfortable Mother’s sorrow c. 1920 oil on canvas the viewer into the world of loss, grief and hardship sense of intrusion. At the same time the viewer is excluded National Gallery of Australia, experienced by millions during and in the years following by the mother’s arm shielding her face from view. Canberra the First World War. The symbolism in this painting John Barker was a mature artist and a council member underlines the pain and anguish experienced in a mother’s of the British Watercolour Society when he emigrated to loss. The woman slumps at a table, her head resting on Western Australia in 1924. He exhibited regularly with the one arm and her face hidden in the crook of her elbow West Australian Society of Arts from 1924 until shortly in a pose of intense grief. Her other arm extends across before his death in 1943. He also became a member of the table to touch the corner of a framed photograph the British Institute of Arts and was a founding member of a young soldier and in front of her lies an open letter. of the Perth Society of Artists. Although undated, it is On the wall behind are two images: one of Christ on the possible that Barker painted Mother’s sorrow in England Cross, the other is of a baby. before emigrating as the subject matter bears a similarity The emotional intensity is heightened by the simplicity to other works of art produced between 1915 and 1925 of the setting and the dark tones of the wall, contrasted which dealt with the outpouring of grief and loss. a by the stark white of the woman’s blouse and the table Juliet Flook cloth. The shallow space, formed by the dark wall and Administration Assistant, Australian Art the cropped table, places the viewer within the room as

40 national gallery of australia new acquisition Australian Prints and Drawings

ST Gill Native dignity

Acquired in August 2005 Native dignity c. 1860 is a lithograph drawn by the English-born artist ST Gill. Gill arrived in Australia with his family in 1839 when he was twenty-one years of age. From childhood Gill showed creative aptitude and a desire to be a professional artist. While working in London at the Hubbard Profile Gallery Gill was influenced by fashionable caricature artists such as Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray. He applied these conventions to colonial life. Gill’s works are famous for their accuracy in depicting the atmosphere and resonance of colonial Australia. While most popularly known as the quintessential artist of the Victorian gold fields, he was also one of Adelaide’s first photographers and documented the people, industry and landscape in the southern Australian colonies in the mediums of watercolour and print. Most notably he depicted the industrious and sometimes struggling city of Adelaide. He also took part in and documented expeditions to find the inland sea and the birth of the South Australian mining industry. Gill produced satirical works that commented on the social politics of the time, of which the large caricature Native dignity is an example. The work might seem to be a parody of Indigenous culture, but it has been interpreted as satirising the pretensions of the bourgeois colonist. In this vein the work may also be analysed as a metaphor for the colonisation of Australia. The Indigenous couple, dressed in the bare bones of European fashion, signify England’s vain struggle to occupy and claim the land. The white man in the background walks stiffly upright, eyeing the Indigenous couple with raised eyebrows and a sideways stare, perhaps representing English distaste ST Gill Native dignity 1860 lithograph for the Australian colonies. His veiled female partner, her National Gallery of Australia, mind bent to some other task or thought, does not even Canberra afford them a glance. a

Deborah Hill Gordon Darling Graduate Intern Australian Prints and Drawings

artonview summer 2005 41 collection focus

The magic of slow time: contemporary works on display in the Australian galleries

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn In our busy twenty-first century lives, it is not surprising methodically applied over the surface, are as important Incantation 2005 synthetic polymer paint that the idea of slowing things down is deeply appealing. as the marks themselves: they create a sense of air, of on perforated canvas In the search for greater meaning in our lives, art has the transparency and lightness, in tandem with the fluidity National Gallery of Australia, capacity to slow us down in our tracks if we are open to of the inscriptions. The cumulative effect of the rhythmic Canberra Courtesy Martin Browne its enchantments. If we contemplate a number of new patterns is akin to a chant – at once meditative and Fine Art contemporary acquisitions currently on display in the mesmerising.

Brent Harris Australian galleries we will come to discover a sense of The idea of chanting and repetition is integral to Plato’s cave: painting no. 4 space and time – and indeed enchantment – that is not Vongpoothorn’s Incantation, which is not hurried in its 2005 only experiential for the viewer but imbedded in the works oil on linen physical making or in its conception. As an artist who National Gallery of Australia, themselves. was born in Laos in 1971, migrating with her parents to Canberra Take, for example, Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s major Australia at the age of eight, Vongpoothorn has a rich recent work Incantation 2005 painted on perforated cultural heritage to draw upon. The artist points out that canvas. In this work, delicate red threads of paint weave for her home is not about nostalgia for a geographical and loop around hundreds of perforations and across veils place but instead about her connection with family in and bands of luminous green and yellow. The piercings, Australia. In Incantation the emphasis on repetition and

42 national gallery of australia

Jan Riske Yellow melt out rhythm is closely related to the incantations or khaathaa descending, and periodically rising to a crescendo, much like 1988 oil on canvas  the monks’ chanting. The bands are also reminiscent of the National Gallery of Australia, that her father (an ordained monk) transcribed for her  Canberra on loose-leaf sheets. The idea of chants or spells –  pulsing sound of the Khaen, especially the gentle repetitive Gift of David K Edwards 2005 warding off harm, comforting and blessing – resonated chanting melody of Champasak, in the south, where I was born. for the artist with her own experiences growing up. For Jan Riske, who was born in Holland in 1932 and It appealed further because of the way the idea of immigrated to Australia in 1951, ideas about space, time incantations resides ambiguously between the secular  and energy are integral to his approach to painting. As an and the sacred. Vongpoothorn has also been inspired by artist who has travelled widely, Riske has maintained links her father’s playing of the Khaen, the Lao version of the with his country of origin. In 1962 he returned to live in pan pipe. As she writes in the catalogue for her 2005 Holland for a few years, setting up a studio with sculptor exhibition at Martin Browne Fine Art: Jan de Baat and painter Hans Nahuijs, forming a group In Incantation 2005, the scribbly writing appears haphazard  known as the ‘Barokke abstractionists’. Works undertaken and random, but the process is actually very controlled.  more than two decades later such as Yellow melt out The receding horizontal bands running across the canvas 1988 and Prussian pink 1989 (both generously gifted to are intended to appear musical, with sound ascending and the Gallery by Dr David Edwards) reveal a personal way

