transformations • helen frankenthaler...featured is the cycle of fifty-one prints, der krieg...

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C A N B E R R A ’ S M O S T A N T I C I P A T E D O P E N F O R I N S P E C T I O N

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26 November 2005 – 5 February 2006

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

2 Director’s foreword

4 Director’s vision

8 Transformations: the language of craft

22 Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler

28 Discovering Constable: rediscovering nature

31 New acquisitions

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

46 Travelling exhibitions: Darwin Art-port

50 Imagining Papua New Guinea

52 The National Gallery of Australia Photography Fund

54 Behind the scenes: installing St Petersburg 1900

56 Membership news

58 The art of caring

62 Faces in view

contents

PublisherÂNational Gallery of AustraliaÂnga.gov.au

Editor ÂEve Sullivan

Designer ÂSarah Robinson

Photography ÂEleni KypridisÂBarry Le LievreÂBrenton McGeachie ÂSteve NebauerÂJohn Tassie

Designed and produced Âin Australia by the ÂNational Gallery of AustraliaÂPrinted in Australia by ÂPirion Printers, Canberra

artonview issn 1323-4552

Published quarterly: ÂIssue no. 44, Summer 2005Â© National Gallery of Australia

Print Post Approved Âpp255003/00078

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

Submissions and correspondence Âshould be addressed to: ÂThe editor, artonview ÂNational Gallery of Australia ÂGPO Box 1150 ÂCanberra ACT 2601 Â[email protected]

Advertising Â(02) 6240 6587 Âfacsimile (02) 6240 6427Â[email protected]

RRP: $8.60 includes GSTÂFree to members of the ÂNational Gallery of Australia

For further information on National Gallery of Australia Membership contact: ÂCoordinator, Membership ÂGPO Box 1150 ÂCanberra ACT 2601 Â(02) 6240 6504Â[email protected]

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

artonview

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

2 national gallery of australia

I commenced my term as Director of the National

Gallery of Australia determined to hold off making any

definitive statements about my vision for the National

Gallery of Australia until I had a sufficient overview of the

collections and issues to do with the building, staffing and

the management structure across the Gallery’s broad field

of operations. Eight months on, after much consultation

with Gallery staff and Council, I have come up with a

brief centred upon a mandate for the future development

of the national collection and its presentation to the

public in an enhanced Gallery building that I hope is clear

and comprehensive. As discussed in the first part of the

Vision for the National Gallery of Australia published

here, art museums must come to terms with so many

competing objectives to do with building the collection,

and serving a broad range of audience needs both now

and in the future to perform the representative role of a

‘national gallery’. There are no big surprises here, but it

is all the same aspirational and conservative in the best

sense, highlighting the high and also I believe realistic

expectations of what can be achieved.

Even apart from the broader fundraising objectives

and ongoing development of plans for the building, in

consultation with stakeholders, including the Minister,

the Department, Gallery Council and Foundation, and the

architects, there is already a clear approach to privileging

core areas of the collection that is well underway and

evident to visitors from the works on display now. You

need only walk into the Asian Art galleries to see old and

new acquisitions recently unveiled to see for yourself our

strengths in this area, along with the new acquisitions and

donations on view in the Australian Art galleries, including

those works recently donated by Alcoa Australia, under

the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts program.

director’s foreword

This season of exhibitions features in particular the

most substantial survey yet of works from our Decorative

Arts and Design Collection in Transformations: the

language of craft, with many international and

Australian practitioners working in a diverse range of

media represented in this exhibition who were here for

the opening and to attend the conference and forums.

I also attended the launch in Sydney of the Decorative

Arts and Design Collection Development Fund generously

hosted by Ashley Dawson-Damer. My special thanks go

to Raphy Star, David Thomas and Meredith Hinchliffe for

their support of the purchase of works for the collection.

Meredith also volunteered many days to assist Senior

Curator, Robert Bell, with research for this extensive

project. The sponsorship of Qantas Freight, through the

particular support of Ben Andrew, and Kingsley Mundey

of International Art Services, assisted the Gallery to

cover the transport costs of bringing so many fragile and

delicate objects to Australia. Thank you also to Channel

Seven for their support with advertising.

Another highlight of this season’s exhibitions

is Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen

Frankenthaler, featuring the marvellous collection

of woodcuts – and some of the original woodblocks

– produced in an extraordinary collaboration with

master printer Ken Tyler, joining other works from the

Gallery’s renowned Kenneth Tyler Collection, supported

so generously by Tyler himself. Tyler’s visit at the end of

November was a highlight for those able to attend his

master class and demonstration class in Canberra, and

other associated events.

Another treasure that must wait till next issue to be

featured is the cycle of fifty-one prints, Der Krieg (War),

by Otto Dix which will open in the Project Gallery later this

month to further draw on the riches in our collection of

International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books.

Ron Radford in front of a Kota School temple hanging

from Rajasthan, one of the recent acquisitions currently

on display in the Asian Art galleries.

artonview summer 2005 3

Imagining Papua New Guinea, the small exhibition

of works on paper currently showing in the Children’s

Gallery, displays many works from a collection recently

acquired by the Gallery from Ulli and Georgina Beier,

further confirming our focus on art of this region and, in

particular, neighbouring Oceania.

Opening in late February is the exhibition Crescent

moon: Islamic art & civilization in Southeast Asia,

sponsored by Santos Limited, currently showing at the Art

Gallery of South Australia, the outcome of a successful

joint curatorial collaboration, which features many

important works from the national collection. So, too,

Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky, opening

in March, has been organised by the National Gallery of

Australia and will tour to the Museum of New Zealand,

Te Papa Tongarewa. In its presentation here, the exhibition

will draw significant links with the development of

Australian landscape painting in an extended display.

Canberra has never been so abundant and green,

following the generous rains, as a reminder of a previous

era when our aspirations were indeed more European.

I would like to take this opportunity to extend to all our

members, donors and sponsors our very best wishes for

the festive season.

Ron Radford, Director

credit lines

Donations William Anderson Roslynne Bracher Meredith Hinchliffe Michael Joel AM Simon R McGill Kathleen Montgomery Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC DBE Gene Sherman and Brian Sherman AM

Gifts Bill Beresford Imron Cotan K David G Edwards Estate of Dr George Martin J Berger Estate of Mrs Ruth Komon Maureen and Bernard Laing Robyn Maxwell Daphne Morgan Mike Parr Jon Plapp and Richard McMillan Raphy Star

Grants Gordon Darling Foundation Thomas Foundation Principal Sponsors Santos Ltd

Supporting Sponsors Qantas Freight Seven Network

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


The core functions of an art museum are ‘to preserve, research and interpret works of art, and their accompanying information, for the public benefit’. A great art museum, therefore, is one that collects and conserves works of great aesthetic excellence, researches them with rigorous scholarship, and then uses the results of its research to interpret works of art for the museum’s various audiences. ÂA great art museum should be a powerhouse from which visitors and other users can always receive a charge of psychic energy. A ‘national gallery’, especially one in the national capital of a federation like Australia, Canada or the United States, has extremely various audiences – not only the local residents but also the nation’s entire citizenship. They are often nonattenders of museums in, say, home cities like Melbourne or Brisbane, Toronto or Vancouver, Boston or Chicago but are tempted to attend while on a visit to their national capitals in Canberra, Ottawa and Washington. Further, there are politically sensitive audiences, and the local embassies, which note the presence or absence of honour given to the art of their own part of the world. Our vision should comprise, first and foremost, the presentation of works of the highest artistic excellence. Our inexperienced nationwide visitors are less willing than frequent gallery-goers to enjoy academic points of art-historical or cultural significance; the broad audiences respond less to cultural analysis than to aesthetic force. ÂWe should also accommodate some of the international politico-cultural expectations peculiar to Canberra audiences. There are, as well, two flagship roles. One is to be the leading research and interpretation centre for Australian Âart – and in the not-too-distant future to create a formal

