F OUR -P ART S ERIES : T HE R APTURE T RIBULATION M ILLENNIAL K INGDOM N EW H EAVENS -N EW E ARTH.
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Transcript of art ew - nga.gov.au
constable • crescent moon • otto dix
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WAR The Prints of Otto Dix
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 17 December 2005 – 30 April 2006Otto Dix Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor [Stormtroops advancing under a gas attack] plate 12 from the portfolio Der Krieg [War] 1924 etching, aquatint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Otto Dix, Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 24 February – 28 May 2006
Principal sponsor Supported by
Organised by the National Gallery of Australia in partnership with the Art Gallery of South Australia
Yogyakarta, Central Java, Indonesia Serat Dewi Ruci 1886 European paper, ink, pigment, gold leaf Presented by the Friends of the Gallery Library in memory of Tina Wentcher, 1982
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2 Director’s foreword
4 Director’s vision
10 Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
16 Constable: the ecstasy of stormy elements
21 Australia and Constable
22 Crescent moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast Asia
32 War: the prints of Otto Dix
38 New acquisitions
50 Collection focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
54 Conservation: restoring the glow to Afterglow
56 Kenneth Tyler at the National Gallery of Australia
58 Tribute: Jimmy Wululu
60 Faces in view
contents
Publisher National Gallery of Australia nga.gov.au
Editor Eve Sullivan
Designer Sarah Robinson
Photography Eleni Kypridis Barry Le Lievre Brenton McGeachie Steve Nebauer John Tassie
Designed and produced in Australia by the National Gallery of Australia Printed in Australia by Pirion Printers, Canberra
artonview issn 1323-4552
Published quarterly: Issue no. 45, Autumn 2006 © National Gallery of Australia
Print Post Approved pp255003/00078
All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. The opinions expressed in artonview are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.
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front cover: John Constable Harwich Lighthouse c. 1820 (detail) oil on canvas Tate, London, gift of Maria Louisa Constable, Isabel Constable and Lionel Bicknell Constable in 1888
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2 national gallery of australia
director’s foreword
This is a very exciting time at the Gallery with the opening
of two major and contrasting exhibitions, Crescent
moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast Asia
and Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky.
As the first major international exhibition to focus
on the Islamic art of Southeast Asia, Crescent moon
introduces Australian audiences to the beauty and
complexity of Islamic culture within our region, to reveal
the unique developments in the arts of Islamic Indonesia,
Malaysia, but also the Muslim communities of the
Philippines, Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. Splendid
objects in silk, gold, lacquer, porcelain and stone illustrate
the transformation of indigenous motifs and techniques
into new art forms to express the message of the Prophet
Mohammed.
Crescent moon brings together 180 valuable loans
from museums, palace treasuries and private collections
of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, displayed
alongside objects from Australian institutions, in
particular, textiles from the National Gallery of Australia’s
spectacular collection of Southeast Asian textiles, and
Islamic ceramics from the Art Gallery of South Australia.
I would especially like to acknowledge all the lenders,
the curator of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of South
Australia, James Bennett, Principal Sponsor Santos,
and the particular enthusiasm of John Ellice-Flint, CEO
and Managing Director, along with the extraordinary
generosity of the Gordon Darling Foundation in providing
funding to produce the splendid catalogue, and the
support for special education projects by The Myer
Foundation’s Beyond Australia and the Sidney Myer Fund.
Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
curated by the Gallery’s Head of Australian Art, Anna
Gray, continues the Gallery’s commitment to analysing
the historical legacy of European and, in particular, British
art, with a major focus on this important landscape artist.
Over 100 works have been selectively drawn together
from distinguished museums and private collections in
Great Britain, the United States and Australia, including
the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate
Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Yale Centre
for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, and the Frick
Collection, New York. Qantas Freight and The Seven
Network have once again generously supported the
Gallery by transporting the works and providing television
promotion for this exhibition.
The exhibition showcases the extraordinary range of
Constable’s work, from his exuberant outdoor sketches to
masterpieces such as Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s
Grounds 1822–23 and The Vale of Dedham 1827–28. The
exhibition is presented thematically to show key phases of
Constable’s approach to the landscape, such as his well-
known cloud and sea studies, and what may well be his
favourite subject, the lock – including his Royal Academy
Diploma work, A boat passing a lock 1826.
A special display titled Australia and Constable has
been included within the exhibition to explore Constable’s
influence on Australian art through the much-loved
Australian landscape paintings of John Glover, Tom
Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Hans Heysen, leading up to
the work of contemporary practitioners, such as Howard
Taylor, Philip Wolfhagen and Lesley Duxbury.
If you have not already done so, please also take this
opportunity to see the remarkable portfolio of prints by
Otto Dix, Der Krieg [War] 1924. Modelled on Francisco
Goya’s famous Los desastres de la guerra [The disasters
of war], and acquired recently by the Department of
International Prints and Drawings. The complete cycle
of fifty prints is now on view in the Project Gallery. As
curator Mark Henshaw states in his essay in this issue,
it is ‘one of the most powerful indictments of war ever
conceived’ by an artist.
I would also like to take this opportunity to
acknowledge the retirement of Harold Mitchell as
chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Council.
During his term as both a member (1998–2001) and
chairman (2001–05) of the council Harold gave a great
Ron Radford with Harold Mitchell AO, outgoing
chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Council
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deal of his time, passion and enthusiasm, and made a
significant impact on the National Gallery of Australia’s
direction. We were privileged to have Harold’s strong
leadership. What the general public have not known
to this point is that Harold is one of our most generous
benefactors. And although Harold oversees the largest
media-sales organisation in the country, he still found time
to fly to Canberra to officiate at every exhibition opening,
affirming wholeheartedly, ‘As I always like to say, “this is a
great gallery, in a great city, in a great country”’. In every
sense Harold maintained a supportive, hands-on role as
chairman, and was always at the end of the telephone line
for advice to both Brian Kennedy and myself.
He is succeeded in the role of chairman by Rupert
Myer, whose appointment was announced on 18
December 2005 by the Minister for the Arts and Sport,
Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp.
Rupert has been a National Gallery of Australia Council
Member since 2003 and is director of the National Gallery
of Australia Foundation. In January 2005 Mr Myer was
made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to
the arts, for support to museums and galleries and to the
community through a range of philanthropic and service
organisations.
I had the personal privilege of working with Rupert,
when he spearheaded the Commonwealth Government’s
Inquiry into the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Sector
2001–02, an initiative that achieved a much-needed boost
in funding to the contemporary visual arts sector, during
my own term as chair of the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the
Australia Council (1997–2001). I know that Rupert is well-
regarded by the visual arts community, and has significant
experience on museum boards and foundations.
I hope that many of you will agree, this is an exciting
time for the Gallery.
Ron RadfordDirector
Donations Ross Adamson Philip Bacon AM Anthony Berg AM and family Graham Bradley Antony G Breuer Joan Daley OAM Lady Nancy Fairfax OBE Di Gregson Andrew Gwinnett Catherine Rossi Harris PSM John Hindmarsh Reverend Theodora Hobbs Peter Jopling QC Harold Mitchell AO Cameron O’Reilly Angus Paltridge Jennifer Prescott Alan D Rose AO and Helen E Rose Penelope Evatt-Seidler Raphy Star Caroline Turner Anonymous
Gifts Rosemary Dobson Bolton Louise Dauth eX de Medici John Eager Helen W Drutt English Thea Exley Peter Fay William Hamilton Russell Harper Pauline Hunter Terrance Lane David Rose John F Turner Robert H Turner Rosalind Turner Zuses
Grants The Myer Foundation Sidney Myer Fund
Principal Sponsor Santos Ltd
Supporting Sponsors Qantas Freight Seven Network
Sponsors Casella Wines Saville Park Suites, Canberra SMS Management & Technology
4 national gallery of australia
The building and the collection displaysThe National Gallery of Australia’s building was conceived
in the late 1960s. Plans, by the architectural firm Edwards,
Madigan, Torzillo & Briggs, were finished at the beginning
of the seventies, before the collections were formed. It
took nearly a decade to build. Opened by HM Queen
Elizabeth II in 1982, it is an important architectural
example of seventies concrete architecture in the Brutalist
style. Costing $82 million, it was an extremely expensive
building for its time. The building has architectural
distinction and is part of Canberra’s heritage. However,
as an art museum it has always been criticised by the
museum profession and the public alike, particularly as
its interior is unsympathetic to most works of art. The
building has been an ongoing challenge to former and
current directors and curators of the Gallery. There were
conceptual problems in the earliest brief.
Since the National Gallery had neither collections
nor staff when the building was first designed, it could
not be designed around a known or probable collection.
Moreover, it was conceived to show 1,000 works,
but the collections have grown to well over 100,000
works. The collections have long outgrown the building
and lack of display space is overwhelmingly the Gallery’s
greatest problem. There are many other limitations to the
building. Ceilings are far too high in the main entrance-
level display galleries and too low on the upstairs display
floor. The concrete-aggregate wall surface visually
interferes with the viewing of most paintings. The public
entrance is confusing; visitors don’t know where to enter
the building. Confusing interior circulation remains an
ongoing complaint. The facilities for openings, other
events, and catering are limited. There has never been any
special provision for the display of Indigenous Australian
art, now a major component of the collection.
Many of these problems will be addressed in Stage
One of the building alterations currently being planned, in
which process Andrew Andersons, of PTW Architects, and
I are working with Col Madigan.
