2012.q2 | artonview 70 winter 2012

WINTER 2012 | 70NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA

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2012 | 70

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2 Director’s word

EXHIBITIONS

4 Eugene von Guérard: building the National Gallery’s collection Roger Butler

6 Pretence of existence: Indigenous art observing history Franchesca Cubillo

10 Abstract Expressionism: celebrating Jackson Pollock’s centenary Christine Dixon

14 Poetry in the landscape: the vision of Sydney Long Anne Gray

FEATURES

16 Leading the way: the inaugural Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellows Peter White

18 Art in detail: the Google Art Project Peter Naumann

20 The nine-million mark: National Gallery travelling exhibitions Georgia Connolly

ACQUISITIONS

21 William Kentridge Drawing for the film Other faces (La ge landscape) 22 Henri Matisse Oceania the sea 24 Solomon Islands Middenway gift 26 Sydney Long Springtime and Farmhouse 27 Andrew MacCormac Minnie Watt 28 Colin McCahon Kauri

REGULARS

29 Travelling exhibitions 30 Creative partnerships 31 News from the Foundation 32 Thank you … 34 Members news

Published quarterly by National Gallery of Australia, PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia [email protected] | nga.gov.au

© National Gallery of Australia 2012

Copyright of works of art is held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of Artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia.

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Produced by the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department

EDITOR Eric Meredith DESIGNER Kristin Thomas PHOTOGRAPHY by the National Gallery of Australia Photography Department unless otherwise stated RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Nick Nicholson PRINTER Blue Star Print, Melbourne

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WARNING Artonview may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.

(cover) Daniel Walbidi Mangala/Yulparitja peoples Kirriwirri 2007 (detail) synthetic polymer paint on canvas 145 x 100 cmcourtesy the artist and private lender

WINTER 2012 | 70

2 ARTONVIEW

Director’s word

The extraordinary 15th- and 16th-century Italian paintings that were in the Gallery’s major summer exhibition Renaissance have returned home to Italy, soon to be seen in their newly refurbished galleries at the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. Nearly all the works had never before left Europe, and almost 213 000 people took this opportunity to see them here before the exhibition closed in April. This was our second highest exhibition attendance in a decade.

The Gallery will continue to make major international collections accessible to all Australians by bringing them to Australia. Of course, such undertakings are not possible without Government support through the Art Indemnity scheme and the generous assistance of sponsors. In the case of Renaissance, I would particularly like to recognise the City of Bergamo and its Pinacoteca Accademia Carrara, the ACT government and the exhibition’s Principal Partner San Remo.

The second National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed, opened on 11 May and is on display until 22 July. The exhibition has already attracted major crowds to see the exception work of the 20 contemporary Indigenous artists represented. A host of artist talks and artist-run workshops drew additional audiences to the opening weekend.

This exhibition is of equal importance to the major international collections

we attract to the Gallery. It affirms our dedication to supporting a contemporary Indigenous voice in the arts. Not only does the triennial showcase recent work by leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists but it also presents the vision of a guest Indigenous curator. For this second triennial, the curator is Kalkadoon woman Carly Lane. The Gallery’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander department has strongly supported Lane in presenting her vision of some of the most interesting art being made in Australia today. We are grateful to Wesfarmers, the Principal Partner for this exhibition and now the Gallery’s official Indigenous Art Partner.

The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellows, Jirra Harvey and Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, have also significantly contributed to aspects of the second triennial. Harvey and Iseger-Pilkington were the first two Indigenous Fellows selected in 2010 to undertake two-year projects with the support of the Gallery and Wesfarmers. In this issue, Peter White, Indigenous Education and Public Programs Coordinator, looks back on the fellows’ projects and experiences. Applications for the Gallery’s next round of Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowships open in the second half of this year.

Von Guérard: nature revealed also continues into winter, until 15 July. This is an important exhibition and is being shown across two levels at the Gallery. Some art

historians now consider von Guérard to be Australia’s finest nineteenth-century artist. It has only been in recent decades that his best works have come to light and been acquired by major public galleries. As I mentioned in the previous issue of Artonview, the National Gallery of Australia not only has the largest collection of von Guérard’s paintings but also it was this institution that first recognised his importance over three decades ago by staging the groundbreaking first von Guérard retrospective. Among the works in Von Guérard: nature revealed are 12 from the collection at the National Gallery of Australia. We are grateful to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, for this magnificent exhibition.

From 17 August, Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land will present for the first time a full retrospective of Australia’s principal Art Nouveau painter and leading early twentieth-century printmaker. The finest of his paintings, watercolours and prints will be on show in this major survey exhibition. This exciting exhibition, curated by Anna Gray, Head of Australian Art, will reveal the depth of Long’s poetic vision of our land.

Also in August, to celebrate the centenary of Jackson Pollock’s birth, the Gallery is staging an exhibition of Abstract Expressionism in the international art galleries and Orde Poynton Gallery. The Gallery holds extremely strong collections of works by both American and Australian

3 ARTONVIEW

Nick Leeder, Managing Director of Google Australia, with Ron Radford at the launch of the Google Art Project for Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 4 April 2012.

artists who shared the spirit of this mid twentieth-century international art movement. Old favourites will be joined by works from the collection that have not previously been on display and by some works from other collections.

Recent acquisitions of international art have been significant. In February, the Gallery unveiled Henri Matisse’s sublime Oceania, the sea 1946, which was secured from the artist’s family. It is a generous gift from Tim Fairfax AM, who has recently been appointed the Gallery’s Interim Chair until 31 December 2012.

Oceania, the sea has long been sought after by the Gallery and now joins its companion piece Oceania, the sky 1946, acquired for the national collection in 1990. Not only is the work a superb addition to the Gallery’s collection of modern art, Oceania, the sea and its pair also relate to the broader collection, particularly our strong holdings of Southeast Asian textiles and Pacific art. The pair is Matisse’s major response to our Pacific region.

The National Gallery of Australia Foundation and the Poynton Bequest made possible the acquisition of a large landscape drawing by South African artist William Kentridge. This large drawing was used in creating Kentridge’s short film Other faces 2011, also in the Gallery’s collection. The Gallery will stage an exhibition of this important international artist’s work next year.

The Gallery was also fortunate to receive a gift of five wooden sculptures and a number of other objects from the Solomon Islands. This gift from Pat and Joan Middenway was given in memory of Pat’s father Captain Arthur Middenway, who collected the works in the early twentieth century. Captain Middenway’s considerable skill as a photographer can also be seen in the albums included with this generous gift, which adds to the Gallery’s now substantial Solomon Islands collection.

The Gallery’s collections of early Australian painting have also been strengthened. Two fine Sydney Long watercolours, Springtime and Farmhouse, were added to the collection and will be on display in Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land from 17 August. An attractive portrait of a young woman by colonial portraitist Andrew MacCormac enhances our growing display of South Australian colonial paintings.

Last but certainly not least, a pivotal, mid-career work by New Zealand’s major artist Colin McCahon was purchased in honour of the dedication and leadership that Rupert Myer AM displayed in his role as the Gallery’s chair between December 2005 and March 2012. The painting demonstrates McCahon’s developing interest in the Cubist aesthetics in the 1950s and is a significant addition to the collection of McCahon’s works in the national collection. Although no longer chair, Myer believes in the strength of the Gallery’s vision and will continue to lend us his support. He remains confident that the Gallery, with Interim Chair Tim Fairfax, will continue to provide experiences that will profoundly enhance our audience’s enjoyment of visual culture.

The Gallery celebrated a significant milestone for its travelling exhibitions program in March this year, when a 22-year-old air-conditioning technician from Gladstone became the nine-millionth person to visit our travelling exhibitions.

Carl Schmidt walked into Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum to see the National Gallery’s Australian portraits 1880–1960 and won a trip for two to Canberra to see our major exhibition Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara Bergamo.

The National Gallery’s travelling exhibitions program is the most extensive and comprehensive in Australia and we will continue to bring the nation’s art collection to all regions of Australia.

The Google Art Project for Australia was launched at the National Gallery on 4 April. The project increases access to the national art collection and to our collection displays in Canberra, providing a virtual tour of our gallery spaces showing our works on display as well as a highly detailed view of senior Western Desert artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong 1977, one of the nation’s great masterpieces. The National Gallery now joins many major galleries in the northern hemisphere in participating in this innovative project.

