AUSTRALIAN PRINT COLLECTIONS DEGAS: MASTER ART FRENCH OF DEGAS: artonview ISSUE 56 summer 2008–09 artonview ISSUE 56 SUMMER 2008–09 NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency Issue 56, summer 2008–09 published quarterly by 2 Director’s foreword National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 5 Foundation and Development Canberra ACT 2601 nga.gov.au exhibitions and displays ISSN 1323-4552 Print Post Approved 8 Degas: master of French art pp255003/00078 Jane Kinsman © National Gallery of Australia 2008 Copyright for reproductions of artworks is 16 Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, Tracy Lock-Weir no part of Artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior 20 Soft sculpture permission of the National Gallery of Australia. Enquires about permissions should be made in Lisa McDonald writing to the Rights and Permissions Officer. The opinions expressed in Artonview are not collection focus necessarily those of the editor or publisher. 22 Australian prints: four fabulous birthday acquisitions! editor Eric Meredith designer Kate Brennan, Kristin Thomas Sarina Noorduis-Fairfax photography Eleni Kypridis, Barry Le Lievre, Brenton McGeachie, Steve Nebauer, John Tassie acquisitions rights and permissions Nick Nicholson 26 Balang (Mick) Kubarkku’s bark paintings advertising Erica Seccombe Brenda L Croft printed in Australia by Blue Star Print, Canberra 28 Frederick McCubbin At the falling of the year enquires The editor, Artonview Anne Gray National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 30 Hilda Rix Nicholas Snow, Montmartre Canberra ACT 2601 Anne Gray [email protected] advertising 31 Juan Davila and Howard Arkely Interior with built in bar Tel: (02) 6240 6587 Fax: (02) 6240 6427 Alexandra Walton [email protected] 32 Kevin Gordon Sea urchin I RRP $8.60 includes GST Free to members of the National Gallery Robert Bell of Australia 33 Raphael & Co Worktable For further information on National Gallery Robert Bell of Australia Membership: Coordinator, Membership 34 Heri Dono Flying angels GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 Melanie Eastburn Tel: (02) 6240 6504 [email protected] 36 Solomon Islands Bonito fish Crispin Howarth 37 Travelling exhibitions (cover) Edgar Degas The dance class c 1873 (detail) 38 James Gleeson: an extraordinary journey oil on canvas 47.6 x 62.2 cm The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 40 Faces in view William A Clark Collection, 1926 (back cover) Edgar Degas Ballet dancer with arms crossed c 1872 oil on canvas 61.3 x 50.5 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T Spaulding, 1948 Photograph © 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Director’s foreword Michael Brand, Director, Escape the summer sun to the National Gallery of Australia From the mid to late 1870s, his experiments with J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and Ron Radford, and experience the superb exhibition Degas: master of monotypes heavily influenced the way he approached Director, National Gallery French art. Among the most recognised names in late other techniques and mediums as well as his subjects and of Australia, Canberra, in the Gallery’s Aboriginal and nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art, Degas compositions. Similarly, his experiments in photography Torres Strait Islander gallery was highly influential in the development of modern art. in the 1890s led the way to later innovations. All this A painter, draftsman, sculptor, printmaker and photographer, is explored in the exhibition. An insightful publication Degas’ impact on his contemporaries and successors was as accompanies Degas: master of French art and includes far-reaching and as broad as his art practice. Although he texts by the exhibition’s curator, Jane Kinsman, Senior is widely regarded as one of the first and most important Curator, International Art, as well as a major essay by Impressionists, he found the term distasteful (sometimes to Michael Pantazzi, a Degas authority and emeritus curator the point of being anti-Impressionist). He preferred, instead, of European art at the National Gallery of Canada. to be seen as working in the tradition of Realism, from This non-touring exhibition is the first ever Degas which Impressionism had stemmed in the 1860s and 1870s. exhibition to be held in Australia or, indeed, the Southern His paintings of ballet dancers, the racetrack, café Hemisphere so people must make every effort to visit culture, laundry women and prostitutes are no doubt Canberra. familiar; however, this exhibition delves further to uncover To coincide with Degas: master of French art, the lesser-known Degas, whose highly innovative practice we are staging a very interesting exhibition of