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ISSUE No.50 ISSUE ISSUE No.50 winter 2007 winter No.50 ISSUE w in t e r 2007 NA 2007 T IONAL GALLE R Y OF Y AUS TR ALIA

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National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 26 May – 19 August 2007

Athol Shmith Vivien Leigh 1948 gelatin silver photograph 50.0 x 39.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra GEORGE W LAMBERT • Very Important photographs George Lambert The squatter’s daughter 1923–24 A brushstroke into Michelago / New South Wales / Australia Oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the generous assistance of our past James Fairfax AO and Philip Bacon AM, 1991

ActewAGL is delighted to be major sponsor of the George Lambert Retrospective: Heroes and Icons exhibition. Lambert’s painting The squatter’s daughter, depicting Michelago in 1923, is symbolic to ActewAGL as it refl ects on a time when ActewAGL was building the foundations to provide essential services to Canberra and the region. Recognising the importance of Australian art – always.

29 June – 9 September 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW CCA 407/10 CCA

nga.gov.au ActewAGL Retail ABN 46 221 314 841. artonview contents

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

Editor Jeanie Watson 6 George W Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons

Designer MA@D Communication 16 Conservation: restoring Lambert

Photography Eleni Kypridis 18 VIP: very important photographs 1840s–1940s Barry Le Lievre Brenton McGeachie 28 The Southeast Asian Gallery Steve Nebauer John Tassie

Designed and produced 34 Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial in Australia by the National Gallery of Australia 36 New acquisitions Printed in Australia by Pirion Printers, Canberra 50 Ocean to outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950 artonview issn 1323-4552

Published quarterly: Issue no. 50, Winter 2007 54 Colin McCahon: writing and imagining a journey © National Gallery of Australia

Print Post Approved 57 Travelling exhibitions pp255003/00078

All rights reserved. Reproduction without 58 Faces in view permission is strictly prohibited. The opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.

Submissions and correspondence should be addressed to: The editor, artonview National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 [email protected]

Advertising (02) 6240 6587 facsimile (02) 6240 6427 [email protected]

RRP: $8.60 includes GST Free to members of the National Gallery of Australia

For further information on National Gallery of Australia Membership contact: Coordinator, Membership GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 (02) 6240 6504 [email protected]

front cover: George W Lambert The convex mirror c. 1916 oil on wood panel 50.0 x 50.0 cm Private collection director’s foreword

Daniel Boyd, Arthur Welcome to the fiftieth issue of the magazine! Caro’s Duccio variations no. 7, and Stella’s Mersin XVI to be Pambegan Jnr, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi and This month is marked by much excitement as the National donated in honour of the late Harry Seidler by Ken Tyler. Philip Gudthaykudthay at Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery has just opened to the Other Australian artists represented in the display include the announcement of the National Indigenous Art public, with two of the greatest works in the collection Indigenous artist Glen Farmer Illortaminni and Bronwyn Triennial returned to their original home – Brancusi’s black and Oliver, who unfortunately died last year. white marble Birds in space have been reinstated on their I would also like to take this opportunity to thank sandstone bases into their calm pool in the only gallery Margaret Olley AC for her very generous donation towards within an Australian museum dedicated to sculpture. the Mughal arcade in the Asian Gallery, a stunning work When the National Gallery of Australia opened proving to be very popular with visitors. twenty-five years ago, the Sculpture Gallery was a unique, Another satisfying development in our permanent contemplative space. Closed as a sculpture gallery in 1990 displays will be the opening of a dedicated Pacific Arts in the quest for more room for exhibitions and other uses, Gallery, overseen by the newly appointed curator for the it now seems time to try to do justice to some of our three- collection, Crispin Howarth. The small Pacific Arts Gallery dimensional masterpieces in this grand space. Donald exhibits more than thirty of the finest works revealing the Judd’s brass boxes, Jannis Kounellis’ Senza titolo, Louise diversity and depth of the art of our Pacific neighbours. Bourgeois’ pink wooden C.O.Y.O.T.E. and Anselm Kiefer’s Since 1969 the Pacific Arts collection has been magisterial Abendland and The secret life of plates are growing, however, apart from the acquisition of prints, joined by works from renowned Australian artists Rosalie we stopped adding to the collection from 1985 until the Gascoigne, Robert Klippel and Ken Unsworth. acquisition of the Anthony Forge memorial gift and the Some exciting new acquisitions are also on show – purchase of the very significant late nineteenth-century above all Max Ernst’s giant black bronze Habakuk, a Solomon Islands house post last year. Our Pacific Arts striking and menacing work purchased with the assistance collection comprises close to 2000 works and we will of the National Australia Bank. Others include Cy be adding major works in the future. The collection Twombly’s elegant pale bronze purchased last year with encompasses Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia with the assistance of Ros Packer and other donors, Anthony myriad island cultures stretching from Papua New Guinea

2 national gallery of australia to New Zealand and the Bismarck archipelago to Easter Another interesting temporary exhibition on show at Island. During the past quarter of a century, the Gallery the moment is VIP: very important photographs 1840s– has only displayed a handful of works from this intriguing 1940s. The exhibition showcases more than 200 works collection. Formed from the arts of preliterate cultures from the Gallery’s extensive photography collection – from from 1500 BC to around 1950, these works hold a visual pioneers of mid 19th-century photography such as William force intended to convey the will of ancestors and their Henry Talbot Fox and Julia Margaret Cameron to the years mastery over the world of man in a way that words alone after the Second World War with works by Henri Cartier- could never express. The names of the Pacific artists were Bresson, Man Ray, Olive Cotton and Walker Evans. While unfortunately very rarely recorded, although there are some photographs have become national icons such as many famous names associated with the collection: Max Max Dupain’s Sunbaker, there are many hidden gems not Ernst, Andre Breton, Jacob Epstein, Sir William Dargie, as widely recognised in the public realm. The collection Douglas Newton, Lady Drysdale, King Kalakaua of Hawaii demonstrates the power and history of photography and to name a few. portrays significant developments of the art medium I am also pleased to announce the Gallery’s new during its first century of existence. The exhibition, curated major art initiative, the National Indigenous Art Triennial. by Gael Newton, Senior Curator, Photography, and Anne Generously sponsored by BHP Billiton, the Triennial O’Hehir, Curator, Photography, is on display across the comprises works created by artists from every state and Orde Poynton and Project galleries. It is sponsored by EMC territory within the past three years, resulting in a highly Australia and Infront Systems. considered snapshot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait We will be launching in August the special twenty- Islander contemporary art practice. The inaugural National fifth anniversary exhibition Ocean to outback: Australian Indigenous Art Triennial exhibition, Culture Warriors, landscape painting 1850–1950 which I have curated and is curated by Brenda L Croft, Senior Curator Aboriginal selected to tour nine of the smaller galleries throughout and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia. Australia. Culture Warriors will be on display at the Gallery As we focus on an exceptionally busy and exciting from 13 October 2007 to 10 February 2008. The opening exhibition program and other events for our twenty- will coincide with our twenty-fifth anniversary party. fifth anniversary, we are also in the stages of formal George W Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons is planning approvals for the proposed building additions so the first major retrospective of the work of George Lambert construction can start later in the year. since his death in 1930. He is Australia’s preeminent war artist, an outstanding draughtsman, an occasional painter of delightful landscapes and flowerpieces, and the finest Australian painter of his time for figure compositions and portraits. In the 1920s he also became an excellent sculptor, second only to Rayner Hoff in Australia. During that last Ron Radford AM decade of his life Lambert was by far our most famous artist. It is very appropriate that this one-venue exhibition has been staged in Canberra by the National Gallery of Australia. We own a fine collection of Lambert’s paintings and drawings, but more particularly there are the iconic Great War paintings, commissioned for the Australian War Memorial, that cannot travel from Canberra, and need to be seen for the first time in the full context of his oeuvre. Other works are borrowed from public and private collections from all over Australia. The exhibition, curated by Dr Anne Gray, Head of Australian Art at the Gallery and the foremost authority on the subject, is generously supported by ActewWAGL.

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The following donations have been Janet D Hine received as part of the National Gallery of C and J Hurlstone Australia’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Claudia Hyles Gift Program. Judith Carol Johnson Sir Richard Kingsland AO, CBE, DFC Donations Dr Geoffrey Lancaster AM R & M Champion de Crespigny Margaret J Mashford Foundation Shirley Jean O’Reilly Jacob Grossbard Kim Paterson Warwick Hemsley and Family Kevin Riley Meredith Hinchliffe Judith Roach in memory of Joan Coulter Julie Kantor Alan Rose AO and Helen Rose Maurice Newman AC and Jeannette Kenneth Saxby Newman Kim Snepvangers Margaret Hannah Olley Art Trust Elizabeth Ward: In memory of her beloved Roslyn Packer AO husband Ronald Greg and Kerry Paramor Dr Stephen Wild Grestchen Philip Lady Joyce Wilson Dick Smith AO and Philippa Smith Graham and Evelyn Young Gifts We would also like to thank the numerous Phillip Berry anonymous donors who have donated to Susan Bienkowski Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2007. The late Jenny Brennan Sponsorship Peter Burns NAB Doreen Coburn BHP Billiton Ian Dudgeon ActewAGL Joachim Froese Brassey Hotel of Canberra John McBride Casella Wines John McPhee EMC Australia Adrian Slinger Forrest Inn and Apartments Petronella Windeyer Gordon Darling Foundation Masterpieces for the Nation Hindmarsh Fund 2007 Infront Systems Annan Boag Saville Park Suites Susan Boden Parsons Cynthia, Richard, Laura and Penelope Coleman Esther Constable Ann Cork David Franks James Hanratty: In memory of Dr Phillip Hanratty Sue Hegarty

4 national gallery of australia development office

The first half of this year has proved to be a very busy and exciting period for the Gallery. We are delighted to announce several new partnerships, as well as welcoming back two loyal corporate supporters. The Gallery greatly values corporate support and is thrilled that our exciting exhibition program has attracted some of Australia’s leading corporations.

BHP and the National Indigenous Arts Triennial On 18 April, the National Gallery of Australia announced a major new arts initiative as well as a significant new corporate partnership. The Gallery is delighted that BHP Billiton has agreed to support the inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial which will open at the Gallery on 13 October. Mr Chris Lynch, Excecutive Director and Group President, Carbon Steel Materials, BHP Billiton, attended and spoke at the media launch held at the Gallery on 18 April 2006. The Triennial, Culture Warriors, will be curated by Brenda L Croft, Senior Curator Aboriginal and and icons during this twenty-fifth anniversary year. This is Chris Lynch (BHP) addresses the most comprehensive exhibition of Lambert’s work in Rupert Myer, Ron Radford, Torres Strait Islander Art at the Gallery and a member of and artists Jean Baptiste more than thirty years and is only on display at the Gallery Apuatimi, (accompanied the Gurindji and Mudpurra communities. Artists selected by Angela Hill), Philip for Culture Warriors include Philip Gudthaykudthay, Jean in Canberra. Previously, ActewAGL has sponsored Gudthaykudthay and Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles, Chihuly: masterworks in glass Peter Minygululu at the Baptiste Apuatimi, Arthur Koo-ekka Pambegan Jr and announcement of the Daniel Boyd who visited the Gallery on the day of the and Bill Viola: the passions. National Indigenous Art Triennial announcement. BHP Billiton’s generous contribution will VIP and EMC Australia/Infront enable the exhibition to be displayed at the National Another previous supporter of the Gallery, EMC Australia, Gallery of Australia and also to tour to Queensland, in conjunction with Infront Systems, is supporting VIP: Western Australia and South Australia. very important photographs 1840s–1940s. This exhibition National Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery provides an insight into the range of photographs by For the first time since 1990, the space designed for and Australian and international photographers in the national devoted to sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia collection. Previously, EMC sponsored The Edwardians has been returned to its original purpose. It has been exhibition in 2004. extensively restored, refurbished and relit and includes the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Gift Program reinstatement of Brancusi’s iconic Birds in a reflecting pool. The National Gallery of Australia Foundation is planning The National Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery will a series of activities for Foundation members during the display new acquisitions, purchased with the assistance twenty-fifth anniversary year. The Foundation has initiated of the National Australia Bank’s annual contribution, a gift program targeting $25 million dollars, which will be alongside sculptures already in the National Gallery of the result of corporate sponsorship and benefaction during Australia’s collection. the Gallery’s twenty-fifth anniversary.