Vision for the National Gallery of Australia: part two
Part two of the vision statement presented by Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery
of Australia, on the Gallery’s birthday, 12 October 2005
Building additions: Stage One. New entrance and Indigenous Australian galleriesIn Stage One, a new more visible and accessible ground-
level entrance is being planned for the south of the
building, facing the current ground-surface car park. The
new entrance area will have escalators to and from the
galleries on the main level; a lift will also provide access
to the underground car park. The entrance area will have
a new cloakroom and a new enlarged bookshop. An
adjacent ground-level space will be created for openings
and events, and will open onto a newly created Australian
garden. It will be a space that can be commercially hired
out when not required for Gallery functions and, if
necessary, can be divided into three separate spaces.
At the new ground-level entrance there will be a
specifically created area for the 1988 Aboriginal Memorial,
one of the most important works in the collection.
Appropriately, this impressive sculptural installation, a
major work of art, will be the first that visitors see as they
enter the Gallery. It will be displayed in a way that relates
to the outside landscaping.
Immediately above the new entrance and its facilities
there will be specially created galleries for Indigenous
Australian art that will connect to the existing galleries
on the main level. Each of these new galleries will be
designed to accommodate the needs of specific types of
Indigenous Australian art, with areas for small early dot
paintings, large galleries for larger dot paintings, spaces
for bark paintings, and for Hermannsburg watercolours,
Indigenous textiles, prints, ceramics and sculpture. The
main Indigenous art galleries will be sky-lit, apart from
those areas intended for the display of light-sensitive
works such as textiles, baskets and watercolours. These
will be the first galleries in Australia designed around the
specific needs of displaying different aspects of Indigenous
Australian art.
The famous Ned Kelly series by Sidney Nolan, arguably
the Gallery’s most popular Australian work, will be
brought downstairs to the main level and given a special
room at a location currently occupied by a lobby area and
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the Gallery Shop. The Kelly paintings will be among the
first works seen on the principal display floor. Existing
shop and cloakroom spaces will be converted to small
spaces for the decorative arts and on the opposite side of
the hallway from the Kelly paintings, a space is reserved
for displaying works from the photography collection.
The overwhelming problem with the current building –
apart from the lack of a noticeable entrance to the Gallery,
and the fact that the collection has long outgrown the
building – is that Australian Art is relegated to secondary
status. Australian art is confined to the low-ceilinged
‘attic’ upstairs. The area is too small to show either the
full richness of our culture or even our existing extensive
collection. The inaccessibility, in the present building,
of Australia’s own visual culture – and its placement in
an unattractive corridor-like space – could be seen as
the ultimate cultural cringe. Some visitors never find the
present upstairs galleries containing Australian art. The
National Gallery of Australia should display Australian visual
culture much more accessibly, attractively and expansively.
Stage One of the building program will do this for
Indigenous Australian art. Stage Two will similarly redisplay
the rest of Australian and Australasian art.
Building additions: Stage Two. Australian Art (non-Indigenous)In Stage Two of the building program, completely new
galleries for Australian art should be created in a new
wing built to encircle the present temporary-exhibitions
galleries. Australian art should be brought downstairs
from the ‘attic’ to occupy this large area of its own on the
main level, the ‘piano nobile’ floor. These new Australian
galleries will be illuminated from above with sunlight, the
same light by which most of the works were created.
The future Stage Two galleries for Australian art
should connect to the new galleries for Indigenous
Australian art that are part of Stage One. Indigenous art,
appropriately, will be encountered first. Chronologically-
arranged galleries will proceed from the colonial period
onwards. Preceding colonial art there should be an
introductory gallery showing eighteenth-century and
early-nineteenth-century European art in the Pacific. All
the galleries should be designed to accommodate the
specific scale and diverse forms of Australian art. For
example, spacious galleries with high ceilings are required
for large Edwardian figure paintings and Federation
landscapes; smaller, lower-ceiling galleries would suit
modernist pictures of the 1920s and 1930s; while larger
galleries are again necessary for neoclassical figure
paintings and sculptures of the same period and smaller
galleries for Australian modernism of the 1940s. Large
high spaces will be designed to accomodate the diverse
forms of contemporary Australian art.
Adjacent to the main chronologically arranged day-lit
galleries will be small side galleries, with lower ceilings and
without natural light, for light-sensitive works on paper
– watercolours, drawings, prints and photographs – and
also for textiles. Such galleries are especially important for
the periods of Australian art when works on paper (e.g.
A provisional concept design for the front entrance for Stage One of the proposed additions to the National Gallery of Australia building
6 national gallery of australia
early colonial watercolours) are artistically stronger and
more numerous than oil paintings. The National Gallery of
Australia has the finest and largest collection of Australian
works of art on paper. These adjacently arranged
exhibition spaces will also feature Australian design and
decorative arts.
The Australian galleries should be planned to
incorporate exceptional works in the collection such as
Napier Waller’s large mural design I’ll put a girdle round
about the earth (which currently cannot be displayed) and
John Olsen’s major painting Sydney sun installed as it was
intended – as a ceiling.
Furthermore, the Gallery’s proposed new wing
for Australian art will hopefully attract major private
collections. With new spaces the National Gallery of
Australia can offer donors naming rights to certain
galleries. There exist private collections that could
significantly help complete aspects of the national
collection of Australian art.
Galleries in the future Australian art wing also provide
an opportunity for offering naming rights to prospective
donors of cash to Australian art.
Displaying Asian art: Stage OneAsian Art, too, should be brought to the piano nobile
floor, up from the lower-level Gallery 9 to main-level
Galleries 11 and 12 (and in Stage Two also add Gallery
8, the current Orde Poynton Gallery). We should focus
on sympathetic displays of mixed media (sculptures,
paintings and textiles) beginning with Indian Hindu, Jain
and Buddhist art. The redisplay of the Indian art collection
will be completed in August 2006 and Indian Islamic art
will link with Southeast Asian Islamic art. Southeast Asian
Ancestral and Animist art, and other arts of Southeast
Asia, will also link into the Indian display.
Each major Asian sculpture will have its own custom-
made pedestal of concrete in keeping with the concrete
architecture of the Gallery building. Chinese and Japanese
art, Middle Eastern Islamic art and other Central Asian arts
will remain where they are in the lower-level Gallery 10,
connected by the two ramps to the rest of Asian art on
the main level above.
Displaying Pacific arts: Stage TwoA special large gallery should be created in Stage Two for
traditional art of the Pacific Islands, including the Maori
art of New Zealand, the traditional Melanesian art of
New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and the Solomon
Islands, and the Polynesian art of Samoa, Fiji, Tonga,
Hawaii, etc. The works will be shown as art and not
anthropology. This display should be connected to a large
gallery devoted to contemporary art of Asia and the Pacific.
These galleries for the Pacific Arts should be
strategically placed towards the end of the future
Australian wing, in proximity to contemporary Australian
art, reflecting their geography in relation to Australia. This
great attention to the Pacific past and present has never
been attempted before in any art museum in Australia – or
indeed elsewhere. It is a major new initiative and must be
seen as very significant for our region.
In summing up, for art-political reasons and ease of
access, the art of all the major cultures should have a
significant presence on the same accessible main-level
floor: the piano nobile. And Stage Two should also be
designed in a way that allows much better circulation than
the present building.
Sculpture Gallery: Stage OneGallery 9, where the main Asian display is currently
located, will return to being a sculpture gallery. When
the building opened in 1982 most visitors and museum
professionals agreed this was the one gallery that really
worked. Indeed it was strikingly successful, centred upon
the exquisite Brancusi Birds in space which will return to
the sculpture gallery. Sculptures representing all cultures
could be displayed in this beautiful gallery.
Open study storage: Stage TwoBeneath the main-level galleries for the future display of
Australian art, open study-storage galleries should be
created for Australian art. Study storage is where very
dense and unaesthetically arranged displays are accessible
to the general public, either all the time or on selected
days each week. Study storage is becoming common
in America – for example the American Decorative Arts
display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art – and
exists for Old Master paintings at the National Gallery,
London, yet it has never been incorporated successfully
into an art museum in Australia. It would help relieve the
Gallery’s acute storage problem and make the Australian
collections (other than light-sensitive textiles and works on
paper) completely accessible to the public.
The Research Library and the Collection-Study Rooms: Stage TwoThe National Gallery of Australia Research Library is the
most important art library in Australia. The ground-level
space beneath the future galleries for Australian Art
should be used not only for open study-storage but also to
create an expanded library with easier access from outside
for visiting researchers and scholars. Adjacent to the
library should be collection-study rooms and storage for
our huge collection of Australian works on paper, which is
stored in solander boxes. Adjacent to this area could be a
similar study arrangement for textiles, especially the major
Southeast Asian textile collection.
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The much enlarged Australian displays and, on the
ground level below them, the Open Study Storage, the
Collection-Study Rooms and the Research Library together
will form a unique and important Centre for Australian
Art. Such a centre should eventually establish formal links
with Canberra’s Australian National University.
Office space: Stage TwoThe present library space could be easily converted into the
much needed expansion and consolidation of office space.
Works on paper and textile displays: upstairs galleries. Stage TwoThe National Gallery of Australia holds more works
on paper than any other art museum in Australia. This
includes the largest collections of International and
Australian photographs, twentieth-century American
prints, nineteenth- and twentieth-century European prints,
Australian prints and drawings and illustrated books. The
Gallery also holds Australia’s largest collection of Asian
textiles. The upstairs galleries, currently used to display
Australian art, may not be suitable, with their smaller
spaces, lower ceilings and lack of natural daylight, for
displaying Australian paintings and sculptures but they are
ideal for a series of galleries in which to install changing
displays of photographs, European prints and American
prints. The series could also accommodate a special gallery
for Indian and, particularly, Indonesian textiles. A new
Orde Poynton Gallery (or several Orde Poynton Galleries)
could be created for works on paper. A small gallery for
late-nineteenth-, twentieth- and twenty-first-century
design could also be established on this upper level.