Vision for the National Gallery of Australia: part one

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

Centre for Australian Art that will be both a research institute and a public-education centre. The other is to set professional standards for, and provide professional-development assistance to, Australia’s smaller art museums. A nation should first treasure its own culture, and then that of its close neighbours, as well as participate in the world’s internationalised contemporary culture. In its national art museums, a mature nation should strongly reflect a confident appreciation of its own art and a sympathetic interest in that of its neighbours. Our Australian culture, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, has always been a highly visual one. The National Gallery of Australia’s collections, exhibitions, publications and building must therefore proudly echo our national and international cultural and strategic aspirations. For a nation formed over only two centuries, but with an ancient Indigenous past, Australia’s new National Gallery should not try to emulate the national museums of the European Old World, formed from princely and aristocratic collections, or those formed by the robber barons in the United States. Nor should we repeat the British colonial collections formed from the mid-nineteenth century onwards in Australia’s six colonial capitals. I believe we should be even more unlike all other national galleries than we are at present. Our geography, our recent past and Indigenous past give the National Gallery of Australia its future direction.

The collections The collections are the core of the National Gallery of Australia – they must remain the kernel of the building and the central focus of the institution. No blockbuster exhibition can ever be as large, as valuable, as wide-


ranging and as consistently high in quality as the collection displays. The three-billion-dollar collections of the National Gallery of Australia are owned by all Australians for the enjoyment of all Australians and international visitors. Those audiences expect to find the collections well maintained and imaginatively used. The collections have many strengths. They include the sole strong twentieth-century European and American collection to be found not only in Australia but also in the Asia-Pacific region – a collection that covers all media. Besides painting and sculpture it embraces modern European and American decorative arts and design. The holdings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American prints and photographs are among the very largest and most important in the world. The Asian collections also have considerable strength and they represent most Asian cultures, with an emphasis on India and South-East Asia. The Indonesian textile collection and the Indian trade-cloth collection are the largest and finest in the world.

There is a small but high-quality collection of the art Âof our closest Pacific neighbours – the regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia which include Maori art from New Zealand and the art of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii and other Pacific islands. Apart from major paintings by the great Colin McCahon, and various works on paper, New Zealand’s pakeha (settler) art is not yet well represented. Australia’s own visual culture looks extremely impressive in a strong and representative collection from all periods and all regions and cultures. We have by far the largest Indigenous Australian art collection of any art museum. ÂThe collection of Australian art from the l940s onwards is unrivalled. Our collections are strong in all media. The Australian print collection is the Gallery’s only near-encyclopaedic collection. The twentieth-century Australian drawing collection is unrivalled, and the Australian decorative-arts collection, which includes folk arts, is also very strong.

Ron Radford in front of Guan Wei’s Dow Island 2002 in the Australian Art galleries following the launch to the press of his Vision for the National Gallery of AustraliaPhotographer: Chris Lane/Fairfaxphotos


No state gallery needs to aspire in this way to such

a large and comprehensive collection of Australian art

as the National Gallery of Australia. Our attention to all

regions means that visitors from, say, Queensland, Western

Australia, the Northern Territory or Tasmania, are already

pleasantly surprised by the excellence of their own art in the

context of the whole of Australian art. The collection can

effectively give the Australian people a sense of ownership

of, and contribution to, a great tradition of art-making.

The regional comprehensiveness is a base on which future

audience-building can occur, both in bringing audiences

to the national capital, and then bringing them on from

the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House to the

National Gallery of Australia.

In conclusion, Australian art, Asia-Pacific art, and

modern art worldwide are the strengths on which we

should build.

Collection focusA central focus of the national collection should be the

Australian collection. The Asia-Pacific region should also

be a major focus. It can mirror the strategic importance of

our geographic neighbours and our special allies. Canberra,

the capital of Australia, is a twentieth-century city created

by Australians for Australians. Canberra does not have the

British colonial history of the state capital cities. The six state

art galleries were all founded during the British colonial

period, and began with British collections that remain

for them a strength. This is also the case for some of the

large Australian regional galleries formed in the nineteenth

century such as those at Ballarat, Bendigo, Warrnambool,

Geelong and Launceston.

The National Gallery of Australia’s collections were

formed largely in the last quarter of the twentieth century;

the building opened in Canberra in 1982, in the second-

last decade of that century. Its collections rightly reflect

recent Australian history and, situated in the national

political capital, should also be highly relevant to Australia’s

contemporary strategic engagements.

Australia and our regionIt is crucial therefore that the National Gallery of Australia

be strongly focused on Australian art, including Australian

Indigenous art, from all states and territories. The Gallery

represents all periods of Australian art, from the late-

eighteenth to the twenty-first century, supremely well.

The collections should also embrace the art of our

nearest neighbours – New Zealand, Papua New Guinea,

the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, other South-East Asian

countries and India.

China, Japan, Korea, the Himalayan countries, the

Middle East and Central Asia should be represented but

they are further to the periphery. It is unnecessary, and

too late, to duplicate Melbourne and Sydney’s more

comprehensive Chinese collections, and Adelaide, Sydney

and Melbourne’s significant Japanese collections. In this

way, while emphasising our immediate region, we will

not be competing in the main collecting areas of the state

galleries. Indeed our collections should, where possible,

complement theirs.

To complement, not compete with, the state collections

is particularly important as the buying power of the

combined Australian art museums is now more limited than

formerly in comparison with the wealthier museums of

Europe and America. It is desirable that Australia’s limited

combined acquisition resources be used carefully and

strategically. The National Gallery of Australia should always

be seen to be doing the right thing nationally in this way.

No state gallery concentrates on art, past and present,

of the Pacific region. Those in Melbourne and Sydney are

more committed to North Asian art than South-East Asian

art. Brisbane concentrates on contemporary Asia-Pacific art.

Only Adelaide has a sizeable Middle Eastern Islamic

collection. The National Gallery of Australia already holds a

few Middle Eastern and Mughal Islamic objects and is well

positioned to further develop a small, high-quality collection

of work from this artistically rich culture, hitherto neglected

by Australia’s collecting institutions. Such a collection is also

relevant to our holdings of South-East Asian Islamic art.

European and American twentieth century artAs noted, the National Gallery of Australia holds the only

major collection of European and North American twentieth-

century art in our part of the world. For a national gallery

starting late in the twentieth century, it made sense to focus

on this area. In Canberra, mid-to-late-nineteenth-century

European art has been collected as a precursor to the

twentieth century, an area not especially well represented

by the state galleries. (Before the then conservative state

galleries realised the importance of many of the major

twentieth-century artists, it was already too late to afford

a full range of major works in this area.) Indeed, early-

twentieth-century Modernism and late-nineteenth-century

European art have been the most expensive kinds of art for

over sixty years, and still remain so.

The early-twentieth-century International collection,

otherwise representative, only lacks paintings by Kandinsky

(the first abstract painter), Mondrian, Braque, Klee and

Beckmann. It also lacks a major Picasso. Our fine American

collection of the second half of the twentieth century only

lacks works by the major artists Barnett Newman and Cy

Twombly. Considering how large and important the existing

collection is, these gaps are few but significant, and it will

require enormous financial resources to fill them. Australia

badly needs major paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and

Barnett Newman. The National Gallery of Australia is the

only art museum in Australia that could conceivably afford

works by such significant artists in the future, and its

collection is the only one that provides a very strong context

for their display.