Ron Radford AM

4 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

By the 1950s, some five decades after his death, Eugene von Guérard had been almost forgotten. European trained, he was arguably the most important artist in Australia during the period from the 1850s to the 1870s. His paintings were featured in inter-colonial and world expositions and acquired internationally, and he was appointed the master of the Painting School and curator of the Victorian National Gallery. After his return to Europe in 1881, his work was superseded in quick succession by the Australian Impressionists, Edwardian artists and the moderns. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was often von Guérard’s inferior works, relegated to back

rooms, that were included in museum displays, if at all.

It was Daniel Thomas, working at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (later senior curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, then director of Art Gallery of South Australia), who rehabilitated von Guérard’s reputation with his research in his groundbreaking 1976 exhibition Australian art in the 1870s, followed in 1980 by the National Gallery of Australia travelling exhibition Eugen von Guérard. Von Guérard is now regarded as Australia’s finest colonial artist.

The future National Gallery was well aware Thomas’s reappraisal of the artist

and acquired in 1973 one of von Guérard’s masterpieces, North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko 1863, a sublime painting of the forces of nature being documented by science and recorded in art. This was joined in 1975 by Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges 1857, a large, dark meditation on the primeval nature of this dense native rainforest on the outskirts of Melbourne.

And so began the slow task of assembling a superb collection of the artist’s work for the national art collection. Other works of superlative quality were acquired in the following years. The homestead painting From the verandah

EUGENE v ON GUERARdbuilding the National Gallery’s collection

Von Guérard: nature revealed until 15 July 2012 | nga.gov.au/VonGuerard

5EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW

of Purrumbete 1858, with the lake viewed through the extraordinary framing device of the veranda structure, was acquired in 1978. But it took another 20 years before its companion piece Purrumbete from across the lake 1858 entered the collection.

Von Guérard was also vitally interested in the graphic arts and sketched regularly, filling numerous sketchbooks and compiling albums of finished drawings. His book Australian landscapes, published in 1865, comprised 24 plates printed in lithography, a technique with which he was well acquainted—his father-in-law was a lithographic printer. The National Gallery’s copy of this book is superbly bound and

was undoubtedly a presentation copy for European nobility.

The National Gallery continues its quest to illuminate key aspects of von Guérard’s oeuvre. The painting Dandenong Ranges from ‘Beleura’ 1870 from the James Fairfax collection, a gift to the National Gallery from Bridgestar in 1995, shows the artist in a gentle, sensual mood, while his painting of the township of Perth in Tasmania and its bridge over the South Esk River, one of his earlier Australian works, acquired in 2009, reveals its affinity with the paintings he produced of similar towns in Germany.

The National Gallery has some 14 paintings (including those in the Rex

Nan Kivell collection), 26 lithographs, two wood engravings after his designs and two drawings. It is now the most important collection of work by Eugene von Guérard, the most significant artist working in colonial Australia.

Roger Butler Senior Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

Purrumbete from across the lake 1858 oil on canvas 51 x 85.5 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased with funds from the Nerissa Johnson Bequest, 1998

Ferntree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges 1857 oil on canvas 92 x 138 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO, OBE, 1975


PRETENCE OF EXISTENCEIndigenous art observing history

unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial until 22 July 2012 | nga.gov.au/unDisclosed

A growing number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists are turning to historical records and collections in an attempt to unpack their pasts. They know from their own families lived experiences that the history of their own communities and families has never been accurately documented. The desire to know, understand and portray a more realistic picture of the past can be seen in several artists work in unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial. For many of these artists their work stands as impressive, powerful statements of a subsumed history.

Fiona Foley’s Let a hundreds flowers bloom 2010 positions front and centre the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Qld), which had a major impact on black and white relations in Queensland at the end of the nineteenth century. Very few people within Australia are aware of this Act, understand the ramifications for Aboriginal

people managed under these peculiar circumstances or the long-term effect of this legislation on subsequent generations. As Foley states in her artist statement in the book accompanying the exhibition unDisclosed:

I like to read little-known histories about race relations in colonial times. Although these books are accessible to the general public, there is still a profound ignorance in this country about important historical goings on … Australia has also forgotten its past historical dalliances with this ‘joy plant’—a forgotten time of complex cultural milieus and state government control.

Michael Cook’s work provides us with an additional understanding of the important place of history and the positioning of an Indigenous identity within that history. For many Australians of my generation, we were introduced to Aboriginal people through Australian history classes in secondary college. You can imagine the


mixed feelings I held as an Aboriginal person when I was told that Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia and that there was a small group of Aborigines with spears hiding some distance away behind bushes. Unfortunately, that was the first and last time Aborigines were referred to in my entire secondary Australian history course. Why were we not told the true history of contact on the frontier during the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s?

When we look at Michael Cook’s Undiscovered 2010 and Broken Dreams 2010 series we see how the artist is repositioning those first and subsequent points of engagement between black and white. He challenges our understanding of Australia being ‘discovered’ by the British. How can it be discovered when it had already been occupied and owned by the Indigenous peoples of the continent. In both series, he takes us on a path of disengagement; our collective known history is unpacked in a visually rich narrative.

Julie Gough takes historical objects and found materials from the past and assembles them to form a historical discourse that comments on our understanding of Australian history today. Through a process of retrieval, objects with all of their associated connotations are repositioned against others. Her work She was sold for one guinea 2007 and those that are part of Fugitive history 2009—Spear/Oar, Head Count and Killymoon—form a complex provocative dialogue that reaches out to the viewer and engages them in the conversation, challenging their assumptions of Australia’s history. Gough asserts in her artist statement in unDisclosed:

My work is concerned with developing a visual language to express and engage with conflicting and subsumed histories. A key intention is to invite a viewer to a closer understanding of our continuing roles in, and proximity to unresolved national stories—narratives of memory, time, absence, location and representation.

Historical objects also provide empowering reference points for Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti. In his series Mawa masks 2010 and his work Koedal Baydham Adhaz Parw (Crocodile Shark) mask 2010, Tipoti references the ancestral ceremonial masks of the past and presents them anew with contemporary materials. Through the process of revisiting ethnographic collections, archival documentation and material culture, Tipoti maintains an ancient tradition with contemporary artistic sophistication. In his artist statement for unDisclosed, he not only alludes to the history of Torres Strait Islander masks before European settlement but he also subtly and interestingly flips the notion of discovery:

I take this opportunity to create masks on a larger scale using modern materials. Similar-shaped masks were worn by traditional dancers in ceremonies many times before we discovered foreign explorers.

Lindsay Harris Noongar people Boya Ngorpung (Rocks with blood) 2010 earth pigments and resin on hemp 100 x 100 cmcourtesy private lender

Alick Tipoti Kala Lagaw Ya people Mawa 3 (Kisay) 2010, from the series Mawa masks fib eglass, synthetic polymer paint, feathers, raffia,beads, shell, wood, bamboo, fib eglass resin, stain and plastic 210 x 90 x 45 cmcourtesy the artist

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori Kaiadilt people My grandfather’s Country 2009 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 137 x 122 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, 2010 courtesy the artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne

(page 6–7)Fiona Foley Badtjala people Let a hundred flowers bloo 2010 (detail) 3 opium pipes, stool, display case, fabric, sketchbook, 36 brass opium poppy sculptures, and 34 inkjet prints on paper 305.20 x 447.6 x 360 cm (overall)courtesy the artist, Andrew Baker Art Dealer and Niagara Galleries


While these are artists who look to the past in an attempt to understand it and to teach others of little known histories, there are also artists that look to the past in an attempt to critique, remember and immortalise personal histories and events. These artists’ connection to their families and Country has been severed; therefore, their paintings are imbued with feelings of longing, sadness and loss. Their works can been seen as a desire to capture and remember special moments and places in time, thus ensuring that connectedness never dies or disappears. Nici Cumpston’s photographs and Lindsay Harris’s paintings can be seen in this melancholic light.

In Cumpston’s statement in unDisclosed, she expresses her personal connection to the Murray-Darling river system:

I am connected to this river system through my Barkindji family and I am compelled to document the ongoing demise of this once abundant area … I create these images to raise awareness and to portray the beauty

of Nookamka along with the tragedy that is happening to this environment’.

Harris and Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori both paint the Country of their youth. The township where Harris grew up has changed remarkably over time; it was once a bustling Wheatbelt district, now an abandon ghost town. Therefore, Harris’s paintings can be seen as an attempt to hold onto the spiritual essence of the town and surrounding country.

Gabori’s emotive paintings are imbued with expressive passion that harks back to a bygone era. Not only was she removed from her Country when she was young but her entire community was transported from Bentinck Island to Mornington Island. Displaced from the homeland that she knew intimately, Gabori was forced to live on someone else’s Country. Her paintings can be read as biographic as they refer to memories of her early life with her father and brother.