ActewAGL and George Lambert Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2007 As well as welcoming two new corporate partners to the Thank you to all donors who have already donated to Gallery family, it is also fitting that one of the Gallery’s the Masterpieces for the Nation fund for 2007. Please most loyal local supporters, ActewAGL, is partnering the find enclosed a brochure in this edition of artonview, or Gallery to present George W Lambert retrospective: heroes if you would like further information please phone the Development Office on (02) 6240 6454. artonview winter 2007 5 exhibition galleries

George W Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons

29 June – 16 September 2007

George W Lambert ‘Don’t call me an artistic genius’, George W Lambert told camouflage his inner self. He confessed to his wife that he Self-portrait (unfinished) c. 1930 a reporter from the Sydney Mail in 1922; he would much was grateful to keep going without letting everyone know oil on canvas 91.5 x 75.0 cm rather have been told that he had done his job well, ‘as one about his periods of melancholy.7 She was well acquainted Art Gallery of New South 1 Wales, Sydney, might address a bricklayer’. He said this because when he with this side of him and suggested that his extrovert purchased 1930 returned to Australia in 1921 after twenty years in Paris behaviour was a shield against his impressionable nature. and London he was treated like a returning hero, féted Like many creative people he was highly sensitive and from by the press and wined and dined by members of the time to time was unable to manage his stress or his bouts government and wealthy patrons – the artists in Victoria of depression – and in such moments he needed privacy. welcomed him at a dinner at the Café Français, Melbourne, His temperament is evident within his work which at times on 15 April 1921, and later that year the New South Wales shows considerable empathy and perception and at others Society of Artists held an official dinner in his honour at a remarkable brilliance – and wit. the Wentworth Hotel, Sydney, on 29 June. All the items on Different people admired Lambert for varying reasons, the menu were inspired by his work: ‘The Mask Cocktail’, but they almost universally praised him for his discipline ‘Salade Lambertine’ and ‘Important Peaches’. In the and hard work. His art teacher Julian Ashton said that ‘no end, he had to escape the enjoyable but overwhelming detail was too small’ to escape Lambert’s attention, ‘no labour too great’ to achieve his goal, ‘he was ever his own hospitality in Sydney. He told his wife Amy that he had severest critic’.8 The great Australian landscape painter ‘bolted’ from Sydney, because ‘everybody seemed to think Hans Heysen claimed that of course there is ‘always the my mission was to sit back and talk old memories’, but Poser in Lambert but his downright sincerity when it comes that was not his way – he could not spend too much time to the art of painting demands the greatest respect’.9 His socialising because he needed to get on with his work.2 assistant Arthur Murch was inspired by Lambert’s gospel of Lambert was tall and slender with light reddish hair devotion to work.10 and a van Dyke beard; an athletic man with ‘a forceful, The Australian official historian CEW Bean suggested challenging, robust, aggressive quality’, who had been a that he ‘worked like an assiduous student’, and that ‘there boxer in his youth and was good with horses.3 He was fond was no trace of affectation in the sincerity with which he of music, had a baritone voice, an enquiring mind ‘with set to work’, ‘he was completely ruled by some high motive an interest in the universe and whatever laws controlled within’.11 After Lambert’s death, a friend wrote to Amy: both it and him’, and was sceptical of all religions.4 He is said to have had great charm and to be able to move easily If we went to his studio we would find him hard in fashionable circles as well as among humble people, at work from early morning until late at night; his tempering his manner to the mood of the company.5 He heart and soul were in his work there, and there is could be the life and soul of a gathering, an entertaining no doubt his strength was undermined by constant 12 raconteur, radiating good fellowship with his wit, goodwill hard work. and capacity for mimicry.6 When Lambert’s sister Sadie wrote to congratulate him He was more than that, for he was a kind of when he was awarded the Archibald Prize in 1927 for the chameleon with a variety of personalities: a gentle, kindly portrait Mrs Annie Murdoch 1927, he replied ‘when one and sympathetic one for his friends and a brilliant and weighs the failures with the successes one finds it easy to flamboyant presence for his acquaintances and the public. keep a level head’ and that ‘fortunately I am too busy to While creating fun and provoking laughter, he was said to enjoy limelight’.13

6 national gallery of australia artonview winter 2007 7 George W Lambert Lambert reflected his complex personality in his In the audacious Life study of 1909, Lambert depicted Mrs Annie Murdoch 1927 oil on canvas many self-portraits, in which he presented himself as the familiar goatee beard and receding hairline; but 59.6 x 49.5 cm an actor playing a role. Artists often paint their own this man’s hair seems to be even more receding than The Murdoch collection portrait because they are in need of a model and the Lambert’s, his eyebrows higher, his cheeks chubbier and George W Lambert Self-portrait c. 1906 subject is readily available and because they can be freer his beard thicker. Indeed, it most probably is not a self- oil on canvas with themselves than they can with any other subject. portrait, but an image of a model with similar features 46.3 x 38.2 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Rembrandt delighted in putting on different costumes and to Lambert. In tricking us into thinking it may be a self- Melbourne, guises, as did Lambert’s British associate and one of the The Joseph Brown Collection portrait we cannot but wonder whether Lambert was most successful of Edwardian portrait painters, William playing a game, whether he chose such a model to create (opposite) George W Lambert Orpen. So when Lambert painted himself in a variety of a jest. While not yet making fun of himself he was on Life study 1909 pencil 35.4 x 24.7 cm ways, in a pose derived from Velázquez or in a theatrical his way to doing so. And in portraying this man with his State Art Collection, Art stance wearing fancy dress, he was working within an trousers around his feet, he made him appear outrageously Gallery of Western Australia, Perth established tradition. naked rather than nude. Gift of John Brackenreg Lambert’s second oil self-portrait of 1906 is among his By 1922 Lambert was a success, he was at the height in 1974 most austere. He adopted a spare composition in which of his powers and he had been elected an Associate of he focused on the head, free from any distractions. His the Royal Academy. He had recently painted a dashing tonalist approach derives from Velázquez, as does the portrait of Miss Gladys Collins, The white glove 1921, in way he framed his head in darkness to draw attention to which he captured her vivacious personality, laughing with it. While it is a youthful portrait the face has a startling her head tilted back, hamming it up for him. He followed presence and alertness. He looked at himself intensely, not this with his Self-portrait with gladioli 1922, a bravura just studying the structure and form of his physiognomy, image of himself posing artificially, as if giving a speech. but also enquiring as to who he is and what his future Although he was a dedicated artist who worked to the might be. There is a slight arrogance in the fixity of his point of exhaustion, he presented himself here as the glance and the thrust of his chin, but a sense of enquiry in affected, self-admiring dandy, the precious, self-assured his glance. It is a serious portrait of an earnest young man aesthete some considered him to be. It was an elaborate on his way to success without any hint of the sense of fun joke, a fiction which he acted out to its limit. He wittily that he was later to give to his self-portraits. paid homage to the self-portrait by the first President of

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George W Lambert the Royal Academy, Joshua Reynolds (Royal Academy, Self-portrait with gladioli 1922 London), in which Reynolds depicted himself dressed in oil on canvas his academic robes, standing aristocratically with his right 128.2 x 102.8 cm National Portrait Gallery, hand on his hip. He also made reference to the classical Canberra, gift of John Schaeffer AO marble sculpture, the Hermes Logios (National Museum in 2003 of Rome), an image of the god of eloquence who, like George W Lambert Lambert in this portrait, stands with one arm raised up as if The official artist 1921 oil on canvas speaking. He was laughingly positing himself as Australia’s 91.7 x 71.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, chief Academician and artistic orator. The following year Melbourne, at the Society of Artists’ Ball Lambert took the joke further purchased through the Felton Bequest in 1921 with his friend Leon Gellert dressing up as Lambert had in

(opposite) Self-portrait with gladioli while Lambert dressed as George W Lambert a Persian prince. It is said that in the self-portraits of Self-portrait 1927 pencil 38.5 x 28.2 cm Lambert’s British friend and contemporary William Orpen National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, ‘the whole tendency is towards mockery both of himself purchased in 1955 and of the world’.14 Likewise, in this self-portrait Lambert created a tease, making fun of himself – and, as the poet and author Arthur Adams put it, laughing ‘at all conventions and the mode’.15 In his later portraits Lambert often showed himself playing a part. We could conclude that he never revealed himself, his inner being; but that would be too hasty. In these images Lambert presented himself as an exuberant, entertaining man with a delightful sense of humour. We need only look at the eyes and the mouth in The official artist 1927 and Self-portrait (unfinished) 1930 to see that Lambert is having fun. He showed himself as a laughing cavalier – fun-loving, but hard-working in a traditional fashion, something most would agree was true of the man. When Lambert painted or drew his best portraits he created figures charged with life, even to the point of suggesting the pulsating life under the skin. He sometimes conveyed a woman’s sensuality through the dynamic motive of gesture. In Miss Helen Beauclerk 1914 he invested the subject with an intense self-awareness, her facial muscles taut and alert, and he reminded the viewer of her physicality by showing her putting on gloves and rubbing one hand against another. Likewise, in some of his portraits of men, such as The half-back (Maurice Lambert) 1920, he captured a masculine sense of physical alertness by portraying his subjects with their muscles tensed. In this portrait he used the man’s dark brushed-back hair and the raised collar of his white sweater to emphasise the nape of his neck and to give his subject a powerful and sensuous presence like that of a matinee idol.

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12 national gallery of australia Whereas in drawings such as Light Horse veteran 1925, Despite his personal rejection of being a genius, he was George W Lambert The half-back (Maurice he brilliantly modelled the head to capture the texture of generally acknowledged as such by his contemporaries. Lambert) 1920 the old man’s skin and his underlying muscle structure, to Newspaper reporters said that his death ‘will be a tragic oil on canvas 76.2 x 61.0 cm create such a living presence that we almost feel we have loss to Australian art’, described him as ‘one of the finest Art Gallery of South encountered the subject. In all his best portraits Lambert artists that Australia has produced’, and claimed that ‘never Australia, Adelaide purchased through a South captured a dynamic body, the kinaesthetic tension of was there a keener draughtsman than he’.16 The Sydney Australian Government Grant the muscles under the skin to evoke a powerful sense of Morning Herald suggested that ‘no one can estimate to- in 1958 physicality. What Lambert did in these portraits is what the day the immense value of the stimulus which the ideals George W Lambert Miss Helen Beauclerk 1914 best actors do in their performances – they create a sense of the young Australian school received from his inspiring oil on canvas 76.5 x 61.0 cm of presence, an intensity of being, so that every word, influence, and the progress which art has made though Art Gallery of New South every tone and stress is absorbed – and yet almost without his example’.17 Wales, Sydney, purchased in 1921 our noticing that it happens. In a special memorial edition of Art in Australia, other Lambert died on 29 May 1930 at the age of fifty-six. Australian artists stressed Lambert’s pre-eminence among His heart failed while he was repairing his horse’s feed box, them, and said he was the only one who could boast of at ‘Windamere’, Cobbity, New South Wales. On his death an international reputation. George Bell suggested he he received many verbal tributes, and to make a visual was ‘the great figure of Australian art’, Hans Heysen that statement the Art Gallery of New South Wales swathed his he was ‘a great draughtsman and designer and a very painting Across the black soil plains 1899 in black drapes. beautiful colourist with an astounding sense of form’,

artonview winter 2007 13 George W Lambert Light Horse veteran 1925 pencil 38.5 x 27.8 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased in 1925 and Daryl Lindsay that he ‘stood for the finest ideals in The circle has turned and it is time to look again at the art the contemporary English movement’.18 In Britain, Kineton of George Lambert, and to discover afresh the work of one Parkes described Lambert in the Apollo as ‘a magnificent of Australia’s most brilliant, witty and fascinating artists. technician’ and the Connoisseur suggested that he was George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons is a gifted with a daring expression and virile technique, and tribute to one of Australia’s most significant artists who painted portraits with a dashing approach.19 In 1933 when created a number of much loved iconic images as well a selection of more than seventy of Lambert’s works as portraits of Australian heroes such as Breaker Morant, were included in an exhibition at the Royal Academy Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson and artists commemorating the work of members who had recently Charles Conder, Thea Proctor, Hugh Ramsay and died, British art critic Frank Rinder described Lambert as Arthur Streeton. Seventy-seven years after his death, this major survey – from 1894 to 1930 – shows the diverse ‘the virile Australian who had just reached his best when range of his work, from his Australian bush subjects to his death came’.20 Edwardian portraits and figure groups, from his sparkling In 1930 Lambert was considered to be Australia’s oil sketches painted in Palestine and Gallipoli to his major greatest painter ever, and much lauded. And then newer, battle paintings and large sculpture. It includes some 120 younger artists appeared. For a while Australian art was paintings, drawings and sculpture from a wide range of held in the thrall of William Dobell and Russell Drysdale, public and private collections in Australia and Britain. a Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd, and after that by other artists. The Edwardian, wartime and postwar world of Anne Gray Head of Australian Art Lambert seemed to belong to another people and another time. More recently, however, we have become fascinated The exhibition catalogue is available from the with Edwardian lives brought to our screens in films National Gallery of Australia Shop on 62406420. Further information at nga.gov.au/Lambert based on the novels of EM Forster, Henry James and Edith Wharton, nowadays young Australians flock to Gallipoli to discover their heritage, and we want to know more about the years in which Sydney built its Harbour Bridge.

notes

1 ‘The Eternal Quest for Beauty: Society of Artists show’, Sydney Mail, 12 AW Allen, Merioola, correspondence with Amy Lambert, 1 June 1930, 13 September 1922, p. 10. Lambert Family Papers, ML MSS 97/11. 2 George Lambert correspondence with Amy Lambert, 23 October 1921, 13 George Lambert correspondence with Sadie Cox, 17 June 1928, Lambert Family Papers, ML MSS 97/10, p. 369. Lambert Family Archive. 3 ‘The Eternal Quest for Beauty: Society of Artists show’, Sydney Mail, 14 Bruce Arnold, Orpen: Mirror to an Age, London: Jonathan Cape, 1981, 13 September 1922, p. 10. p. 263. 4 CEW Bean, Gallipoli Mission, (1948), Sydney: ABC, 1990, pp. 26 and 29. 15 Arthur Adams, ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ in Lambert 1930, n.p. 5 David Fulton, ‘George Lambert at the Front III’, in Arthur Jose, et.al. 16 George Lambert: Death of famous artist – a distinguished career’, The Art of George W. Lambert A. R. A., Sydney: Art in Australia, 1924 Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 1930, p. 12; Sydney Ure Smith, (Lambert 1924), p. 30. ‘Obituary: Late G. W. Lambert, A. R .A.’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 M.F. Bruxner, ‘George Lambert at the Front II’, in Lambert 1924, p. 26; 2 June 1930, p. 180; Thea Proctor, ‘The Late G. W. Lambert A. R. A.: David Fulton, ‘George Lambert at the Front III’, in Lambert 1924, p. 30; An appreciation’, The Home, 1 July 1930, p. 21. and CEW Bean, Gallipoli Mission, (1948), Sydney: ABC, 1990, p. 29. 17 ‘A great artist’, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 1930. 7 George Lambert correspondence with Amy Lambert, 25 November 18 George Bell, ‘Lambert’s Work’, Lambert 1930, n.p.; Hans Heysen, 1921, Lambert Family Papers, ML MSS 97/10, p. 383. ‘George Lambert Passes’, Lambert 1930, n.p.; Daryl Lindsay, 8 Julian Ashton, ‘George Lambert: Painter and sculptor’, Lambert ‘The Significance of Lambert’s Work’, Lambert 1930, n.p. Memorial Number, Art In Australia, series 3, August –September 1930 19 Kineton Parkes, ‘George Lambert’, Apollo, London, vol.12, July 1930, (Lambert 1930), n.p. pp. 74–75; ‘The Late George W. Lambert, A. R. A, 1873–1930’, 9 Hans Heysen correspondence with Lionel Lindsay, 18 December 1921, Connoisseur, London, vol. 86, July 1930, p. 58. quoted in Colin Thiele, Heysen of Hahndorf, (1968), Adelaide: Rigby, 20 Frank Rinder, ‘The Royal Academy – A Commemorative Show: Orpen 1976, p. 295. in his brilliance’, Manchester Guardian, 7 January 1933, p. 14. The 10 Arthur Murch, ‘Difficulties’, Undergrowth, Sydney, September–October exhibition also included work by Bertram Mackennal and William Orpen. 1926. 11 CEW Bean, Gallipoli Mission, (1948), Sydney: ABC, 1990, p. 112; CEW Bean, ‘George Lambert at the Front I’, in Lambert 1924, p. 26.