It is interesting to note that when the National Gallery of

Australia began, from the early 1970s, to buy American art

with enthusiasm, America led the world in cutting-edge art,

as had been the case since the mid 1940s.

It is essential that the Gallery continues buying good

contemporary art worldwide, and not only from the Asia-

Pacific region. America can also be seen as part of the

Pacific Rim and, as it happens, America’s emergence in the

l940s as an art power coincides with Australia’s powerful

and continuing defence and economic alliance with the

United States. The Gallery’s well-developed American

collection, and its continuing worldwide attention to

contemporary art, can be regarded as politically strategic.

In filling major gaps in the International, Asian, Pacific,

and Australian collections, it is important that the Gallery

buys works of the highest quality, which can always be on

display. To this end we should acquire fewer objects of better

quality. Buying objects for study storage should not be an

option. If a costly work cannot be considered for permanent

display, then its acquisition should be questioned.

New Acquisition Policy and Ten Year Acquisition Strategy The Gallery is in the process of adapting the previous

Acquisitions Policy (1994). The new policy will be an

important public document. Concurrently, the Gallery

should also develop a confidential Ten Year Acquisition

Strategy. The latter, an innovative, competitive and strategic

document (or series of documents for each curatorial area),

will outline in detail the serious gaps in the collections,

and even highlight known works, in private collections,

which the Gallery needs. The weaknesses of the collections

should be fully documented, particularly the limitations

of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Australian

collection, the lack of depth in the Indian and South-East

Asian sculpture and painting collection, the currently limited

contemporary Asia-Pacific collection and the twentieth- and

twenty-first century International design collection. Once

approved, this Ten Year Acquisition Strategy should be

strictly adhered to.

Dormant collectionsThe Gallery’s collections, put together recently, over just

three decades, cannot be expected to geographically cover

most areas of world art in historical depth, as do many long-

established national museums overseas. In order to focus

the acquisition resources (and limited display space), we

need to concentrate on what is central to Australia’s national

collection, and do this exceptionally well. The collection areas

we concentrate on should look highly credible not only to

the rest of Australia but also to the rest of the world.

Therefore, we should not direct further acquisition

resources to the small but excellent African, Mesoamerican,

Incan and North American Indigenous collections, or to the

tiny and imbalanced European Old Master collection. The

four dormant collections contain many fine works and

will be held in trust for Australia; the African and North

American Indigenous holdings are the only such high-quality

public collections in Australia. These collections can be

added to by the occasional gift. They could be displayed in

small groups – there are hallway possibilities for showcase

display – and they may be displayed occasionally in various

contexts in the temporary exhibitions galleries; for example,

Indigenous objects that came from the collection of the

surrealist artist Max Ernst deserve to receive a focused study

within the context of Surrealism. In the case of the art of

Africa and the Americas, we could consider the possibility

that some works be lent from time to time to other

Australian institutions perhaps for three-year periods.

In the more attention-getting area of European Old

Masters, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney have relatively

substantial collections. Melbourne and Adelaide in particular

have been collecting Old Master pictures since the end of

the nineteenth century. The National Gallery of Australia

has fewer than twenty European Old Master paintings and

sculptures, an Australia public collection fifth in size after

Brisbane’s. Although there are some fine individual works

in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection of European

Old Masters, it is not cohesive and looks out of place in

a contemporary building with such strong contemporary

collections. Twenty works can never represent 500 years of

European painting and sculpture. Even though Old Master

paintings are usually much less costly than nineteenth- and

twentieth-century Modern Masters, it would now require

impossibly huge resources to equal Melbourne, Adelaide

or even Sydney’s longstanding Old Master collections. We

could consider lending our European Old Masters to the

three Australian state galleries that have long made a

commitment to collecting in this area. Even Melbourne,

Adelaide and Sydney’s collections are small compared

with European and American collections of the same

material – yet supplemented with our works they have a

better chance to show a fuller history of European art for

Australian audiences. The National Gallery of Australia

would be regarded as generous and truly national by

lending works for long-term display to the state galleries,

always to be labelled as on loan from the National Gallery

of Australia. Long-term loans of Old Master paintings and

sculptures could be rotated between Melbourne, Adelaide

and Sydney. Any works they don’t want to borrow could be

offered to other state galleries. We could borrow them back

occasionally for exhibitions in context.

Part two of the 2005 Director’s Vision for the National Gallery of Australia will be published in the autumn issue of artonview and is available online at nga.gov.au/Vision

Quotations are from the 1966 Lindsay Report from a ‘National Art Gallery Committee of Inquiry’, our founding document commissioned by Prime Minister Menzies. The Lindsay Report placed its greatest emphasis on modern art worldwide, on the whole of Australian art, and on ‘works of art representing the high cultural achievement of Australia’s neighbours in southern and eastern Asia and the Pacific Islands’. Similarly the 1994 Acquisitions Policy: National Gallery of Australia, the most carefully-considered such document developed and published by the National Gallery Council, also emphasised Australasian (i.e. Pacific) art. The present vision statement is therefore partly a reaffirmation of past Council policies that have not yet been fully implemented.

a


For the past 130 years, the philosophies, virtues and

processes of craft have occupied art, craft and design

theorists, writers and practitioners alike. The promotion

and celebration of craft fostered design and the decorative

arts as an alternative to what was seen by many critics

and design reformers in the late-nineteenth century as

debased industrial manufacture. Dialogue was promoted

through the Arts and Crafts movement in the United

Kingdom and the United States, and its subtext in the

various expressions of national romanticism in northern

and eastern Europe: in Kunsthandwerk in Germany, in

skønvirke in Denmark, in the nuances between bijutsu-

kogei and mingei in Japan, and in the widely disseminated

ideas behind vackrare vardagsvara (more beautiful things

for everyday use) in Sweden. Such discussions helped

to focus attention on craft as a way of thinking across

the spectrum of art and design, moving the word itself

from an adjective to a noun, and the practice from its

traditional anonymity to its more interrogative, interpretive

potential as a celebration of individual expression.

Transformations: the language of craft

Seeking to locate craft practice in the broader

discourse of contemporary arts, craft writers and

practitioners have engaged with its theories and

language to open new avenues of critical inquiry and

debate. Investigating the relationship between theory

and practice has given many artists working in craft

media new ways to understand their work and to

articulate it to a wider audience. Learning to experience

and understand the tacit language of the crafted object

as it presents itself to our senses, and interacts with our

preconceptions and experiences of the world of things,

can be intensely pleasurable and persuasive.