The sanctity of the artist’s memories, the desire to reveal a black history of Australia and the determination to engage with the public renderings of Australian history populate many works of art in unDisclosed. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists mentioned above have fought against the pretence of existence. They are not content to sit back and allow others to speak on their behalf; instead, they disclose a different reading and understanding of what it is to be an Australian Indigenous person, both past and present.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

10 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE


Jackson Pollock was born 100 years ago, as was another important American painter, Morris Louis. Their divergent styles demonstrate the breadth and variety of the extraordinary decades of postwar art. To mark this anniversary year, the National Gallery of Australia is showcasing its important holdings of paintings, drawings and prints by American and Australian artists of this era.

Abstract Expressionist art is vibrant and still surprising. The term ‘Abstract Expressionism’ describes artists sharing new possibilities rather than a cohesive style. The movement is characterised by individualism, a spirit of revolt and rejection of the past, and values such as spontaneity, intuition and the unconscious as creative sources are associated with these artists. They are also called the New York School or Action painters. Abstract Expressionism was an American invention and it changed modern art—just as jazz, another American invention, change modern music. It was the first major American art movement and it signalled the shift of the centre of the art world from Paris to New York.

The National Gallery’s strong holdings of Pollock, Louis and their contemporaries, and others associated with the New York School and Colour Field painting, will be shown in four galleries. Most works were acquired in the 1970s, before the National

Gallery opened, while several recent acquisitions build on the strengths of this early collecting. Blue poles, one of Pollock’s most famous paintings, and his earlier Totem lesson 2 accompany six drawings and six etchings, which are rarely on public view. Paintings and works on paper by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Lee Krasner will also be on display, along with paintings by Louis and an early work by Helen Frankenthaler—which will serve to commemorate her death in December 2011. Key works by Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell and Clyfford Still elucidate the dynamic connections between artists.

The title of Pollock’s Totem lesson 2 1945 evokes the contemporary enthusiasm for American Indian art, with the central motif based on the Sky Father image in a Navajo sand painting illustrated in 1941. ‘Some people find references to American Indian art and calligraphy in parts of my pictures’, Pollock said in an interview for Arts and Architecture in February 1944, ‘That wasn’t intentional; probably was the result of early memories and enthusiasms … I am particularly impressed with their [the Surrealists’] concept of the source of art being the unconscious’. He painted a large central image in oil and then used grey house paint, as Michael Lloyd and Michael Desmond note in the National Gallery of

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISmcelebrating Jackson Pollock’s centenary

Abstract Expressionism 4 August 2012 – 20 January 2013


Australia’s 1992 catalogue of European and American paintings, ‘paring away the central figure to a hovering spectre surrounded by swirling splinters of the original design. The normal ground-figure relationship is reversed—the image is literally disclosed in the process of painting.’

Franz Kline blocks out his structural drawing Untitled 1950 in black brushstrokes, striped onto a printed page from the Brooklyn phone book. In 1983, Barbara Rose insightfully characterised this decision as ‘the activation of the background’, which she noted occurred in Krasner’s work as well. The thin, cheap paper has yellowed over the decades, imparting warmth to the few elements of the composition. Such criss-crossed lines also animate Kline’s paintings

on much larger canvases. His broad gestures using enamel house paint are writ large even on a small sheet of paper. The work demonstrates the influence of pioneering images by Pollock and de Kooning, which galvanised Kline into abstraction at this time.

In her untitled paper collages made in 1953, Krasner cut up her own black oil and gouache drawings in a process related to the automatism that influenced American art. This Surrealist aesthetic strategy was due mainly to the refugees from war-torn Europe who came to New York in the 1930s and early 1940s. Krasner, like other students of Hans Hofmann, experimented with form and space—here, by destroying and reconstructing drawings—although she eschewed her teacher’s more conventional

geometries. The dynamic arcs and curves of Untitled 1953 create a field of dark energy in motion.

Another collage, de Kooning’s July 4th 1957, perhaps inspired by rural rather than urban landscape, is a change for the artist as he considered relocating from the city to upstate New York. As Lloyd and Desmond point out:

… de Kooning used small paintings on paper as a test bed for new ideas and accidental effects that could be incorporated into larger works. July 4th itself is built from pre-existing work, being composed of a single sheet of paper painted in oil paint, to which torn pieces from another crustily painted sheet have been overlaid, then trimmed back to the sheet size.


The dominant white horizontal line is formed by the removal of tape protecting the white paper support. The title refers to the date the painting was completed, although its ‘patriotic’ palette of red, white and blue inevitably invokes the United States of America’s anniversary of Independence Day.

The art critic Clement Greenberg invented the label of ‘Post-painterly abstraction’ to describe painters such as Louis and Frankenthaler. The new generation of Colour Field painters were seen as successors to Rothko and Still. Louis, working in Washington DC, visited Frankenthaler’s New York studio in 1953 and was deeply impressed by her novel staining technique. Saturating

unstretched canvases with rivulets of colour served to emphasise the flatness of the picture surface. By reducing frames or rejecting them altogether, paintings became two-dimensional, contradicting the traditional illusion of three-dimensional reality. Dalet zayin 1957 belongs to his Veils group in which Louis overwhelms the viewer with a torrent of translucent coloured waves.

Abstract Expressionism was more than an American phenomenon, and the impact of such influential painters stretched far and wide. Works by extraordinary Australians such as Tony Tuckson and Peter Upward reveal how these artists developed in related and complementary ways. In his evocative and beautiful Watery c 1960,

Tuckson puts on layers of pale paint and then ‘writes’ across the surface. Rather than those large expressive gestures seen in the work of Pollock and de Kooning, he makes calligraphic marks and lines that hover between drawing and a new form of script. The exhibition explores new possibilities for painting, both in the United States and abroad, and celebrates the depth of the National Gallery of Australia’s great collection.

Christine Dixon Senior Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

A symposium on Abstract Expressionism will be held at the National Gallery from 24 to 25 August 2012.

Morris Louis Dalet zayin 1959 synthetic polymer paint on unprimed canvas 253.5 x 336.5 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1974 © 1959 Morris Louis

Jackson Pollock Totem lesson 2 1945 oil on canvas 182.8 x 152.4 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1986 © Pollock/Krasner Foundation/ARS. Represented by Viscopy

(page 10–11) Tony Tuckson Watery c 1960 (detail) oil on composition board 122.2 x 183 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Margaret Tuckson, 2002 © Tony Tuckson. Represented by Viscopy


POETRy IN THE LANdSCAPEthe vision of Sydney Long

Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land 17 August – 11 November 2012 | nga.gov.au/Long

Sydney Long was Australia’s foremost Art Nouveau painter. His art flourished in the imaginative, stimulating atmosphere in Sydney in the 1890s and 1900s, when he achieved early success with one of his best known works, By tranquil waters 1894. It was a precursor to the paintings in which he populated the Australian bush with mythological figures painted in an Art Nouveau style.

In some of his most admired images, such as The Spirit of the plains 1897, Long created haunting images of the Australian landscape with decorative, musical qualities and gentle symbolism. Seeking imagery that conveyed the ‘lonely and primitive feelings of this

country’, he captured something of the soul and tenor of the Australian bush.

Long was particularly interested in visualising the forces of nature in the bush. In The Spirit of the bushfire 1900, he depicted a destructive natural force: the Spirit of the bushfire, a personification of the most feared natural phenomena in Australia. He visualised the spirit as a woman with flowing flame-coloured hair, waving her wand of fire and fanning up a fire. This spirit is a fin de siècle femme fatale—a potent destructive force—and her twisting, swirling form perhaps derives from the expressive dancing of the innovative Loie Fuller or from decorative Art Nouveau

posters. Long powerfully evokes in this work the intense heat of a raging fire rapidly engulfing the surrounding bush.

The exhibition Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land includes at least five of Long’s much-loved images of flamingoes, showing the diversity of his depiction of this subject over many years. His first version, painted in 1902, presents two nude maidens watching a group of flamingos in a shaded pool. The model for the figures was Rose Soady, who later became Norman Lindsay’s wife and principal model. She recollected posing for the picture in The Bulletin on 16 February 1955: ‘I posed every day for six weeks at 5s. [shillings] a day, big


money in those days for a working-girl. He painted many studies for that figure, and on weekends went to some river to make studies and to the zoo to paint actual flamingos’.