artonview winter 2007 15 conservation

After treatment George Lambert The sonnet c. 1907 oil on canvas 113.3 x 177.4 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra John B Pye Bequest 1963

16 national gallery of australia Restoring Lambert

The Gallery’s paintings conservation department has been examining and preparing works in readiness for the launch of the George W Lambert retrospective in June. For conservators, the chance to work on an exhibition devoted to a single artist presents an ideal opportunity to develop an overview of the condition of the artist’s work, the materials used and the range of techniques employed to create the works. Lambert has proved to be a fascinating subject. He obviously enjoyed the process of painting and throughout his career immersed himself in the study of the Masters. We can see the influence of many of them, including Velasquez, Hals, Manet and Whistler, in the varied way in which he applied his paint from fluid, medium-rich washes in backgrounds to bravura flicks and dashes of impasto in draperies and fabrics. He has been portrayed as technically conservative, given the period in which he worked. Nevertheless, there is a deep pleasure to be gained from the sheer craftsmanship and variety in his works. It is clear that Lambert’s formal approach, founded marked brightening of the surface, but we were amazed Before treatment George Lambert on solid study at Julian Ashton’s school and in Paris, has to see the dramatic results once varnish removal began. The sonnet c. 1907 served him well. Generally, his paintings have withstood Beautiful pinks and blues appeared in the sky; Thea oil on canvas 113.3 x 177.4 National the test of time. The conservation issues we face stem Proctor’s sleeves turned white before our eyes and Kitty Gallery of Australia, Canberra mostly from the accumulation of dirt on the surface of the Powell’s robust suntan paled to an elegant Edwardian John B Pye Bequest 1963 works and the natural alteration of organic materials rather alabaster. As Lambert’s paint was revealed it became than the inherent self-destruction that can affect apparent that problems with The sonnet mainly concerned artists’ work. structural support and neglect. To complete the treatment, The sonnet was painted by Lambert in 1907, using a saturating varnish was applied to the surface and small Arthur Streeton, Thea Proctor and Kitty Powell as models areas of abrasion were subtly retouched. in his homage to Manet’s Le dejeuner sur l’herbe and As well as major loans from public and private Giorgione’s Fête Champêtre. The sonnet won a silver medal collections in Australia and overseas, the exhibition includes at the Exposition Internationale de Arte, Barcelona, in 1911, all of the paintings by George Lambert in the Gallery’s but met with a lukewarm response in England. When the collection. The sonnet has been treated and The old dress painting came into the Gallery’s conservation studio, it had was conserved in 2001. We are now looking forward an extremely heavy layer of surface grime and a deeply to examining more closely Portrait group, Weighing the discoloured varnish. The canvas was also poorly attached fleece, The empty glass and A garden bunch. a to a defective stretcher. We began treatment by repairing David Wise, Sheridan Roberts and Greg Howard the stretcher and reinforcing the tacking margins of the Paintings Conservation canvas support. The canvas was then re-attached securely and tensioned, ensuring that surface cleaning and varnish removal could be carried out on a well-supported paint layer. The cleaning of years of accumulated surface grime, using a conservation standard detergent, produced a

artonview winter 2007 17 Orde Poynton and Project galleries

VIP: very important photographs 1840s–1940s

26 May ­– 19 August 2007

Bill Brandt People are regarded as VIPs for many reasons – for A collection of photography in an art gallery has to East End girl, dancing the Lambeth Walk 1938 being brilliant and talented, for being rich and powerful. tell the history of the medium. The exhibition presents gelatin silver photograph Some by virtue of hard work and merit, others by notorious premium examples of the almost bewildering range of 21.2 x 17.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, misadventure. In this exhibition, rare and treasured processes and techniques employed during photography’s Canberra photographs from the national collection take to the red first century: from the daguerreotypes, salt prints and carpet to show themselves off in all their glory: it celebrates cyanotypes of the earliest years, to the wet-plate then the twenty-fifth anniversary in 2007 of the first displays dry-plate collodion albumen silver prints with their fine of photography included in the inaugural exhibitions for detail that replaced the early processes, through to the opening of the National Gallery of Australia building the graphic quality of the processes employed by the in 1982. Like their human equivalents, there is a variety of Pictorialists at the turn of the twentieth century – explanations for why some photographs are celebrated, the bromoils and gum bichromates, the carbons and why some garner such widespread admiration that they platinums and the supremely high quality photomechanical achieve iconic status. Needless to say, big and brash or reproduction – and finally the gelatin silver process that small and dignified, they all have an essential quality that raises them above the ordinary. If they were people, you became the mainstay of photography through to the would say they had charisma. invention of digital. Early colour processes of the thirties The ‘A-listers’ are well represented in the exhibition: and forties such as Gasparcolor and dye transfer also make Edward Weston, Man Ray, Julia Margaret Cameron, an appearance. Prohibitively expensive and technically Bill Brandt, Berenice Abbott, František Drtikol and sophisticated, they were principally found in the domain Walker Evans are on show with the images that made them of advertising and can be seen in the exhibition in work by famous as well as other images which do not have as high Anton Bruehl and Paul Outerbridge. a level of recognition. Also lauded are our own ‘home- Collecting photography at the National Gallery of grown’ celebrities – Charles Bayliss, Harold Cazneaux, Australia began in the early 1970s in tandem with the start Olive Cotton and Max Dupain, for example. Fame is at of concerted institutional acquisition of the medium by best a strange beast: also included are the photographic art museums around the world. The Victoria and Albert equivalents of people well known and respected in their Museum had started doing so in 1852 and the Museum field but who have had universal acclaim elude them. of Modern Art in New York set up its photographic And there is outstanding work from the early years of the department in 1940 – but they were very much the medium by the ever-elusive ‘Anonymous’. The exhibition exceptions. In Australia, photography had been acquired covers all genres of photography – portraiture, landscape, by the state and university libraries, though primarily for urban photography, social documentary, photojournalism, its documentary value, and by the Art Gallery of South celebrity work, still life, advertising; photographs as single Australia, for example, since the 1920s. However, it was images but also as found in albums and books; cut up, collaged and hand-coloured, images made with the most only in 1975 that the big auction houses, Sotheby’s and advanced cameras of the day to images made without Christie’s, established photographic departments and the a camera at all; and from the intimate to Bayliss and medium took its first steps towards becoming the lucrative Holtermann’s nine-and-a-half metre long panorama of part of the art market that it is today with its long list of Sydney Harbour. Photography, in other words, in all its celebrity collectors that includes Elton John, Diane Keaton, wondrous diversity. Tom Cruise and Madonna.

18 national gallery of australia

Given the strengths and depth of both its Australian and international holdings, the Gallery has the capacity to successfully display Australian photographers alongside their international contemporaries. The interaction between Australia and the rest of the world was, if not as immediate during the first 100 years of the medium as in the contemporary global world of internet communication, then certainly as lively. The Australian scene was enriched by the arrival of photographers from across the world coming to settle or visit, and photographs and publications travelled between the two worlds on both private and professional missions. Having Australian photographers and those from Europe and America together in this exhibition allows for Viscountess Frances The first formulation of policy in the Gallery’s annual rewarding dialogues between works: it is fascinating to Jocelyn compare what happened on the colonial ‘periphery’ with Circular design c. 1860 report of 1976–77 stated the aim was to ‘develop a albumen silver photograph, department of photography which will include both what happened at the ‘centre’ of cultural production, watercolour, pencil 28.0 x 23.2 cm Australian and overseas works. The Australian collection regional interpretations sometimes displaying a greater National Gallery of Australia, will be historically comprehensive, while the collection of level of freedom and innovation. Photographs from the Canberra overseas photographers will aim to represent the work 1930s by Max Dupain are seen, for example, next to the William Henry Fox Talbot The ladder before April 1845 of the major artists in the history of photography’. Since Surrealist-inspired works of Man Ray that so influenced plate XIV from The pencil of that statement of intent thirty years ago, the collection them; the Pictorialist works of Harold Cazneaux next nature 1844–46 salted paper print from a has grown to include over 16,000 works. There are to Heinrich Kühn. It is the first time at the Gallery that calotype paper negative Australian and international works have been hung 17.0 x 18.2 cm approximately sixty per cent Australian to forty per cent National Gallery of Australia, international photographs, a ratio that has remained together in this way. Canberra constant over the years. It is one of the largest and finest In any discussion of what makes a photograph collections in the region. This exhibition focuses on the special, it is well to keep in mind the American landscape first 100 years of photography, a period which saw photographer Ansel Adams’s observation that ‘there photography move from its beginnings in the 1840s, are no rules for good photographs, there are only good expensive and confined to a large degree to the upper photographs’. When people think of a classic, ‘good’ classes, to cementing itself by the 1940s as one of the photograph they most likely reference the sort of leading art forms of the twentieth century; a ubiquitous photography practised by Adams – usually black-and-white one that, with its chameleon nature, technological and a beautiful print, pristine and rarified. But great works underpinnings and mechanical reproducibility, seemed best can also take on somewhat more anarchic characteristics. equipped to serve and reflect the modern world. Viscountess Frances Jocelyn was a lady-in-waiting to

20 national gallery of australia Queen Victoria, a great enthusiast who encouraged Jocelyn to take up photography. Like others from her set, she cut up her own photographs and those taken by others, arranged them into new narratives and decorative patterns, painted on and around them and made a hybrid album incorporating elements of a lady’s sketchbook. Her album is witty and irreverent. It is also a telling and perceptive critique of the aristocratic Victorian society in which she lived – one in which England created a vast empire through its naval power, one in which everyone had their place and responsibilities that could not be shirked. Any attempt at compiling a checklist of stylistic must- Events caught by the photographic eye in this way can Harold Cazneaux haves is always going to run aground coming up with a The orphan sisters c. 1906 definition of magic and appeal that speaks to everyone. be ones that change the course of world history or – as gelatin silver photograph often as not – something that passes totally unnoticed by 39.5 x 31.8 cm Walking through an exhibition it is easy enough to observe National Gallery of Australia, that an image that ‘speaks’ profoundly to one person will those not possessing the heightened observational intent Canberra Gift of the Cazneaux family 1981 leave another yawning and unmoved. Having said that … of the photographer. The camera’s ability to transform the mundane into something poetic is one of its most František Drtikol Photography is so much about subject matter and Draped figure behind seated it is overtly true that to some extent making a good extraordinary characteristics and one that is present nude c. 1928 gelatin silver photograph photograph is simply about being in the right place at strongly and majestically from its very earliest beginnings. 26.5 x 22.4 cm Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot was one of its National Gallery of Australia, the right time and knowing – either intuitively or through Canberra years of experience and probably both – the best place to inventors and a great master in regard to this power to stand and the right moment to click the shutter. The ability remake the world around him into one of enigma and to do this is an essential skill for all great photographers heightened, almost mystical, significance. Talbot took but particularly obvious perhaps in those practising street the simple things that surrounded him in his rural country photography and photo reportage who go out into the life – a piece of lace, a leaf, bonnets, glasses from a world to find their picture: represented in the show with cabinet, the china off the sideboard – arranged them images by Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose term in front of the camera and through this reordering and ‘the decisive moment’ has become a famous attempt to visionary flair transformed them into photographs that define this mastery, as well as works by German-born continue to fascinate and give rise to debate as to their British photographer Bill Brandt and Americans Walker meaning. Evans and Helen Levitt among others.

artonview winter 2007 21

The Gallery is fortunate to have one of the few opened Melbourne’s first commercial photographic studio Anton Bruehl Porgy and Bess 1942 remaining complete copies of The pencil of nature, the first in 1847. Along with five other surviving dageurreotypes Gasparcolor colour commercially available book with photographic illustration. made by Kilburn, it is the first photographic record made photograph 32.3 x 26.6 cm It was published in six parts between 1844 and 1846 to of Australia’s Indigenous people and the earliest Australian National Gallery of Australia, publicise Talbot’s discoveries – and in a spirit of defiance image in the collection. The subjects of this photograph Canberra NGA Photography Fund: Farrell Family Foundation and counterclaim to Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre’s 1839 have such appeal because of the way they live again in the donation 2000 claim in Paris of being the first to capture successfully and image as intensely as when their images were captured on Doris Ulmann Woman and two children permanently the imprint of the world onto a surface (in this polished silver iodide-coated copperplate 160 years in doorway 1929–31 Daguerre’s case onto a piece of sensitised copper). There is ago. And they in turn seem to be aware of us. Present platinum print 20.6 x 15.4 cm a wonder that comes with reflecting on the sheer survival and past collide. National Gallery of Australia, of works by the pioneers of the medium – and more so That it feels as if physical traces of their subject Canberra in that they are sometimes in extraordinarily good and are embedded in photographs gives them huge (opposite) Max Dupain sparkling condition. Talbot’s salt prints are a treasured part talismanic power. Recording what something looks like, Brave new world 1935 of the collection as are the cyanotypes of plants made through historic, ethnographic, proprietorial impulse, gelatin silver photograph 46.3 x 35.0 cm in the 1840s by Anna Atkins and the small but always will always be a strong raison d’être of the medium. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra affecting group of daguerreotypes and ambrotypes – Such considerations are important for the curator of one-off images that in their protective cases often have a photography but as important are the qualities of the jewel-like character. particular print, considerations that address the technical One of the qualities unique to the medium and aesthetic qualities of the object itself, including such – unmistakably present wherever it was made and concerns as how it fits into the photographer’s oeuvre, discernible from the very first time a sliver of time was into the collection, and more broadly into the history of fixed through the alchemy of chemistry and light – is its photography as well as its cultural significance. These potent and unbreakable relationship to the real. Startlingly aspects of the work are indivisible and of equal importance strong and unmediated, for example, is the presence of a in acquiring work for an art museum collection. group of Aboriginal people in a daguerreotype made by Rarity is always a factor in making something special the English-born photographer Douglas T Kilburn, who and the same applies to the world of photography – more

artonview winter 2007 23 Albert Renger-Patzsch so in fact given the reproducibility of photographs. Having a sizeable body of work that can tell the story Railroad bridge c. 1927 gelatin silver photograph Editioning of prints has only come into vogue in recent of a photographer’s career is indispensable in a collection, 16.8 x 22.8 cm years to meet the demands of a market. With older allowing for serious research and proper understanding of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra material it is difficult to ascertain how many copies of where a particular print fits into the big picture. As part a particular print exist but as there was little market of the desired outcome of the acquisition policy, for photographic prints as art works, huge print runs this is especially important in the area of Australian were uncommon. There are photographers such as Tina photography – comprehensive collections of work by Modotti, who worked with Edward Weston in Mexico John Kauffmann, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, in the mid to late 1920s. She was not a prolific printer Max Dupain and Australian-born expatriates such as and her life was cut short – to have works by Modotti Anton Bruehl who worked in America, for example, are and others like her is always special and they attract high held with representative works included in the exhibition. prices at auction (the Gallery has four fine Modotti prints). Adding to the prestige of a collection are groups of Images by Henri Cartier-Bresson have been common work relating to a particular project engaged in by a enough in later prints but vintage prints are extremely photographer and this area is a distinct and spectacular rare. The Gallery is fortunate to have a vintage print of his strength of the holdings: Lewis Hine’s documentation of made in Mexico in 1934 that looks startlingly different to child labour made for the National Child Labor Committee the graphic high-contrast prints for which he is known. from 1908 to 1924, work which was instrumental in Circumstances can also change, affecting the desiribility reforms being implemented; more than sixty platinum of an artist’s work. Following Cartier-Bresson’s death in photographs by Doris Ulmann from 1929–31 of the Gullah 2004, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation prohibited any people of South Carolina and Georgia as well as the limited further printing from his negatives. As a result, the value of edition book Roll, Jordan, Roll with fine photogravure Cartier-Bresson prints has risen sharply and will illustrations; more than 120 images by the early modernist continue to do so. photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch, many of which