44 national gallery of australia of working: sumptuous in their richly textured, layered resurfaced.’ This led him back to a series of drawings that surfaces; rigorous in their meticulous construction; open he had undertaken of the model drawn from life. Another to interpretation. For Riske, the works have evolved in springboard was the text Allegory of the cave from Plato’s part through his contemplation of the energy underlying Republic, although the artist points out that the images in all things and his feeling for precision within the apparent the series are not intended to illustrate the title. Instead, randomness of the world. As he notes on his website: the text and imagery evoked ideas about the nature of We are living in a technically complex world … I realise that perception and the way that a shadow or silhouette can basically I am a particle painter. I see everything as particles; stand in for the figure but carries only limited information everything’s atomic anyway … When you look at the about its source. painting you feel that energy: every particle is in just the right Plato’s cave: painting no. 4 is an immensely subtle, place. The composition has to be completely exact … Every thought-provoking work in which the shadow of a male particle I put down is done just once, nothing is repeated. figure, rendered in a pale almost translucent blue, rises When my brush dips into the paint, the colour has to be up and appears to be on the verge of walking out of the graded, so therefore I have to start from a fixed point of picture frame. The ground on which this shadow-man is departure … My paintings not only refer to energy but also located is among the most numinous of any of the artist’s to different layers of perception. works – a cloud-like mass against a dark velvety black While Riske believes that the Impressionists revealed new that adds to the floating, dream-like feel of the whole. ways of perceiving the world through fragmented light Against the precision of the outlines is a contradictory and colour, and while his works recall the precision of spill: forms moving out, trailing down, casting a shimmer. Pointillism and the abstract rigour of the De Stijl group, The distortion of the figure is deliberate, recalling the he is less concerned with ‘isms’ than with finding ways ambiguous nature of cast shadows, allowing the viewer of working that correspond with his own experiences of to project their own imaginings onto the work. The figure the world. In a sense, his perception is guided as much by emerged two years after Harris painted the background. nature as by the particles and units of the ‘computer age’. As he wrote in notes accompanying his 2005 exhibition at As we take the time to contemplate the works we may Tolarno Galleries: think of flickering pixilated screens or abstract patterns So after nearly a two-year wait this massive figure now made by formations of flocks of birds seen from a appeared set for this canvas … The large hip appears to me distance swirling from dark to light. Alternatively, we may to be of an older body, I like this. He is moving into the space consider the archaeological layers of the paintings that … at this point I added the wedge at the bottom. I felt the could almost be relief sculptures, or we may delight in the figure needed anchoring, to accentuate the movement and artist’s sensitivity to colour in Yellow melt out, with its … balance … moving into the void. subtle unfolding gradations, and Prussian pink which shifts These intriguing works by Brent Harris, Jan Riske from deep tonalities to shimmering luminosity. and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn represent striking recent In contrast to the richly textured surfaces of Riske’s acquisitions currently on display. They have been created works, Brent Harris’s Plato’s cave: painting no. 4 2005 with care and consideration and in turn require and has a seamlessness that looks as smooth as a pebble reward time from the viewer to observe and contemplate. washed time and again by the tides. Yet both artists work By taking time out to slow down with these works, it in ways that are contemplative and attuned to the need is possible to enter into the subtle layers of perception for unhurried time. Both have evolved a highly personal, and evocative associations that each of the artists have philosophical approach. For while Harris’s earlier work offered us in their distinctive ways. We may, for example, has been informed by Colin McCahon and American recall the rhythmic chanting of Buddhist monks in abstract artists such as Barnett Newman, he has gradually Vongpoothorn’s Incantation; the vibrating interactions developed distinctive ways of working that have come between the microcosm and the macrocosm in Riske’s through personal experience. precise, densely layered paintings; the interplay between Born in New Zealand in 1956, Harris came to Australia substance and shadow in the enchanting ambiguities of in 1981. painting no. 4 is part of a series titled Plato’s cave, Harris’s Plato’s cave: painting no. 4. Â begun while the artist was undertaking a residency in Take the time and enjoy. a Singapore with the Tyler Print Institute. As he said: ‘Several Deborah Hart works I was working on contained images that suggest Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture shadows … When I was back in Melbourne thinking about a new series of paintings, the thought of shadows

artonview summer 2005 45 travelling exhibitions

Darwin Art-port

From Darwin they go, to Adelaide, to Sydney, everywhere, even America. They travel all over the world these bark paintings from Arnhem Land. Brian Nyinawanga, artist

Djon Mundine, independent Aboriginal curator, writer and former art advisor in central Arnhem Land during the 1980s and 1990s, writes about the place of Aboriginal art in Darwin on the occasion of the return of one of its most notable art exports in the exhibition No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi, currently showing at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