This strategy of persuasion defined the concept of

Transformations. The exhibition is a celebration of the

recent work of eighty-five Australian and international

artists working in the area of studio craft who are forging

new expressions within the fields of glass, ceramics,

textiles, wood, metalwork, and (through a variety of

materials) in furniture, jewellery and sculpture. The work

of international artists most prominent and influential in

11 November 2005 – 29 January 2006

exhibition galleries

Marilyn da Silva Rock, paper, scissors teapot

2003 sterling silver and enamel paint

Lent by Marilyn da Silva Photographer: M Lee

Fatherree

YO AKIYAMA KEIKO AMENOMORI-SCHMEISSER GIAMPAOLO BABETTO GORDON BALDWIN GILES BETTISON JULIE

BLYFIELD MICHAELBRENNAND-WOOD ALISON BRITTON HARLAN BUTT TANIJA & GRAHAM CARR CLAUDI CASANOVAS

JOHN CEDERQUIST SCOTT CHASELING DALE CHIHULY SHARON CHURCH DEB COCKS PATRICK COLLINS LIA COOK

MARILYN DA SILVA EDMUND DE WAAL GEORG DOBLER PIPPIN DRYSDALE EDWARD EBERLE BERN EMMERICHS MERRAN

ESSON ARLINE FISCH DONALD FORTESCUE ROBERT FOSTER DAVID FREDA WARWICK FREEMAN TETSUO FUJIMOTO

SUEHARU FUKAMI KEVIN GORDON PATRICK HALL BETH HATTON YASUO HAYASHI BRIAN HIRST AGNETA HOBIN SERGEI

ISUPOV RITZI JACOBI HERMANN JÜNGER JUN KANEKO TSUKASA KOFUSHIWAKI DANIEL KRUGER SARA LINDSAY NEL

LINSSEN JESSICA LOUGHLIN HELMUT LUECKENHAUSEN BODIL MANZ IVAN MAREŠ ROBERT MARSDEN KARL MILLARD

KLAUS MOJE MASCHA MOJE RON NAGLE KIMPEI NAKAMURA JIRI NEKOVÁR ALBERT PALEY GWYN HANSSEN PIGOTT

PETER PRASIL WENDY RAMSHAW KIRSTIE REA DAVID REGAN KRISTINA RISKA CHRISTOPHER ROBERTSON GERD

ROTHMANN MICHAEL ROWE BILL SAMUELS ADRIAN SAXE HELEN SHIRK ROBERT SMIT MARTIN SMITH BETTINA

SPECKNER IVANA ŠRÁMKOVÁ KEN THAIDAY SNR CATHERINE TRUMAN GRANT VAUGHAN TONE VIGELAND IRENE

VONCK TONI WARBURTON DAVID WATKINS ALICE WHISH SUSAN WRAIGHT GULUMBU YUNUPINGU TOOTS ZYNSKY


these fields is seldom seen in Australia; this exhibition

offers visitors a chance to encounter their unique and

compelling objects that challenge our perceptions of

design and function, and the meaning of materials.

Such works reveal the creativity, skill and imagination

of the contemporary craft practitioner in the negotiation

and articulation of materials, structure, and production

technologies; the passionate expression of the languages

of abstraction, narrative, design and ornamentation;

and the skills that transform materials from the everyday

to the extraordinary. The work of these international

artists is shown with that of Australian artists engaged

in similar themes and concerns.

The modern concept of individual studio craft

practice took root in Australia at the beginning of the

twentieth century. Initially it reflected and built upon

the ideals and philosophies of the Arts and Crafts

movement before acquiring meaning as a strand of

modernism. The studio craft resurgence from the early

1960s reflected broader conceptual and technical

explorations in all media by craft artists in North

America, Europe and Japan. International work initially

started to gain currency in Australia through publications

and exhibitions, then as a result of visits and workshops,

and later from the experiences of Australians who had

begun working in studios and with artists overseas.

While there is still a lingering perception that studio

craft is something of a new movement in the context of

contemporary art in Australia, its strong development

over the past forty years has resulted in a vibrant and

diverse range of practices. These have positioned

Australian artists to become active and influential

participants in international dialogues about directions

and developments in craft and design.

Beginning in the early 1970s craft organisations

and government funding agencies, such as the Australia

Council Crafts Board and later the Visual Arts/Craft

Board, offered networking and financial assistance for

visits to Australia by overseas artists, often in the form

of workshops, residencies and lecture tours coinciding

with the inclusion of their work in survey exhibitions.

A number of the artists in Transformations undertook

such engagements and have had a significant influence

on craft practice in Australia as a result of their visits.

This exhibition of recent work creates a bridge to

their earlier work that has remained in Australia in

the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, and

state and regional art museums. Such artists include

Giampaolo Babetto, Michael Brennand-Wood, Alison

Britton, Dale Chihuly, Edmund de Waal, Arline Fisch,

Warwick Freeman, Yasuo Hayashi, Ritzi Jacobi, Hermann

Jünger, Jun Kaneko, Albert Paley, Wendy Ramshaw,

Gerd Rothmann, Michael Rowe, Helen Shirk and David

Watkins. Many artists built enduring networks with

the Australian artists who hosted them or who worked

with them during their visits, facilitating subsequent

opportunities overseas.

Over the past forty years, the expansion of

tertiary training in craft-based artforms has involved

practitioners in the wider concerns of contemporary art,

and has brought new expectations for the role of craft

skills in interpreting and articulating them. It has done

so through the focused work of individuals who have

developed their practice with the knowledge that their

work is valued as an alternative to a plethora of look-

alike manufactured products.

Toots Zynsky Pennellata 2005

glass filet de verreLent by Toots Zynsky

Photographer: Toots Zynsky

Georg DoblerBrooch 2000

silver and amethyst National Gallery of Australia,

CanberraPhotographer: John Carlono

Patrick Hall Bone china 2005

plywood, aluminium, glass and ceramic

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Photographer: Peter Whyte


In choosing to work within the constructs and

disciplines of craft-based practices, artists and designers

align themselves not only with the rich narrative of human

history, but also with the language of invention and

technological exploration. Over time, social and industrial

revolutions have turned on the development and use of

specific materials. Responding to necessity and fuelling

desire across cultural and economic barriers, designers

and makers have interpreted the possibilities of new

ideologies, materials and manufacturing technologies.

Great centres for processing, manufacturing, design

and distribution sprung up around craft practices and

have attracted designers, artists and craft specialists for

centuries, connecting industrial towns and local craft

traditions with metropolitan ideologies concerned with

design and fashion. Many of the artists in this exhibition

have gravitated to such places to connect with and learn

from those great traditions, and to integrate something

of that spirit in their practices.

Increasingly, however – in a world connected less by

geographic destination than by technology, ideology and

invention – artists and designers, theorists, technologists

and commentators work in fluid dialogues across

cultures. Their work draws from many of the currents

that activate society: the semiology of craft; global sub-

cultures and counter-cultures; the place of craft skills in

the construction and nurturing of kinships and family;

retrospection, fantasy, satire, desire and subversion; the

ethics and consequences of the production, processing

and disposal of materials; the recycling of materials of

all kinds; and the allure of new materials and imaging

technologies. All are connected through the sheer

pleasure of creating and working with materials that are

sensual, intimate and visually engaging.

It is a paradox that while we have become a society

with an ability to quickly assimilate new technology and

find value in a plethora of new types of functional and

decorative objects, we are doing so with a diminishing

understanding of the history and development of

design and the decorative arts. We rely increasingly on

advertising and celebrity endorsement as a substitute

for the understanding and discrimination that comes

from direct experience. For many, such experience of

significant unique craft works is rare, resulting in a limited

comprehension of the rich cultural, formal and material

values that such objects represent. While such values

can be interpreted in the context of the visual arts, they

may also be understood by considering them in the

framework of the performing arts. The understanding of

dance and music suggests ways of interacting with crafted

objects and the unseen ‘performer’ behind them. We can

consider and enjoy these objects by engaging with the

shared concepts of spatial organisation, time, rhythm,

body control, and the confidence and skill in the use of

Gerd Rothmann Ten fingers at the neck

necklace 2004gold



tools and instruments. By engaging with the nuances and

performance of materials, the framework of tradition and

the theatrics of presentation, object makers can heighten

our experience of their work.

Transformations encourages visitors to encounter

the eloquence of crafted objects as mediators of space

and experience, and to consider the place of craft skills,

traditions and values in an increasingly dematerialised,

yet regimented, culture of consumption. The works in this

exhibition are drawn together in the themes of Narrative,

Materiality and Structure, creating settings in which

unique crafted objects give form to innovations in the

use of materials and technologies, offer commentaries

on nature and the urban environment, express personal

narratives, and reflect regional identity.