Flamingoes c 1907 is the most beautiful and most decorative version of Long’s flamingo paintings. He transformed the visual realities of the landscape, simplifying and flattening the composition to resemble a frieze. Drawing on the Art Nouveau style, he depicted the graceful curves of the birds silhouetted against a backdrop of highly stylised trees, strongly modelling their forms to give them a sharp reality. He arranged their sinuous necks in sensually flowing

organic lines, creating a delicate cross-patterning, with two pairs of the necks engaging each other, counterpoised by the trees and the moonrise.

The poetic charm that Long gave to the Australian landscape saw him emerge as one of Australia’s most popular artists. And, from 1918, he became a leading Australian printmaker, being elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1921 and devoting much of his time to printmaking over the following 12 years. Many of Long’s most remarkable prints will be included in this exhibition.

This exhibition of the work of Sydney Long will be on display in Canberra only.

Such a focused presentation looking in depth at the best of Long’s paintings, watercolours and prints is the first major survey of his work for over 40 years. It promises much to kindle the visual imagination.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

The Spirit of the bushfi e 1900 watercolour 36.8 x 46.8 cmArt Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat purchased 1977 courtesy the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia

Flamingoes c 1907 oil on canvas 30.6 x 61 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired with the assistance of the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund, 2006 courtesy the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia


The inaugural Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellows, Glenn Iseger-Pilkington and Jirra Harvey, were selected in 2010 from a number of outstanding candidates who presented project proposals at the time. Harvey’s and Iseger-Pilkington’s proposals were well-considered, demonstrated a vision for Indigenous leadership in the arts sector and were relevant to the Gallery’s forthcoming programs. Over the past two years, their time working with industry professionals at the National Gallery of Australia has furthered their insight into their chosen fields. Their projects are now drawing to a conclusion and contribute significantly to aspects of the second National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed.

Harvey and Iseger-Pilkington also participated in first Wesfarmers Indigenous Arts Leadership program at the Gallery in 2010. They then returned as alumni for the 2011 leadership program, sharing their experiences with ten other future industry leaders.

Harvey is a Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri woman and a freelance arts and media professional from Melbourne. For her project, she has built on her background in marketing and communications and drawn on her keen interest in the arts to develop a culturally appropriate Indigenous communication strategy for unDisclosed.

Her goal is to increase the Indigenous voice representing Indigenous art. ‘There is no doubt that Aboriginal or

Torres Strait Islander artists are powerful storytellers,’ she says, ‘but with an increase of Indigenous professionals working across the sector and at all levels … their voices will be heard all the more clearly’.

While Harvey never expected to be able to achieve this goal within a two-year project, she applied for the fellowship to increase her skill set to better contribute to ongoing change. The knowledge and inspiration gained from the professionals at the Gallery and from Indigenous guest curator Carly Lane has been invaluable. Her time with the Marketing and Communications team has given her firsthand experience working on a national campaign for a major exhibition of Indigenous contemporary art, and her close work with the Aboriginal and Torres

LEAdING THE WAythe inaugural Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellows

17FEATURE | ARTONVIEW

Strait Islander Art team has deepened her understanding of the complexities of marketing Indigenous art.

Glenn Iseger-Pilkington is a Wadjarri, Nhanda and Noongar man, and Curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth. Building on his curatorial knowledge and expertise, Iseger-Pilkington’s project utilises new digital platforms to enrich viewer experiences and reach audiences beyond the gallery walls. He has travelled Australia to conduct interviews with the artists in unDisclosed, photographing and filming them in their studios, homes and on Country.

The project introduces a new level of contextual information and an intimacy to the exhibition. The triennial highlights

Australia’s leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and, with Iseger-Pilkington’s project, the voices of these artists can be heard alongside their work. Through this digital project, audiences at the National Gallery and at touring venues from next year will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the recent work of the artists featured in the triennial, learning more about their lives and artistic and cultural practices.

Iseger-Pilkington’s experiences during the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship will undoubtedly build on his curatorial expertise and leave an important legacy for the Gallery.

The decision in 2010 by both Harvey and Iseger-Pilkington to work on aspects of the

triennial was, importantly, followed last year by the announcement that Wesfarmers had become the Gallery’s Indigenous Art Partner and were extending their support of Indigenous programs to include unDisclosed. This $1.4 million partnership affirms the leadership role that both parties have in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in the arts sector.

It allows the Gallery to not only continue showcasing the very best of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art but also to invest in the professional development of future Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art leaders.

Peter White Indigenous Education and Public Programs Coordinator

Applications for the second round of Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowships open later this year. For information on the fellowship, visit the website at nga.gov.au/WesfarmersFellowship or free call 1800 666 766.

Glenn Iseger-Pilkington and Senior Curator Franchesca Cubillo with triennial artist Tony Albert in his studio in Sydney, March 2012.Photograph: Glenn Iseger-Pilkington

Shanthini Naidoo, Assistant Director, Development, Marketing and Commercial Operations, and Jirra Harvey discuss the marketing materials for unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, 4 April 2012.


ART IN dETAILthe Google Art Project

For nine hours, three computer experts sat in dark galleries. One light shone on a single painting: Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong 1977. The epic canvas was being captured in minute detail by a single high-quality digital camera programmed to capture an image then move an exact rotation to capture another.

Computer experts from the Google Art Project have spent the past year visiting many of the great galleries of the world and digitally capturing masterpieces. What they create using cameras and computers are some of the most detailed images of art yet produced. The images are created from hundreds of smaller ones using computers and various algorithms to stitch them together to produce a seamless whole.

In the case of Warlugulong, a 2-by-3.5-metre canvas, over 700 postcard-sized images where shot. The technicians worked through the night to control the light on the painting to ensure the quality of the result.

Warlugulong is one of the earliest large canvases from Papunya in central Australia. It records the passage of the first great bushfire to roar across the continent and shows the tracks of ancestral beings that travelled the land. Fittingly, it now joins some of the world’s great masterpieces from the Tate Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Uffizi, Florence. The image captured by Google’s camera shows the painting in ultra-detail, and amazing things are revealed in a work of art when you look closely enough.

Another part of the Google Art Project was to create a seamless virtual walkthrough of galleries, similar to Google’s Street View. For this process, a group of technicians moved slowly through the spaces using a high-tech trolley of computers and imaging equipment. The trolley—resembling a Dalek from the set of the BBC television series Doctor Who—contained computers, keyboards, a global-positioning device and a sphere on top containing 16 individual cameras. It could capture an almost 360-degree view with every shot.

On the first night, they pushed the trolley through the main entrance and into the space dedicated to The Aboriginal Memorial 1987–88. They stopped approximately every half-metre to shoot the surrounding space.

19FEATURE | ARTONVIEW

This laborious process occurred over three consecutive nights and covered many of the major exhibition spaces.

Online visitors can now virtually venture along the corridors of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries, through Polynesian art, to the Nolan Kelly Gallery, into sections of International art and Asian art and then through much of Australian art galleries upstairs. The detail is remarkable. Zooming in, for example, on JMS Barnes’s small spider brooch in the Jewellery gallery showcase reveals the fine craftsmanship of this exquisite work and the gleam of its dark opal.

Nearly 500 of the works featured in the walkthrough can also be clicked on to bring up a better-quality image and contextual

information; over 100 works have short, narrated videos that provide even further insight into the treasures of the national art collection.

The Google Art Project is an example of the use of new technologies to increase access to art collections. The National Gallery has also recently redesigned the collection area of its website, which now allows visitors to browse through images of art grouped as they are in the physical gallery spaces. Over 120 videos and thousands of text entries provide visitors with a deeper understanding of the art on display.

The Gallery now aims to develop more programs that leverage new digital technologies to make the national art

collection more accessible to students, educational institutions and communities across Australia and the world.

Peter Naumann Head of Learning and Access

Access the Google Art Project via nga.gov.au/GoogleArt.

Google Art technicians set up to capture Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong 1977 at the National Gallery, 24 October 2011.

Google Art Project virtual tour of the National Gallery of Australia.


On Thursday 15 March 2012, the National Gallery of Australia celebrated the nine-millionth visitor to its travelling exhibitions program—a momentous achievement as the Gallery moves towards its 30-year anniversary since opening in October 1982.

Carl Schmidt, a 22-year-old air-conditioning technician from Gladstone, was the lucky visitor after viewing Australian portraits 1880–1960: paintings from the National Gallery of Australia collection at Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum in far north Queensland.