In November this year the first major retrospective central’ for Aboriginal people from right across the top exhibition of Aboriginal artist David Malangi opened of the Northern Territory. Here they experienced the best in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. Its and worst of both cultures. Many had been moved there presence is surely a sign of the beauty, depth, diversity, or just outside the town during the war; so many that in and resilience of Aboriginal culture’s many forms that are 1949, in order to slow down this migration and return engrained in Darwin’s history. There is an irony possibly stranded Yolngu, patrol officer Syd Kyle-Little arranged lost on colonial bureaucrats in the naming of this northern voluntary boat return for people of the Liverpool River outpost after the author of ‘the survival of the fittest’, area. Here he set up a ‘trading post’ to entice them to Charles Darwin, on the land of one of the oldest surviving remain. A stream of others, mainly young men, made the races in the world. Darwin the town, built on the land sojourn of searching and discovery. Travelling with few owned by the Larrakia people, a place where cultures or no possessions and no clear aims, they survived by have met, clashed, recoiled, intermingled and blended various means including government rations and itinerant within a vibrant Aboriginal subculture, is marked by the work – a struggle between personal dignity and just plain crossings of this black–white divide. Darwin has always survival. Darwin was the place where the regional ‘stolen been a port for many exotic things – pearls, fish, buffalo generation’ were sent and where Aboriginal lepers were hides, crocodile skins, beef, and minerals of all kinds – but quarantined. For visitors, it was a place for court, for who would have thought it would become an export site hospital, to die, to escape, for drink, for church, for school, for Aboriginal culture, ideas, and intellectual and spiritual for meetings, for football, for exhibition, for adventure, property? and a place to live.

I met Jack Mirritji [dec.] and some other men at Gumugumuk on One day I got hurt off a horse and went to Darwin to hospital. Cape Stewart and I went with them to Darwin by foot for the I got a job at Qantas then the airport in Darwin. Me and Wally second time … In Darwin I stayed with my friends at Bagot like [dec.] and Brian [Nyinawanga] and Jacky [a Kunwinjku man] Ray Munyal [dec.]. I worked with Ray at Qantas under a Balanda – we bin working there – a lot of people [from] Milingimbi, called Frank Astiville (?). Yeah, we living together at Bagot Maningrida. Some worked at the Air Force getting training, compound then we shifting from Bagot to Berimah where there some at Qantas. I was living near the airport, near Bagot was a compound. Bulany Gaykamangu [dec.], artist [Aboriginal Reserve]. Jimmy Moduk, artist

While still young and single, Malangi came and lived here When cultures collide, traditions can be swept away, in the 1950s. Although numbers of Aboriginal people, languages lost and laws challenged; but they can also be who are now called Arnhem Land Yolngu, spent time here clung to with a tenacity that is just short of miraculous. For before the Second World War it was during the war period Yolngu it was a curious life here; by day mixing with white and into the 1950s that Darwin became ‘downtown Australians and living in their world and by night carrying

46 national gallery of australia on a complex ceremonial life involving large numbers of visited Darwin for inspiration previous to and following Djon Mundine with David Malangi preparing a hollow performers practically in the heart of, and unnoticed by, the Second World War but another unacknowledged log 1988 Photo: ©Jon Lewis the relatively modern city. Some Yolngu were politically cultural practice persisted: that of the original people. It aware. A number of strikes were staged by Aboriginal was the setting of Xavier Herbert’s 1939 Aboriginal novel, people in 1951 including one instance when they refused Capricornia. Herbert himself was officially ‘Chief Protector to dance for tourists on a visiting cruise ship. These actions of Aborigines’ in Darwin in the 1930s. The Australian film were blamed by the authorities at the time on communist classic Jedda, the story of an Aboriginal girl brought up influences, and the ring leaders were banished to remote by a white Australian couple, was shot in the Northern desert communities. Territory in the mid-1950s. The first Australian film to star Aboriginal actors (Rosilie Ngarla Kunoth-Monks and After Gatji I went back to Milingimbi and then to Darwin Robert Tudawali [dec.]) and the first colour film by an where I went to another Gunapipi at Bagot and another at Australian director, Charles Chauvel, premiered in Darwin Berimah and another at Ten Mile [outside of Darwin]. in 1955 to a segregated audience before becoming the Bulany Gaykamangu [dec.], artist first Australian film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival the same year. Darwin has always been a rich cultural centre despite its reputation as the last port of call in ‘white western The first time I went to Darwin to an exhibition was to civilisation’. One of the first major Aboriginal art Berrimah with Bob Cross [a building advisor], with Mick appearances in the Australian art world were the Magani [dec.]. There wasn’t a prison there then but an drawings on paper by Aboriginal inmates of Fanny Bay Aboriginal camp or reserve. George M, artist Gaol in the 1888 Dawn of art exhibition in Melbourne’s Centennial International Exhibition. Ian Fairweather, Allegedly, Albert Namatjira had seen the sea for the Russell Drysdale, and many white Australian artists had first time when he visited Darwin in 1950. He came

artonview summer 2005 47 Trevor Nichols had an exhibition in Darwin in 1981 and there was a memorial solo show for Declan Apuatimi, the Tiwi artist, in 1987 at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). In 1987, Ramingining artists Charlie Djurritjini and later Bulany Gaykamangu [dec.] had solo exhibitions at commercial galleries in Darwin.

The first time George [Milpurrurru], Mokuy [dead artist] and Charlie Djota, we went to Sydney. I went to Sydney, to New York; I don’t remember any [particular] painting. They’re Balanda [the other – homogeneous white Australian art]. David Malangi