European was perhaps nowhere more evident than in his monotypes. prints, Degas’ world: the rage for change, curated by 2 national gallery of australia Mark Henshaw, Curator, International Prints, Drawings after living in Europe for over a decade and developing an and Illustrated Books. This exhibition, which opens international reputation, Rix Nicholas returned to Australia on 23 January, explores the prints of Degas’ major and married a NSW grazier. She became the ‘Grand contemporaries, their influence on him and his influence Duchess’ of the Monaro district and could almost be on them. Together, these exhibitions provide an exciting considered a Canberra artist. opportunity for visitors to expand their understanding Eighteen stunning bark paintings by the late Balang of the developments in art in Europe during a highly (Mick) Kubarkku have joined the Gallery’s existing small innovative time. holdings by this artist. Kubarkku’s traditional yet distinctive Our exhibition Gods, ghosts and men, which showcases figures of ancestral beings are extraordinarily arresting. A the Gallery’s Pacific arts collection and has already selection of these works is on display in the Aboriginal and pleasantly surprised a large audience, continues until Torres Strait Islander gallery on our entrance level. 11 January 2009 (see issue no 55 for more information). This year, with the assistance of the Gordon Darling The exhibition draws on our finest and most interesting Australia Pacific Print Fund, the Gallery acquired over 2000 examples of sculpture and objects from Melanesia and prints from four of Australia’s major contemporary print Polynesia, some of which are the finest of their kind in any workshops: Larry Rawling Fine Art Prints, Cicada Press, Australian public collection and many of which have not Franck Gohier and Viridian Press. These four collections, been exhibited before. This is a rare display of traditional spanning just over four decades, are significant additions to art from the Pacific, and one not to be missed. It has been the Gallery’s substantial holdings of Australian printmaking curated by the Gallery’s Curator of Pacific Arts, Crispin and provide significant insights into the history and Howarth, who is now joined by our first Senior Curator of development of contemporary Australian printmaking. Pacific Arts, Michael Gunn, recently arrived from the Saint They include prints by major Australian artists such Bea Louis Art Museum, Missouri, to take up the position. Maddock, Charles Blackman, Juan Davila, Brook Andrew, The Art Gallery of South Australia’s exhibition Misty Mike Parr, Aida Tomescu, Imants Tillers, Judith Wright, moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950, curated by Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Rover Thomas, Queenie Tracy Lock-Weir, arrives in Canberra in February. It sheds Mckenzie, Paddy Carlton, Elisabeth Cummings, John Peart, light on the often misunderstood early twentieth-century Reg Mombassa, Adam Cullen and Ben Quilty. art movement of Max Meldrum’s Australian Tonalism, Much-needed behind-the-scenes facilities have been the theory behind it and its followers. The driving force added to the Gallery with the newly completed Stage 1A behind the Tonalist movement, Max Meldrum was seen in of our current building project. The new space includes some circles as divisive within the conventional art scene in new loading docks, staff entrance, registration space, Melbourne at the time. Tracy Lock-Weir’s catalogue brings quarantine, mountcutting space and exhibition storage. this interesting and complex history into focus and, as well The larger Stage 1B—the new visitor entrance, gallery as works by Medrum, includes excellent works by Clarice shop, function hall and, most importantly, Australian Beckett, Colin Colahan, Percy Leason and many others. Indigenous galleries—is on track and will open in about This year the Gallery has added a number of major 16 months. Australian works to the national collection. We have The Gallery will be a hive of activity this holiday season been fortunate to acquire another key work by Frederick with the important Degas exhibition and other exhibitions, McCubbin—this time, an early work—At the falling of new acquisitions, new displays and exciting public the year 1886. This intimate sketch of the Australian programs. bush soon led McCubbin to his more famous figures-in- a-landscape subjects such as Lost 1886. At the falling of the year was last shown in 2007 in the popular exhibition Australian Impressionism at the National Gallery of Victoria. The acquisition has been generously funded by Terry and Christine Campbell. Australian painter Hilda Rix Nicholas’s magnificent Ron Radford, AM Snow, Montmartre c 1914 is another recent acquisition