Galleries such as these will be significant and unique in
Australia, particularly for visitors who enjoy intense study
of such material.
International contemporary art: Stage TwoThe one high-ceilinged space on the upstairs level, Gallery
7, currently used for contemporary Australian art, could
be used for the most recent international art, and include
Australian contemporary art.
Redisplays of current International galleries: Stage OneIn the current International display, the walls have been
clad with white-painted plasterboard in a desire to
make the building more sympathetic for the works of
art, covering the concrete-aggregate walls that were
so particularly unsympathetic for paintings. While the
works of art are now better-displayed, the interior look
of the building has changed from what was described as
a ‘concrete bunker’ to something worse, an insubstantial
white ‘cardboard box’. The internal architectural integrity
of the building has been compromised.
A solution must be found not only to honour the
integrity of the original building interior but also, at
the same time, to be sympathetic to the works of
art. Naturally textured and carefully coloured wall cladding
and temporary partition walls are required to complement
the concrete structure. The Gallery curators and designers
are currently working with me on a solution.
Furthermore, newly planned International and Asian
Art collection displays in the current building will attempt
to integrate, where possible, prints, drawings, textiles and
decorative arts into the displays of paintings and sculptures.
This has always been done, with varying degrees of success,
in the awkward upstairs Australian galleries.
Importantly, highlights of Australian art should be
included in the International displays. Australian art
must be seen in an international context as well as in a
comprehensive national display. In the past this has been
done occasionally, but must be done more consistently,
particularly where Australian artists can be favourably
compared with their international peers. (In the current
upstairs Australian display, wall colours have already been
very recently changed and a new display of nineteenth-
and early-twentieth-century art, including many very
recent acquisitions, has just been completed.)
More radical changes to the newly integrated
International displays will be finished within the
next twelve months after the Aboriginal Memorial is
temporarily moved from its present location in Gallery 1
to Gallery 9, the past and future Sculpture Gallery, before
being permanently relocated to the new ground-level
entrance area of the Stage One extensions.
RelightingThe collection-display spaces also need to be completely
relit. There are too many gloomy areas. The lighting
system is antiquated; lighting fixtures have become
unsightly and inconsistent. The lighting is not only
inadequate and inflexible but the systems are highly
unattractive. We need to engage experienced international
lighting experts who can undertake this major expensive,
but necessary, task.
Exhibitions Temporary exhibitions keep the public and the
media vitally interested in the National Gallery of
Australia. Special exhibitions provide in-depth access to
artists, periods or themes and they provide audiences
with new insights not readily available in the permanent
collections. They also provide a focus for associated
public programs. The Gallery’s exhibition program should
complement the collections. On the one hand exhibitions
should parallel the strengths of the Gallery’s collections
and, on the other, bring in the kinds of art absent from
the collections.
8 national gallery of australia
In Stage Two of the building alterations we plan to
increase the temporary-exhibitions area so that a new
space for our smaller collection-based exhibition projects
could be adjacent to the main exhibition space. The
present Project Gallery is, unfortunately, the furthest space
from the entrance to the building.
The Gallery should stage at least one fine blockbuster
exhibition every year to bring in large numbers of
visitors and generate income to maintain the exhibition
program. There should be an attempt to make various
middle-sized shows largely pay for themselves. And we
should also undertake more esoteric shows, which may
not necessarily be popular with audiences, and therefore
need to be highly subsidised, but which stretch one’s
knowledge, imagination and understanding.
In the exhibition program over a period of years there
should be balance between traditional and contemporary
art, and between European, Asian, Pacific and Australian
art. The program should also include exhibitions
containing different media, not just painting but sculpture,
photographic media, prints, drawings and the decorative
arts. The National Gallery of Australia has a particular role
in developing and displaying imaginative exhibitions of
Australian artists, movements or periods that may have
been neglected. We could also help smaller art museums
by becoming a partner in presenting shows of their
nationally significant local artists.
A great many publicly-funded exhibition spaces for
contemporary art are to be found throughout the nation
and also in Canberra. Even so the National Gallery of
Australia should include contemporary projects in its
program. Such projects help develop audiences that
might never find their way to their local contemporary
art spaces, and they can contextualise difficult new art
for inexperienced audiences. But this should never be
a main thrust of the program; the National Gallery of
Australia should not compete with or threaten the role
of Australia’s contemporary art spaces and museums of
contemporary art.
Unfortunately, organising exhibitions (especially
blockbusters) has effectively become three times more
costly in the past six years or so. We should therefore
look at doing no more than three or four shows per year
in the major temporary-exhibitions galleries, and avoid
the practice of removing the permanent collection to
accommodate temporary exhibitions. We will continue
to produce high-quality low-cost exhibitions from our
rich collections for the Project Gallery, the Orde Poynton
Gallery and the Children’s Gallery.
It should go without saying that the National Gallery
of Australia must also continue its excellent program
of touring exhibitions around Australia and – after the
success of the Out & About program – by continuing
to release small focus displays drawn from the national
collection. The ongoing travelling-exhibitions program is
an important way to share the collections with the nation.
Children’s Gallery: Stage TwoA new and larger Children’s Gallery should be established
in the Stage Two construction. The present Children’s
Gallery is very popular but far too small for school
groups. This future gallery should be placed adjacent
to the other temporary-exhibitions galleries.
Publishing the collections Art museums should publish or perish. Since the National
Gallery of Australia is located in Canberra, a city with a
population of about 350,000 (and only the sixth-largest
city in Australia), publishing allows the Gallery to extend
its audiences both nationally and internationally. The
curators, and others, must be encouraged and given
every opportunity to research the collections and related
material, and publish the results.
A great national gallery must contain in-house
scholarship in order to maintain its international
credibility. We must of course fulfil the expectation that
we should be the world’s principal centre of scholarship
in Australian art. At present we are also a world centre for
scholarship in Indonesian textiles.
The collection should be published electronically as
well as made available through print publications in the
form of books and catalogues. The Gallery should aim to
make all works in all collections available online through
both images and texts. Much has been done already to
make them digitally accessible to all Australians and to
promote the collections worldwide. The online collections
will assist in disseminating information with which to
educate and whet a very large public appetite for the
treasures we hold in trust for the nation.
At the same time we must continue to publish books
on artists, collections and collecting areas of artistic and
cultural significance. The scholarship should be of the
highest quality, and so should the design and production.
Part one of the 2005 Director’s Vision for the National Gallery of Australia was published in the summer 2005–06 issue of artonview. The full Director’s Vision is also available online at nga.gov.au/Vision.
a
artonview autumn 2006 9
Masterpieces for the Nation appeal
Looking to the future, we are proud to present the
opportunity for Members to participate in acquiring
a major work for the collection. This year the Director
takes delight in proposing an oil painting by Sydney
Long, Flamingoes c. 1906. Sydney Long was the leading
proponent of the art nouveau style in Australian painting
at the beginning of the twentieth century and this work
is a remarkable example of Long’s decorative style.
Flamingoes were a popular motif for Sydney Long as in
art nouveau more generally, their sinuous necks and exotic
connotations highly appropriate to the flowing lines and
sensual nature of the art nouveau style.
Flamingoes will be an important addition to the
Gallery’s select collection of turn-of-the-century art
nouveau and symbolist painting, complementing works
by Bernard Hall, Rupert Bunny, DH Souter and Bertram
Mackennal, as well as Sydney Long’s The spirit of the
plains 1914 already in the collection. This is your
opportunity to make a donation and share the excitement
of knowing this exceptional work will bring pleasure to
many future generations. Please forward your donation
to Silvana Colucciello in the Development Office or
telephone her on 02 6240 6454.
Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
Once again we thank our committed and long-term
supporters: Qantas Freight for airfreighting the works
to Australia; and Channel Seven for creating and
broadcasting the inspiring television advertisement.
Crescent Moon: Islamic art and civilisation in
Southeast Asia
We welcome and thank Santos as the Principal Sponsor
of this special exhibition. As a major Australian oil and
gas exploration and production company with expanding
interests in the Asia Pacific region, their support represents
significant commitment to developing cultural ties with
our Southeast Asian neighbours.
The Gordon Darling Foundation’s generous grant
towards the curator’s research and the production of
the splendid catalogue ensures readers many hours of
pleasure and in-depth knowledge about the exceptional
works in the exhibition.
We also acknowledge the value of The Myer
Foundation’s grant directed to a family day and children’s
workshops; the Sidney Myer Fund’s grant for the study
day and education resource, with the support of the
Australia Indonesia Institute and the Australia Malaysia
Institute, enabling the attendance of Indonesian and
Malaysian speakers at the special cultural day.
Conservation equipment donation
On behalf of the Oxford Brookes University, Oxford,
conservation research colleague Dr Simon Watts kindly
donated an Ion Chromatograph. The gift will greatly assist
with the research currently being undertaken by Paper
Conservators at the Gallery, and will enable the Gallery to
monitor air quality in Solander storage boxes, display cases
and gallery spaces.
Lyn ConybeareHead of Development
development office
Sydney Long Flamingoes c. 1906 oil on canvas
10 national gallery of australia
exhibition galleries
John Constable (1776–1837) is one of the greatest British
landscape painters, renowned for his ‘pure and unaffected
representation of nature’. Constable: impressions of
land, sea and sky showcases the extraordinary range
of Constable’s work, from his outdoor sketches to his
cabinet pictures to some of his larger exhibition pieces.