An examination of the works in each section of

the exhibition reveals connections across a diversity of

work practices, approaches to materials and personal

backgrounds. The disposition of the works in the exhibition

offers a complex set of relationships where the meaning

of one can be inflected by our experience of others.

Objects accrue meaning in the landscape of our own

imagination, despite the juxtapositions and relationships

suggested by their placement in a particular exhibition.

These objects trigger associations that draw us into a

potentially haptic, intuitive relationship with them.

Narrative, the exhibition’s first section, explores

translation, transience and memory as points of departure

for a variety of visually complex objects. They employ

metaphor and realism to explore cultural resonances,

mythology and our relationship with the natural world.

Works in the second section of the exhibition, Materiality,

are defined by an expression of their material qualities,

shown in objects where the sensuous, physical properties

of materials are explored. Through their orchestration

of process, artists bring a poetic physicality to the

transformation of raw materials such as clay, metal,

wood, glass and fibre. The third section, Structure, brings

David Regan Eagle 2004porcelainLent by David Regan, courtesy Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica and Garth Clark Gallery, New YorkPhotographer: Chris Autio


together works that are defined by a concern with the

organisation of elements, through rhythm, reductiveness,

balance and the nature of time. Other objects in this

section can be understood through their relationships to

space and light, or through the nuances of groupings,

placement, and variations of forms, colour and texture.

With its continuous evolution and traditions of

functionality, ornamentation and ceremony, craft has

always reflected human experience. Through the skill and

ingenuity of its practitioners, craft manifests in objects that

help us navigate our way through our lives, offering us new

ways to imagine being in the world. Our perception of the

world is continually being reshaped through the exposure

to fragmented visual information and discontinuous

episodes, many stressful and destructive, yet others

transcendent and inspirational. In a world increasingly

dominated by commercial design and branding, and global

industrial manufacture – where location and means of

production are determined by economic rationalism rather

than tradition – the practices of craft exist as signs of

achievement and personal narratives that can re-locate

us in time, place and experience.

Robert BellSenior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

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

a

Alice Whish Milky Way constellation

2004powder-coated,

laser-cut mild steelNational Gallery of Australia,

Canberra

Grant Vaughan Ovoid form 2005

Australian white beech (Gmelina leichhardtii)

and lacquerPurchased 2005 with funds

from the Meredith Hinchliffe Fund


Sueharu Fukami Scene II 2004

porcelain with celadon glaze on mikiage stone,

and copper-plated stainless-steel stand

Purchased 2005 with funds from Raphy Star


Photographer: Takashi Hatakeyama

REC

H00

36

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Transformations: narrative, materiality, structure

The three themes of Narrative, Materiality and

Structure create a logical framework through which

to view Transformations: the language of craft.

With eighty-five artists represented in the exhibition,

this framework helps to make the connections between

the artists, the materials used, and the works themselves.

By exhibiting the work of Australian artists alongside

the work of international artists, we can investigate the

language used by artists living in environments different

to our own. Their spoken language is different, but is the

language of their art also different?

The artists included in the first section, Narrative, deal

with myriad themes. Michael Brennand-Wood is an artist

from the United Kingdom, embroidering by hand and by

sewing machine. Using fabric in fine art is unusual, and

is indicative of the way Brennand-Wood sets challenges

for himself. He says ‘the things that are most difficult are

the things that sustain you’ and is happy breaking new

ground. His concepts recur over and over in his work as

he re-investigates and reworks them. Brennand-Wood works

intensively and for several years has been studying pattern

in textiles, while creating his own highly patterned works.

Historically, as people moved around the world, the

patterns in the fabric of their clothes were transferred to

others. They were copied and reworked, absorbed into

the ever-growing populations, and through historical

clothing we can follow migration paths.

Working in this context, Brennand-Wood draws on

a vast range of interests including historical lace, maps,

music, flowers and scientific experiments to create his

own patterned work. Building an intense and dense

three-dimensional picture, he addresses other issues.

We know this artist is concerned with global issues

through the titles of his work: Died pretty – flag of

convenience points to this. It is brought home to us when

we see toy soldiers scattered among the embroidered

flowers, reminding us that war is not a pretty sight,

no matter how it might be disguised.

Michael Brennand-Wood Died pretty – flag of convenience 2005

embroidered flowers, acrylic, toy soldiers, wire, paint

tubes, fabric and resin on wood panel

Lent by Michael Brennand-Wood

Photographer: Stephen Brayne

Sergei Isupov To be object of attentions

2004painted and glazed porcelain

Lent by Sergei Isupov, courtesy Ferrin Gallery,

Lenox, MAPhotographer: Katherine

Wetzel


The marriage of pattern and form can tell us a great deal.

As Soetsu Yanagi said in The unknown craftsman: a

Japanese insight into beauty, ‘to divine the significance

of pattern is the same as to understand beauty itself …

The relationship between beauty in the crafts and pattern

is particularly profound’.

Artists have represented the human figure in three-

dimensional form in clay for thousands of years. The figure

itself and its surface ornamentation may convey aspects

of the human condition or the figure might, as in Sergei

Isupov’s case, be a tabula rasa.

Russian-born and now living in the United States of

America, Isupov is exhibiting two works: To be object

of attentions and Firebird. To be object of attentions is

a porcelain sculpture of a human head with two small

horns. For this artist the material is almost irrelevant and,

as his dealer Leslie Ferrin says, ‘his work is 3-D sculpture

with 2-D painting’. However, he would not achieve the

same impact on a flat surface. The nose of the sculpture

gives body to the pleated skirt on the female figure

stretched across its face. The legs of the anthropomorphic

figure holding her right arm dissolve into cracks on the

side of the sculpture’s forehead, creating visual tension

between the form and its painted surface.

Viewers will read their own meanings into this painted

surface. Perhaps the female is not being tortured, as one

might initially assume, and while she does not look happy,

she appears to be resigned rather than in distress. Isupov

distils his own feelings and observations into his imagery

– and we can only speculate what he may have been

thinking about when creating this work.

In his fine enamelled jewellery David Freda, also from

the United States, portrays his feelings for creatures, many

of which make us uneasy. His fascination with wildlife

of all sizes since he was a small boy has taken Freda into

a world of natural history. He wants his viewers to see

the world as he does, a world that parallels our own of

‘mating, hatching, feeding, and fighting’. As an artist he

uses the vast colour palette of enamels as others might

use precious and semi-precious stones.

Stag beetles, grubs and raspberries, a necklace in

silver, gold and enamels, shows the life cycle of the

stag beetle. Raspberries are the beetles’ favourite food

and they are linked with pupae to form the chain on

which the beetle hangs. Unlike many other enamellists

Freda works sculpturally, using colour to replicate nature

and enhance his creations. He has developed specialist

metalsmithing techniques to create realistic necklaces

David Freda Stag beetles, grubs and raspberries necklace 2001fine and sterling silver, 24- and 18-carat yellow gold, and glass enamelsLent by David FredaPhotographer: Barry Blau

Nel Linssen Necklace round 2001reinforced paper and elastic threadLent by Nel LinssenPhotographer: Peter Bliek


and brooches of orchids, hatching snake eggs and fish.

Through his acute observation we learn about the beauty

of nature and perhaps question why we squirm at the

bugs and reptiles he portrays.

In 1947, when Japanese ceramicist Yasuo Hayashi was

nineteen years old, he was one of a group of potters who

formed Shiko-kai, an avant-garde group promoting a new

ceramic art movement in Japan. His work is not vessel-

based, and this was almost unique in Japan at the time.

Since those early days, he explored new ways of creating

a dialogue with his audience, using reality and graphic

illusion, and has always intended that we should be fully

involved with his work.