In 1979, David’s paintings with those of Johnny Bonguwuy [dec.] and George M [dec.] became the first Aboriginal art included in a Biennale of Sydney. In 1983 his Glyde River painting set appeared in the 1983 Australian Perspecta exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He regularly entered the Darwin National Aboriginal Art Award and won minor prizes through the 1980s and 1990s but it was in New York (1988), Japan (1992), and Paris (1995) where his major work would go. He did Dr HC Coombs with Malangi to unsuccessfully apply for a cattle licence not for an complete a set of modest mural paintings for the new after making a presentation to him during a tour of the art exhibition, though he sold several paintings to the Darwin GPO with Fiona Foley and Paddy Dhathangu in Northern Territory in August bureaucrats he dealt with. Aboriginal artists could paint 1990, however while a huge industry for Aboriginal art 1967 Photo: Reserve Bank of Australia the land but not yet own it even when prepared to pay has existed and grown over the last thirty years most of it seems. In the meeting of cultures one can enhance it bypassed Darwin. And although single artists shows or flavour the other but a synergist facilitates the mix. began appearing from the 1980s onward in southern For many non-Aboriginal people, Aboriginal art is that cities, until now a very limited number of Aboriginal artists synergist. Aboriginal art wasn’t widely understood or have been honoured by their own focused museum show. appreciated until after Namatjira’s death in the late 1950s. Malangi himself didn’t begin to paint until he returned to It’s good with me, my mother’s land. This place Yathalamarra Arnhem Land around then. Although Aboriginal art was is my mother’s land. It brought me into the world with my sold at various tourist outlets in Darwin and in southern mother’s dreaming. This land, it’s dreaming and the people. cities, it was the success of Malangi’s generation that David Malangi would facilitate the reclassification of Aboriginal art as a ‘fine art’ through the 1960s and 1970s. Darwin must now rival Alice Springs in terms of art Art is work that takes time, tools and training and galleries and the volume of Aboriginal art sales with in a sense it was his return home to marry and receive auxiliary developments such as the encouragement ‘bush training’ and the receptive mission life that led him of Indigenous printmaking through Northern Editions to become a painter. Malangi was made famous by the based at Charles Darwin University. In 1991, his reproduction of his painting on Australia’s first dollar mother’s Dreaming collection of objects and paintings note in 1966. His paintings would then appear in group commissioned by Mobil Oil were a prominent part of the exhibitions from Paris, New York, Tehran to Tokyo within Aboriginal gallery of MAGNT. The arrival of Malangi’s the decade. When he won first prize for bark painting present show is a more complete, welcome return for at the 1969 Royal Darwin Show, most of the art from northern audiences to see a significant body of the work Arnhem Land was already bypassing Darwin to be sold of this great artist, as recognition also of the place of and exhibited in the south and overseas. The Darwin Aboriginal culture in Darwin. a museum and art gallery wouldn’t come into being itself until the following year, nor the Telstra National Aboriginal No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi is on exhibition at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and Torres Strait Islander Art Award until 1984. It was still Darwin, until 8 January 2006. Further information at unusual for Aboriginal artists to have a solo exhibition. nga.gov.au/Malangi

48 national gallery of australia travelling exhibitions summer 2005–06

No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi National Sculpture Prize and exhibition Supported by Principal Sponsor Newmont Australia 2005 Ltd, a proud partner of Reconciliation Australia. A partnership with Macquarie Bank Also supported by the Indigenous Arts Strategy, Northern Territory Government, the Seven Network The National Sculpture Prize is a partnership and Visions of Australia, an Australian Government between the National Gallery of Australia Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing and Macquarie Bank to support and promote funding assistance for the development and touring Australian sculpture and to recognise outstanding of cultural material across Australia. The project has David Malangi Daymirringu been developed in association with Bula’bula Arts, works. It is one of the most generous prizes Luku (foot) 1994 (detail) Fred Fisher Tilt 2005 (detail) for contemporary art in Australia, with a non- Private collection, Canberra Ramingining. MDF, synthetic polymer paint © David Malangi Licensed acquisitive prize of $50,000 awarded to the by VISCOPY, Australia A celebration of the art and life of David Malangi winning artist. The travelling component of the Daymirringu, whose mortuary rites story bark exhibition will feature a selection of the finalists’ painting appeared on the Australian one dollar works. note in 1966, this exhibition shows the extensive repertoire of this brilliant and innovative master Macquarie Bank, 1 Martin Place, Sydney NSW, 16 January – 10 February 2006 painter to promote a broader perception and enjoyment of his work. nga.gov.au/Malangi Dell Gallery @ Queensland College of Art, Brisbane QLD Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, 16 February – 16 April 1006 Darwin NT 12 November 2005 – 8 January 2006 The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift Travelling Exhibitions Place made: Australian Print Workshop The 1888 Melbourne Cup and three suitcase kits Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian thematically present a selection of art and design Government Program supporting touring exhibitions objects for the enjoyment of children and adults by providing funding assistance for the development in regional, remote and metropolitan centres and touring of cultural material across Australia. that may be borrowed free-of-charge. nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn This exhibition is a snapshot of the involvement of Australian artists in the production of prints at the Australian Print Workshop between 1981 Red case: myths and rituals and 2002. Reflecting a broad range of stylistic, Yellow case: form, space and design Tim Maguire Hollyhocks 1991 technical and political concerns, the prints are Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns QLD (detail) National Gallery of selected from an archive of 3,500 works acquired Australia, Canberra Australian 10 October – 16 December 2005 Print Workshop Archive 2, by the National Gallery of Australia in 2002 purchased with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australasian through the assistance of the Gordon Darling Early Childhood Workshop, Print Fund 2002 Australasian Print Fund. nga.gov.au/Placemade National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 10–11 January 2006 Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst NSW Seated Ganesha Sri Lanka 2 December 2005 – 15 January 2006 9th–10th century (detail) from Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Goulburn NSW Red case: myths and rituals National Gallery of Australia, 1 February – 26 March 2006 Albury Regional Art Gallery, Albury NSW Canberra 27 January – 26 March 2006 Blue case: technology Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns QLD exhibition 10 October – 16 December 2005 Proudly sponsored by MARSH Early Childhood Workshop, One of Australia’s most important post- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra impressionists, Grace Cossington Smith 10–11 January 2006 (1892–1984) was a brilliant colourist and played a vital role in the development of modernism Bundaberg Arts Centre, Bundaberg QLD in Australia. This exhibition explores the rich 1 February – 26 March 2006 intersection of public and private life, drawing upon a diversity of themes and variations The 1888 Melbourne Cup Grace Cossington Smith including intimate portraits, iconic Harbour The lacquer room 1935–36 Bridges, landscapes and flower paintings, Tweed River Regional Art Gallery, (detail) oil on paperboard on Murwillumbah NSW plywood Art Gallery of New South religious and war images, ballet performances Wales, Sydney © AGNSW Photo: and the vibrant shimmering interiors of her home The 1888 Melbourne Cup (detail) 5 October – 18 December 2005 Christopher Snee for AGNSW The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Cossington. nga.gov.au/CossingtonSmith Gift National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Exhibition venues and dates are subject to Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney NSW change. Please contact the Gallery before your 3 November 2005 – 15 January 2006 visit. For more information please contact Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane QLD (02) 6240 6556 or email: [email protected]. 18 February – 1 May 2006

