HANS HEYSEN ROBERT DOWLING ROBERT LIFE, DEATH AND MAGIC AND MAGIC LIFE, DEATH JAMES TURRELL’S SKYSPACE SKYSPACE TURRELL’S JAMES ISSUE 62 • winter 2010 artonview ISSUE 62 • WINTER 2010 NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency Issue 62, winter 2010 published quarterly by 3 Director’s foreword National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 exhibitions and displays Canberra ACT 2601 nga.gov.au 6 Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire ISSN 1323-4552 Anne Gray Print Post Approved 10 Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian pp255003/00078 ancestral art © National Gallery of Australia 2010 Copyright for reproductions of artworks is Robyn Maxwell held by the artists or their estates. Apart from 16 Hans Heysen uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of artonview may be reproduced, Anne Gray transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia. 20 Portraits from India 1850s–1950s Enquiries about permissions should be made in Anne O’Hehir writing to the Rights and Permissions Officer. 22 In the Japanese manner: Australian prints 1900–1940 The opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. Emma Colton Produced the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department: acquisitions editor Eric Meredith 26 James Turrell Skyspace designer Kristin Thomas Lucina Ward photography Eleni Kypridis, Barry Le Lievre, Brenton McGeachie, Steve Nebauer, 28 Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3 David Pang, John Tassie Jane Kinsman rights and permissions Nick Nicholson 30 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado advertising Erica Seccombe, Eric Meredith printed in Australia by Blue Star Print, Jane Kinsman Melbourne 31 Mutuaga The drummer enquiries Crispin Howarth The editor, artonview National Gallery of Australia 32 Nias Anthropomorphic stone monument GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 Niki van den Heuvel [email protected] 33 Yami House post advertising Lucie Folan Tel: (02) 6240 6557 Fax: (02) 6240 6427 34 Fred and Lyn Williams gift [email protected] Emma Colton RRP $9.95 includes GST Free to members of the 36 Walangkura Napanangka Untitled National Gallery of Australia Franchesca Cubillo 38 Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation For further information on National Gallery of Australia Membership: Gael Newton Membership Coordinator GPO Box 1150 programs Canberra ACT 2601 Tel: (02) 6240 6504 39 Foundation [email protected] 40 Sponsorship and Development 42 Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship Belinda Cotton 46 Faces in view (cover) 48 Starry Nights James Turrell Skyspace 2010 50 At play in van Gogh’s bedroom installation: lighting, plaster, painted concrete, marble, stainless steel, granite, bronze, water Peter Naumann and landscape surrounds 800 x 2800 x 2800 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra photograph: John Gollings View at the entrance to the stupa inside the Skyspace. Director’s foreword In the last issue of artonview, I said how pleased we were The energy and effort that goes into these great Indonesia, possibly Borneo discovered Flores with the extraordinary success of Masterpieces from Paris: exhibitions should not be underestimated—they command The bronze weaver 6th century Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond. At the time, tremendous time and resources. The Gallery is extremely bronze 25.8 x 22.8 x 15.2 cm attendances had passed 230 000 during the 2009–10 grateful to everyone involved in making the exhibition such National Gallery of Australia, summer holiday season, setting a Gallery record. We really a success—from our sponsors to, for example, the Gallery’s Canberra purchased 2006 did not expect such very high numbers to continue to the security staff, our shop and cafe staff, cleaners, installation To feature in Life, death and magic extent they did during the second half of the exhibition. teams, marketing staff, our members, volunteers and the at the National Gallery of Australia in August. We were wrong—so much so that we achieved and staff who volunteered to work extra hours to ensure people easily overtook a new art museum record during what we enjoyed their experience at the Gallery. normally consider our off-season, when adults return to Now, with Masterpieces from Paris behind us, the work and children to school. Gallery’s focus is on finalising preparations for the opening We were extremely fortunate to be able to extend the season of its new building. exhibition’s season by nearly two weeks to ensure that James Turrell’s spectacular Skyspace, the Gallery’s largest as many Australians as possible could see this fine and work, is almost completed, with only the surrounding deservedly popular show. It is very rare to be able to extend area to be landscaped in the new southern garden before the season for a show of such quality and size, particularly it can open to the public. The Skyspace stupa is the first as the exhibition opened in Japan in May. The Musée one of its kind to be built