Carl’s visit not only won him the acclaim of being our ‘nine millionth visitor’ but also a trip for two to Canberra to see Renaissance: 15th and 16th century paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. Carl brought his girlfriend, Amber Comadira-

Smith, and they met National Gallery of Australia Director Ron Radford, Assistant Director (Exhibitions and Collections Services) Adam Worrall and the Travelling Exhibitions team: Belinda Cotton, Georgia Connolly and Mary-Lou Nugent.

The Gallery recognises its mandate to contribute significantly to the nation’s cultural enrichment. Every Australian should have the opportunity to experience their National Gallery of Australia, wherever they may be. Since its official launch in 1988, the Gallery’s travelling exhibitions program has now had over nine million people visit more than 117 travelling exhibitions at over 730 venues in all states and territories across the country and, occasionally, overseas.

Over the last 24 years, travelling exhibitions have been and continue to be a vital part of the Gallery’s strategy of

providing access to great works of art to the widest possible audience. It is the most extensive and comprehensive travelling exhibitions program in Australia.

The Gallery acknowledges the travelling exhibitions program would not be possible without the generous support of the Australian Government through the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach program and Visions of Australia.

Australian portraits 1880–1960 is also supported by the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund, as Exhibition Partner, and ABC Local Radio, as Media Partner.

Georgia Connolly Project Office , Travelling Exhibitions

THE NINE-mILLION mARkNational Gallery travelling exhibitions

Mary-Lou Nugent, Georgia Connolly, Ron Radford, Amber Comadira-Smith, Carl Schmidt and Belinda Cotton at the exhibition Renaissance, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 30 March 2012.

21ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW

William KentridgeDrawing for the film Other faces (Large landscape)

2011, charcoal, coloured pencil, pastel on paper, 123 x 159 cm, acquired through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation and the Poynton Bequest, 2012

William Kentridge explores themes of the society in which he lives, but in a particularly subtle way. Kentridge creates art in a variety of media, including drawing, film, printmaking, sculpture and set designs for opera. For his most recent film, Other faces 2011, acquired by the National Gallery late last year, Kentridge drew and then filmed a series of textured charcoal drawings. Sometimes embellished with coloured pencils and at other times rubbed out, the filmic narrative ebbs and flows from past memories to contemporary events in Kentridge’s country of birth, South Africa.

One drawing of a landscape for the film has been acquired through the generosity of National Gallery of Australia Foundation with assistance of the Poynton Bequest. Kentridge’s skill as a draughtsman is apparent in this masterful large-scale charcoal, coloured-pencil and pastel work. The drawing subverts the tradition of landscape painting by artists such as Paul Gauguin and the Pont Aven painters, who created idealised landscapes, editing out

the incursions of modern life—their scenes are devoid of any industrial or urban ugliness associated with nineteenth-century modernisation.

Kentridge’s depiction of Johannesburg and its outskirts is the antithesis of this approach. At first glance, the artist has created a lyrical view of the countryside on the eastern plateau of South Africa, rich in foliage and flowing waterways. Yet, this is deceptive; hidden among the grasses and woodlands are the remnants of abandoned mines, decrepit buildings and polluted waters. The sad history is barely perceptible, a shadow, scarcely a memory. But it remains. For Kentridge, this wasteland drawing is a metaphor for the destructive effect of apartheid on his homeland in both the apartheid era and in contemporary life.

Jane Kinsman Senior Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

22 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

Henri MatisseOceania the sea

(Océanie, la mer) 1946, screenprint on linen, 172 x 385.4 cm, gift of Tim Fairfax AM, 2012

Image courtesy Christie’s, New York

It’s more important to absorb things than to try to capture them from life.Henri Matisse, in conversation with Brassaï, December 1946

In 1930, Henri Matisse sailed from Le Havre to New York. After a train trip across the United States of America, he embarked from San Francisco on the RMS Tahiti. In voyaging to the South Pacific, he was conscious of travelling in Paul Gauguin’s footsteps made almost four decades earlier. From Papeete, Matisse went to the Tuamotu Archipelago, where he spent 10 days on Apataki Atoll. On this tiny coral island, one kilometre in circumference, he was never bored.

Although Matisse claimed to have ‘done nothing’ in Tahiti, he returned with many pen-and-ink drawings and ‘bad’ photographs. These aide-mémoires and his impressions of the golden light of the Pacific combined to form the inspiration for two large screenprinted wall hangings, Oceania, the sea (Océanie, la mer) and Oceania, the sky (Océanie, le ciel), both produced 15 years later in 1946.


In Oceania, the sea, marine forms are recognisable, as are glimpses of the world above; this is neither sea nor sky but both at the same time. Matisse first called these two works ‘Les méduses’ (Jellyfish) and ‘Fée des eaux’ (Water sprites) respectively, and later ‘Polynésie la mer’ and ‘Polynésie le ciel’. The exchange and overlaps in titles evoke his pleasure in swimming in the lagoon, the shimmering light and merging of space.

When Zika Ascher visited Matisse in Paris in 1946, he found an assistant pinning cut-out paper shapes to the walls. Matisse, a virtual invalid since 1941, worked from bed and had adopted decoupage. Silhouettes of fish, birds, jellyfish and coral, the life of sea and sky, were arranged from dado to cornice on two adjacent walls, and the challenge was to translate this flimsy maquette into more durable form. The London-based textile designer worked to Matisse’s

exacting standards. Linen was dyed to match the colour of the apartment walls—an off-white fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s, which had become, with the patina of time, a light beige. The shapes were printed using opaque white ink. Oceania, the sky and Oceania, the sea, published in an edition of 30 in 1948, are a remarkable achievement, both technically and aesthetically.

Oceania, the sea is a generous and insightful gift by Tim Fairfax AM, who recognised the long-held desire to reunite the work with its pair at the Gallery. The panel is in exceptional condition; it is signed and dedicated to the artist’s son Pierre and was acquired from the Matisse family. Oceania, the sky and Oceania, the sky are key works of modern art and masterpieces of Matisse’s late career.

Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture


Solomon IslandsRoviana Lagoon, Western Province

Middenway gift

early 20th century, gift in memory of Captain Arthur Middenway, 2011

Gifts often have an unexpected way of appearing out of the blue. This is certainly true of this recent gift of 11 indigenous works from the Solomon Islands and the accompanying albums of archival photographs.

Mr and Mrs Middenway offered this generous gift in memory of Captain Arthur Middenway (1878–1940) as a pleasant and unexpected response to the exhibition Varilaku: Pacific arts from the Solomon Islands, which was on display in early 2011.

Captain Arthur Middenway was appointed Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific based at Gizo in the Solomon Islands in 1921. A year later, he became the District Administrative Officer, gaining magisterial powers. He served in the Solomon Islands until his retirement in 1935. The indigenous works that comprise this gift were collected by Middenway during this time.

Middenway was also was an avid photographer, and his photographic albums included with this gift to the Gallery

visually document the era of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Images of administrative buildings, resident traders, bêche-de-mer divers, visiting steamships, native canoes and coastal scenery are some of the remarkable examples of panoramic photography taken with a swing-lens camera that captured large vistas. His contribution to society in the Solomon Islands was considerable and the main road of Gizo is named in his honour.

The gifted figurative works represent a group of artists active in the Roviana lagoon area (possibly near Munda) of New Georgia Island during the early twentieth century.

Exceptional among them is Portrait bust of an elder, which is decorated with plugs of real human hair fashionably bleached from combing with powered lime. The figure’s ears are pierced, to receive large ear plugs, yet hang loosely, as such adornments were important in youth or were only worn for special occasions. His face is furrowed with wrinkle lines, and the artist has created

(from left)

Figure of a young child wood, shell, screws, fib e, stain, resin 57 x 29.5 x 15.5 cm

Bowl supported by two figu es wood, paint, shell, fib e 25 x 47.5 x 17.5 cm

Portrait bust of an elder wood, hair, shell, stain, resin, teeth 31.5 x 25.5 x 20 cm

A selection of Captain Arthur Middenway’s photographs documenting his time in the Solomon Islands, 1921–35.


signs of old age through the seeming tautness of skin over the cheekbones and eye orbits. The mouth is open revealing two real teeth; the realism of expression is near perfect. This work complements another refined work in the national art collection: Portrait bust of a young man.

Other outstanding works are the near-life-sized and perfectly proportioned Figure of a young child, standing upright with tiny segments of nautilus shell inlay on her face and separately carved arms pegged onto the body. She bears her teeth in an aggressive scowl as if in a tantrum, the raised clenched hand holds some form of a ball or perhaps a throwing stone ready to let fly.