24 national gallery of australia were included in his highly influential book, Die Welt ist printed by Parasol Press nonetheless. Ansel Adams’s late Carleton E Watkins Willamette Falls, Oregon schön [The world is beautiful] of 1928; EO Hoppé’s rare portfolios, including the Museum set, are also highly prized City 1867 photographs of German industry taken for the 1930 book and of the highest quality, as is Edward Weston’s Fiftieth albumen silver photograph 39.2 x 52.1 cm Deutsche Arbeit [German work] on the wonders of modern Anniversary Portfolio 1902–1952 printed by his son Brett National Gallery of Australia, Canberra NGA Photography German engineering and manufacturing plants. These under Weston’s supervision. These portfolios of Adams and Fund: Farrell Family Foundation groups of works contribute to make the Gallery’s collection Weston were made at the end of their careers and exist as donation 2000 truly one of world standing. moving testimonials: two master photographers looking It is preferable to acquire vintage prints made by back at a life devoted to photography and making an the artist in the years close to the exposure date of eloquent final statement on what was important. the negative. Photographic papers change enormously Photographs carrying a particular history or showing over time, negatives degenerate and are damaged and strongly the hand of the photographer also lift them above photographers also print differently – each period has its the ordinary. For example, the backs of photographs own printing ‘style’ (even a great image may not find a by Felix Man in the collection are covered with stickers place in an art gallery if only a soulless print is available for and annotations, providing an insight into the world acquisition). As always there are exceptions to this or of the photographer; The steerage of 1907 by Alfred that is to say cases where later prints have their own Stieglitz is made (if possible) even more wonderful by special quality. The Gallery, for instance, has portfolios the long handwritten inscription to his friend and fellow made in the late 1970s of images that were created photographer Paul B Haviland which accompanies it; the by Berenice Abbott in the 1930s for her project inscription by the American high fashion photographer Changing New York, one of the greatest ‘portraits’ of Baron George Hoyningen-Huene to Max Dupain – while a city ever compiled. They look very different to the on a short visit to Sydney in 1937 – on a portrait of Dupain, prints made at the time the images were shot, which Max after surfing, made by Olive Cotton, makes it unique are characteristically warmer in tone, but are exquisitely and special.

artonview winter 2007 25

It has been noted that sometimes photographs are Great photography is always about exploring different Ansel Adams Moonrise, Hernandez, New like windows, seemingly straightforward depictions of ways of looking at the world – and shifting, even if only Mexico 1941 the world, the camera almost a scientific instrument slightly, our perception of that world in some way. As we gelatin silver photograph printed 1980 of objectivity. Other times photographs are more like enter the digital age the rules are changing. The value of 38.6 x 49.0 cm mirrors reflecting back the photographer. And, of course, photography, whatever technology it employs, remains in National Gallery of Australia, Canberra photography must also work at revealing ourselves to teaching us how to see and interpret our own world with (opposite) ourselves. Ansel Adams noted that ‘a photograph is usually clarity, to stimulate our minds and evoke our emotions. a Alfred Stieglitz looked at – seldom looked into’. This exhibition asks the The steerage 1907 photogravure on Japanese viewer to engage with photographs in all their complexity Anne O’Hehir vellum printed 1915 Curator, Photography 33.4 x 26.6 cm and diversity: to be charmed by the ‘stars’ certainly but National Gallery of Australia, Canberra also to enjoy spending time with lesser known but equally Further information at nga.gov.au/VIP talented participants.

artonview winter 2007 27 asian art galleries

The Southeast Asian Gallery

Entering the Southeast Asian The new Southeast Asian Gallery opened in late October Among the recurring images in this section of the Gallery with the Bronze Weaver in the foreground, 2006 with a special launch of the newest and most exciting Southeast Asian installations are those associated with and a Sumba textile and pairs acquisition from the region – the sixth-century Bronze the dark underworld realm, often viewed as female. In of guardian figures from the Philippines and West Iran Weaver from Indonesia (see artonview, no. 49, page 36). particular, reptiles such as crocodiles, snakes and mythical behind Placed at the entrance to the new permanent displays of naga serpents are found on works in all media. A large Southeast Asian art, the sculpture highlights the Gallery’s receptacle made from buffalo horn was created in the commitment to showing the most ancient and enduring form of a serpent to hold the magical potions of the village art forms from the region, including those associated with shaman in northern Sumatra. The ship symbol found on animist and ancestral beliefs which long predate the arrival the striking woven hangings used in rites of passage in of world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam south Sumatra often takes the form of a dragon boat. and Christianity. Motifs of birds associated with the upper realm of the Like all South and Southeast Asian art in the national gods and the deified ancestors are also evident in this part collection, the ancestral art is comprised largely of of the permanent display, with striking wooden sculptures sculpture and textiles. Their integrated display, made of birds exhibited from the mountainous regions of north possible by the Gallery’s new lighting system which Vietnam, the Lampung region of southern Sumatra and allows works of stone and wood to be located beside as far afield as Madagascar where, in the distant past, light-sensitive fabrics, visually reinforces a fundamental the ancestors of modern Indonesians arrived after long feature of ancient Southeast Asian cultures – the essential sea voyages which also took them into remote parts of complementary of male and female elements. This is most the Pacific Ocean. The similarities in style between quite clearly evident in the textiles created by women, and the remote parts of Southeast Asia speak of that shared wooden sculptures and smelted bronzes which are men’s linguistic and cultural heritage. Also recurring in Southeast arts. A number of the works on display actually combine Asian arts are tree motifs, a popular symbol of the axis these dual elements: a pair of male and female bulol rice mundi that the ancestors travel down to join the middle guardians from the northern Philippines stands beside world of the living. One of the most prominent works a set of male and female cloths from Sumba in eastern with this motif is found in the last section of the Southeast Indonesia. The ceremonial textiles, which form the female Asian Gallery – the textile from Central Sulawesi was gift in the elaborate exchanges that accompany marriage intended for display at rites associated with fertility when and funerals, feature male skull tree motifs associated with the founding ancestors of clan and village are dutifully the prestigious masculine ritual of headhunting. honoured by their descendants.

28 national gallery of australia artonview winter 2007 29 30 national gallery of australia Better known are the Southeast Asian arts, especially local stonemasons. The purchase of the arcade has been A Burmese wooden Buddha with Hindu Balinese textiles sculpture, influenced by India. The great architectural generously supported by artist Margaret Olley, who also and pages from a Thai wonders of Angkor and Borobodur, and the enduring assisted with the acquisition of the huge Indian brackets manuscript on the adjacent wall vitality of Buddhism for Thailand and Burma, and Hinduism and lintels which mark the entrance from the foyer to the (opposite) Looking through the Mughal Indian marble arch for Bali, reveal the impact of religious and court rituals Asian Galleries. at Thai and Burmese Buddhist adopted from South Asia in the first millennium of the Through the arches are some of the Gallery’s most sculpture current era. The interaction of Indian ideas and imagery important Buddhist sculptures from Thailand, Burma and with pre-existing local traditions has resulted in regional art Cambodia. Several Thai bronze sculptures are covered in forms distinct from India yet revealing common affinities lacquer and gold leaf and reveal aspects of the narrative across the Southeast Asian region. of the life of the earthly Buddha Shakyamuni popular Following on from the Indian Gallery, located directly throughout mainland Southeast Asia. While many images adjacent to the new Southeast Asian permanent exhibition, allude to the moment of enlightenment when he reaches the visitor catches a first glimpse of Southeast Asian art down to touch the Earth, calling it to witness his lifetime through the white marble arcade that has been erected of good deeds, one striking sculpture shows the Buddha in the Islamic section of the South Asian displays. The seated in the forest where he had retreated from a quarrel reassembling of Mughal-period architectural feature, among his followers. Before him are the tiny figures of the from the reign of the Emperor Aurangzeb, was a major elephant and the monkey offering him a water pot and undertaking for the Gallery’s exhibition staff, assisted by honeycomb respectively.

artonview winter 2007 31 32 national gallery of australia On the wall behind, the designs on the textiles are drawn The existing collections of Southeast Asian art have been Sumatran textiles featuring the popular ship motif from another enduring aspect of Indian culture, the supplemented by a number of recent acquisitions, allowing flanked by an image of importance of the great epics, the Ramayana and the the Gallery to present a more complex and comprehensive a Khmer goddess and a wooden bird sculpture from Mahabharata in mainland and insular Southeast Asia. history of the arts of the region. For example, juxtaposed Vietnam The Indonesian renditions of the tales, however, are with the Mughal arch, sumptuous gold brocades from the (opposite) sometimes quite obscure, alluding to stories and dramatic Gallery’s famous textile collection are displayed beside a An image of the Hindu god Shiva from Cambodia, with a scenes unknown or not prominent in India. However, the stone panel inscribed with Arabic calligraphy. The recently Javanese and Balinese textile featuring Hindu designs, flat two-dimensional wayang form, a key feature of the acquired sculpture was a key work in the 2006 exhibition, and a showcase containing figures in the epics, is shared by Hindu Bali and Islamic Crescent Moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast a group of small Southeast Asian Hindu-Buddhist Java, appearing on batik, weavings, embroidery, painted Asia. Hanging beside the textiles, the group speaks of sculptures panels and even decorating a container for storing spurs the pervasive and decorative nature of art of Islamic Gilded Thai figures of the for fighting cocks. communities in the region, often overshadowed by the Buddha Shakyamuni in the foreground, and an While many of the sculptures are large and imposing, exuberant and better known art of the Balinese village and Indonesian stone panel and able to be displayed without the barrier of glass Javanese court. displaying Islamic calligraphy beside royal Malay gold panels, other works shown in showcases are small The Southeast Asian Gallery reveals the richness and silk textiles on the rear wall. A section of the Indian and exquisite. In particular a number of small gold and and diversity of the arts of the regions of Asia closest to Gallery is visible through the silver objects display the gamut of the region’s cultural Australia. The displays allow the visitor to enjoy the great arches orientations. A gold mask from Tanimbar provides diversity of form, cultural origins, media, and technique, protection in an animist rite. While the hilt of splendid while appreciating the commonalties displayed in the arts jewel-studded Balinese dagger takes the form of a demon, of Southeast Asian cultures whose shared histories stretch another from a nearby Islamic kingdom reveals a stylised back thousands of years. a human form. One intricate box in the form of a crab blends Robyn Maxwell Malay and Chinese elements in a decorative form popular Senior Curator, Asian Art on both sides of the Straits of Malacca.

artonview winter 2007 33 forthcoming exhibition

Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial

13 October 2007 ­– 10 February 2008

Anniebell The inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial curator is Brenda L Croft, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Marrngamarrnga Kuninjku people will be held at the Gallery in Canberra later this year. Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia. The Yalk Yalk mother and babies Presenting the work of thirty artists from each state and guest curator position provides an outstanding opportunity 2006 natural pigments dyed on woven pandanus territory, the Triennial demonstrates the incredible range for Indigenous curators to develop skills and direct a major 285.0 x 172.0 cm of contemporary Indigenous art practice. It is the largest Australian art event. The Gallery plans to extend the scope survey show of Indigenous art at the Gallery in more of this project to include international Indigenous curators than fifteen years, featuring up to four works by each from the Pacific and other regions. A substantial, fully- artist created during the past three years in a variety of illustrated publication will also accompany each triennial media, including painting on bark and canvas, sculpture, exhibition and provide an ongoing authoritative critical textiles, weaving, new media, photomedia, printmaking reference for contemporary Indigenous art in Australia. and installation. The works selected not only create an The Gallery’s development of an Indigenous exhibition of outstanding quality but are also ultimately art triennial is also in light of there being fewer important acquisitions for the national collection. high-profile opportunities to showcase Australia’s Internationally, there has been incredible interest in leading contemporary artists, especially considering contemporary Indigenous art from Australia, most notably that some major forces in contemporary art such as the with the prestigious Australian Indigenous Art Commission Moët et Chandon Fellowship and the Art Gallery of at the new Musée du quai Branly, Paris, in June 2006. New South Wales’s biennial, Australian Perspecta, have And there can be no doubt that locally the launch of the ceased. To date, the most widely acknowledged survey Triennial is well-timed. Not only does it open the day after of contemporary Indigenous Australian art has been the the Gallery’s twenty-fifth anniversary, it also coincides highly popular annual Telstra National Aboriginal and with the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Referendum Torres Strait Islander Art Award, held each August at the (Aboriginals), whereby non-Indigenous Australians Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin. (90.77%) voted overwhelmingly to include Indigenous Although it is not a theme-based or curated show, the Australians on the census as citizens, and the fiftieth Telstra Award features the work of more than 100 artists. anniversary of NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander What defines the National Indigenous Art Triennial is that it Day Observance Committee). These anniversaries are a is curated, themed, and by invitation; therefore it stands as major inspiration for the exhibition’s thematic context. an important counterpoint to existing annual, biennial and

To ensure that successive National Indigenous Art triennial visual arts events. a Triennials are as dynamic and as stimulating as possible the Gallery will invite an Indigenous guest curator to direct Brenda L Croft Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art the exhibition’s theme and content. The theme of the inaugural Triennial is Culture Warriors and this year’s guest Major sponsor BHP Billiton