Through the use of shade and light, defined by lines

on the surface, flat surfaces appear to curve towards

the viewer and to have volume. While his ceramics have

become more three-dimensional, as seen in Memory of

the house ‘05-1, he continues to use graphic techniques

of line and colour to create perspective. Hayashi

incorporated several viewpoints into earlier works,

taking the exterior into the interior of the work, creating

imaginary spaces through visual illusions.

In Memory of the house ‘05-1 he conveys the volume

of the house on the surface of the work, which has a

distinct front and back. Three or four lines indicate several

different spaces or rooms and he takes us through them.

Blocks of colour – blue, red, black and white oblique

stripes – and texture further delineate the rooms.

Hayashi recalls the home of his childhood, returning to

the security of his family, and he continues to invite us

to join him and at the same time to explore our own

memories of childhood homes.

Artists explore the different qualities of their chosen

materials and create a dialogue between the materials

and the viewer in the second section of the exhibition,

Materiality.

Nel Linssen, who lives and works in the Netherlands,

creates sensuous jewellery using folded paper. She takes

an intuitive approach to her bracelets and necklaces made

from paper. It is, however, an approach based on years of

research, and haptic knowledge of her material, and of

the way it must be cut, folded, drilled and fitted together.

The relationship between the wearer and Linssen’s

necklaces is closer than in jewellery made from most

other materials. As the wearer moves, the viewer sees

the nuances of change in colour and texture. While the

wearer is aware of the sensuous nature and movement

of the jewellery, the viewer is drawn to the constant

changes wrought by the slightest movement of the body.

Light and shade play on the surfaces of the thick coils

that wrap around the wearer’s neck or arms, conveying a

sense of solidity and weight. In this way, Linssen’s work

is evocative of traditional jewellery made from precious

metals and stones, belying the light paper from which it is

constructed.

Leather is not commonly considered a sculptural

material: it so much a part of our lives through functional

uses, that we take it for granted. Australian artists Tanija

and Graham Carr use leather, carving its thick surface

as though it were timber or stone. Theirs is a truly

collaborative partnership. Both trained as architects.

They draw on this training and discuss each piece, from

the first idea of form and concept to the last line of

decorative surface. This mode of practice is unusual,

Tanija and Graham Carr Untitled bowl form 2001

leatherNational Gallery of Australia,

Canberra

Yasuo Hayashi Memory of the house ’05-1

2005glazed stoneware

Lent by Yasuo HayashiPhotographer: Yasuo Hayashi

Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser

Ripples 1999paint and dye on linen,

shibori techniqueNational Gallery of Australia,

Canberra


even among those who make objects, such as those that

are included in Transformations.

There is a timeless quality about the Carrs’ Untitled

bowl form, which has a strong sculptural presence. It is

carved to give a richly textured surface. The patterning

is intricate, ordered and repetitive. The repetition brings

rhythm and order to the ornamentation of the form.

Protruding lugs give it the appearance of having been

made of wood joined together with rivets, as if to serve a

functional or ritual purpose.

Artists included in the third section of the exhibition,

Structure, are concerned with the arrangement and

organisation of elements in their work. Keiko Amenomori-

Schmeisser is a Japanese–Australian artist working

primarily in textiles and specialising in shibori. She has

lived and worked in Germany, Japan and Australia and

her work is influenced by each of these places. Her first

design lessons were a consequence of being taught at

eleven years old the pictographs and culture of Japanese

calligraphy. She learned the importance of the white

space on the page and the need for balance and tension

between the black and white within a given space.

Shibori is the Japanese term given to both the process

and the product of fabric that is tied, knotted and

otherwise manipulated to create a resist pattern when

dyed. The structure of Amenomori-Schmeisser’s work is

created by folding and stitching. Through stitching she

shapes the fabric, changing the direction of the stitches,

using different thicknesses of thread and different

stitching to achieve the amount of colour and texture she

requires. Surface paint adds to the structure of Ripples

and gives the cloth rigidity that allows three-dimensional

forming to create tension and movement. Her work is

influenced by memories, observations, experiences and

travel to many parts of the world. Coincidentally, she has

said that ‘transformation’ is a key concept for her work.

Viewers will find that the language of craft transcends

the spoken word. This exhibition brings together artists

who deal with similar issues, no matter where they live.

The vocabulary is both aesthetic and technical. New

technologies have opened further avenues for exploration

by individual craft artists, as well as opportunities for

more intense communication between artists living in

different countries.

Transformations: the language of craft will make

a contribution to the exchange between artists around

the world. Just as importantly, viewers will increase their

knowledge and understanding of craft in the twenty-first

century.

Meredith Hinchliffe

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

a


Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler

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

26 November 2005 – 5 February 2006

orde poynton gallery

In 1950, at the age of twenty-two, Helen Frankenthaler

met the art critic Clement Greenberg and began

mixing with the New York School of artists. Two things

immediately set her apart from her contemporaries – her

gender and her age. Frankenthaler was one of a handful

of female artists who successfully contributed to the

artistic territory dominated by such giants as Jackson

Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Much younger than these

artists, Frankenthaler emerged as one of the first in what

has come to be known as the ‘second generation’ of

Abstract Expressionist painters. Frankenthaler accompanied

Greenberg to many exhibition openings, visited the studios

of other artists and frequented the (now legendary) Cedar

Street Bar and the Artists’ Club. She was adept at analysing,

discussing and deconstructing the robust action painting

produced around her and actively participated in the artistic

dialogue of the 1950s. Yet, she knew she was alone in her

quest to develop an individual style. Frankenthaler began

her search for a departure point – a method of mark-

making that was uniquely hers. She found it in 1952 with

a large-scale oil painting entitled Mountains and sea.

Mountains and sea was created after Frankenthaler

returned to her New York studio from a trip to Nova

Scotia, where she had painted numerous watercolours of

the rocky seascape. She spread her canvas on the floor, a

technique adopted from Jackson Pollock, but it was what

she did next that made that crucial, radical departure from

his work. Frankenthaler, in the habit of working quickly

and using watercolour washes, applied paint diluted with

turpentine directly onto the unprimed canvas. The artist

has recalled that she felt ‘the landscapes were in my arms

as I did it’. Working instinctively, she allowed the diluted

mix to soak into the canvas and using subtle washes she

filled it with large, lyrical gestures – a style that has since

become her signature. The technique, described by the

artist as ‘soak-stain’, was a fusion of image and ground

that resulted in the ultimate flat surface. This experimental

method was a radical digression from what had come

before and was the breakthrough that propelled Helen

Frankenthaler into the spotlight of the New York art scene.

Frankenthaler was well-equipped for this sudden

attention. Born in New York in 1928, the youngest of

three daughters to wealthy Jewish parents, she was

educated at the prestigious Dalton School, New York, and

Bennington College, Vermont. She studied at Dalton under

the Mexican muralist Rufino Tamayo and at Bennington

under the American Cubist Paul Feeley. It was Feeley who

directed Frankenthaler in the development of her early

Cubist-derived style and, more importantly, gave her an

understanding of pictorial composition and space. Feeley

taught Frankenthaler to stand in front of a work of art

and dissect it: ‘We would really sift through every inch of

what it was that worked; or if it didn’t, why. And cover

up either half of it or a millimetre of it and wonder what

was effective in it … in terms of paint, the subject matter,

the size, the drawing.’ Early encouragement to become

involved in the arts, in combination with Frankenthaler’s

meticulous training, led to the development of her

unwavering determination to become an artist.