Bowl supported by two figures features both a man and a woman offering the bowl between each other. Walking stick of undulating form, one of two walking sticks included with the gift, is particularly appealing, as the artist used the natural form of a branch to create a serpent-like animal with the head of a hornbill. Two more

fascinating works are miniature doll-like male and female figures made for Middenway’s son, who spent his childhood in the Solomon Islands. Along with these works of art are more sculptures, a carved chalice and decorative combs.

A proportion of Middenway’s collection was given to the Suva Museum in Fiji over 50 years ago, perhaps in recognition of his time working for the Fijian Colonial Service prior to the First World War. However, this gift to the National Gallery of Australia in his memory comprises a select group of works Captain Middenway and his family appreciated the most.

Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Art

(from left)

Figure of a young child wood, shell, screws, fib e, stain, resin 57 x 29.5 x 15.5 cm

Bowl supported by two figu es wood, paint, shell, fib e 25 x 47.5 x 17.5 cm

Portrait bust of an elder wood, hair, shell, stain, resin, teeth 31.5 x 25.5 x 20 cm

A selection of Captain Arthur Middenway’s photographs documenting his time in the Solomon Islands, 1921–35.


In Sydney Long’s Springtime, the air and water seem alive, but also still and silent. The scene is luminous and full of colour. Near the grassy bank of a river or lake are two trees whose branches flaunt their blossom. The subject of blossom suited Long’s delicate sense of colour and decoration, enabling him to express a certain mood, a poetic fascination with the transience of beauty. Indeed, Long was not so much concerned with depicting a specific place as he was with conjuring a view of nature at a time of transition—of blooming loveliness.

Long frequently depicted accidental places of beauty, intimate landscapes rather than grand vistas. Farmhouse is such an image of the natural world. It demonstrates Long’s feeling for strong form and colour. Overshadowed by a hill, a grey stone farmhouse stands still and secluded, nestling among the trees, with a belt of fenced yards before it. Silence reigns over the place. The farmhouse has a large roof and no veranda. The sun shines on a sea of flowers and

grass in the foreground. The strong triangular shape of the dark blue hill is counterpoised against the sloping green paddock and tied down by the small farmhouse.

Long’s interest in decoration is evident in these two watercolours, with the curved trunks of the trees and the strongly geometrical compositions, but he did not populate these landscapes with sprites as he did in his more celebrated Art Nouveau images, rather he sought to evoke the spirit of the land through the depiction of nature itself.


Sydney LongSpringtime

c 1907, watercolour, 38.8 x 55.7 cm

Farmhouse

c 1907, watercolour and gouache, 27.6 x 37.8 cm

purchased with funds from the Ruth Robertson Bequest, 2012, in memory of Edwin Clive and Leila Jeanne Robertson


Andrew MacCormac’s portrait of attractive young Minnie Watt is a delightful work. It is certainly one of his most accomplished portraits. He depicted his subject in her Sunday best, with her hands before her and without a wedding ring.

Wilhelmina (Minnie) Watt married American-born businessman, spiritualist and philanthropist Thomas Welton Stanford in Melbourne on 12 May 1869. She died within a year. This is one of two portraits of Minnie Watt; the painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia came from the Watt family, and this one remained with MacCormac. The portraits might have been painted before Minnie’s marriage to Stanford, and the artist might have painted this portrait for himself, as a memento of the beautiful young woman. Alternatively, her family may have commissioned the portrait after Minnie died, providing the artist with photographs taken before her marriage. MacCormac is certainly known to have painted portraits from photographs.

A major nineteenth-century portrait painter and Baptist minister, Andrew MacCormac was born in County Down, Northern Ireland, in 1826 and studied painting in London at Leigh’s Academy. MacCormac then decided to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields and migrated to Melbourne in about 1854. He became the Baptist pastor in a parish near Castlemaine in 1866. He moved to South Australia in 1868, where he became pastor of the prosperous copper-mining town of Moonta. He continued to paint there, finding inspiration in the miners at the diggings. He relinquished his ministry in 1880 and moved to Adelaide, where he opened a studio on Rundle Street and received commissions for portraits of civic and parliamentary dignitaries.


Andrew MacCormacMinnie Watt

c 1868, oil on canvas, 71 x 57 cm, purchased 2012


Colin McCahonKauri

1955/57, oil on composition board, 76 x 55 cm, acquired in honour of the distinguished leadership of Rupert Myer AM, Chair of the National Gallery of Australia Council 2005–12

© Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust

The National Gallery of Australia has long considered Colin McCahon as a major artist of great regional and international significance. Kauri 1955/57 is an outstanding example of his work of the mid-to-late 1950s when his interest in aspects of a Cubist approach intermingled with his feeling for place and for an abstract, spiritual dimension.

It is a key work in McCahon’s artistic development in relation to European Modernism, especially to the work of Paul Cézanne and Georges Braque, who often used oval formats in his Cubist paintings. McCahon’s interest in this modern approach, or what he described as ‘bright new vision of reality’, came to the fore in the early 1950s, partly inspired by a brief time that he spent in Melbourne as a pupil of Australian artist Mary Cockburn-Mercer, who had experienced Cubism firsthand in Paris.

Kauri also references the local environment surrounding McCahon’s home after his move to Auckland, to the bush

environment of French Bay, Titirangi. In the painting, vertical and diagonal forms relate to the tall distinctive trunks of the kauri trees. He was obsessed around this time with visual perception; however, the circles set against verticals, diagonals and small, luminous cubes also suggest a spiritual significance—a sacred geometry—and parallel aspects of the work of Piet Mondrian, whom he admired.

This is a sophisticated painting, a work that references the world while remaining true to the artist’s deeply felt personal experience. It seems fitting that Kauri was acquired in honour of the remarkable contribution of the National Gallery’s former Chair of Council, Rupert Myer AM, who was himself a visionary supporter of the visual arts and the importance of making links between the art of our region and the wider world.

Deborah Hart Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post-1920


Travelling exhibitionsnga.gov.au/Travex

(details from top)

Roy Lichtenstein Peace through chemistry II 1970National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1973 © estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Represented by Viscopy

Fred Williams Kew Billabong III 1975private collection © estate of Fred Williams

Max Meldrum Poland (Madame de Tarczynska) 1917National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1980

Natori Shunsen Morita Kanya XIII as Genta Kagesue in ‘A beginner's version of the rise and fall of the Heike and Genji clans’ 1928National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Jennifer Gordon, 1998

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix

until 11 June 2012 Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, Vic

29 June – 26 August 2012 QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld

16 November 2012 – 20 January 2013 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT

Fred Williams: infinite horizons

until 5 August 2012 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Vic

31 August – 4 November 2012 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA

Australian portraits 1880–1960

1 September – 21 October 2012 Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, ACT

Stars of the Tokyo stage: Natori Shunsen’s kabuki actor prints

29 June – 25 August 2012 RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Vic

Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn GiftThe Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift enables people from all around Australia to discover and handle art and has been touring schools, libraries, community centres, regional galleries and nursing homes since 1990. Visit nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn

To make a booking for 2013 or 2014, please contact [email protected] or (02) 6240 6650

Travelling exhibitions supporters

National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

National Gallery of AustraliaCouncil Exhibitions Fund

YULGILBARThe Yulgilbar Foundation

30 ARTONVIEW

Creative partnerships

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remixContinuing their tradition of supporting visionary artists and inspiring exhibitions, Canberra-based property developers Molonglo Group is supporting the National Gallery of Australia again as the Cultural Partners of the exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix.

The partnership between the Gallery and Molonglo Group began in 2009 with the exhibition Soft sculpture and continued the following year with Space invaders, the popular street-art exhibition that opened at the National Gallery in October 2010, before travelling to Melbourne, Brisbane and Dubbo.

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is on show at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery until 11 June and will open at QUT Art Museum in Brisbane on 29 June as part of its national tour. It will return to Canberra for display at the National Gallery from mid 2013.

Molonglo Group are passionate about the cultural enrichment of Canberra and have a strong appreciation for art, design and sustainable living, which their landmark NewActon precinct exemplifies.

Sydney Long: the Spirit of the landLong-time supporter The Brassey of Canberra has signed on as Accommodation Partner for the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land.

The Brassey is an iconic heritage hotel located in Barton and is part of the history of the nation’s capital. The hotel was established in 1927 to coincide with the establishment of the Federal Parliament in Canberra.

The National Summer Art Scholarship program has enjoyed the support of The Brassey for the last seven years. Every year, the hotel accommodates the 16 visiting scholars as well as program facilitators. This year, The Brassey has found an affinity with the evocative work of Sydney Long and extends its partnership with the Gallery to include support for our major survey exhibition on Long.