It presents the breadth of his approach to image making
and shows the brilliance of his depiction of nature: how
he captured light in the sky and reflected on the ground,
how he showed it glistening on water and sparkling in the
trees, how he animated the landscape and created a sense
of air that brought nature alive. It especially demonstrates
the vitality of his many impressions of specific places
and of particular times of day, and how he gave these
brief moments a continuing existence. It also indicates
the significance of these sketches, how Constable used
these impressions in creating his exhibition pictures, in
transporting something of their directness and immediacy
into his larger work.
The son of Golding Constable, a prosperous corn and
coal merchant, mill owner, and barge operator, and his
wife Anne (née Watts), Constable was born on 11 June
1776. He grew up at East Bergholt, along the Stour River
in Suffolk, England. He spent several years working in his
father’s milling business, where he learnt to understand
the importance of weather to an agricultural community
and to observe atmospheric phenomena with a disciplined
John Constable A boat passing a lock 1826
oil on canvas Royal Academy of Arts, London, Diploma
work, accepted in 1829
Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 3 March – 12 June 2006 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington 5 July – 8 October 2006
artonview autumn 2006 11
12 national gallery of australia
eye. At the same time, he privately pursued his ambition to
be a painter, working in the fields, painting one view for a
certain time each day until the shadows changed. In 1796,
the engraver and antiquarian John Thomas (‘Antiquity’)
Smith advised Constable not to people his landscapes
with imaginary figures as was common at the time, but
to include figures actually observed in the landscape. He
also suggested that Constable use varying shades of green
when depicting vegetation, a feature of Constable’s work
which was later admired by the French artist, Eugène
Delacroix.
Constable went to London in February 1799, with
a small allowance from his father, to study at the Royal
Academy Schools. After viewing the works on display at
the Royal Academy in 1802, he wrote to his East Bergholt
friend John Dunthorne that ‘Nature is the fountain’s head,
the source from whence all originality must spring’ and
returned to East Bergholt to make ‘laborious studies from
nature’ to achieve a ‘pure and unaffected representation
of the scenes’.
Between 1808 and 1816, Constable spent most of
the summers and early autumns in Suffolk, sketching in
the fields and the surrounding countryside, producing
works such as View towards the rectory, East Bergholt, 30
September 1810. He also made drawings in small pocket
sketchbooks, which provided the source for a number of
future paintings. In 1813, he wrote ‘How much real delight
I have had with the study of Landscape this summer’. Over
the succeeding years he made many sketches in the open
air in Suffolk, creating works that are remarkable for their
freshness and spontaneity, and for the freedom of their
brushwork.
For the most part, Constable painted places with
which he felt a deep emotional attachment, or that were
associated with his family and friends. He visited the
cathedral city of Salisbury for the first time in September
1811 as a guest of the Bishop, Dr John Fisher. He met with
the Bishop’s nephew and namesake, John Fisher, later
Archdeacon of Berkshire, who became Constable’s closest
friend. Constable’s letters to Fisher provide insights into his
world and his art and many of his thoughts and feelings.
On his visits to Salisbury over the years Constable painted
important images of the cathedral and the surrounding
countryside, such as Salisbury Cathedral from the
Bishop’s Grounds 1823, in which he captured the air and
atmosphere of a summer morning, with the silver grey of
the cathedral shining through the golden foliage.
On the death of his father on 14 May 1816 Constable
received an inheritance of £400 a year, which gave him
a degree of financial independence and enabled him to
marry Maria Bicknell, whom he had been courting for
seven years. During their honeymoon they stayed with
John and Mary Fisher at their vicarage in Osmington,
near Weymouth, Dorset – with Constable and Fisher
spending time sketching the environs of Weymouth Bay
and visiting Salisbury. In advance of the visit Fisher had
written to Constable:
My house commands a singularly beautiful view: & you may
study from my very windows … we never see company:
& I have brushes paints & canvas in abundance. My wife is
quiet & silent & sits & reads without disturbing a soul & Mrs
Constable may follow her example. Of an evening we will
sit over an autumnal fireside read a sensible book perhaps
a Sermon, & after prayers get us to bed at peace with
ourselves & all the world.
John Constable View towards the
rectory, East Bergholt 30 September 1810
oil on canvas laid on panel John G Johnson collection,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, bequeathed in 1917
John Constable Salisbury Cathedral from the
Bishop’s Grounds 1823oil on canvas Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, gift of John Sheepshanks in 1857
John Constable A cottage in a cornfield
c. 1816–17oil on canvas
Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales,
Cardiff, purchased with the assistance of the National
Art Collections Fund in 1978
artonview autumn 2006 13
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Constable was a great innovator, but he also had a
passionate interest in the works of the Old Masters, and
in particular the great tradition of landscape painting of
Claude Lorraine and Jacob van Ruisdael. He continued
to study and copy the work of his predecessors as long
as he lived, constantly juxtaposing their interpretations
of the natural world against his own experience of it.
For five weeks in 1823, he visited Sir George Beaumont
at his home, Coleorton Hall in Leicestershire. Constable
wrote to Maria: ‘this is a lovely place indeed … such
grounds – such trees – such distances – rock and water
– all as it were can be done from the various windows
of the house’. He studied intensively his host’s collection
and made careful copies of two of Beaumont’s paintings
by Claude, including Landscape with goatherd and
goats, after Claude 1823. Although Constable shared Sir
George’s love of the Old Masters, they disagreed about
some technical matters, and Constable’s biographer CR
Leslie recorded their debate about the colours of nature:
‘Sir George recommended the colour of an old Cremona
fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and this
Constable answered by laying an old fiddle on the green
lawn before the house’.
Constable is known for his large exhibition pictures
of the landscape and life in the area around the Stour
Valley. In A boat passing a lock 1826 he created a
landscape full of life, with a strong sky and dramatic light
permeating the scene. Constable sold two of his large
Stour Valley paintings The haywain 1821 and View on the
Stour near Dedham 1822 (Henry E Huntington Library
and Art Gallery, San Marino) to the Parisian dealer John
Arrowsmith who exhibited them at the Paris Salon in
1824, where Constable was awarded a gold medal. The
paintings created a sensation in Paris, and were acclaimed
by French artists.
In the summer of 1824, Constable took his family to
Brighton, hoping that the sea air would restore Maria’s
health. At first he was critical of Brighton, describing
it as ‘Piccadilly … by the sea-side’. But in spite of this
unflattering assessment, Constable found a new stimulus
there. He painted a number of oil sketches, such as
Brighton Beach (A sea beach) 1824, which reflect his
enthusiastic response to the moods of the sky and the
effects of light on the sea, at times using a small palette
knife instead of a brush.
John Constable Brighton Beach (A sea beach) 1824
oil on paper laid on canvas Detroit Institute of the
Arts, bequeathed by Mr and Mrs Edgar
B Whitcomb in 1953
artonview autumn 2006 15
Constable and his family moved permanently to
Hampstead in 1827, leasing no. 6 (now no. 40) Well Walk
– opposite the chalybeate well, which had helped to make
Hampstead into a fashionable spa in the early eighteenth
century. ‘This house is to my wife’s heart’s content’, he
wrote to Fisher. That year, The Times wrote that Constable
‘is unquestionably the first landscape painter of the day’.
In 1828, however, Maria’s health rapidly declined and
she died of pulmonary tuberculosis in Hampstead, on 23
November. For Constable ‘the face of the world [was]
totally changed’; he never fully recovered from the loss
and dressed in black for the rest of his life. He began to
use stormy weather more self-consciously to express his
own feelings, as in Stormy sea, Brighton, 20 July 1828,
which he painted just four months before Maria died.
He painted it with vigour, applying the paint thickly
and quickly to capture the stormy weather and his own
personal turmoil.
Constable was finally elected a Royal Academician on
10 February 1829, and Turner visited him to congratulate
him. He was required to present a work to the Academy
as his Diploma painting, and he selected A boat passing
a lock, such was the value he placed on this work.
On 31 March 1837, aged 60, Constable died suddenly
at his home in London. As Leslie reported:
It was his custom to read in bed; between ten and eleven
he had read himself to sleep, and his candle, as usual, was
removed by a servant. Soon after this, his eldest son, who
had been at the theatre, returned home, and while preparing
for bed in the next room, his father awoke in great pain, and
called to him … He took some rhubarb and magnesia, which
produced sickness, and he drank copiously of warm water,
which occasioned vomiting.
Within half an hour of the first attack of pain he had died.
He was buried alongside his wife in the churchyard of St
John’s, Hampstead.
Anne GrayAssistant Director, Australian Art, and co-curator of Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky
This exhibition has been organised by the National Gallery of Australia in partnership with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Further information on the exhibition and symposium on Saturday 8 April at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, is available at nga.gov.au/Constable.
John Constable Stormy sea, Brighton 20 July 1828oil on paper laid on canvas Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, gift of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon in 1981
a
16 national gallery of australia
Constable’s intense study of nature was translated
into an unprecedented broad handling of his materials,
whether pencil or chalk, watercolour or oil paint. As the
French art critic Ernest Chesneau wrote in the 1880s:
‘He is a poet whose nature is roused to ecstasy by stormy
elements; although not blind to tranquil beauty, it is life
and movement which stir the depths of his soul’. Change,
movement and variety were what John Constable chiefly
prized. At Brighton, only the breakers and sky could
interest a painter: he felt they were ‘lovely indeed and
always varying’. The sky was the paradigm of natural
change, and Constable threw himself into the study of
it more intensely perhaps than any painter before him.