34 national gallery of australia

new acquisition Australian Paintings

Kathleen O’Connor In the studio

Kathleen O’Connor Kathleen O’Connor is a Western Australian artist of then applied the paint thinly, using large flat blocks of In the studio c. 1928 tempera on card national status. Like many other Australian artists of the colour, leaving areas of the card exposed so as to give 71.8 x 86.4 cm Edwardian era, she was an artist in exile, travelling abroad added warmth to the overall effect. The work is energised National Gallery of Australia, Canberra in 1906 and remaining overseas to study and work for by the patterned tablecloth, the folds in the blue fabric almost fifty years. Many Australian artists gravitated to backdrop and the vigorous flecks of green, red and white London but O’Connor, like fellow Australians Rupert Bunny paint that create the flowers in the pot. There is a sense of and Phillips Fox, mostly lived and worked in Paris. distortion in the way the space has been flattened, and the For a period O’Connor was an objective recorder of tabletop tilted in a modernist fashion. Parisian life, painting images of girls in cafés or intimate It is a deeply personal image, a lived-in still life, with views of women in the Luxembourg Gardens – nannies objects from her personal life scattered on the table, with prams and women reading. Following a brief period in creating the impression that she has just walked out of the Australia in 1926, when she painted decorative objects for room where she had been drinking a cup of coffee and Grace Bros and David Jones in Sydney, she turned to still scanning through the well-thumbed magazine. At around the time O’Connor painted this work she life, to the world of her studio, painting images such as In received a favourable review in Les Artistes d’Aujourd-hui: the studio c. 1928. ‘She is an incomparable colourist, as witness her still lifes, In doing so she was taking up a modernist subject, which are magnificent mosaics, in which all the colours which allowed her to focus on formal arrangement, on vibrate and sing’. design and colour. In the still life In the studio she explored

the possibilities of flat patterning and intense colours to Anne Gray construct her image. She drew the image in outline and Head of Australian Art

36 national gallery of australia new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture

Ray Crooke ‘Kingfisher’, Thursday Island

I find a strange island sometimes where ghosts extensively throughout Far North Queensland and the Ray Crooke ‘Kingfisher’, Thursday Island of ancient glories linger, where the winds and Pacific. During his first stay on Thursday Island soldiers 1950 the flowers are sweet and the people are still were billeted in the abandoned Federal Hotel, which egg tempera and oil on composition board gentle and smiling, where man is conscious of his was built around 1903. The building is identifiable in 25.0 x 35.6 cm grandeur and is content to live simply in harmony National Gallery of Australia, ‘Kingfisher’, Thursday Island by its arched verandah Canberra Purchased 2006 with the forces around and within him. Yet if we and red roof. found this island we would destroy it in a month. Australia’s northern-most settlement, Thursday Island, (Ray Crooke, 1949 journal entry) has a long history of exchange and contact with Asian and ‘Kingfisher’, Thursday Island 1950 is a work that marks the Melanesian peoples, and the first European contact dates beginning of Ray Crooke’s longstanding interest in painting from early in the seventeenth century. Crooke’s writings the people and landscapes of Far North Queensland and works of art display his keen interest in the history of and the Pacific. The work was made in Melbourne after Crooke’s 1949 visit to the Torres Strait where he lived for the region and his awareness of the fine balance for the several months on Thursday Island (Waiben) working as Indigenous people between their traditional ways of life a cook, labourer and trochus diver. Lugger sailing vessels and introduced elements of western medicine, religion such as the one depicted in this painting were used by and industry. the fishermen to explore the waters of the Darnley Deeps. During his time in the region, Crooke travelled around the Beatrice Gralton Associate Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture Great Barrier Reef visiting a number of islands, making many drawings, and keeping a journal. ‘Kingfisher’ Thursday Island is included in the forthcoming Crooke first visited the Torres Strait and Thursday Island National Gallery of Australia travelling exhibition Ocean to in 1943 as a soldier with the Australian Army. The artist outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950 which had enlisted in 1940 and throughout the war travelled opens at Tamworth Regional Gallery on 3 August 2007.

artonview winter 2007 37 new acquisition Australian Prints and Drawings

Kenneth Macqueen Darling Downs landscape

Kenneth Macqueen There is a group of photographs in the National Gallery maintained an association with them throughout his entire Darling Downs landscape c. 1935 of Australia’s Research Library taken around the property life. He was also a member of the Society of Artists and watercolour on paper where Kenneth Macqueen lived from 1922 until his death his first exhibition was with them in 1922. Macqueen 35.0 x 45.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, in 1960. The images are immediately familiar for they are exhibited almost every year from 1922, and by 1926 was Canberra the landscape of Macqueen’s watercolours, with the same receiving somewhat backhanded praise for his work. In a patterns of rhythmic rolling hills and endless flat-bottomed review of the Society of Artists’ Annual Exhibition in the clouds. It is the landscape he painted over and over again, Bulletin of 16 September 1926, came the somewhat wry from the time when he and his brother Jack purchased comment that ‘Kenneth Macqueen takes a queer view of their farm atop a ridge at Mount Emlyn, Millmerran, on the earth’s surface; he succeeds in being extraordinary Queensland’s Darling Downs. anyway’. By 1935 an article in Art in Australia (May 15) Only a few years before, Macqueen had returned from offered more refined praise: ‘Mr Macqueen’s work is England where he had served in the AIF during the First completely individual … every picture is alive with tender World War. After the war he studied art in London under serenity and charm’. Bernard Meninsky at the Westminster School of Art and The watercolour Darling Downs was painted around with Henry Tonks at the Slade School. His spare time was this time, when Macqueen’s landscapes had reached spent at the National Gallery or the Victoria and Albert a stylistic maturity. It is typically painted in flat areas Museum, taking in the nuances of the watercolours of of colour, with sweeping rhythms. Fascinated with the Turner, Constable and especially the tonal landscapes of element of design in landscape, Macqueen wrote in 1948: John Sell Cotman. ‘Design in landscape interests me tremendously though Back in Australia Macqueen balanced his days involuntarily. When a subject strikes me, and quickens my between farming and painting, often preferring to sketch interest, I find it is nearly always a shape of a tree, hill or en plein air during the day (rather than use photographs cloud that has been the cause’. Here the eye is drawn to the dark swathe of hillside in the middle ground and the for they provided too much detail) and paint in the cool recently tilled rich dark soil, typical of the Darling Downs. of the evening when the conditions were more suitable It is a bold and unexpected feature, which Macqueen for the intricacies of watercolour painting. In his 1948 balances with the sweep of a winding road and its border book Adventure in watercolour, Macqueen explained: ‘A of repeating fence posts. The Twin Hills in the background watercolour can be left, however much one hates to do so, are moulded in shape and form by cloud shadows. The to be continued in the next lull. Then again watercolour is azure blue of the sky, the touches of blue in the dams and such a delightful medium, full of the unexpected, with its the tiny patch of blue on the box culvert in the foreground transparency giving one an extra stop on which to play’. all work seamlessly to create this wonderful composition. Watercolour became his preferred medium and

Macqueen was a master of the technique. An early Anne McDonald member of the Australian Watercolour Institute, he Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

38 national gallery of australia artonview winter 2007 39 new acquisition Australian Prints and Drawings

Kate Lohse Tools of the trade

Kate Lohse In Tools of the trade, New South Wales-based artist viewed as a medical problem. The role of the female birth A man midwife 2003 from Tools of the trade and midwife Kate Lohse explores ‘the historical attendant was usurped by the male midwife, who emerged thermal transfer on linen struggle between midwives and medical men for from the trade guild of the barber-surgeons and pushed handkerchief 25.0 x 24.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, the control of childbirth’. In her series of twenty-one his way confidently into the bedchambers of middle- Canberra Gordon Darling class women. Childbirth became a potentially lucrative Australasian Print Fund 2007 printed handkerchiefs, images of traditional midwifery paraphernalia including ointments, salves and the birth occasion with the male midwife charging heavily for his stool are juxtaposed with seventeenth-century engravings knowledge of anatomy, gained through study in male- of coldly glittering surgical instruments and anatomical only academic circles, and flourishing the newly invented diagrams of the pregnant female. These images were maternity forceps. The female midwife became the target sourced from scientific journals in the Wellcome Library in of fear mongering, with her intuition and experience London, digitally manipulated and thermally transferred overshadowed by the portrayal of her methods as ignorant onto the starched white cloth squares. Fine linen was and unhygienic. chosen to refer to the ‘churching of women’ after In this timely series, Lohse has illustrated the shift of childbirth from the female community into the medical childbirth (a purification ritual in which the new mother domain. The artist draws on her experience as a midwife makes an offering of linen to the priest) and what Lohse to imbue this thought-provoking work with a personal pointedly refers to as the impositions made upon the awareness of the troubled history of midwifery. ‘blank canvas’ of a woman’s pregnant body.

During the age of scientific enquiry, the concept of the Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax body as machine was invented, and childbirth began to be Gordon Darling Intern, Australian Prints and Drawings

40 national gallery of australia new acquisition Australian Prints and Drawings

The Omie barkcloths

I paint on the barkcloth the designs that were on my grandparents’ bodies. Then we all remember and our customs will not be forgotten. (Nerry Keme)

Nerry Keme is one of four Omie artists who have produced this group of barkcloths, or nyog’e, from the Omie region of eastern Papua New Guinea. (Drusilla Modjeska and David Baker brought attention to the work of this group in their research for an exhibition at Annandale Galleries in 2006.) Aspesa Gadai, Nerry Keme, Stella Upia and Dapeni Jonevari are important artists of the Omie: the women referred to as the duvahe, or main producers, of the nyog’e. Each nyog’e, once worn or hung during ceremony, is a single sheet of inner-bark, dried in the sun and beaten flat to nearly twice its original size. The black outlines are applied with charcoal and then painted with dyes from the roots of plants. The Omie visual language embraces a range of motifs. Designs include those based on traditional tattooing practices now no longer practised; curling plant-like formations evocative of the flora of the surrounding forest and traditional Omie weaving techniques. While much of this appears abstract, the names of specific cloths associate them with particular plants and animals. In Vinohu’e – a body design by Aspesa Gadai, the hooked tendrils of vinohu’e vine can be seen. The designs featured in the more formally structured barkcloth by

Stella Upia entitled Sihau’e – a Sahote clan design reflect Stella Upia Sihau’e – the grid weave of the narrow fibrous belts that comprise a Sahote clan design inner bark, charcoal and the customary attire of Omie huntsmen. plants dyes 123.0 x 104.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, While these designs are rooted in the ancestral Canberra past of the Omie, barkcloth production represents a living tradition that has evolved to reflect the changing circumstances of the region. What was once used locally for ceremonial purposes now helps sustain the Omie economically and provides a means for promoting their culture to a wider audience.

Mary-Lou Nugent Curatorial Assistant Australian Prints and Drawings

artonview winter 2007 41 new acquisition Asian Art

Christ crucified Indian Christian sculpture

Much of the historical art of South Asia was created for religious purposes. While the Gallery has an important collection of Hindu, Jain and early Buddhist objects from India, the art of well-established, albeit smaller, Christian communities has not, until now, been represented. Generally overlooked by international museums and standard art histories of the region, Christianity has been an important inspiration for arts in India for many centuries, as this fine sculpture attests. Catholic missionaries began making some inroads into India during the sixteenth century, following the opening of the sea route from Europe heralded by Vasco da Gama’s path-breaking voyage. The Franciscans and the Dominicans were the first orders to begin the venture. The Portuguese colony of Goa on the west coast felt the fullest impact of this missionary drive. The art of Goa from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries reflects the strong impact of Christianity in this region. Located on the active trade route between India and Africa, ivory was commonly used in Goa for religious sculpture, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of these objects were exported to Spain and Portugal. This is an exceptionally large and spectacular image of Christ crucified, created in Portuguese Goa during the eighteenth century. While the inspiration is clearly European, features such as the pierced roundels, which form the edging of the loincloth wrapped around Christ’s hips, appear to be peculiar to Indian crucifix images. The articulation of the textured hair, ribs and the veins on Jesus’ head, body and limbs is finely detailed. The stigmata are marked with holes that pierce completely through the ivory, indicating that this icon would have originally been affixed to a large cross. The sculpture has been formed

Christ crucified from four pieces, with the arms and gathered end of Goa, India 18th century loincloth to the left of Christ’s body each carved separately. ivory 71 cm (h) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

42 national gallery of australia new acquisition Asian Art

Gandharan region Head of a bodhisattva

This is a fine example of the Buddhist art of Gandhara, a region that encompassed parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India during the Kushan period from the first century BCE until 320. Located on the Silk Road trade route, Gandhara was an important centre for the development of a new tradition of Buddhist iconography which employed anthropomorphic depictions instead of symbolic representations of the Buddha. Carved from local grey schist, this head was once part of a monumental statue depicting a bodhisattva, a compassionate being who has chosen to defer enlightenment in order to help other earthly beings break the cycle of rebirth. Bodhisattvas are often depicted as royalty to emphasise their high status. This bodhisattva wears a bejewelled turban which symbolises material and spiritual wealth and reminds worshippers that their saviour is still of this world. Another feature of the developing Buddhist iconography is the small indentation for a precious jewel between the brows that marks the urna, a small mole that is one of the thirty-two marks of a great being. Gandharan art is distinguished by its fusion of Greek, Bactrian and Indian styles, a result of trade as well as the foreign occupation of the region before Kushan rule. The strong naturalistic facial features and wavy hair are a reflection of Hellenistic naturalism. The depiction of griffin- like beasts shows a debt to traditional Near Eastern and Indian imagery. An important addition to the Gallery’s collection of early Buddhist art, the Head of a bodhisattva complements other examples of Gandharan art in the Indian Gallery, including a large figure of a standing bodhisattva, and a Head of a bodhisattva panel from a stupa depicting a jataka story from a previous Gandharan region, Afghanistan or Pakistan life of the Buddha. Kushan period 3rd–4th century schist stone Niki van den Heuvel 53.4 x 44.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Intern, Asian Art Canberra

artonview winter 2007 43 new acquisition Asian Art

Phulkari shawls

Ceremonial cover or woman’s A recent gift of fifteen fine examples of large phulkari Although the primary techniques used to create the headcovering Punjab region Indian or Pakistan shawls expands the Gallery’s collection of Indian textiles phulkari are the surface-darning stitch and the herringbone early 20th century produced for domestic consumption. The embroidered stitch, embroidery styles vary between the different regions cotton, floss silk 134.5 x 223.0 cm phulkari textiles (phul: flowers; kari: work) represent an within the Punjab, resulting in the textiles acting as a National Gallery of Australia, Canberra important aspect of South Asian textile art from the Punjab marker of regional identity. While the luminous shimmering Gift of Claudia Hyles, 2006 and neighbouring areas in the north-west of the Indian silks in brilliant colours against bold plain cotton grounds subcontinent. The phulkari appears to have developed are common to all fine phulkari, the designs of the in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the eastern Punjab textiles are mainly floral and figural on a twentieth centuries. The textiles are worn by Muslim, Hindu fairly coarse cotton cloth base; those of the western and especially Sikh women as head coverings and shawls Punjab are dominated by technically sophisticated and are also used as ceremonial hangings and covers at geometric patterning. festivals and religious and life-cycle rituals. The donor, Claudia Hyles, has had a long association Shawls embroidered with dense designs in floss silks with India and the National Gallery of Australia. She has are the most prestigious type and play a prominent role travelled to the Subcontinent regularly for four decades at weddings. They are considered auspicious and an and was an early and long-serving member of the Gallery’s appropriate gift from the groom’s family to his new bride. voluntary guides. More recently, she worked for the Gallery As dowry, phulkari also symbolise the wealth of the bride as a member of the Office of the Executive. and her family. Robyn Maxwell, Senior Curator, Asian Art Hwei-Fe’n Cheah, Assistant Curator, Asian Art

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

Jack Bell Moon sisters

In the old days people used a powder, made by crushing the roots of a certain tree. This powder was placed in lagoons and waterways to stun the fish, which would then float to the surface and be scooped up. This technique made fishing very easy.