If you are interested in creating ties with the Australian community through the arts, contact Nicole Short, +61 2 6240 6781 or [email protected], or Eleanor Kirkham, +61 2 6240 6740 or [email protected].

Mini Graff speaks to Summer Art Scholars about her works in Space invaders, a National Gallery’s exhibition sponsored by the Molonglo Group, 20 January 2011.

31 ARTONVIEW

News from the Foundation

100 Works for 100 YearsThe 100 Works for 100 Years campaign seeks to mark the centenary of Canberra by raising funds for the acquisition of 100 significant works of art for the national art collection.

The program has gained momentum through the generosity of many donors. Three major contributions include: Council member Tim Fairfax AM, whose support enabled the acquisition of Henri Matisse’s spectacular and important late work Oceania, the sky 1946; Centenary Donors Geoffrey White OAM and Sally White, in support of Asian art; and Robyn Burke and Graham Burke through Village Roadshow in support of Australian contemporary art.

Anniversary Donor Andrew Gwinnett contributed in support of Japanese art, and Peter Burrows AO and The Hon Diana Laidlaw AM have become Commemorative Donors in support of Australian art.

Fundraising Gala Dinner and WeekendThe fifth annual Foundation Fundraising Gala Dinner and Weekend in March commenced with the unveiling of William Kentridge’s

Drawing for the film Other faces 2011, purchased with funds raised by guests and other donors. Kentridge’s potent short film Other faces 2011, for which this drawing was made, was also screened on the night.

The Director and International Art curators treated guests to a private tour of Renaissance, and the Gallery’s then executive chef James Kidman specially designed the evening meal.

The weekend concluded with a festive lunch at the Residence of the Italian Ambassador His Excellency Mr Gian Ludovico di Martino de Montegiordano and Mrs Camilla di Martino de Montegiordano.

Bequest CircleWilliam Duke’s marvellous painting Hohepa Te Umuroa 1846 was recently acquired through the Catherine Margaret Frohlich Memorial Fund. For more information about making a bequest, contact Liz Wilson on (02) 6240 6469 or [email protected].

The support of donors to the Foundation is greatly appreciated. For more information on how to become involved, contact Maryanne Voyazis on (02) 6240 6691 or [email protected].

John Sample, Ros Packer AO, Charles Curran AC and Rosemary White at the fifth annual Foundation Fundraising Gala Dinner and eekend, 17 March 2012. Christine Dixon, Jean-Paul Buhagiar and Emily Crotti at the fifth annual Foundation

Fundraising Gala Dinner and Weekend, 17 March 2012

32 ARTONVIEW

GrantsAmerican Friends of the National

Gallery of Australia Inc, New York, made possible with the very generous support of:Kenneth Tyler AO and

Marabeth Cohen-TylerWolfensohn Family Foundation

The Aranday FoundationGordon Darling FoundationThe Lidia Perin FoundationNational Gallery of Australia Council

Exhibitions FundThyne Reid FoundationYulgilbar Foundation

Australian Government

Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport through:The National Collecting Institutions

Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians

Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through Art Indemnity Australia

Australia CouncilDepartment of Health and Ageing

through the Dementia Community Grants Program

Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency

State and territory governments

Queensland Government through Arts Queensland

New South Wales Government through Arts NSW

Northern Territory Government through Arts NT

Western Australian Government through the Department of Culture and the Arts

Corporate partnersABC RadioACT Government, through Australian

Capital TourismActewAGLAesopThe AgeHillrossAvant CardBarlensThe Brassey of CanberraThe Canberra TimesCanberra AirportClayton UtzCoopers BreweryCre8ive*Diamant HotelEckersley’s Art & CraftFlash PhotobitionForrest Hotel and ApartmentsGoogleHindmarshHyatt Hotel CanberraJCDecauxLazardMacquarie Group FoundationManteenaMantra on NorthbourneMoët Hennessy AustraliaMolonglo GroupNational Australia BankNewActon/NishiNine Network AustraliaNovotel CanberraThe Ophthalmic Research Institute

of AustraliaQantasRio TintoSan RemoThe Sydney Morning HeraldTen and a HalfTriple JVoyager EstateWesfarmersWIN Television

donationsIncludes donations received from 21 January to 20 April 2012Eileen Cafferty and Patrick Cafferty

Prue CrouchSue HewittJason ProwdRotary Club of BelconnenGreg Smalit and Mariam Faine

100 Works for 100 Years

Robyn Burke and Graham Burke through Village Roadshow

Timothy Fairfax AMAndrew Gwinnett and Hiroko

GwinnettThe Hon Diana Laidlaw AMGeoffrey White OAM and Sally White

Renaissance Exhibition Patron

The Hon Ashley Dawson-Damer

Foundation Board Publishing Fund

Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer through The Aranday Foundation

Founding Donors 2010

Mark Burrows AOJulian BurtKowalski family

Foundation Fundraising Gala Dinner and Weekend 2012

Philip Bacon AMKenneth Baxter and Annabel BaxterSir Ronald BrierleyAnn BurgeNicholas Burton-Taylor AMRobert CadonaJohn Calvert-Jones AM and Janet

Calvert-Jones AOTerrence Campbell AO and

Christine CampbellMaurice CashmereEmily Crotti and Jean-Paul BuhagiarMaurice Crotti and Tessa CrottiCharles Curran AC and Eva CurranJames Darling AM and

Lesley ForwoodThe Hon Ashley Dawson-DamerHE Gian Ludovico de Martino di

Montegiordano and Camilla de Martino di Montegiordano

Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards and Michael Crane

Terence Fern and Lynette FernDr Robert Fisher and Amanda FisherRosemary Foot AOHarold Ganter and Nancy GanterNeilma GantnerChristine GeeJohn Grant AM and Kiera GrantRichard Griffin AM and Jay GriffinHiroko GwinnettPeter HackCatherine Harris AO, PSM, and

David HarrisJennifer HershonSam Hill-SmithMeredith HinchliffeJohn Hindmarsh and

Rosanna HindmarshMichael HobbsNeil Hobbs and Karina HarrisJennifer HowseSir Richard Kingsland AO, CBE, DFC,

and Lady Kathleen KingslandGail KinsellaLou Klepac OAM and Brenda KlepacWayne KratzmannIan LeeMichael le GrandDr Andrew Lu OAMGunther Mau and Cream Gilda MauRon Murray AM and

Pamela Cannon-MurrayRupert Myer AM and Annabel MyerSuzanne O’ConnellRoslyn Packer AODr David PfannerJulien PlayoustLady Primrose Potter ACKenneth ReedGeorge Reid and Georgina ReidJohn Sample and Rosalinda SamplePenelope Seidler AMEzekiel Solomon AMDr Caroline Turner AM and

Dr Glen BarclayLou Westende OAM and

Mandy Thomas-WestendeBrian White and Rosemary WhiteLyn Williams AMRay Wilson OAMMike Woods and Kaely WoodsMark Young

Thank you …Exhibitions, programs and acquisitions at the National Gallery of Australia are realised through the generous support of our partners and donors. The National Gallery of Australia would like to thank the following organisations and people:

33 ARTONVIEW

Gifts

Brook AndrewMargaret BenyonPatrick Corrigan AMVirginia CuppaidgeLaurie CurleyBen DrewMerilyn Fairskye in memory of

Sylvia WhiteConnie HoedtIan Hore-LacyEske HosGillian KillenMalcolm LambPat and Joan Middenway in memory

of Captain Arthur MiddenwayPeta B Phillips in memory of

Jennifer Lorraine See BowenRhys RichardsEmeritus Professor Barbara van ErnstHeide Museum of Modern Art

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2011

Spectrum Consultancy

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2012

Cynthia AndersonThe Hon Dr Michael ArmitageMargaret AstonChristopher Baker and Kerri HallLesley D BarkerPeter BellingNoel BirchallRobert BlacklowIvor BowdenMary BrennanMiles BurgessDebbie CameronDiana ColmanKerry-Anne CousinsMerrilyn CrawfordLara Crew and Adam MillarCecily DignanSue DyerTony EastawayDr Murray Elliott AO and Gillian ElliottRoy GarwoodDr Gregory Gilbert and

Kathleen Gilbert

Pauline Griffin AMWilliam HamiltonAnn HealeyKatrina HigginsColin Hill and Linda HillRon Huisken and Mieling HuiskenClaudia HylesJudy JohnsonDavid KennemoreTed Kruger and Gerry KrugerRobyn LanceBruce Marshall AM and