In 1821 and 1822 alone he made around one hundred
studies of skies.
The starting point in what must surely be Constable’s
most famous letter to his friend John Fisher, of 23
October 1821, constitutes an aesthetic manifesto. The
skies in some of his exhibition pictures had been criticised,
and Fisher had defended them, so the painter felt he
should explain his principles of sky painting. He began by
telling his friend that he had been doing a good deal of
‘skying’, since it was the most difficult part of landscape
painting, but one of the most important. Quoting the
painter and academician Joshua Reynolds who stated that
Titian, Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorraine had made their
skies ‘sympathise’ with their subjects, Constable went
on to say that the sky was ‘the key note, the standard
of “scale”, and the chief “organ of sentiment”’, as well
Constable: the ecstasy of stormy elements
John Constable Rainstorm over the sea
c. 1824–28 oil on paper laid on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London, gift of Isabel
Constable in 1888
artonview autumn 2006 17
18 national gallery of australia
as being ‘the “source of light” in nature – and governs
every thing’. He explained that the execution of his skies
was often faulty because he was too anxious about them,
‘which alone will destroy that Easy appearance which
nature always has – in all her movements’: a particularly
telling idea, because Constable seems to be thinking here
of the movement of nature as related to the movement of
his brush.
These were generalities, but the most important
evidence of Constable’s involvement with the sky lies
in the many inscriptions he wrote on the reverse of the
sketches. The best-known (because it was published
by his friend and biographer CR Leslie, who owned
the sketch) is on the Melbourne sky study, Clouds
5 September 1822:
5th September 1822, 10 o’clock. Morning looking South-
East very brisk wind at West, very bright and fresh grey
clouds running very fast over a yellow bed about half way
in the sky. Very appropriate for the coast at Osmington.
Constable had hoped to join John Fisher at Osmington
in April 1822, but could not. This sketch was made later
at Hampstead, and the inscription tells us that Constable
had no problem thinking that an inland sky could suit a
coastal scene, just as he used a Hampstead sky of 1819
not only for an upland Hampstead scene several years
later, but also for a major Stour Valley subject.
The inscription also puts a premium on movement,
and this was even more marked in a number of others,
such as that on Cloud study, Hampstead, trees at right
11 September 1821:
Hampstead, Sepr.11, 1821. 10 to 11. Morning under the sun
– Clouds silvery grey, on warm ground. Sultry. Light wind to
the S.W. fine all day – but rain in the night following.
This highly circumstantial description tells us how quickly
Constable worked (10 to 11am), how he took notice of
the direction of light, the wind, the temperature and
humidity, as well as of the later weather situation, and it
is the type of inscription that has led some commentators
to believe that the painter was a close student of
meteorology at this time.
Certainly all these features of the weather were
discussed in a book Constable acquired and annotated
heavily: Thomas Forster’s Researches about Atmospheric
Phaenomena (1815). He often found himself disagreeing
with Forster, but he also marked several passages where
he found the meteorologist’s account of special interest.
One concerned the formation of cumulus clouds:
… in the evening, when the heat is diminished, the air
deposits its vapour again in the form of dew, which
gravitates to the ground, becoming more dense as it
John Constable A storm off the coast
of Brighton 1824oil on paper laid on card
private collection
John Constable Cloud study, Hampstead,
trees at right 11 September 1821
oil on paper laid on board Royal Academy of Arts,
London, gift of Isabel Constable in 1888
artonview autumn 2006 19
approaches the earth, because the lower atmosphere is not
the coolest; and finally lodges on the surface of the herbage,
or on the ground, where it awaits the reascending sun to be
again evaporated.
Constable was proud of being able to produce the
effect of dew in his paintings: ‘there goes all my dew’ he
complained to Leslie when another artist warmed up one
of his exhibition paintings with a glaze of asphaltum just
before the opening of the 1829 Royal Academy show.
Forster’s account of this cycle of nature must have
especially appealed to Constable because it chimed with
another account of a water cycle in a work of natural
theology by William Paley, recommended to him by Fisher
in 1825:
From the sea are exhaled those vapours which form the
clouds; these clouds descend in showers, which penetrating
into the crevices of the hills, supply springs; which springs
flow in little streams into the valleys; and these uniting
become rivers; which rivers, in turn, feed the ocean. So
there is an incessant circulation of the same fluid; and not
one drop probably more or less now than there was at the
creation.
Constable’s brilliant sketch, Rainstorm over the sea
c. 1824–28, could well serve as an illustration to this
religious idea.
Forster also dealt with perhaps the most important
function of meteorology, weather forecasting, and
Constable inscribed several notes in this section of the
book, including the word cumulostrati against the line:
’Large clouds, like rocks, forebode great showers’. He is
interpreting folk wisdom in modern scientific terms, and
this raises the question of the date of his reading of Forster,
whose book is first mentioned by Constable in a letter of
1836. My own view is that he became interested in the
science of meteorology only after 1830, when he began
recording unusual heavenly phenomena, as in London from
Hampstead Heath in a storm; with a double rainbow 1831;
when he was preparing the often meteorological letterpress
for English landscape; when he was having difficulties with
the rainbow in David Lucas’s large mezzotint of Salisbury
Cathedral from the meadows, which was not published
until 1848 as The rainbow; and when was planning (but
never delivered) a lecture on the sky for the Hampstead
Institute Literary and Scientific Society.
The key to Constable’s intensive involvement with
the sky in the early twenties is surely the changeability
of the weather, its ‘before’ and ‘after’, and it brings a
landscape element into the lively academic debate on
the relationship of painting and poetry. History painters
within the Royal Academy were anxious to show that
John Constable Clouds 5 September 1822oil on paper laid on cardboard National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, acquired through the Felton Bequest in 1938
20 national gallery of australia
their art, like poetry, could represent time as well as
space, by selecting the ‘pregnant moment’. Speaking of
Raphael in 1801, the Professor of Painting, Henry Fuseli,
told the students (Constable possibly among them) that
‘the moment of his choice never suffers the action to
stagnate or to expire; it is the moment of transition, the
crisis big with the past and pregnant with the future’.
Constable in 1821 was in the thick of his campaign to
impress the public with his six-foot canvases, and to raise
the status of landscape in the Academy; and it is more
than likely that he would want to take a leaf from the
history painters’ book.
One of Constable’s most vivid memories as a student
at the Royal Academy was being told by Benjamin
West – who was correcting one of Constable’s pictures
with white chalk – ‘Always remember, Sir, that light
and shadow never stand still‘, and that his skies should
always aim at brightness. When staying with Sir George
Beaumont in 1823 Constable showed a rather abstract
concern for the way clouds serve to distribute light and
shade in any sky, by copying all twenty schemata of
clouds by Alexander Cozens, from his compilation, A New
Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original
Compositions of Landscape (c. 1785).
Constable’s pencilling gives the clouds more
volume and more movement than the originals, whose
inscriptions simply prescribe the number of watercolour
washes (hence depth of tone) to be applied to various
parts of the design; there is no hint of an interest in
weather. Attention to light and shade, or chiaroscuro, was
Constable’s most constant and significant preoccupation
as a painter. Whereas, as a painterly device, chiaroscuro
has a long history in art, Constable’s interpretation was
substantially original, for he regarded it not simply as a
function of visual structuring, but as an attribute of nature
itself. For the 1833 second edition of English landscape
he amplified its title to show that the mezzotints were
‘Principally intended to display the Phenomena of the
Chiar’oscuro of Nature’; and in a Prospectus of 1835 he
wrote that he hoped:
the Landscape Painter shall be aware that the
CHIAR’OSCURO really does exist in NATURE (as well as Tone)
– and, that it is the medium by which the grand and varied
aspects of Landscape are displayed, both in the fields and on
canvass …
John Gage
John Gage taught for twenty years in the Department of History of Art, Cambridge University, is a fellow of the British Academy and recently worked on the Paris ‘Constable’ show, 2002–03. He is co-curator of Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky. John Gage, with other leading international scholars, will contribute to the Constable symposium at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, on Saturday 8 April 2006. Further information available at nga.gov.au/Constable.
John Constable Cloud study 1822
oil on paper The Frick Collection, New
York, bequest of Henrietta ES Lockwood in memory
of her mother and father, Ellery Sedgwick and Mabel
Cabot Sedgwick in 2001
John Constable Harwich Lighthouse c. 1820
oil on canvas Tate, London, gift of
Maria Louisa Constable, Isabel Constable
and Lionel Bicknell Constable in 1888
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The landscape painter has to realise that [the sky] is not
something secondary, like a backdrop, but that
it is above you, at the sides of you, and all around.
Thus wrote the prominent Australian landscape artist,
Hans Heysen, a great admirer of Constable’s work who,
like Constable, was aware of the expressive significance
of the sky and its ability to dictate the mood of a landscape.
Such is the power of Constable’s art that it has
inspired many artists, including Hans Heysen and a range
of Australian artists: Conrad Martens, Tom Roberts,
Arthur Streeton, Howard Taylor, Philip Wolfhagen and
Lesley Duxbury, among others. It is for this reason that in
Australia we are presenting a second exhibition alongside
Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky, called
Australia and Constable, which will include examples of
the works of some of these Australian artists, and one
New Zealand artist, Toss Woollaston.
Australia and Constable
Among the most recent of the works in the exhibition
are those by Lesley Duxbury who has looked to Constable
for inspiration in a series of paintings and prints. In her
Untitled 2003 series, she painted on paper on canvas
because this was a method Constable used, not only with
his Hampstead cloud studies but also in other paintings.
Like her contemporary Philip Wolfhagen, she has been
interested depicting the movement of clouds as indicators
of passing time.