This one time, too much powder was placed in the water which left hardly any fish left. All this time the spirit man from the moon had been watching. He wanted a wife so he descended down to the lagoon where he turned himself into a barramundi. Everyone was trying to catch this fish but he was very tricky and would sink down to the bottom where no one could see him. All the men and women tried and no one could catch him. The man from the moon which was disguised as a barramundi had his eye on the two prettiest women, two sisters. One day the two sisters went for a swim in the lagoon, one by one they swam out into the lagoon, where the barramundi waited and hid. When the last sister swam out, the barramundi caught the two sisters and took them into the sky, back to the moon. (Artist statement, 2006)

Jack Bell was born in 1950 at Aurukun, a small remote Aboriginal community located in the Western Cape York region of Far North Queensland. His language group is Wik Mungkan and his clan group is Apalech. His totems are the Dingo, Brolga and Ghost man. Bell has been a practising artist for many years with a major role in teaching the younger people Wik culture Jack Bell Wik Mungkan people through his art. Although primarily a sculptor, he also Moon sisters 2005 paints, and is credited with many of the murals that adorn synthetic polymer paint and ochre on milk wood Aurukun public spaces. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Simona Barkus Acting Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

artonview winter 2007 45 new acquisition Australian Photography

Douglas T Kilburn South-east Australian Aboriginal man and two younger companions

Douglas T Kilburn The Gallery recently acquired one of the rarest and most In Kilburn’s Aboriginal portraits the various combinations South-east Australian Aboriginal man and two sought after pioneer works of Australian photography – of male and female figures have a close-up and bunched younger companions 1847 a daguerreotype portrait of an Australian Aboriginal man composition unusual for early daguerreotypes. The three daguerreotype 7.8 x 6.5 cm and two younger companions – that had lain for over people in the Gallery’s portrait appear to be using each National Gallery of Australia, two decades in a private collection in London. The gem- Canberra other for support rather than the usual neck and head like image belongs to a group of at least ten portraits of braces and chairs employed by early photographers. They Victorian Aboriginal people taken in 1847 by Douglas wear a considerable array of adornments and artefacts, Thomas Kilburn (1811–1871), the first resident professional including cloaks, some of which might have been supplied photographer in Melbourne. Kilburn’s portraits are the by the photographer as Aboriginal people living close to earliest surviving photographs of Aboriginal people in town no longer lived or dressed in completely traditional Australia and among the earliest anywhere of ways. Their mixed dress, appearance and presence was Indigenous people. not welcome and in the 1850s they were banned from Born in London, Kilburn came from a large merchant lingering in the newly incorporated City of Melbourne. family. His Irish grandfather William was successful artist Kilburn hoped to find a market for his Aboriginal portraits and fabric designer but nothing is known of Douglas’s in London but it seems there was not a great demand education or employment before he arrived in Australia either overseas or locally. possibly with his first wife and child. This was around 1842 Eight Aboriginal portraits are known through probably at the same time as younger brother Charles became a selector and formed a customs business trading reproductions but only three of these have been located. as Kilburn Brothers. In 1847, Douglas Kilburn set up a studio They are held by the National Gallery of Victoria, and have in his residence in Little Collins Street. been extensively researched by curator Dr Isobel Crombie. Kilburn had a great advantage over any other aspiring Two other portraits are held in private collections and the photographers in Australia as his younger brother William sixth example is in the National Gallery of Australia. These E Kilburn (1818–1891) had opened one of the first were all acquired at different times and from different photographic portrait studios in London in 1846 and sources in England. soon secured royal favour. His brother’s success no doubt On his return to Australia, Kilburn continued as a encouraged Douglas to teach himself photography using photographer in Hobart where he prospered though equipment and instructions sent out by William. Douglas diversified activities and became a politician. He died in later exhibited watercolours, introduced colouring to Hobart in 1871 survived by his second wife and four sons his daguerreotype portraits and did pioneer work with and a daughter by his first wife. photography on paper. After first advertising for paying Despite Kilburn’s difficulties in persuading his sitters to customers in August 1847, by October Kilburn had pose and their supposed fear of the camera, the Aboriginal undertaken a speculative venture making portraits of Port people in his daguerreotypes seem curious and composed. Phillip Aboriginal people coming into the town. Kilburn later That their descendents and the public can now return their described how ‘upon seeing their likenesses so suddenly gaze is the miraculous gift of the art of the camera. fixed, they took him for nothing less than a sorcerer’.

In these early years, portrait exposures were still at Gael Newton least a minute and sitters had to be braced or supported. Senior Curator, Photography

46 national gallery of australia

new acquisition Australian Photography

Bill Henson Untitled #33

Bill Henson The object of my photographs is not always the cinematic. The mysterious darkness and shimmering Untitled #33 2005–06 Type C colour photograph subject. (Bill Henson) artificial light reverberate with a dark, ominous presence 127.0 x 180.0 cm of threatening intent. There is a reference to the present, National Gallery of Australia, Untitled #33 – an image of a boat at twilight caught just the particular. It is difficult to look at a vessel likely to be Canberra as the last rays of sun fade from the water – is from the carrying chemicals or crude oil without thinking of artist’s most recent series, completed during 2005 and recent environmental incidents, and yet just as powerfully 2006. A distinguishing characteristic of Henson’s work is the image is redolent of an energy that seems the evolution over time of individual pieces within otherworldly – mythical and timeless. larger series, suggesting that no single truth exists; In Henson’s work the viewer moves into a world half- rather that multiple open-ended readings of the world are glimpsed, into the dreamy gloaming hours, a place that the only possibility. exists between wake and sleep. The mood echoes the In this series, landscape images made wandering alone work of a writer such as Thomas Mann or the composer at night in his hometown of Melbourne or wherever his Richard Strauss in their elegiac musings on the nature of travels have taken him – often to places on the edge of death and beauty. There is a reductive, distilled quality to the urban environment – counterpoint images of languid this image that reveals the photographer’s vision at its most youths shot in the studio. The image of the bulk carrier, psychologically discerning. the German owned Helga Selmer, is a departure from his

expected subject matter and yet it is quintessential Anne O’Hehir Henson – an intense yet subdued palette, painterly and Assistant Curator, Photography

48 national gallery of australia new acquisition International Photography

Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano

Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano is one of the in his personal album held in the National Museum of Walter Woodbury (attributed to) earliest known photographs of Javanese people and Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, England. Serimpies, or dancing girls comes from a series on court dancers and musicians Court dancers, usually drawn from the ranks of royal of the Sultano c. 1858 albumen silver photograph made circa 1858 by the Woodbury & Page studio of families, were trained from childhood in the graceful and on card demanding movements of Javanese dance drama. One pair 14.3 x 17.4 cm Batavia. Englishmen Walter Woodbury (1834–1885) and National Gallery of Australia, James Page (1833–1865), having previously worked as of girls in the Woodbury picture is wearing the traditional Canberra photographers in Victoria, arrived in Java from Australia in matching serimpi costumes. However, the Gallery’s Senior 1857, setting up a studio that year. The image of serimpi Curator of Asian Art, Robyn Maxwell, has observed that dancers is one of a number of stereographs on glass sold the dancers are of different ethnic appearance and the to London publishers Negretti and Zambra apparently in check pattern costumes are south Sumatran in style. 1859 when Woodbury made a visit to London. The image The models may be local girls wearing dance costumes. of the dancers was reproduced as an engraving in the By 1864 Walter Woodbury had returned to England Illustrated London News, 31 July 1861. but the Woodbury and Pagestudio remained in business with family members and others as operators until 1912. A Negretti and Zambra catalogue of circa 1864 lists Walter continued to work in photography until his death in the image under the title Serimpies, or dancing girls 1885, most notably inventing the Woodburytype printing of the Sultano among a number of scenes from Batoe process. James Page died in Java in 1865. Toelis near Buitenzorg (Bogor) in the hills of west Java.

Woodbury alone appears to be the author of the serimpi Gael Newton dancers picture as a small print of the subject appears Senior Curator, Australian and International Photography

artonview winter 2007 49 forthcoming travelling exhibition

Chasing nature: landscape paintings by Eugene von Guérard and Sidney Nolan

To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National most celebrated artist of the period. Von Guérard avidly Gallery of Australia, the Gallery’s Director, Ron Radford, pursued the representation of nature – as an observer, has curated an exhibition of treasured paintings from an explorer and a resident. His remarkable imagery of the national collection. Ocean to outback: Australian the Dandenong Ranges, some forty kilometres east of landscape painting 1850–1950 celebrates the dynamic Melbourne, conveys a sense of the landscape as a spiritual century of Australian landscape painting from the colonial sanctuary and haven, a rejuvenating life-force untainted by period to the years immediately following the Second human interference. World War. The exhibition reflects the great strengths of When von Guérard first visited the Dandenong Ranges, the national collection and includes iconic paintings from the area was a dense bushland of temperate rainforests the permanent display by artists including Eugene von and cool fern gullies. Sketchbooks held in the collection Guérard, Arthur Streeton, Arthur Boyd, Margaret Preston of the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, and Grace Cossington Smith. The exhibition also provides contain a number of drawings which document the lush an opportunity to showcase lesser-known works from the and largely unexplored forests, a natural resource of Gallery’s rich holdings by artists including Sidney Nolan and high-quality timber which was rapidly logged for the Frederick McCubbin as well as new acquisitions and works growing industries and settlement within Victoria. which have been restored and reframed in period style. ‘Prolific in God’s Gifts’ were the words selected in Two of Australia’s eminent artists, Eugene von Guérard September 1889 for the Shire of Ferntree Gully coat of (1811–1901) and Sidney Nolan (1917–1992) are represented arms. The ranges were home to some fourteen different by a number of works in the exhibition. Both pursued species of eucalypt and more than sixty varieties of wild the artistic exploration of lands little-known to Australia’s flowers. Painted on return to the artist’s Melbourne settler population in different ways – von Guérard as a studio, Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges 1857 member of organised treks throughout much of south- is a work which combines von Guérard’s meticulous eastern Australia between 1856 and 1875, and Nolan observation of local plant species with his artistic interests spending months at a time in Far North Queensland and in compositional arrangement and the creation of a ‘mood’ Central Australia between 1947 and 1950, on his own, particular to this environment. In this case we are privy to or accompanied by his wife and step-daughter. Both the magical world of a bower – an enclosed gully of natural artists also looked to their more immediate environs for foliage created by the towering tree ferns. A pool of light inspiration – in the case of the two works considered on the forest floor leads us to two male lyrebirds cast in here, areas on the fringe of the major metropolitan cities shadow, one with its characteristic tail feathers raised – a where they lived. natural mimic of the arch of the fern fronds. The theatrical Eugene von Guérard arrived in Australia from Europe activities of the lyrebird were one of the early drawcards in 1852 seeking to make his fortune in the Victorian gold for tourists to the area, who hoped to witness the singing fields. After an unsuccessful period mining in Ballarat, he and dancing of the male bird. established himself in Melbourne where he became the