Robin CoombesPatricia McCulloughPatricia McPhersonJan MorganShanthini NaidooTerry O’Brien OAMMike Ogden PSMJohn Parker and Joss RightonAnne PrinsWendy RainbirdArdyne ReidJames Ross and Heather RossJennifer RowlandHanns Schüttler and Pamela SchüttlerRick Smyth and Jane SmythPhyllis SommervilleSimone SpanoDavid Stanley and Anne StanleyStefanoff familySydney StewartElinor SwanAnnemarie Ward and David SwantonStephen WildDavid Williams and Margaret WilliamsJulia Wilsonand 17 donors who wish to remain

anonymous

Members Acquisition Fund 2011

Robin Amm AMPatricia CorbettMoreen DeeAllison Megan DouglasRosemary DupontAileen HallBeverley HammondKirsty Hurford-Clark in memory of

Rudi Hurford-Clark

Ian James and Megan JamesGail Kellett and Randal DavidsonLucinda LangHelen T McCormackLisa MolvigAlan Nossal and Jennifer NossalThe Old BrushCJ PaineLynette Re and Tony ReNorma UhlmannProf RG Ward and Dr M WardMo Wedd-BuchholzDr Romany White and

Dr Russell Whiteand 8 donors who wish to remain

anonymous

Treasure a Textile

Maxine Rochester

For more information about developing creative partnerships with the

National Gallery of Australia, contact:

Nicole Short on +61 2 6240 6781 or [email protected]

For more information about making a donation, contact:

Maryanne Voyazis on +61 2 6240 6691 or [email protected]

Members news

RenaissanceMembers and their guests enjoyed a number of events associated with the recent exhibition Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.

The Curator’s dinner with Christine Dixon was a particular highlight, with attending members gaining exclusive access to the exhibition and delighting in a three-course meal designed and created by the Gallery’s then executive chef James Kidman.

unDisclosed… these artists both inform and redefine contemporary Indigenous art as we presently know it. Carly Lane (Kalkadoon people), Guest curator

The second National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed is an opportunity to experience the dynamic visual expression of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Works of art by 20 leading Indigenous artists speak of shared ideas and experiences.

Sydney LongThe Gallery’s survey exhibition Sydney Long: the Spirit of the land opens on 17 August. Sydney Long died in 1955 but his evocative, poetic imagery of the Australian landscape continues to ignite imaginations. He was Australia’s foremost Art Nouveau painter and remains one of the nation’s most popular and charming artists.

Book online for members-only eventsFrom your own secure login page, you can now book your place in members-only events. Just visit us online at nga.gov.au/Members. You can also update your contact details or renew your membership.

Keep up to date with events and activities for members by ensuring we have your current email address.

As a member, you can play your part in the life of the National Gallery and enjoy the many benefits this brings to you and the community. To become a member, go to nga.gov.au/Members or free call 1800 020 068.

34 ARTONVIEW

Members and their guests enjoy the three-course meal designed by chef James Kidman at the Renaissance dinner and viewing for members, 3 February 2012.

Peter Hack and Henry Dalrymple at the Renaissance dinner and viewing for members, 3 February 2012.

NGA SHOP SHOP FOR THE SEASON Indigenous arts | books and catalogues | jewellerycalendars and diaries | prints and posters | fine art ca ds

Open 7 days 10.00 am – 5.00 pm Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2601 | free call 1800 808 337 (02) 6240 6420 | [email protected]

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art monthlyAUSTRALIA

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ART MONTHLYsultry summer issue 246A U S T R A L I A

December 2011 to Februar y 2012

ART MONTHLYsultry summer issue 246

A U S T R A L I A

245 NOVEMBER 2011

ART MONTHLY

celebrating 25 years in 2012

support AMA’s fundraising auction

Saturday 30 June at Canberra Contemporary Art Space,

Gorman House, 6–8pm. Artists include: Ben Quilty, Marie Hagerty, Scott Redford, Petrina Hicks, Fiona Foley, Michael Zavros, Vivienne Binns, eX de Medici, Michael Cook, Trent Parke, Adam Cullen, E.L.K., Newell Harry, Peter Maloney, Ken Done,

Gary Carlsley, G. W. Bot, Danie Mellor, Polixeni Papapetrou...

see www.artmonthly.org.au

NGA SHOP SHOP FOR THE SEASON Indigenous arts | books and catalogues | jewellerycalendars and diaries | prints and posters | fine art ca ds

Open 7 days 10.00 am – 5.00 pm Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2601 | free call 1800 808 337 (02) 6240 6420 | [email protected]

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unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial explores the exceptional and innovative recent work of 20 exemplary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from around Australia.

Stars of the Tokyo stage: Natori Shunsen’s kabuki actor prints celebrates the glamour of kabuki theatre amid the dynamic atmosphere of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s.

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix traces Lichtenstein’s print projects from the 1950s to 1990s. Lichtenstein was a master of appropriation and his name is synonymous with Pop Art.

NEW BOOKS

nga.gov.au/Publications | [email protected] | 1800 808 337

Australia’s premier art publisher

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Kamisaka Sekka Flowers of the twelve months 1920–25 (detail) Hosomi Museum, Kyoto

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Mandy Martin at work on ‘An ill wind’ in her Sydney studio. Photograph Greg Weight.

IT’S ABOUT AUSTRALIA’S ARTISTSresale royalty

The Australian Government has appointed Copyright Agency to manage the resale royalty scheme.

All too often, Australia’s artists don’t see the full value of their work, especially when it is resold. That’s where the resale royalty scheme comes in. It’s all about making sure that the people who created the work get their fair share of the benefi t.

Since the scheme was launched in 2010 we’ve been pleased by the number of eligible resales reported. Many art dealers, galleries and auction houses have provided sales information, which means we’ve been able to pay royalties to artists.

We want to do more to help our artists.

And we want to do more to help all involved in theresale royalty scheme.

If you’re a dealer, gallery or auction house not sure about legal obligations under the scheme, or you need help with reporting resales, we can help.Contact our Resale Royalty Manager, Judy Grady on 1800 066 844 (toll free), or [email protected] Call 13 15 17 or visit mantra.com.au

I will discover a fresh view on art

A combination of style and convenience make Mantra on Northbourne the ideal accommodation choice for visitors to The National Gallery. Guests will enjoy the central location and can make use of the onsite restaurant and bar.

Mandy Martin at work on ‘An ill wind’ in her Sydney studio. Photograph Greg Weight.

IT’S ABOUT AUSTRALIA’S ARTISTSresale royalty

The Australian Government has appointed Copyright Agency to manage the resale royalty scheme.

All too often, Australia’s artists don’t see the full value of their work, especially when it is resold. That’s where the resale royalty scheme comes in. It’s all about making sure that the people who created the work get their fair share of the benefi t.

Since the scheme was launched in 2010 we’ve been pleased by the number of eligible resales reported. Many art dealers, galleries and auction houses have provided sales information, which means we’ve been able to pay royalties to artists.

We want to do more to help our artists.

And we want to do more to help all involved in theresale royalty scheme.

If you’re a dealer, gallery or auction house not sure about legal obligations under the scheme, or you need help with reporting resales, we can help.Contact our Resale Royalty Manager, Judy Grady on 1800 066 844 (toll free), or [email protected]

Ensuring your experience is individual and world class.

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I will discover a fresh view on art

A combination of style and convenience make Mantra on Northbourne the ideal accommodation choice for visitors to The National Gallery. Guests will enjoy the central location and can make use of the onsite restaurant and bar.

JOHN BRACK(1920 – 1999)

WOMAN AND DUMMY, 1954 oil on canvas

51.0 x 66.0 cm

Sold AuguSt 2011 • $630,000 (incl buyers premium)

call for entries

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for obligation-free appraisals, please contact

Sydney Melbourne Damian Hackett Chris Deutscher Merryn Schriever Lara Nicholls 02 9287 0600 03 9865 6333

important australian and international fine art auction melbourne • september 2012

Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney)Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123Email: [email protected]: www.academytravel.com.au

Academy TravelAcademy Travel is a leading Australian provider of cultural journeys to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. Each year we offer around 35 tours exploring the history, art, archaeology and music of some of the world’s most alluring destinations.Itineraries are planned to provide a range of experiences in an unhurried way, accommodation is carefully selected and our expert tour leaders give background talks and lead site visits, transforming your travels into a journey of discovery and understanding.

Full year catalogue now available! Contact us for your copy and to receive regular tour updates.

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