The works in this exhibition show that Constable’s art
has continued to inspire artists – and viewers – into the
present day.
Anne GrayAssistant Director, Australian Art
a
Philip Wolfhagen The path of least resistance (to J. Constable) 1989 oil and powder pigment on paper laid on canvas artist’s collection
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 3 March – 12 June 2006
22 national gallery of australia
Crescent moon: Islamic art and civilisation in
Southeast Asia is the first international exhibition to
present the spectacular heritage of five hundred years
of Islamic art, from the fourteenth to twentieth century,
in our region. It is astonishing that the contribution of
Islam to Southeast Asian art has been so neglected
when the archipelago is the most populous region
of Islam on the planet today. Since the publication
of Sir Stamford Raffles’s seminal study The History
of Java in 1817, European scholars working from the
viewpoint of an increasingly secular society have often
been ill equipped to understand the subtle dialogue
between art and spirituality in the Islamic world of
Southeast Asia. In much historical art scholarship,
derived from a Western orientalist perspective, the
mechanist model of the ‘layer cake’ used to describe the
sequential relationship of Islam to Hindu and Buddhist
traditions in Southeast Asian history has reinforced
studies which emphasised the dichotomy between
religion (agama) and indigenous customs derived
from ancestral tradition (adat). The focus on perceived
gulfs between a textural theory of Islam and its local
daily practice underlined an implication that Islam in
Southeast Asian societies was somehow less authentic
than that of the Middle East. This discourse created
an intellectual climate where discussion on the role of
Islamic art, seen as a foreign overlay on a more real
indigenous foundation, often became marginalised.
Crescent moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast AsiaNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra 24 February – 28 May 2006
MalaysiaKeris 19th century
gold, iron, nickelDepartment of Museums and
Antiquities, Kuala Lumpur
MalaysiaBreast plate 19th century,
gold, gemstoneDepartment of Museums and
Antiquities, Kuala Lumpur
artonview autumn 2006 23
Crescent moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast AsiaNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra 24 February – 28 May 2006
24 national gallery of australia
Nevertheless the term ‘Islamic art’, invented by
nineteenth-century Western scholarship, is also fraught
with difficulties and serves more to emphasise ideas
of difference rather than define aesthetic goals. Many
Muslims would suggest that perhaps the only true
Islamic art is the decoration of the Qur’an, and other
religious texts, represented in Crescent moon by
thirty-five of the finest illuminated manuscripts from
Southeast Asia, including one of the earliest surviving
Qur’an from the collection of the National Library of
Indonesia. The written Qur’an is the revealed message
of God and hence the calligrapher is often regarded as
the quintessential Muslim artist: any other art may be
created by a non-Muslim, but God’s holy word, revealed
to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel, should only be
written by a pious believer in a state of ritual purity.
Religious inscriptions are found on a wide variety of
art objects, including luxurious royal keris. But it was in
the decoration of religious manuscripts, rather than the
transcription of the Arabic text, that Islamic art achieved
its most beautiful and elaborate forms through various
regional styles such as in Trengganu, Patani and Banten.
In Southeast Asia the decoration of the Qur’an
and other sacred texts articulated the believer’s deep
reverence for faith. Rulers and religious institutions also
sponsored the production of illuminated manuscripts in
local regional languages, including Malay and Javanese.
One of the most exquisite works of art in the exhibition
is the Javanese manuscript Serat Dewi Ruci, dated 1886
and possibly decorated by the famous Yogyakarta
court painter Jayadipura. It depicts the wondrous story
of the warrior Werkudara’s search for the elixir of life.
Although Werkudara is more commonly known as
Bima, the hero of the Indian Mahabharata epic, and
the manuscript is illustrated in the style of wayang
kulit conventionally identified with the Hindu epics of
the shadow puppet theatre, nevertheless the Serat
Dewi Ruci is quintessentially Sufi in its mystical tale of
the perilous journey towards the conquest of self.
Kelantan, MalaysiaQur’an c. 1900
European paper, pigment, gold leaf
National History Museum, Kuala Lumpur
artonview autumn 2006 25
The Dewi Ruci story was composed in the
sixteenth century and another highlight of Crescent
moon is a small collection of rare wood carvings
that dates from around the transitional era from Hindu-
Buddhism to Islam in Java. The uncertainties of time
and the tropical climate of Southeast Asia have not
favoured the survival of many art media, including
the wood once used widely to decorate mosques and
palaces as well as utilitarian objects. These unique
works are from Cirebon’s Kraton Kasepuhan palace
which was established by the Muslim saint Sunan
Gunung Jati and today is the oldest continuously
occupied Islamic palace in Southeast Asia.
The exhibition includes two unusual panels,
decorated on both sides, which appear to be the only
surviving narrative wood sculpture from that period.
Local people describe the scenes as the story of Adam
and Hawa (Eve) but they probably depict the Sri Tanjung
tale from the Javanese Hindu-Buddhist period and
include a humorous depiction of two servant figures
(panakawan), engaged in a startling sexual encounter.
The panels, with their distinctive style similar to the
stone reliefs of East Javanese Hindu-Buddhist temples,
may even have originated from a late fifteenth-century
Majapahit palace context as historical evidence
suggests it was once a common practice to recycle
architectural ornament for new building construction.
The occurrence of pre-Islamic art motifs, and
literary themes, in the context of Islamic civilisation in
Southeast Asia is not surprising given the nature of
transmission of the new belief into the archipelago
and the receptiveness to cross-cultural engagement
amongst early Sufi teachers, many of whom were
practising craftspeople, in comparison to the stricter
doctrinal orthodoxy that followed in the wake of the
nineteenth-century Wahhabi reformist movement. A
spectacular Cirebon batik Skirt cloth, recently restored
for this exhibition, includes the curious depiction
Yogyakarta, Central Java, IndonesiaSerat Dewi Ruci 1886European paper, ink, pigment, gold leafPresented by the Friends of the Gallery Library in memory of Tina Wentcher, 1982National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
26 national gallery of australia
of elephants in the form of rocks. Such images
are often attributed to orthdox Islamic injunctions
against naturalistic representations; nevertheless, the
precedent for this image may be found in an episode
from the Javanese version of the Mahabharata epic
where the exiled Arjuna discovers an enormous
stone in the shape of an elephant. This event occurs
just as the hero meets the god and goddess of love
sporting in an idyllic natural setting and the landscape
pattern on many Cirebon batik cloths, like on this
example, are often described as representing fantastic
pleasure gardens (taman sari). The depiction of rocky
landscapes in Cirebon textiles appears to be inspired
specifically by the famous Sunyragi Gardens, with
its fantastic grottoes, built by the local sultan in the
eighteenth century as a retreat for meditation.
One wood carving with a clearly documented
religious provenance and dated to the early period of
Islam is a lively statue of a lion. This originally adorned
the burial vault of the holy man Sunan Sendang located
at the famous East Javanese mosque of Sendang
Duwur erected about 1561. It is most unusual to find
three-dimensional zoomorphic images in a religious
context in Islam, and only occurs in Southeast Asia
during this Javanese period marking the transition
from Hindu-Buddhist belief to Islam. The elegant
decorative portrayal of the lion reflects the influence
of Chinese aesthetic traditions at a time when many
Muslim Chinese communities were being established
in the coastal ports of the Southeast Asia archipelago.
These Chinese merchant settlers were key
participants in the international commerce in blue-
and-white high-fired ceramics that became an integral
part of the archipelago’s Islamic art history. Porcelain
was a major commodity in the legendary ‘spice
trade’ stretching from Asia to the Middle East and
Europe. The trade ware is a reminder that, while the
precise parameters of the term ‘Islamic art’ may at
times be difficult to define, there is a very clear and
recognisable Islamic sensibility pervading art produced
by both Muslims and non-Muslims for the context of
Islamic patronage. Included in Crescent moon are
Chinese ceramics from the Yuan until Qing Dynasty
as well as Vietnamese and European export ware
intended for these markets. These ceramics embody a
distinctive Islamic sensibility through the use of Arabic
inscriptions, decorative motifs based on markedly
geometrical designs and a variety of vessel shapes,
such as the long-spouted ewer, clearly derived from
Middle Eastern and South Asia metal prototypes.
Mantingan, Central Java, IndonesiaOne side of two panels depicting figures in the landscape 16th centuryteak, woodCollection of Kraeton Kasepuhan Museum, Cirebon
Cirebon, north coast Java, Indonesia Skirt cloth (detail) 19th century cotton, natural dyes, hand-drawn batikConserved with the assistance of the Maxwell Family in memory of Anthony Forge, 2005National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Makam Sunan Sendang, Sendang Duwur, East Java, IndonesiaLion 16th century wood National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta
Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, found in Maluku, IndonesiaPlate late 14th century, Yuan Dynasty 1271–1369underglaze blue porcelainNational Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta
30 national gallery of australia
Richly patterned Indian trade cloths, formerly
preserved as ancestral heirloom objects in both Islamic
and non-Islamic societies of the archipelago and
now assembled into one of the greatest collections
at the National Gallery of Australia, also formed part
of this cultural exchange alongside the ceramics.
The textiles document the international identity of
Islamic aesthetics in the pre-modern era and include
a spectacular Ceremonial cloth and sacred heirloom
whose distinctive quadrature design, a symbolic map
of paradise, reflects the influence of Sufi cosmic
symbolism. Islamic mystical cosmograms had a
significant influence on a variety of Southeast Asian
arts, including textiles like batik headcloths. The
symmetrical mirrored patterns convey concepts of
unity and multiplicity related to the Islamic doctrine of
tauhid, although their geometrical balanced appearance
is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the influence
of mandala designs from earlier Hindu-Buddhist art.