Determination is an essential characteristic of the

artist whose work evolves from experimentation. It is

Frankenthaler’s intrinsic sense of exactly what is required to

balance line, form and colour within a given pictorial space

that permits her to unleash a spontaneous, yet controlled

gesture: ‘you have to know how to use the accident, how

to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it


so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.’

Frankenthaler recognised early in her career that to grow

as an artist and to develop aesthetically it was crucial that

she continually challenge herself and work outside of her

comfort zone. Painting was Frankenthaler’s primary artistic

passion, but an obsession to push her creative limits led

her to turn her attention to print media.

Frankenthaler created her first prints in 1961 with

Tatyana Grosman at Universal Limited Art Editions

(ULAE) in West Islip, Long Island. It was in this intimate

lithographic workshop, where artists were treated as

personal guests and for whom Grosman would go to

any lengths to facilitate artistic needs, that Frankenthaler

began to experiment with print media. There was a long

period of print education and technical trial and error

for Frankenthaler: ‘Whether it be graphics, sculpture,

tapestry, ceramics – whatever the medium – there is the

difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive

clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful

puzzles and problems of translating with new materials

… [a] translation of my image in a new vocabulary.’ While

Frankenthaler also created her first woodcuts at ULAE it

was not until 1976, when she commenced collaboration

with master printer Kenneth Tyler, that she began a

sustained investigation of the woodcut medium.

Kenneth Tyler was exactly the master printer

Frankenthaler required to transpose her bold gestural

experiments into the realm of the technological. The

artist’s first woodcut with Tyler was Essence mulberry,

produced in 1977. The inception of this stunning, eight-

colour woodcut was inspired by two factors. The first

was an exhibition of fifteenth-century woodcuts that

Frankenthaler had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, where she was particularly struck by the colour of the

prints and determined to discover all she could about the

ancient medium. The second was when the artist, working

with Tyler at his Bedford workshop, noticed a mulberry

tree growing outside the studio. She commented upon

the vibrant colour of the berries and Tyler squashed some

of them into juice. Frankenthaler dipped a paintbrush

into the juice and proceeded to paint onto a piece of

Japanese calligraphic paper. The resulting mulberry colour

against the delicate paper was the starting point for the

development of the print.

With Essence mulberry both the artist and the

master printer recognised the start of an extraordinary

collaboration. Frankenthaler has confessed that even

today she will look at Essence mulberry and say to Ken,

‘How did we do it? How did we get it?’, believing that,

‘It is one thing for the artist to have a certain magic and

produce a certain magic but for the technicians and the

press and Ken to get it’ was something truly special. She

admits that she ‘wanted things that I couldn’t at times

articulate … but between our exchange we got this music’.

Essence mulberry is seen today as a watershed, the first


of Frankenthaler’s woodcuts to employ the traditionally

graphic medium in the production of an image of abstract

and inspired beauty.

The woodcut, a notoriously difficult and rigid medium,

could not be further from the artistic realm of a gestural,

spontaneous painter. As a painter, Frankenthaler’s creative

process is driven by the development of a dialogue with

the work itself, ‘a fighting, loving dialogue with this piece

of material. You force something on it and it gives you an

answer back … until you know that this is right’. Kenneth

Tyler has recalled that with the Tales of Genji, a series

of six woodcut prints that Frankenthaler began in 1995,

‘it was apparent from the beginning that what was needed

was a new approach and technique for making what Helen

strove for: a woodcut with painterly resonance’. With this

in mind, Tyler suggested to Frankenthaler that she could

communicate to the workshop of printers and, more

importantly, remain true to her unique style by painting

her ideas for the printed works onto pieces of wood.

Supplied with wood, paint and brushes, Frankenthaler

worked alone in the artist’s studio at Tyler Graphics

painting the maquettes for the Tales of Genji. From the

painted studies, tracings were made and woodblocks were

carved by the ukiyo-e trained Japanese carver, Yasuyuki

Shibata. The watery nature of Frankenthaler’s paintings

created an immediate problem for printing. In order to

create the lush transparent washes of colour, the printers

had to work quickly with wet sheets of paper that, under

the pressure of the printing press, would force the inks

to bleed and blend into one another. Tyler recollects that,

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

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

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


‘None of us knew what we were doing … and half the

time we didn’t know what we were saying. The technique

had absolutely no history. We were making it up as we

went along’. Through trial and error and laborious proofing

sessions, the workshop overcame these technical difficulties.

Despite the leap into the creative unknown, the six

resulting Tales of Genji woodcuts are truly seductive

prints. It is with awe that one looks at these works and

realises that the project took the artist and the workshop

a mammoth three years to complete. It is the Tales of

Genji woodcuts that form the pinnacle in experimental

print collaboration between Frankenthaler and Tyler

Graphics, and the series that forced the development of

new printmaking techniques that were perfected two years

later in Frankenthaler’s final woodcut with Tyler Graphics,

the triptych Madame Butterfly.

Frankenthaler has stated that: ‘A really good picture

looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image

… one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronised

with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore

it looks as if it were born in a minute.’ With Madame

Butterfly, Frankenthaler has triumphed in her attempt to

encapsulate a ‘born in a minute’ feeling with a print so

painterly in its delicate washes of colour and transient

floating forms that it resembles a watercolour. Madame

Butterfly is a virtuoso display of 102 colours, printed from

forty-six woodblocks, in a work spanning three panels of

paper and measuring over two metres in length.

Once again, the artist communicated her ideas to the

technicians of the print workshop by painting on three

pieces of specially selected wood. The paper was skilfully

handmade by Tyler Graphics to resemble both the texture

and look of the wood grain. The woodblocks used to print

the image were carved by Frankenthaler and Yasuyuki

Shibata with Frankenthaler marking the wood using her

‘guzzying’ technique, a technique that involves scratching

the wood with items including sandpaper and dental

tools. Frankenthaler was determined to ensure that her

wrist, and thus her unique sensibility, be evident in every

aspect of the print’s creation, just as it is in her paintings.

The resulting work is one of exceptional beauty. With

Madame Butterfly we see Frankenthaler’s impulsive soak-

stain technique realised in the most graphic of print media.

The ‘spontaneous print’ that Frankenthaler has pursued

throughout her print career has finally been achieved.

Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler

reveals the experimental nature of an artist who, by

deliberately casting the rules aside, has maintained her

innovative edge for over five decades.

Jaklyn Babington Assistant Curator International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books

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

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Helen Frankenthaler Madame Butterfly 2000 colour woodcut printed on three sheets of handmade TGL paper Purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Helen Frankenthaler / Tyler Graphics Ltd 2000


You want to know why we’re doing a Constable show?

Constable lived around 200 years ago – the time of Jane

Austen, William Wordsworth and mad bad Byron. He

died just before Queen Victoria came to the throne. My

great-great-grandfather George Bonamy was still living in

England then. Indeed, Constable was born twelve years

before Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet arrived in

Sydney Cove; but during Constable’s lifetime settlements

were established in Hobart, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne

and Adelaide.

You might think Constable’s art belongs to another

place, another time, just like that of Austen and all those

others. But we – or at least some of us – love to read

Austen, see Emma Thomson’s movie version of Sense

and sensibility or watch the BBC version of Pride and

prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy (or the recent film

version). We enjoy looking at a people living in a time when

things seemed a lot simpler – but also many of Austen’s

people seem just like us and people we know, and their

predicaments are similar to those we experience. (Bridget

Jones’s diary makes just this point.)

Discovering Constable: rediscovering nature

If you think Constable’s art belongs to the past, then

I encourage you to come to our exhibition, and look and

look again. Because I believe if you take the time to absorb

yourself in his art you’ll be transported into a place of

great joy – you’ll discover a world full of air and light and

atmosphere. You’ll feel the wind in your hair, and sense

the delights of being in touch with nature. And you’ll look

at clouds like you’ve never seen them before.