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

artonview summer 2005 49 children’s gallery

Imagining Papua New Guinea

8 October 2005 – 12 March 2006

John Man Not titled [Insect] Imagining Papua New Guinea is a vibrant exhibition of Advocates of the arts in Papua New Guinea, Ulli 1975 colour screenprint Ulli and Georgina Beier thirty-five prints and drawings in celebration of thirty years and Georgina Beier, were instrumental in promoting Collection, purchased 2005 of independence for one of Australia’s nearest neighbours. contemporary art practices in non-traditional mediums National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The National Gallery of Australia has had a long association from the late 1960s. Their backyard was an impromptu with Papua New Guinea, collecting a variety of traditional studio for the artists, a space within which they could works of art from the region since the 1970s. The prints experiment with new mediums such as drawing and and drawings currently on display in the Children’s Gallery printmaking. The exhibition displays many works from were produced from the 1960s through to the 1970s, just Ulli and Georgina Beier’s collection, acquired by the prior to and after independence. The group of artists who Gallery earlier this year. created these works were based at what later became the Creative Arts Centre in Port Moresby.

50 national gallery of australia The exhibition illustrates themes repeatedly explored His screenprints and drawings with felt-tipped pen Mathias Kauage Independence celebration I by several Papua New Guinean artists. In his whimsical in the exhibition illustrate the theme of social and 1975 colour screenprint screenprints, John Mann depicts creatures, both real technological change in Papua New Guinea. In particular Ulli and Georgina Beier Collection, purchased 2005 and fantastical; a theme also at work in the exquisitely his colourful images of cars, helicopters and motorbikes, National Gallery of Australia, patterned drawings and prints of Timothy Akis and Martin show a people new to this way of life. Among the most Canberra Morububuna. This delight in pattern, texture and colour is compelling are Kauage’s screenprints of people in planes embodied in many of the works featured in this exhibition. and cars. a Almost half of the works in the exhibition were made Deborah Hill by Mathias Kauage who works in a variety of mediums, Gordon Darling Graduate Intern including printmaking, drawing, textiles and metalwork. Australian Prints and Drawings

artonview summer 2005 51 The National Gallery of Australia Foundation

The National Gallery of Australia Photography Fund

Dr Peter Farrell AM and Fiona By 1999, the era of the ‘collectable’ photograph had Tudor with Council Chairman Harold Mitchell AO at the arrived, resulting in record prices of $100,000 or even Gallery in September 2001. one million dollars for a photograph. Despite years of Farrell Family Foundation great support from the Philip Morris Arts Grant, Kodak donation acquisitions are on display on the wall behind Australasia, and Nikon, it was clear that the Gallery needed to call on a wider range of corporate and Sydney in 1985 I caught up with Peter Elliston [a landscape Anton Bruehl photographer, whose work is represented in the Gallery’s Porgy and Bess 1 9 4 2 private benefactors. To this end, the National Gallery collection] … and told him I wanted to get some good Gasparcol silver-dye bleach of Australia Photography Fund was established with a photograph Purchased 2000 wall hangings; he introduced me to photography and I was donation of $250,000 from photography collector Dr National Gallery of Australia hooked. I bought quite a few from Peter and then ended Photography Fund: Farrell Peter Farrell, the Australian founder and CEO of ResMed, up with the largest private collection of his work. But I have Family Foundation Donation with its headquarters in San Diego, California. The amassed a reasonable collection from Karsh, Penn, Leonard, launch event was held in Paddington in August 1999 Doisneau, Adams, Cunningham, Weston, Sugimoto, Brandt, at the photography gallery of Sandra Byron who had Cartier-Bresson, Struth, Horst, Dora Maar, Brecht to Uelsmann effected the introduction to Dr Farrell – one of her clients. and so on. And I have a McFarlane with another to come and, Founding donations were received from Bryce and Benita of course, Moores, Dupains (Max and Rex), Levers, Mili and Courtenay, Maria Cutufia, Ian Dodd, Dr Ruth Edwards, so on as well as some California photographers, like Robert Michael Harris, Tim Hixson, Ann Lewis AM, Robert Turner and Watanabe. McFarlane, Matthew May, Kim Yow, Marg Thorne and The first targets for Farrell Family Foundation funds Michael Stephenson. were three mid-nineteenth-century photographs – Dr Farrell served as a National Gallery of Australia ‘mammoth’ plates from negatives over 17 x 19 inches – council member from 2001–04 and provided further by American landscape photographer Carleton Watkins, support for the David Moore retrospective in 2003 as well French architectural photographer Edouard-Dennis Baldus as other Gallery programs and painting acquisitions. He and British travel photographer Francis Frith. At the other recently described his approach to collecting as ‘pretty end of the scale we also acquired a number of exquisite eclectic, really … I’m a collector of what I like and I like mid-nineteenth-century daguerreotype and ambrotype photography in particular’. And how he got started was: portraits. I was living in Japan and got introduced to woodblocks Farrell funds were used to acquire several advertising and silkscreens in 1984 and, over a period of a year, photographs and a modernist form study by Anton Bruehl, bought several good examples of each. When I returned to an pioneer in advertising and colour photography working