In the preparation of Crescent moon, an award-
winning Indonesian calligrapher and scholar of
Southeast Asian Qur’an illumination, Bpk Ali Akbar was
invited to suggest three Islamic quotes that encapsulated
a Muslim perspective for this exhibition. These quotes
are displayed in each of the three galleries that present
the rich heritage of the sultanate arts, the international
identity of Islam aesthetics in the archipelago and the
beauty of the holy word revealed in the Qur’an. It is the
second inscription that perhaps most directly speaks
to the aspiration of Crescent moon to promote a
greater understanding and appreciation in Australia
and overseas for the Islamic art of our region:
O Mankind…
We made you into nations and tribes,
that ye may know one another.
Al Qur’an, Surah 49: 13
James BennettCurator of Asian ArtArt Gallery of South Australia
Coromandel coast, India, found in Toraja region,
South Sulawesi, IndonesiaCeremonial cloth and
sacred heirloom early-to-mid 18th century
handspun cotton, natural dyes, mordant
painting, batikGift of Michael and Mary Abbott 1987
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Not your typical hard hat.
Santos searches for oil and gas all over the world. But recently, we’ve discovered something quite
different – precious gold, silk, porcelain and even stone from South East Asia, including Indonesia. It’s the
Crescent Moon exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. In becoming the principal
sponsor of Crescent Moon: Islamic Art & Civilisation in Southeast Asia, our aim is to
help Australians develop a better understanding of our closest neighbours. And that’s of benefit to everyone.
Banten, Java, Indonesia, Crown, 18th century, gold, precious stones, enamel, metal, 17.0 x 11.5cm (outer crown). National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta.
san1230_297x233_Artonview 11/1/06 2:24 PM Page 1
Southeast
32 national gallery of australia
project gallery
Otto Dix (1891–1969) was born in Untermhausen,
Thuringia, the son of an ironworker. He initially trained
in Gera and at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts
as a painter of wall decorations and later taught
himself how to paint on canvas. He volunteered as a
machine-gunner during the First World War and in the
autumn of 1915 he was sent to the Western Front. He
was at the Somme during the major allied offensive
of 1916. During the war, he was wounded a number
of times, once almost fatally. War profoundly affected
Dix, and as an artist he took every opportunity, both
during his active service and afterwards, to document
his experiences. These experiences would become
the subject matter of many of his later paintings and
are central to the Der Krieg [War] cycle of prints.
A portfolio of fifty-one etchings, Der Krieg is
modelled on Francisco Goya’s equally famous and
equally devastating Los desastres de la guerra [The
disasters of war]. Los desastres detailed Goya’s own
account of the horrors of the Napoleonic invasion and
the Spanish War of Independence from 1808 to 1814.
Goya’s cycle of eighty-two etchings, which he worked
on for a decade after the Spanish War of Independence,
was not published until 1863, long after his death.
Like Los desastres, Der Krieg uses a variety of etching
techniques and does so with an equally astonishing
facility. Similarly, it exploits the cumulative possibilities
of a long sequence of images and mirrors Goya’s
unflinching, stark realism. The focus of Der Krieg is, in
many respects, quite different from that of Los desastres.
War for Goya was an intimate horror, its initial impact
localised, its ultimate effect incremental. As the images
which open Dix’s cycle in particular demonstrate, Dix’s
war is a modern war – the scale is vast. Not only are
men killed in an arbitrary, anonymous and indiscriminate
way, the landscape itself is torn apart, desecrated and
ravaged. Often the landscape appears alien, other-worldly,
nightmarish. It appears sometimes as a simple backdrop
to human tragedy, but often as a more integral part of the
destruction – see for example plate 9, Collapsed trenches.
Collapsed trenches is also typical of a recurrent
psychological strategy that underpins much of what Dix
does in his portfolio. In this image, we are immediately
aware that something terrible has happened, a perception
that is reinforced subliminally by the piece of cloth that
seems to loom, vulture-like, over the disintegrated trench.
It is only on closer inspection, however, that images of
skeletons, disarticulated limbs and the other debris of war
slowly reveal themselves – many viewers fail to see, for
example, the foot in the extreme lower left foreground
on first inspection, and are horrified when they do.
Dix’s work is less about objectively documenting
the experience of war in the way that many
commissioned war artists do; although it does this
as well, it is about recapturing the nightmare-like
quality of its psychological impact. The images in
this portfolio convey the immediacy of authentic
experience. Many of them are based on the diary
sketches that Dix made while fighting in the trenches.
GH Hamilton in the Oxford companion to twentieth
century art describes Dix’s cycle as ‘perhaps the
most powerful as well as the most unpleasant anti-
war statements in modern art’, and it has become
a commonplace to see it as an admonition against
the barbarity of war. And there is no doubt that
as a human document it is a powerful cautionary
work. At a psychological level, however, its truth
goes deeper than this. Dix was both horrified
and fascinated by the experience of war.
all images © Otto Dix, Licensed by
VISCOPY, Australia
Otto Dix Zerfallender Kampfgraben
[Collapsed trenches]plate 9 from the portfolio
Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatint
The Poynton Bequest 2003 National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
War: the prints of Otto Dix 17 December 2005 – 30 April 2006
34 national gallery of australia
In 1963, explaining why he volunteered for the
army in the First World War he had this to say: ‘I had to
experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over
and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to
experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I’m therefore
not a pacifist at all – or am I? Perhaps I was an inquisitive
person. I had to see all that myself. I’m such a realist, you
know, that I have to see everything with my own eyes in
order to confirm that it’s like that. I have to experience
all the ghastly, bottomless depths of life for myself.’
We can see what Dix was talking about clearly in
plate 13, Mealtime in the trenches. Here, in an image
that is as ghastly as it is macabre, a lone soldier gulps
down a hasty meal, apparently indifferent to the human
skeleton trapped in the frozen landscape beside him.
Dix was not only interested in portraying the impact
of war on its combatants, but was also interested in
analysing the impact it had on civilian populations. In
the brilliantly dynamic composition Lens being bombed
(plate 33), the viewer has an overwhelming sense of the
terrifying reality of the actual moment the city of Lens
in Northern France was bombed. We are drawn into
the image by the multiple receding lines of the street,
plunging into the distance. In the foreground, the faces of
the fleeing civilians are distorted by fear and grief. Their
hollow eyes echo the empty, boarded-up windows of the
houses they desert. In the background, these figures are
reduced to dark, fugitive shapes seemingly trapped by
the dramatic, vortex-like perspective of the scene. As the
bomber swoops down on Lens, one can almost hear the
noise and feel the panic it creates. Its shadow ominously
divides the two groups of people, while the endless
façades of the buildings stretching into the horizon from
both right and left create a narrowing tunnel from which
the citizens of Lens seem to have no prospect of escape.
Years later, Dix had this to say: ‘As a young man
you don’t notice at all that you were, after all, badly
affected. For years afterwards, at least ten years, I
kept getting these dreams, in which I had to crawl
through ruined houses, along passages I could
hardly get through.’ This nightmarish, hallucinatory
quality pervades all of the Der Krieg images.
As stated above, Der Krieg is modelled on Goya’s
Los desastres. Two of the images that most directly
echo Goya’s work are plate 22, Night-time encounter
with a madman, and the devastating plate 35, The
madwoman of St Marie-à-Py. The original German
title of plate 22 is Nächtliche Begegnung mit einem
Irrsinnigen: in relationship to this work in particular,
the word Irrsinnig in German powerfully conveys the
sense that all the neural networks that underpin both
one’s sense of self and the apparent rational structure
of one’s world have been irretrievably torn to shreds.
Otto Dix Mahlzeit in der Sappe
(Loretthöhe) [Mealtime in the trenches – The Loretto Hills]plate 13 from the portfolio
Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatint
The Poynton Bequest 2003National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
Otto Dix Lens wird mit Bomben belegt
[Lens being bombed]plate 33 from the portfolio
Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatint
The Poynton Bequest 2003National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 37
Equally harrowing is plate 35, The madwoman of St.
Marie-à-Py, which depicts a woman crazed with grief
proffering her breast to her dead child who lies before her.
One of the most famous etchings from Goya’s war
cycle was entitled Yo lo vi [I saw it], and we have
the same sense of absolute observed authenticity
in Dix’s portfolio, not only in the images mentioned
above, but elsewhere – see for example plate 28,
Seen on the escarpment of Cléry-sur-Somme, and
plate 29, Found while digging a trench – Auberive.
While Dix’s work certainly documents the horrors
of war, it is also paradoxically sensuous, conveying an
almost perverse delight in the rendering of horrific detail,
indicating that, for Dix, there was an addictive quality
to the hyper-sensory input of war – something that
would be familiar to many a war correspondent today.
The portfolio on display in the exhibition War: the
prints of Otto Dix includes plate 51 Soldier raping a nun,
which on the advice of Dix’s publisher Karl Nierendorf
was suppressed when the portfolio was first published
in 1924. Nierendorf believed that this image would be
seen as a ‘slap in the face for all those who celebrate our
“heroes” [and] … for all those who have a bourgeois
conception of a front-line soldier.’ Indeed, it could
‘threaten the whole work with confiscation … People will
make this one print into the target of their attacks.’ He
had similar reservations about plate 34 Frontline soldiers
in Brussels and plate 36 Visit to Madame Germaine in
Méricourt, both of which depict soldiers visiting a brothel.