50 national gallery of australia Eugene von Guérard Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges 1857 oil on canvas 92.0 x 138.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, 1975

artonview winter 2007 51 Sidney Nolan Ku-ring-gai Chase 1948 synthetic polymer paint on composition board 91.0 x 102.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 1976 Eugene von Guérard’s painting received much acclaim blaze would soon become an inferno.’ Nolan may have in the Melbourne papers and within a few years after witnessed the fires in Wahroonga which were reported this work was completed, ‘ferntree gully’ located close by the Herald on 10 November 1947. It is also possible to the Ferntree Gully Hotel had become a popular tourist the Herald’s front-page photo of leaping flames, burning destination – especially during the summer months. The trees and hazy sky from a Manly/Brookvale bushfire on residents of Melbourne sought the sanctuary of the cool 25 October 1947 was used as a visual aid for this work. green gullies and active birdlife for their leisure. Chartered Nolan’s skilful handling of paint, swift brushwork and horse coaches were available for hire, and by 1889 rail freshness of colour convey the ferocity of this scene – the had extended from Ringwood to Upper Ferntree Gully. heat and dust of the wind, crackling of leaves and grasses In the 1890s thousands of people visited the region and the smell of the burning bush. There is a heightened on Melbourne Cup Day, a perfect spot for recreational tension in the picture – an unease as to whether the fire is activities in the bush. receding or approaching, a knowledge that with a change For Sidney Nolan, the Australian landscape was a life- in conditions the situation could rapidly alter. In Ku-ring- long source of inspiration. Fuelled by a keen interest in gai Chase the advantages of living in rural suburbia seem travel, Nolan’s personal experiences of the land are closely reversed as the threat of danger encroaches. linked to the development of Australian mythology within Inscriptions on the back of the work suggest Nolan his works, as seen in his images of Ned Kelly, Burke and gave the painting to Cynthia on 22 May 1948. A Wills, Mrs Fraser, and Daisy Bates. Between 1951 and 1952 message in pencil (only visible under infra-red) reads Nolan also created a series of works depicting a number of ‘Cynthia XXX Sidney’. In this powerful painting, it is stories of Christian saints located in the deserts of Central possible that Nolan is also exploring his personal reaction Australia. As with von Guérard, the landscape for Nolan to events taking place in his own life, the metaphor of was both a real, lived experience and a vehicle for evoking fire transferring to notions of passion, destruction and more personal and contemplative ideas. regeneration. In 1948, following a year spent travelling throughout As cultural commentators and visual communicators, Queensland, Nolan settled in Sydney, where he married artists have gone beyond topographical analysis and Cynthia Hansen née Reed, the writer and sister of his used the environment to explore a range of ideas and patron John Reed. The marriage between Nolan and concepts, including history and personal spirituality. The Cynthia had caused a painful rift with John and his wife works included in Ocean to outback: Australian landscape Sunday, and after an unsuccessful visit from the newlyweds painting 1850–1950 display the great breadth of imagery in March of 1948, Nolan would never see his first and most produced in response to the land, which in turn, extends important patrons again. The Nolans settled in Wahroonga, and informs our understanding of the nation we live in. a a leafy suburb in the municipality of Ku-ring-gai about twenty kilometres north of the city, on the edge of the Beatrice Gralton Associate Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Ku-ring-gai Chase 1948 is a startling image of a hazy, Ocean to outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950 smouldering bushfire. There had been an early start to opens at Tamworth Regional Gallery on 3 August 2007 and the summer season of bushfires during 1947, the Sydney travels to every state and territory until May 2009. Morning Herald reporting on 27 October: ‘Last summer’s late rains bought out a bountiful growth of tussock and grass as well as a record season of wildflowers. An almost continuous run of westerly winds to date has dried out the forest to a condition like tinder. It requires only a spark to start a fire, and with the prevailing winds behind it a small

artonview winter 2007 53 travelling exhibition

Colin McCahon Writing and imagining a journey

Colin McCahon I look back with joy on taking a brush of white paint my mind … 1982, generously loaned by the artist’s long-time Victory over death 2 1970 synthetic polymer paint on and curving through the darkness with a line of New Zealand gallery representative, supporter and friend, unstretched canvas white. (Colin McCahon) 1 Peter McLeavey (who played a key role in recommending 207.5 x 597.7 cm Victory over death 2 as a gift to Australia). National Gallery of Australia, In 2008 it will be thirty years since Colin McCahon’s Canberra In purely visual terms Victory over death 2 is Gift of the New Zealand great, monumental Victory over death 2 1970 entered Government 1978 extraordinarily daring for its time with its palette of stark the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. For some it is this region’s equivalent of Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles black and white and tonalities of grey and in the way that 1952. Both paintings are regarded as iconic works. Both have McCahon gave himself the freedom to embrace the text increased dramatically in value since entering the collection itself – from the cursive handwriting to the architectural in the 1970s. Both caused something of a furore in the capital letters, stretching over two metres high from the top press when they were acquired. When the New Zealand to the bottom of the composition. On the left in the velvety Government gifted Victory over death 2 to the Australian black ground the very indistinct letters ‘AM’ pose a question people in 1978 some saw it as a joke; a way of making front- against the ‘I’. This faces the luminous ‘I AM’ that refers page news. Others on both sides of the Tasman, including to the voice of God. Guided by the palette and structure the Gallery’s first director, James Mollison, recognised the of the work, we move from the dark chasm of doubt and significance of this daring painting that would become one struggle to the affirmation of the presence of the Divine in of the treasures of the national collection. the luminous pillar ‘I’. Yet even in the towering presence of In 2007, as part of its twenty-fifth anniversary these letters we are reminded that revelation is temporary, as celebrations, the Gallery is pleased to present a trans- a fragment of the inscription reads: ‘The light is among you Tasman travelling exhibition featuring Victory over death 2. still, but not for long’. The exhibition includes the Gallery’s remarkable collection Victory over death 2 emerged after a long journey. The of McCahon’s works on paper along with his paintings, use of written text may look very current but for McCahon providing an in-depth look at some of the artist’s key it was part of an ongoing search for faith and meaning in concerns: faith, nature and the transformative and aesthetic his art and life. In the face of the issues of his time, including power of the written word. The show includes works from the Cold War and threats to the environment, he often felt 1950 through to one of McCahon’s last paintings I applied he needed words. Early on, when he started his schooling

54 national gallery of australia at the Maori Hill Primary School in Dunedin, the act of signs lettered with religious texts and Christian symbols as Colin McCahon Crucifixion: the apple branch writing was a frustrating challenge. As a left-hander he well as a large version of a diagrammatic aid to meditation 1950 was harshly punished for not writing as a particular teacher that he had painted himself. These teaching aids provided oil on canvas 89.0 x 117.0 cm wanted him to write. He recalled how other teachers were a basis for lively debates. Although the younger men National Gallery of Australia, more encouraging, introducing him to the world of poetry; eventually tired of Uncle Frank, images and ideas persisted. Canberra Purchased with funds a lifelong passion he later shared with the poets James K In 1969 McCahon worked on a series called Practical religion. from the Sir Otto and Lady Baxter and John Caselberg who became his close friends and He wanted to communicate ‘practical religion’ – not simply Margaret Frankel Bequest 2004 collaborators. Early on too, writing presented the magic of as it was professed in a weekly Sunday ritual but faith tested practical revelation. One day in Dunedin the young McCahon through a real, raw, direct engagement with ideas in his art. came across a signwriter slowly plying his trade on a shop Between 1946 and the early 1950s, following a window – HAIRDRESSER AND TOBACCONIST – and was concerted period painting the landscape, McCahon did a entranced. series of paintings based on religious subjects. He brought the two aspects together in Crucifixion: the apple branch I watched the work being done and fell in love with 1950, one of his most important and overtly personal signwriting. The grace of the lettering as it arched paintings. Exhibited only once during McCahon’s lifetime across the window in gleaming gold, suspended on in The Group exhibition of 1950, this work remained with its dull red field but leaping free from its own black the artist in his studio until his death in 1987. It suggests his shadow, pointed to a new and magnificent world of struggle to reconcile faith, creative life and survival in the painting. I watched from outside as the artist working ‘real’ world at a time when he was finding it hard to make from the inside slowly separated himself from me ends meet and to care for his family. On the left McCahon (and light from dark) to make his new creation. painted a self-portrait looking in towards the crucifixion set (Colin McCahon) 2 against a Canterbury landscape. In the early 1930s text allied with religion manifested On the right, his wife Anne Hamblett stands under the itself tellingly through eccentric Uncle Frank, the uncle of apple tree alongside their son William, set against the hills McCahon’s close artist-friend Toss Woollaston. On his visits in Nelson. There are also two biblical timeframes, the Old to his nephew’s house Uncle Frank brought along blackboard and New testaments: the laden apple tree of the Garden of

artonview winter 2007 55 Colin McCahon cut into lengths of around 170 centimetres in height. He North Otago landscape no. 14 1967 accentuates certain letters and phrases, allowing the watery synthetic polymer paint on washes to create irregular haloes around them. composition board 60.0 x 120.7 cm By 1982 when McCahon finished I applied my mind … National Gallery of Australia, he was at a low ebb. Alcohol had taken a heavy toll, as Canberra Purchased 1997 had the years of struggle to be understood. In the Colin McCahon I applied my mind … 1982 wider world, history kept repeating itself: wars kept synthetic polymer paint on unstretched canvas happening; people seemed mainly concerned with self and 195.0 x 180.5 cm money, ignoring the importance of the natural environment. on loan from a private collection, New Zealand He found it hard to make sense of the world. In I applied my mind …, he chose the biblical text accordingly. Also reflecting his state of mind is the way in which he tautly structured the composition into a horizontal band and two vertical columns filled with a careful, obsessive journey of words written over the dark ground. It was one of the last works he painted. Twenty years after McCahon’s death in 1987, the National Gallery pays tribute to an artistic journey of great intensity and commitment in this travelling exhibition. Along with Victory over death 2, the artist’s personal struggle and Eden (one of the most poetic images in McCahon’s art), and passionate enquiries can be discovered in a range of intimate the crucifixion and thirteen skulls representing Christ and his and expansive ways, inscribed in imagery, words and disciples. abstractions – in drawings, gouaches, prints and paintings The background landscape in Crucifixion: the apple – that continue to intrigue and inspire us. a branch points to important developments in his later work,

including landscapes such as North Otago landscape no. 14 Deborah Hart 1967 with its simplified, elemental forms. A couple of years Senior Curator, after painting this landscape McCahon completed a series of Australian Painting and Sculpture (after 1920)

about seventy-five ‘writing paintings and drawings’, applying Further information at nga.gov.au/McCahon fragments of text onto vertical scrolls of off-white wallpaper. The quotations come from several sources notes 1 Colin McCahon quoted in Marja Bloem and Martin Browne including Matire Kereama’s The tail of the fish, poems by (eds), Colin McCahon: A question of faith, Amsterdam: Peter Hooper, and passages drawn from the New English Stedelijk Museum and Nelson, New Zealand, Craig Potton Publishing, 2003, p. 202 Bible which his wife, Anne, had given him. In these works 2 Colin McCahon: A question of faith p. 160 on paper McCahon embraces the shape of the long scrolls,

56 national gallery of australia travelling exhibitions winter 2007

An artist abroad: the prints of Michael Riley: sights unseen James McNeill Whistler Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian James McNeill Whistler was a key Government Program supporting touring exhibitions figure in the European art world of by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia the 19th century. Influenced by the French Realists, the Dutch, Venetian and Michael Riley (1960–2004) was one of the most Japanese masters, Whistler’s prints are important contemporary Indigenous visual artists sublime visions of people and the places of the past two decades. His contribution to the James McNeill Whistler they inhabit. nga.gov.au/Whistler Michael riley untitled from the contemporary Indigenous and broader Australian Portrait of Whistler 1859 series cloud [cow] 2000 visual arts industry was substantial and his film (detail) etching and drypoint Geelong Gallery, Geelong Vic., (detail) printed 2005 National Gallery of Australia, chromogenic pigment and video work challenged non-Indigenous Canberra 7 June – 19 August 2007 photograph National Gallery perceptions of Indigenous experience, particularly of Australia, Canberra Courtesy Queen Victoria Museum & of the Michael Riley Foundation among the most disenfranchised communities in Art Gallery, Launceston Tas., and Viscopy, Australia the eastern region of Australia. nga.gov.au/Riley 1 September – 4 November 2007 Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo NSW, 12 May – 8 July 2007, and concurrently The Elaine & Jim Wolfensohn Gift Moree Plains Gallery, Moree NSW, Travelling Exhibitions 19 May – 15 July 2007 Three suitcases of works of art: Red case: Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane Qld, myths and rituals includes works that 27 July – 18 November 2007 reflect the spiritual beliefs of different cultures; Yellow case: form, space, design reflects a range of art making Stage fright: the art of theatre processes; and Blue case: technology. (Focus Exhibition) Sri Lanka Seated Ganesha These suitcases thematically present a In partnership with Australian Theatre for 9th–10th century (detail) from selection of art and design objects that Red case: myths and rituals Young People National Gallery of Australia, may be borrowed free-of-charge for Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Canberra the enjoyment of children and adults in Government Program supporting touring exhibitions regional, remote and metropolitan centres. by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia For further details and bookings telephone 02 6240 6432 or email [email protected]. Loundon Sainthill Costume Stage fright: the art of theatre raises the curtain nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn design for the ugly sister from on the world of theatre and dance through works Cinderella 1958 (detail) gouache, pencil and watercolour of art, interactives and a program of workshops on paper conducted by educators from the National National Gallery of Australia, Gallery and Australian Theatre for Young People. Colin McCahon Canberra A focus exhibition showcasing the Gallery’s Worlds from mythology, fairytales and fantasy holdings of one of the Australasian characters intended for the ballet, opera and region’s most renowned and respected stage are shown in exquisitely rendered finished artists – Colin McCahon (1919–1987). The drawings alongside others that have been quickly exhibition includes paintings and works executed capturing the essence of an idea, posture, on paper spanning the period from the movement or character. nga.gov.au/StageFright 1950s to early 1980s. It is significant Walter Nicholls Memorial Gallery, that the exhibition’s tour of Australia Colin McCahon Crucifixion: Port Lincoln SA, 5 May – 3 June 2007 the apple branch 1950 and New Zealand coincides with the oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, 30th anniversary of the New Zealand Canberra Purchased with funds government gifting to Australia in 1978 Red case: myths and rituals and Yellow from the Sir Otto and Lady the iconic work, Victory over death 2 1970 Margaret Frankel Bequest 2004 case: form, space and design which has become a destination work Mosman Art Gallery and Community Centre, for the Gallery. nga.gov.au/McCahon Mosman NSW, 9 May – 3 June 2007 Queen Victoria Museum & Art Caloundra Regional Art Gallery, Caloundra Gallery @ Inveresk, Launceston Tas., Qld, 16 July – 21 September 2007 16 June – 2 September 2007 Blue case: technology Walter Nicholls Memorial Gallery, Port Karl Lawrence Millard Imagining Papua New Guinea: Lizard grinder 2000 Pirie SA, 4 June – 1 July 2007 screenprints from the national (detail) brass, bronze, copper, sterling silver, money metal, Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree collection Peugeot mechanism, stainless NSW, 9 July – 30 September 2007 Imagining Papua New Guinea is an steel screws National Gallery of Australia, Canberra exhibition of screenprints from the The 1888 Melbourne Cup national collection that celebrates Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor Papua New Guinea’s independence and NSW, 20 July – 16 September 2007 surveys its rich history of printmaking. Mathias Kauage Artists whose works are in the exhibition Exhibition venues and dates are subject to change. Independence Celebration I include Timothy Akis, Mathias Kauage, 1975 (detail) stencil National Please contact the gallery or venue before Gallery of Australia, Canberra David Lasisi, John Man and Martin your visit. For more information please phone Morububuna. nga.gov.au/Imagining +61 2 6240 6556 or email [email protected] Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Geraldton WA, 6 April – 17 June 2007 Artspace Mackay, Mackay Qld, 13 July – 26 August 2007

The National Gallery of Australia Travelling Exhibitions Program is generously supported by Australian airExpress. 1 2