52 national gallery of australia in New York in the 1930s and 40s. Bruehl was born in I began collecting photography about twenty-five years ago Guests at the 18 June 2005 Australia and much admired by Max Dupain, his Australian primarily on the inspiration of Bob Doherty, formerly head of dinner for Lewis Morley’s George Eastman House who introduced me to the work of 80th birthday at the contemporary. A further purchase of a rare set of New National Gallery of Australia, Milton Rogovin; and Keith Davis who was the newly arrived Guinea views made by Dupain in 1944 was also supported mimicking Lewis Morley’s curator at Hallmark in Kansas City where I was also living at by the Farrell Family Foundation funds. The portfolio had famous photograph of the time. Christine Keeler astride a been acquired by an American serviceman, based at the modernist chair. time in Australia, who had married an Australian girl. Last His interest in Australian photography began when he The function was sponsored was living in Australia, from 1996 to 2001, at which time by Nikon and David Knaus year their daughter, Jill Quasha who is a photography dealer of Palm Springs and Dr in New York, donated a rare early 1850s view of Jerusalem we developed a friendship through meeting at openings in and Mrs John V Knaus Sydney and his visits to the Gallery and friends in Canberra. of Illinois. Photographer: to the Gallery’s Photography Collection, highlighting how John Swainston, Managing family connections often lead to unexpected donations. Contemporary art is of course an exciting and quite Director, Maxwell Optical Several years ago, while on a visit to Canberra from his demanding area of collecting. One large colour work Industries Pty Ltd (Nikon) home in San Francisco, Anton Bruehl Jr asked ‘to speak by American artist James Casebere was acquired with to the curator’. He is currently preparing to make a major Farrell family funds in 2005. It will be on view in a display donation of his father’s work to the Gallery. of photomedia from the permanent collection in the Other professional and personal friendships also lead to International Art galleries from mid December to donation. Recently, David Knaus, a photography collector 22 January 2006. Also planned for display in 2006 is one based in Palm Springs, California, made major donations of of the first major new media works from an Asian artist, prints by the Hong Kong-born photographer Lewis Morley, Glass ceiling by Taiwanese artist Shu-Min Lin, which was and Mark Ruwedel, a contemporary American landscape recently acquired with support from the Gene and Brian photographer, as well as an exquisite landscape of the Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Fund. a

Mirror Lake in the Yosemite Valley from the 1880s by Isiah Gael Newton Taber. Knaus is on the photography council of the Getty Senior Curator, Photography Museum in Santa Monica and regularly visits curators at the For further information on the National Gallery of major art museums in Europe and America. His collection Australia Photography Fund and information on the consists of over 1,000 works from all eras and, when asked American Government tax incentive scheme for gifts how he started, he told me: through the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia (AFANG) please contact Lyn Conybeare, Head of Development, on (02) 6240 6410.

artonview summer 2005 53 conservation

Behind the scenes: installing St Petersburg 1900

Costumes on display at the Art Part of a conservator’s job at the National Gallery of any display forms. The complete manufacture of the Gallery of Western Australia Australia is to help small regional museums and the public mannequins was out of the question, as there were only from a design by Alexander Golovin for the romantic with advice on conservation and appropriate methods of two-and-a-half weeks to unpack and install the show, drama Masquerade displaying works of art. It is not often that we get called so AGWA borrowed similar-shaped mannequins from the to help a major institution such as the Art Gallery of Gallery. The approximate size and style of each costume Western Australia, but our assistance was requested to was worked out from photographs and drawings that prepare textiles from the collection of the State Russian provided basic measurements, and suitable mannequins Museum, St Petersburg, and the St Petersburg State were packed in boxes and shipped over ahead of the Museum of Theatre and Music for display in the exhibition exhibition’s arrival in Perth. St Petersburg 1900. The costumes from the State Museum of Theatre and The National Gallery of Australia’s textile conservation Music arrived wrapped in tissue and packed in cardboard department has built up a significant field of expertise in trays. The museum has a very large collection, very little the conservation, preparation and installation of Russian funding and very few textile conservators to look after theatre costumes in the exhibitions Studio to stage, these culturally valuable artworks so the couriers were From Russia with love and, most recently, Working for happy for any conservation work to be done to stabilise Diaghilev in Groningen, the Netherlands. The Gallery is them for display. Along with the theatre costumes are the custodian of one of the largest and most magnificant beautiful examples of traditional peasant costumes and Ballet Russes collections in the world. headdresses, scarves and other apparel reflecting more Due to AGWA having no textile conservators of affluent lifestyles. These belong to the State Russian their own and a current national shortage of textile Museum, St Petersburg. conservators in Australia, I was asked to head the team One costume that required conservation was for the to condition check and prepare for display fourteen character Boris Gudonov from the opera by Mussorgsky costumes and seven textile items for the exhibition. This performed at the Marinsky Theatre in 1911. A series of was not going to be an easy task as the costumes were photographs in the exhibition show Fyodor Chaliapin, known to be in fragile condition and were arriving without the famous Russian bass, wearing this coat to promote