in the southern hemisphere. d’Orsay, however, generously supported the extra time. In This complex architectural work intensifies our experience the end, 477 000 people visited Masterpieces from Paris, of two elements we take very much for granted in our making it easily the most popular exhibition ever held in everyday lives: the sky and light. We will shortly announce Australia. We had 38 000 school children and over 60 000 its opening season. visitors to the Family Activity Room, which was generously On 13 August, we open to the public Life, death and sponsored by the Yulgilbar Foundation. We printed 64 000 magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art, an catalogues, an art publishing record in Australia. We exhibition designed to reveal the power of art made for also gained an extra 11 000 new members during the rituals of life and death from ancient to recent times. The exhibition. In addition, the exhibition pumped nearly $100 animist religion was the earliest in our immediate region million into the Canberra economy. More importantly, and is still practised in some areas of Southeast Asia. the exhibition brought great Post-Impressionist works to Objects from museums around the world will complement Australia, where few are owned, for the appreciation of so the National Gallery of Australia’s own exceptional many Australians. collection of ancestral art for this, the first major exhibition The nearly half-a-million attendance demonstrates the of Southeast Asian animist art ever staged. Unlike similar importance of staging exhibitions of this quality and size Asian exhibitions around the world, which focus on works in Canberra, which is a convenient city for people from all from classical Hindu and Buddhist civilisations, Life, death over Australia to visit. Nearly 80 per cent of visitors were and magic will reveal the diversity of art produced over from outside Canberra. It would be impossible, of course, two millennia by animist communities, some of which to mount such exhibitions without the support of sponsors still live in mountainous terrain and remote islands. The and programs such as the Australian Government’s Art Australian International Cultural Foundation and the Indemnity Australia scheme, the generous contribution Gordon Darling Foundation are generously supporting Life, of the ACT government for the national marketing death and magic. campaign, corporate sponsors, particularly the National Our two major winter exhibitions look at the work Australia Bank but also Qantas, and other sponsors and of two exceptional Australian painters of the past: Hans philanthropists. Heysen and Robert Dowling. artonview winter 2010 3 Hans Heysen began his successful career in Adelaide in the Federation period. Although he is one of Australia’s best-known artists, this is the first full retrospective in over 30 years. It includes his oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints. Heysen’s work was pivotal to the development of Australian landscape art in the early twentieth century. He made the Australian gum tree the monumental hero of his nationalistic pictures. His later paintings of the rocky, arid region of the Flinders Ranges from the late 1920s, in the reds and ambers of inland Australia, depicted our dry sculptural landscape almost for the first time. Developed by the Art Gallery of South Australia, this touring retrospective opened at the National Gallery of Australia on 14 May and will continue until 11 July. It includes works that have not been shown at other venues. Our second winter retrospective is the Gallery’s own Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire. Robert Dowling was not only Australia’s first locally trained artist, when in 1850 he advertised his services as an artist, but he also later became Australia’s first artist to enjoy a career abroad. This, the first retrospective of Dowling’s work, has been curated for the Gallery by John Jones, one of the Gallery’s inaugural curators of Australian art. The exhibition opened in Launceston, Dowling’s home town, at Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery in March, where it was very warmly received by locals. It is currently at the Geelong Gallery until 11 July—Dowling having worked in Geelong for a few years after Launceston. Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire opens at the National Gallery of Australia on 24 July and will later travel to the Art Gallery of South Australia. Recent generous gifts have made significant contributions to the Gallery’s collections of International Prints and Drawings, Australian Prints and Drawings, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The Modernist Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg’s gouache painting on paper Space-time construction #3 1923 is an exceptionally generous gift by Penelope Seidler in memory of her husband, acclaimed architect Harry Seidler. Van Doesburg is an important figure in early twentieth-century European art and, along with Piet Mondrian, was a founding member of the De Stijl movement in 1917.