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faces in view

1 John and Rosanna Hindmarsh with Ron Radford at the opening of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 2 Michael and Philippa Kalazjich and Janita and Col Cunnington at the opening of Grace Crowley: 16 16 16 being modern 3 Ray Kennedy, Anne McDonald and Alex Selenitsch at the Australia print symposium 4 Children participating in the Creeping through the jungle musical tour 5 Children participating in the Creeping through the jungle floortalk 6 Visitors enjoying Sculpture Garden Sunday 7 Daniel Thomas, Elena Taylor and Ron Radford at the opening of Grace Crowley: being modern 8 Mandy and Lou Westende with Julienne Clunnies Ross at the opening of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 9 Participants at the Australian print symposium 10 Children enjoying Sculpture Garden Sunday 11 & 12 Children participating in the Creeping through the jungle floortalk 13 Visitors enjoying Sculpture Garden Sunday 14 John Hindmarsh, Rupert Myer, Roger Butler, and Gordon and Marilyn Darling at the opening of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 15 Heather Ried, Tom Rose, Evie Rose, Axel Debenham-Lendon, Pam Debenham and Mary-Lou Nugent at the opening of The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 16 Children enjoying Sculpture Garden Sunday 17 Hugh and Neve Elliott at Sculpture Garden Sunday

17 2007-04-26 DM artonview 1/5/07 10:43 AM Page 1

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Suites DS and JS feature large rectangular windows ontal Fares do not include: any items of a personal nature, not limited (except suites JS418 and JS419 which have large oval windows). Sep 11 Groote EylandtSep 9 Maningrida Sep 8 Victoria Settlement (Portrfalls Essington) 100% applies. Orion Expedition Cruises offers a Cancellation Phone 02 6240 6420 Ctgy Type Deck Description 10ntto travel and medical insurance, laundry charges, shopping onboard, Protection Plan, details available upon request. Staterooms B and A have large oval windows (except staterooms Sep 10 Arnhem Bay 10 NIGHT CRUISE FARES bar expenses, hairdressing and massage treatments optional B322 & B323 which have twin portholes) and sitting area with ngashop.com.au Sep 12 Yirrkala Sep 9 Maningrida shore excursions, medical services, telephone and internet charges. tub chair. Sep 11 Groote Eylandt CtgyB Stateroom Type Deck Description 3 Oval Window or twin portholes.10nt Sitting Area 7,200 Sep 13 Jensen BaySep /12 Hole Yirrkala In The Wall Sep 10 Arnhem Bay 10 NIGHT CRUISE FARES AB Stateroom Stateroom 3 Oval 3 Window Oval or twin Window. portholes. SittingSitting Area Area 7,200 8,360 Sep 14 Elcho IslandSep 13 Jensen Bay / Hole InSep The Wall11 Groote Eylandt A Stateroom 3 Oval Window.Ctgy Sitting Area Type Deck8,360 Description 10nt Sep 14 Elcho Island Sep 12 Yirrkala JS Junior Suite 4 & 5 Rectangular Window. Sitting Area 9,930 Australian made bags by Nicola Cerini Sep 15 at sea JS Junior Suite 4 & 5 RectangularB Window. Stateroom Sitting Area 39,930 Oval Window or twin portholes. Sitting Area 7,200 Sep 15 at sea Sep 13 Jensen Bay / Hole In The Wall Sep 16 Darwin Sep 16 Darwin DSDS Deluxe Deluxe Suite Suite 5 Rectangular 5A RectangularWindow. Stateroom Living RoomWindow. 3Living10,880 OvalRoom Window. Sitting10,880 Area 8,360 Sep 14 Elcho Island BS Balcony Suite 5 French Balcony. Living Room 12,980 2007 Departure: 2007 Departure: BS Balcony Suite 5JS French Junior Balcony. Suite Living 4 & Room 5 Rectangular Window.12,980 Sitting Area 9,930 September 6 Sep 15 at sea OS Owners’ 5 French Balcony 15,080 Call your travel agent or visit www.orioncruises.com.au September 6 Phone 1300 361 012 or (02) 9033 8777. Please note this replaces theSep previously 16 Darwin OSSuite Owners’ Separate 5 DSbedroom FrenchDeluxe & LivingBalcony SuiteRoom 5 Rectangular Window.15,080 Living Room 10,880 scheduled Kimberley Expedition. Suite Separate bedroom & Living Room Please note this replaces the previously2007 Departure: BSFares Balcony are per Suite person in Australian 5 Dollars. French Balcony. Living Room 12,980 scheduled Kimberley Expedition. September 6 For terms and conditions please refer to www.orioncruises.com.au OS Owners’ Fares 5are per Frenchperson Balcony in Australian Dollars. 15,080 Please note this replaces the previously Suite Separate bedroom & Living Room TERMS AND CONDITIONS scheduled Kimberley Expedition. Fares are cruise only: quoted per person in Australian dollars Prices: are current at the time of printing. They may be subject 3rd/4th Guests: some staterooms accommodate a third or fourthFares are per person in Australian Dollars. and are based on twin occupancy. All bookings are subject to the to currency fluctuation, fuel price and tax increases until full pay- person. Adults aged 16 years and over pay 50% (children aged Terms and Conditions of the Orion Expedition Cruises Passage ment is received. 2-15 years pay 25%) of the applicable stateroom category fare ORIO1061 TERMS ANDContract, CONDITIONS a copy of which is available upon request, or by accessing Itineraries: are subject to prevailing tidal and weather condi- when sharing the room with two full-fare guests. www.orioncruises.com.au tions and may be changed without notice. Single Travellers: should request rates for sole occupancy of Fares are cruise only:Faresquoted include: peraccommodation person in as Australian booked cruise dollars transportation,Prices:Deposits:are 25%current of the at cruise the fare time is due of within printing. 7 days of They an offer maystaterooms be subject from Orion3rd/4th Expedition Guests: Cruises. some staterooms accommodate a third or fourth all meals onboard, 24-hourTERMS room service, entertainmentAND CONDITIONS and of accommodation being made. All Staterooms and Suites: have ocean views, flat-screen TV and are based on twin educationaloccupancy. programmes, All bookings use of ship’sare subject sporting equipmentto the andto currency fluctuation, fuel price and tax increases until full pay- person. Adults aged 16 years and over pay 50% (children aged Final payments: the balance of the cruise fare is due 90 days and DVD/CD player, mini-refrigerator, marble bathroom with ORIO1061 Terms and Conditions facilities, of the port Orion & handling Expedition charges, CruisesZodiac and Passagetender transfers,mentprior is toreceived. sailing date. shower, safe-deposit 2-15box, ample years wardrobe pay space,25%) and of the the choice applicable stateroom category fare access to the ship’s library ofFares CDs/DVDs, are govtcruise fees only:& taxes.quoted per person in Australian dollars Prices: are current at the time of printing. They may be subject 3rd/4th Guests: some staterooms accommodate a third or fourth Contract, a copy of which is available upon request, or by accessing Cancellations: received 121 days or more prior to sailing: for of either Queen size orwhen twin beds.sharing the room with two full-fare guests. Fares also include: the serviceand ofare an based experienced on twin cruise occupancy. staff.Itineraries: All bookings are subjectare subject to to prevailing the to tidalcurrency and fluctuation, weather fuel condi- price and tax increases until full pay- person. Adults aged 16 years and over pay 50% (children aged www.orioncruises.com.au Antarctic cruises a penalty of A$1,000 per person applies. all Suites OS and BS have a French balcony (except suite OS509 ORIO1061 Gratuities are not expected,Terms however and if you Conditions wish to recognise of thetions Orionother and Expeditioncruises, may nobe penalty. changed Cruises Cancellations Passage without received notice.ment 120-91is received. day which has two large Singlerectangular Travellers: windows). The shouldFrench balcony request2-15 years rates pay for 25%) sole of occupancy the applicable of stateroom category fare Fares include: accommodationexceptional serviceas booked from an Contract,cruise individual transportation, a staff copy member, of which you is are available prior uponto sailing: request, penalty or of by loss accessing of deposit applies. features floor to ceiling sliding glass doors and a small outsidewhen sharing the room with two full-fare guests. welcome to do so at your discretion. Deposits: 25% of the cruise fare is dueItineraries: within 7are days subject of an tooffer prevailingstaterooms tidal and from weather Orion condi- Expedition Cruises. www.orioncruises.com.au Cancellations received 90 days or less prior to sailing: penalty of area for viewing. Suites DS and JS feature large rectangular windows all meals onboard, 24-hourFares do not room include: service,any items entertainment of a personal nature, and not limited of accommodation being made. tions and may be changed(except suites without JS418 andAll notice. JS419 Staterooms which have large and oval Suites: windows).Singlehave ocean Travellers: views,should flat-screen request TV rates for sole occupancy of Fares include: accommodation 100%as booked applies. cruise Orion transportation, Expedition Cruises offers a Cancellation staterooms from Orion Expedition Cruises. educational programmes,to travel use and of medical ship’s insurance, sporting laundry equipment charges, shopping and onboard,FinalProtection payments: Plan, detailsthe available balance upon of request. theDeposits: cruise fare25% is ofdueStaterooms the 90cruise days B fareand A is haveand due large within DVD/CD oval 7windows days player, of (except an offer mini-refrigerator, staterooms marble bathroom with facilities, port & handlingbar expenses,charges, hairdressing Zodiac alland and meals massagetender onboard, treatmentstransfers, 24-hour optional room service, entertainment and of accommodationB322 being & B323 made. which have twin portholes) and sitting area withAll Staterooms and Suites: have ocean views, flat-screen TV shore excursions, medical services, telephone and internet charges.prior to sailing date. tub chair. shower, safe-deposit box, ample wardrobe space, and the choice access to the ship’s library of CDs/DVDs, govteducational fees & taxes. programmes, use of ship’s sporting equipment and Final payments: the balance of the cruise fare is due 90 days and DVD/CD player, mini-refrigerator, marble bathroom with facilities, port & handling charges,Cancellations: Zodiac andreceived tender transfers, 121 days or more prior to sailing: for of either Queen size or twin beds. Fares also include: the service of an experienced cruise staff. prior to sailing date. shower, safe-deposit box, ample wardrobe space, and the choice access to the ship’s library ofAntarctic CDs/DVDs, cruises govt fees a penalty & taxes. of A$1,000 per person applies. all Suites OS and BS have a Frenchof either balcony Queen (except size or twin suite beds. OS509 Gratuities are not expected, however if you wish to recognise Cancellations: received 121 days which or more has prior two to large sailing: rectangular for windows). The French balcony Fares also include: the serviceother of cruises, an experienced no penalty. cruise Cancellationsstaff. Antarctic received cruises 120-91a penalty day of A$1,000 per person applies. all Suites OS and BS have a French balcony (except suite OS509 exceptional service from an individual staffGratuities member, are notyou expected, are prior however to sailing: if you penalty wish to of recognise loss of deposit applies. features floor to ceiling sliding glass doors and a small outside welcome to do so at your discretion. other cruises, no penalty. Cancellations received 120-91 day which has two large rectangular windows). The French balcony exceptional service from anCancellations individual staff received member, 90 youdays are or lessprior prior to sailing:to sailing: penalty penalty of loss of of depositarea for applies. viewing. Suites DS and JSfeatures feature floor large to rectangular ceiling sliding windows glass doors and a small outside Fares do not include: any items of a personalwelcome nature, to notdo solimited at your discretion. (except suites JS418 and JS419 which have large oval windows). 100% applies. Orion Expedition CruisesCancellations offers received a Cancellation 90 days or less prior to sailing: penalty of area for viewing. Suites DS and JS feature large rectangular windows to travel and medical insurance, laundry charges,Fares shopping do not include:onboard,any itemsProtection of a personal Plan, detailsnature, availablenot limited upon100% request. applies. Orion Expedition CruisesStaterooms offers B aand Cancellation A have large(except oval windows suites JS418 (except and JS419 staterooms which have large oval windows). bar expenses, hairdressingCall your andtravel agent massage or visit to treatments www.orioncruises.com.autravel and medical optional insurance, laundry charges, shopping onboard, Protection Plan, details available uponB322 request. & B323 which have twinStaterooms portholes) B and and A sittinghave large area oval with windows (except staterooms shore excursions, medical services,Phone 1300 telephone 361 012bar and or (02) expenses, internet 9033 8777. charges. hairdressing and massage treatments optional tub chair. B322 & B323 which have twin portholes) and sitting area with shore excursions, medical services, telephone and internet charges. tub chair.

Call your travel agent or visit www.orioncruises.com.auCall your travel agent or visit www.orioncruises.com.au Phone 1300 361 012 or (02) 9033 8777.Phone 1300 361 012 or (02) 9033 8777. C•A•N•B•E•R•R•A

BARTON

Hibernation Package $159.00 per night. Overnight accommodation in a Heritage Room. Two full buffet breakfasts. Two bottles of Hardys Collection Wine, 1 Cabernet Merlot & 1 Semillion Chardonay. Entry for 2 into Parliament House. Valid 01/03/07 – 31/08/07. Subject to availability. *Extra person is $15.00 The Brassey of Canberra Belmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600 Telephone: 02 6273 3766 Facsimile: 02 6273 2791 Toll Free Telephone: 1800 659 191 Email: [email protected] http: //www.brassey.net.au 64 national gallery of australia Canberran Owned and Operated

Brassey Hibernation 233x297.indd1 1 17/5/07 10:13:12 AM George Lambert The squatter’s daughter 1923–24 A brushstroke into Michelago / New South Wales / Australia Oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased with the generous assistance of our past James Fairfax AO and Philip Bacon AM, 1991

ActewAGL is delighted to be major sponsor of the George Lambert Retrospective: Heroes and Icons exhibition. Lambert’s painting The squatter’s daughter, depicting Michelago in 1923, is symbolic to ActewAGL as it refl ects on a time when ActewAGL was building the foundations to provide essential services to Canberra and the region. Recognising the importance of Australian art – always.

29 June – 9 September 2007 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

George Lambert The white glove 1921 (detail) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased 1922 photograph: Jenni Carter for AGNSW CCA 407/10 CCA

nga.gov.au ActewAGL Retail ABN 46 221 314 841. artonview o art n v i ew

ISSUE No.50 ISSUE ISSUE No.50 winter 2007 winter No.50 ISSUE w in t e r 2007 NA 2007 T IONAL GALLE R Y OF Y AUS TR ALIA

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National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 26 May – 19 August 2007

Athol Shmith Vivien Leigh 1948 gelatin silver photograph 50.0 x 39.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra GEORGE W LAMBERT • Very Important photographs