I remember the Tate’s Constable exhibition of 1991,

when I was amazed at the energy of his paint surfaces.

Then I saw the British Council show in Paris in 2003 – the

one that Lucian Freud selected and my co-curator John

Gage worked on. French artists such as Géricault and

Delacroix were inspired by Constable back in the 1820s. The

English-born French art critic PG Hamerton wrote in 1866

that Constable ‘did not see lines, but spaces, and in the

spaces’ he saw ‘an immense variety of differently coloured

sparkles and spots’. He added, ‘all the best modern French

landscape is due to the hints he gave’. The French saw the

importance of Constable’s work back then, and the French

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

for thcoming exhibition

John Constable Cloud study 1822

oil on paper © The Frick Collection,

New York


appreciated him in 2003. The Grand Palais exhibition was

a huge success. People loved the big canvases and the way

Constable had painted the full-scale studies for them with

so much energy, but they adored the small impressions

painted en plein air. These were still as fresh as the day they

were painted.

The Paris exhibition inspired us to think about bringing

Constable to Australia. It was about ten years since the

Gallery presented the magnificent Turner exhibition curated

by Michael Lloyd; and there had not been a Constable

exhibition in Australia for thirty years. It was time to show

his work again. So we asked Constable expert John Gage

– who had worked on the Paris exhibition – to join us in

preparing a Constable show for Australia, and the Gallery’s

exhibition manager and designer Adam Worrall and I

began to discuss the scope of the exhibition with John.

We agreed we would focus on Constable as an artist, a

maker of pictures, and select works which emphasised

this. We would select one of his six large paintings of the

Stour Valley and show this in depth – show two versions of

the one work, and other works related to it. The obvious

example was A boat passing a lock 1826; it was the painting

Constable selected to give to the Royal Academy as his

Diploma picture when he was elected Royal Academician

in 1829 – and there was another version of it in the National

Gallery of Victoria. We would look at a number of his plein

air sketches which were so full of life and contributed to

the freshness of his work. We would have a focus on his

innovative cloud studies. We would also look at some of the

copies he made of Claude and Ruisdael and others – as well

as some of the works which Constable painted under the

inspiration of these artists, such as the magnificent Vale of

Dedham 1827–28 from the National Gallery of Scotland, a

work that Constable considered to be one of his best. We

would also look at the mezzotints and how David Lucas

translated Constable’s paintings into mezzotint. At this time

we also discussed how a number of Australian artists had

been influenced by Constable and how we should have a

small accompanying exhibition showing a group of works

by Australian artists which reflected this influence.

John Constable Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds 1822–23 oil on canvas Victoria & Albert Museum, London


By pure chance John and I were going to be in London at the same time and we would be able to spend a week together visiting galleries, talking to colleagues about our exhibition and possible loans. We began with the Tate, where John particularly urged the cause of a small painting, Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead Heath, with boy sitting on a bank c. 1825, because it had a similar sky to that which Constable painted in the two horizontal versions of A boat passing a lock. At the Victoria & Albert Museum we argued the case for a large group of works including their magnificent Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds 1822–23, with the cathedral enclosed within a sylvan vista, and Old Sarum 1834, one of Constable’s rare large exhibition watercolours. John had taught at Cambridge Âfor some years, and knew the Fitzwilliam and its staff well. We wanted to borrow their masterly drawing for A boat passing a lock, and examples from their mezzotint collection – some with annotations by Constable which showed his process of working with his printmaker, Lucas. At the Royal Academy we asked for A boat passing a lock – his large six-foot Diploma picture, which would be the keynote of our exhibition – as well as one of Constable’s small gems, his spectacular sketch Rainstorm over the sea 1824–28. Our colleagues in the various British institutions could not have been more helpful, and after a week of talks we began to think that the exhibition was a real possibility. Back in Australia we refined the list of works which we would request for loan. I began to prepare for my next Constable adventure – a trip to the United States for a month at the Yale Center for British Art on a Fellowship. It was wonderful to meet up again with former Art Gallery of South Australia curator Angus Trumble, who is now Curator of Paintings and Sculpture there. What was particularly

valuable about working with their collection was being able to look at a broad range of Constable’s work in one place – from small intimate plein air sketches to large six-foot paintings. They have country house portraits such as Malvern Hall: the entrance front c. 1820 and images of rural harmony like Ploughing scene in Suffolk (A summerland) 1825; and they have a large group of drawings which includes Landscape with trees and deer, after Claude 1825. Among the many works I looked at, and fell in love with, I think my favourite was Stormy sea, Brighton, 20 July 1828 – a work Constable painted just four months before his wife died from pulmonary tuberculosis on 28 November. It is a small sketch, but huge in its emotion. It is full of energy and vigour, with thickly and quickly applied paint capturing the stormy weather Constable experienced at Brighton, and his own personal turmoil. While in the United States I visited colleagues at the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art to talk with them about our exhibition. Their paintings include a small early sketch, View towards the rectory, East Bergholt, 30 September 1810, with the red morning sun glowing over and through the fields at East Bergholt. This painting was included in an exhibition of the work of the Barbizon painters a few years ago – to reflect how these artists had admired and been inspired by Constable, and to show how innovative his work was. On my one day in New York en route back to Australia, I visited the Frick Collection where the curatorial staff kindly arranged to show me their two magical cloud studies. Constable’s sky studies are wonderfully observed, recording the time of day, date, wind direction and weather conditions under which they were painted. After viewing these works I went into some of the public rooms there and sat looking at their Constables and thought about what lay behind the magic of his work. Various scholars express a range of views – but for me the answer that afternoon was that Constable managed to capture the air, in a way that no one else has done. People talk about the way in which he captured atmosphere, the dew, the dampness. I think he went even further to convey the air and the breeze. He doesn’t just paint light – although he does magically capture light in the sky, on the ground, glistening on water, and in the trees – he goes further and paints the light and the air in between the leaves, behind the trees. Constable animates the landscape and makes you feel it is alive, and in doing so makes you feel alive. Constable may have lived some time ago in another country, and the world may have changed in many ways – but the clouds still float on high, daffodils still flutter in the breeze, and our hearts can still delight at what we see.

Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky opens Â3 March 2006 in Canberra. Organised by the National Gallery of Australia in partnership with the Museum Âof New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Further information at nga.gov.au/Constable

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John Constable ÂThe Vale of Dedham 1827–28

oil on canvas Â© The National Gallery of

Scotland


John Mawurndjul is Australia’s foremost bark painter and

also widely acknowledged as one of the country’s leading

contemporary artists, which was confirmed when he was

awarded the prestigious Clemenger Contemporary Art Prize

at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2003.

Mawurndjul’s people are the Kuninjku in western

Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. A member of the

Kurulk clan, Dhuwa/Duwa moiety, Balang subsection,

Mawurndjul has been living and working in his traditional

country at Milmilngkan, an outstation near the larger

settlement of Maningrida since the early 1990s.

Mawurndjul’s early paintings were highly figurative

with representations of Ngalyod, the Rainbow Serpent,

Yawkyawk spirits, animals and ancestral beings, but also

including many more schematic visual references to the

culturally sacred Mardayin ceremonial design. Mardayin

designs were originally painted on young initiates bodies

to indicate their connections to their ancestral homelands,

mapping their country in physical form. As Mawurndjul’s

recent bark paintings and larrikitj [hollow funeral poles]

have become more refined in their intricate detailing, the

Mardayin designs have come

transformations • helen frankenthaler...featured is the cycle of fifty-one prints, der krieg...

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