54 national gallery of australia the opera. The luxurious costume is a coat of a heavy skirt train of one of the Grand Duchesses’ robes worn for Conservation treatment being carried out on costume black silk/cotton satin and gold thread brocade, lined state occasions and was later given to the theatre. for Boris Gudonov with bright red satin. The cuffs and the upright collar The human aspect of these costumes is further evident are decorated with paste jewels and pearls and metallic in the different body shapes which are quite unlike the Costume from the drama Masquerade being unpacked thread embroidery. The brocade was very fragile and had performers of today, demonstrated through the examples from travelling tray been mended with various adhesive and crude sewing of the children (much smaller) and the large-chested, Costume for Boris Gudonov techniques across the front and arms. These may have corsetted opera singers. Fitting mannequins to these from a design by Alexander been original theatre repairs or possible attempts to save costumes became quite an anatomy lesson as they were Golovin for the opera Boris Gudonov performed at the the very important costume over the years. Unfortunately, altered to best support any weak seams or heavy draping Marinsky Theatre in 1911 it arrived with several large tears or splits in the brocade of jewel-encrusted fabrics. due to the brittleness and fragility of the silk fibres and Two magnificent costumes from a design by Alexander was not able to go up on display until these had been Golovin for the romantic drama Masquerade epitomise the stabilised. Permission was given to repair them, but hard life on the stage. They are a complex mix of delicate only using sewing techniques. This was successful but silks, silk velvets and cotton fabric which have in-ground presented a challenge as most were in difficult areas to dirt along the trains and hems, and repairs where one access and there was the added complication of the lining imagines strenuous gestures or hurried costume changes which could be caught in the stitching repair. have caused splits and tears along seams as they moved Working closely with these costumes brought to across the stage. Incredibly, this performance is said to light their histories through the evidence of inscriptions, have opened with gunfire going off in the streets on the darning mends and patches. Many fascinating stories night the Russian Revolution began. a were told by the staff of the St Petersburg State Museum Micheline Ford of Theatre and Music, including one about the cloak for Senior Textile Conservator Aurora in Sleeping beauty which had formerly belonged to the royal family. The magnificent plush red silk velvet, St Petersburg 1900 is on exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia until 23 October 2005. heavily embroidered with gold thread and foil, was the

artonview summer 2005 55 membership

The Membership team We have a wonderful program of summer events and host a lunch to celebrate the Melbourne Cup in the exhibitions in this season’s calendar. I hope you enjoy the Members’ Lounge. new format of the calendar, with more information and easy-to-reference pages sorted by event category to make it easier to participate in the broad range of the Gallery’s membership programs. We have included a number of member’s exclusive exhibition previews, and remember you receive As a member of the National Gallery of discounted entry to all the National Gallery of Australia’s Australia you will enjoy the following pay events. benefits: We are busy preparing for next year to bring you an even better program of exhibitions and events, beginning • Free subscription to the Gallery’s quarterly magazine artonview and the Calendar of in March with the opening of Constable: impressions of events land, sea and sky. Look out for more information on our Christmas blockbuster of Egyptian antiquities from the • Discounted admission to ticketed exhibitions Louvre Museum. Next year will definitely be a year when • Advance notice, preferential bookings and you will surely get value out of your membership. discounts for other programs including If you have not had a chance to visit the Members’ children’s events Lounge recently, you won’t have met our new caterers, • Discounts of 10% in the Gallery Shop the Trippas White, who are providing a superb dining Gallery Cafe and the Sculpture Garden experience for our members and their guests. Restaurant Thankyou to all those members who completed the • Exclusive use of the Members’ Lounge. membership survey – we have had an overwhelming Refreshments are available for members and a response, and the message in relation to artonview maximum of three guests magazine is clear – you love it. We are currently evaluating • Reciprocal membership benefits at nominated the thousands of responses and will give you the results Australian galleries soon. With Christmas upon us, this is a great time to offer a Further information at nga.gov.au. Freecall 1800 020068, phone 02 6240 National Gallery of Australia gift membership. In addition 6528 or email [email protected] to all the regular benefits, new members also receive a free ticket to be used at any pay exhibition in the next twelve months.

Adam Worrall Assistant Director Access Services

56 national gallery of australia BARTON

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The Brassey of Canberra Belmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600 Telephone: 02 6273 3766 • Facsimile: 02 6273 2791 trippas white catering Toll Free Telephone: 1800 659 191 new to the national gallery of australia Email: [email protected] http: //www.brassey.net.au CANBERRAN OWNED AND OPERATED special access programs

the art of caring

Voluntary guides Catherine On Saturday 7 October 2005 the National Gallery of partnership with Carers ACT, who provide respite care Sykes, Penny Moyes and Kerin Cox discuss Manta Ray Australia opened its doors early for a private viewing and transport for many carers, the Gallery has been 2003 by James Angus with and tour of the National Sculpture Prize and exhibition for able to provide ‘time out’ for carers and stimulate an their groups of visitors at carers. This was the fifth special event for carers since the understanding and pleasure of the visual arts. Jan Agnew, the National Sculpture Prize private viewing for carers private viewing of the exhibition French paintings from the a counsellor with Carers ACT, feels that an important Musée Fabre, Montpellier in December 2003. Over the and affirming aspect of this partnership is that ‘it shows Margaret Enfield, voluntary guide (centre), and visitors past two years, literally hundreds of carers have enjoyed a major institution in the ACT has a carers’ focus, and is to the exhibition enjoy Moth Saturday guided tours of major exhibitions such as The thinking about us’. 2003 by Richard Goodwin Edwardians: secrets and desires, Vivienne Westwood: 34 From John Glover and the colonial picturesque, Surface years of fashion, Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective beauty: photographic reflections on glass and china to Bill exhibition and the National Sculpture Prize and exhibition. Viola: the Passions, every visit has been diverse, engaging Since 2004 a carers’ art appreciation group has also and interactive. Particularly memorable was a drawing tour met each month to explore the Gallery collection and in the Sculpture Garden with artist/educator Tess Horwitz, temporary exhibitions, guided by enthusiastic voluntary which was as hilarious as it was challenging. guides, on-call educators and curatorial staff. Lively The feedback from carers themselves – their enormous discussions are often continued over a coffee in the appreciation for the warmth and encouragement of the Gallery’s brasserie. voluntary guides and staff, and gratitude to the Gallery So why is this initiative so important? There are over for its continued support in making these events free 43,000 carers in the ACT taking responsibility for a family – highlights the value of access to the Gallery. a member or friend who has a disability, is frail or has a Annette Tapp physical or mental illness. Very often these are forgotten On-call Educator and isolated members of our community. Working in Special Access Programs

58 national gallery of australia EVERYONE HAS AN OPINION ABOUT ART, EVEN US. PARTICULARLY WHEN IT’S A COPYRIGHT DISPUTE.

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EXTRAORDINARYEVERYDAY FORREST INN & APPARTMENTS • Overnight accommodation • Full buffet breakfast • Walking distance to Manuka Shopping Village • $65 per person twin share • Telephone 1800 676 372 • Email [email protected] Exibitions to vist while in Canberra: At the National Library of Australia - National Treasures from Australia’s Great Libraries (3rd December 2005 to 12 February 2006) At the National Gallery of Australia - Transformations: The Language of Craft (11th November 2005 to 29th January 2006) Against the Grain: Helen Frankenthaler woodcuts (26th November 2005 - 5th February 2006)

Michael Leunig’s Street Football, Collection of the State Library of Victoria Ned Kelly’s helmet, Collection of the Henry Lawson’s pen, Collection of the National State Library of Victoria Library of Australia 30 NATIONAL CIRCUIT FORREST ACT 2603 PHONE: 02 6295 3433 - FAX: 02 6295 2119 - www.forrestinn.com.au 2

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faces in view

1 & 2 Voluntary guides host an event for rural visitors 3 & 4 Chunky Move residency and sessions 5 Guy Warren, Deborah Hart and Joy Warren at the opening of Moist 6 Bill Viola: An evening with John Bell 7 Lee Liberman, Ian ngashop Donaldson and Grazia Gunn at the opening of Moist 8 Wayne Osborn, John Pizzey and Jeffrey Smart at the Alcoa Gift media launch 9 Anne McDonald, the art of shopping Barry McDonald, ex de Medici, Lucky Oceans and George Macintosh at the opening of Moist 10 David Handley, John Pizzey, Wayne Osborn, Janine Murphy and Meg McDonald at the Alcoa Gift media launch 11 Richard Birrinbirrin Indigenous arts and craft * books and catalogues * calendars performing a singing ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia opening of and diaries * prints and posters * gifts * jewellery * fine art cards No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi 12 Paul Dowd, Managing Director, Newmont Australia Limited and Richard Birrinbirrin at the Art Gallery of South * accessories * desirable objects * toys Australia opening of No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi 13 Artists from Warlukurlangu Art Centre at Yuendumu visiting the National Gallery of Australia Gallery Shop open 7 days 10am–5pm after spending a week in Canberra having eye surgery for cataracts. The visit was Phone 02 6240 6420 sponsored by the Canberra Medical Society. (Back left to right) Brenda Croft, ngashop.com.au Gloria Morales (Napaljarri), Micheline Ford (Front left to right), Rosie Nangala Fleming, Judy Nampijinpa Granites, Marlette Napurrurla Ross, Judy Napangardi

Watson, Liddy Napanangka Walker Blown Glass Decoration Elizabeth Kelly Limited edition of 150 Exclusive to the Gallery Shop $29.95 MMVIG0008_79946_SL Page 1 5/10/05 11:10 AM

Castlemaine Art Gallery Koori Art Designs Avoca Ballarat Fine Art Gallery

Bendigo Fine Art Gallery Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Convent Gallery Daylesford Castlemaine Art Gallery

Castlemaine Art Gallery Bendigo Fine Art Gallery

YOU’RE SURE TO STRIKE GOLD IN THE VILLAGES AROUND BALLARAT AND BENDIGO

You’ll find works by artists such as Arthur your attention in this cultural hub. As will Streeton, Clifton Pugh, Norman Lindsay, the grand Victorian architecture, and the William Dobell, Fred Williams and Jeffrey myriad of bric-a-brac stores, restaurants and Smart housed in the galleries of Victoria’s wineries that this region has to offer. For a Goldfields. The work of contemporary and free Victoria’s Goldfields brochure phone indigenous Australian artists will also vie for 132 842 or visitvictoria.com/goldfields 64 national gallery of australia MMVIG0008/GAL/SL The WATERFRONT

CANBERRA’S MOST ANTICIPATED OPEN FOR INSPECTION

The time has finally arrived. You are invited to make Canberra’s most exclusive address your home.

The Waterfront offers superb, north-facing apartments on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. Here you can experience a superb level of living, complete with the most stunning views imaginable.

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At home on the Kingston Foreshore you will experience a lifestyle like no other with arts, cafés, dining and entertainment just beyond your door.

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WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT THE WATERFRONT MARKETING SUITE & DISPLAY APARTMENT, OPEN 7 DAYS FROM 1PM - 5PM. MUNDARING DRIVE, KINGSTON FORESHORE. ALTERNATIVELY, PLEASE CALL 1800 098 831 OR VISIT WWW.THE-WATERFRONT.COM.AU FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

26 November 2005 – 5 February 2006

Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji VI 1998 colour woodcut and stencil Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 4709_4 artonview

ISSUE No.44 ISSUE ISS U E o.44 summer 2005–06 summer N o.44 su mm e r 2005–06 NATIONAL 2005–06 GALLE R Y OF Y AUST R ALIA

Transformations • helen frankenthaler