As a consequence, this image was excluded from the
portfolio when it was published. Subsequently, however,
collectors of the portfolio who were aware of this fact
have sought to re-integrate it into the cycle. In the
present instance the image is numbered 59/70 and is
from a different edition to the rest of the cycle, which
is numbered 58/70, indicating that the original owner
sought to complete his portfolio of Der Krieg in this way.
In terms of the general corpus of Dix’s work, Der
Krieg occupies a central place amongst the large
number of paintings and works on paper devoted to
the theme of war. This astonishingly powerful work
remains one of the most powerful indictments of war
ever conceived, and is universally regarded as one of
the great masterpieces of the twentieth century. Its
acquisition in 2003 represented a major coup for the
Gallery having been on the Department of International
Prints desiderata list for years. As a document, the
cycle demonstrates that its concerns are as relevant
today as they were when it was originally conceived.
Mark Henshaw, Curator, Department of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books; andGwen Horsfield, Department of International Prints, Intern
Otto Dix Nächtliche Begegnung mit einem Irrsinnigen [Night-time encounter with a madman]plate 22 from the portfolio Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatintThe Poynton Bequest 2003National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Otto Dix Die Irrsinnige von St. Marie-à-Py [The madwoman of St. Marie-à-Py]plate 35 from the portfolio Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatintThe Poynton Bequest 2003National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Otto Dix Soldat und Nonne (Vergewaltigung) [Soldier raping a nun]plate 51 from the portfolio Der Krieg [War] 1924etching, aquatintThe Poynton Bequest 2003National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
a
38 national gallery of australia
The ruins of the great stupa at Amaravati was only
rediscovered near the modern town of Guntur in the
eastern state of Andhra Pradesh in the 1840s, during the
British colonial period. The stupa was never reconstructed,
and the great collections of Amaravati stone sculptures
were largely divided between the Madras Provincial
Museum in today’s Chennai, and the British Museum in
London, with a smaller but growing collection located
in a museum at the Amaravati site. While this imposing
marble panel is clearly in the Amaravati style, it may
have originated from one of the many other stupas
known to have once existed in that region. Unlike the
contemporaneous sculptures of the better-known
Gandhara region in the north-west of the Indian
subcontinent, this style was not influenced by the Hellenic
traditions brought to Central Asian Buddhist centres by
Alexander the Great.
This is the lower register of one of the tall slabs
which decorated the exterior of the dome of the stupa.
new acquisition Asian Art
Ancient aniconic images of the Buddha Shakyamuni
India Amaravati region,
Andhra PradeshScene from the life of
the Buddha Shakyamuni 3rd century CE
limestoneNational Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
Onto such slabs, a series of friezes were carved which
told the stories of the life (and previous lives) of the
Buddha Shakyamuni. These narrative images served a
didactic function for the worshippers who circled the
stupas, believed to conceal a relic of the Buddha himself
buried within, as part of their pilgrimage. In this scene
worshippers – male and female – holding vases of lotuses
and (one woman) a fly whisk, flank the empty throne with
its round cushions, beneath which the Buddha’s footprints
are clearly shown. A part of a trunk or pillar appears
above the throne: it may have supported the branches
of the bodhi tree under which the Buddha achieved
Enlightenment, or it may have been topped by a large disc
representing the Wheel of Law, symbol of the Buddha’s
First Sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath near Benares
(Varanasi).
Robyn MaxwellSenior Curator, Asian Art
artonview autumn 2006 39
new acquisition Asian Art
Throughout the Indonesian archipelago, valuable clan
treasures and royal heirlooms are created from gold. The
precious metal was part of a complex exchange network
involving many other parts of Indonesia. In historical
times, however, much of the gold in Sumba came to the
island in the form of gold coins which were refashioned
into elaborate sculptural ornaments, like this double-axe
shaped marangga chest ornament. The marangga appears
only to be used in the west of Sumba, an eastern island
located close to Timor. Similarly-shaped but smaller gold
items appear elsewhere in eastern Indonesia. The gold
objects were often created in specific regional styles and
forms by itinerant smiths from the small nearby islands of
Savu and Ndao.
Precious heirloom treasures such as marangga are
viewed only on special ceremonial occasions, usually under
the supervision of village priests. (Despite the spread
of Christianity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
a large proportion of the population of Sumba still
follows many ancestral religious practices.) Such objects
Ancestral gold
are an essential part of ritual and communication with
the ancestors, and their display and, in some instances,
exchange (particularly through marriage), cements social
relationships. Less sacred versions of the same objects
are worn as jewellery on special occasions and for less
powerfully charged rituals. While senior figures rarely wear
gold, it is common for their children to be adorned with
heirloom jewellery for public rituals. Marangga are worn
by girls and boys alike.
Marangga imagery is also found on stone grave
monuments and village altars throughout west Sumba.
Through the construction of stone megaliths for the
internment of great nobles, and the accompanying
sacrifices, the soul is said to be protected on its journey
through the Afterlife. Marangga motifs also appear on
Sumbanese heirloom textiles worn and displayed at such
important rites.
Robyn Maxwell and Melanie EastburnAsian Art
Indonesia West SumbaBreast ornament or pectoral [marangga] 19th centurygoldNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra
40 national gallery of australia
new acquisition Australian Prints, Drawings and I llustrated Books
Prince Giolo, also known as Jeoly, was a native of the
island of Meangis in the Philippines. Acquired by the
explorer and sailor William Dampier as settlement for a
debt, Giolo was taken to England in 1691 and introduced
to the English elite, including the reigning monarchs
William III and Mary II. This engraving is an advertisement
to promote Giolo, the tattooed prince, as a ‘fashionable
wonder’, a novelty brought from the ends of the earth
to be scrutinised by English society. The engraved text
beneath the image gives an account of Giolo’s lineage,
admirable physical form, his homelands and a description
of his tattoos and their meaning. Little is known of
the life of artist John Savage. He flourished in London
1680–1700 and was both an engraver and a publisher.
The Prince towers within the landscape and is an
imposing figure placed centrally within the composition.
His pose is noble and elegant; the small loincloth draped
gracefully around his waist covers little of his tattooed
body. Beneath the layer of tattoos the Prince’s figure is
tall and muscular. The Prince was a particular curiosity
for the English: on special request, preferred patrons
could view Giolo privately to marvel at this exotic
individual and his elaborately tattooed skin, a practice
claimed to be reserved in his homeland for royalty.
At the Prince’s feet, snakes, scorpions and lizards are
repelled by the magical powers vested in his tattoos.
This image of Giolo is an example of the introduction
of tattooing to the West. Less than a century after Giolo’s
death from smallpox, Captain James Cook introduced the
word ‘tatau’, now tattoo, into the English language after
observing the Tahitian practice, and the fame of a man
called Omai.
Deborah HillGordon Darling Graduate InternAustralian Prints and Drawings
John Savage Prince Giolo
John Savage Prince Giolo, Son to the
King of Meangis c. 1692engraving
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 41
new acquisition Australian Prints, Drawings and I llustrated Books
Unlike Prince Giolo, Omai’s journey to England from
Tahiti in 1774 was voluntary. This portrait of Omai was
engraved by James Caldwell in 1777 after a drawing
by William Hodges, several years after the return of the
HMAS Resolution and HMAS Adventure to England. It
was on Captain James Cook’s second voyage to Tahiti
that Cook and Hodges met Omai. Hodges was an artist
aboard the HMAS Resolution employed to document the
landscape, flora and fauna, but his works from this period
are better known for their sublime atmosphere rather
than their topographical accuracy. Omai sailed as a crew-
member on HMAS Adventure and was placed in the care
of Joseph Banks and Dr Solander upon arrival in England.
While the intentions of the English may have been to
exhibit Omai as an ‘exotic wonder’, Omai was ambitious
and hoped to use the journey to convince those in England
to arm him in a war to reclaim his native island from the
men of neighbouring Borabora. Hodges illustrates the
famous islander dressed in white robes with loose black
hair and a dignified pose, as he was popularly portrayed.
Omai’s comfortable glance over his shoulder to engage
the viewer gives the work an intimate atmosphere, as if
we occupy his personal space. Omai’s tattoos are not
visible in this portrait, but they were a significant part
of his exotic appeal.
Omai spent two years in England during which time he
was the darling of polite society, celebrated in literature,
studied for science, and even presented to King George
III and Queen Charlotte at Kew. Unlike other men and
women taken from the South Pacific to England, Omai did
not fall prey to Western disease and was returned to Tahiti
on Cook’s third and fateful voyage to the Pacific. Omai
carried home with him an array of European trappings
including weapons, crockery, animals and clothing.
Deborah HillGordon Darling Graduate InternAustralian Prints and Drawings
William Hodges Omai
print after William Hodges engraver James CaldwellOmai 1777 engraving National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
42 national gallery of australia
new acquisition International Photography
In 1882 Canadian theatrical agent Robert A Cunningham
came to Queensland to secure ‘wild’ Aboriginal people
as performers for touring in America and Europe in
PT Barnum’s show, ‘Ethnological Congress of Strange and
Savage Tribes’. Six of the nine troupe members ‘recruited’
were from separate communities on Palm Island and
three from Hinchinbrook Island. They did not all speak
the same traditional languages. Only two spoke some
English, and these were used to assert Cunningham’s
claims that they were not coerced. Their performance in
Barnum’s Congress began in 1883 and in the following
year two members of the troupe, Tambo and Wangong,
had died. Cunningham left Barnum in 1884 and began a
long tour across Europe despite the deaths of Bob, Toby
senior, Sussy and Jimmy in 1885. Only Jenny, her son
Toby and Billy returned to Australia in 1888. Their full and
extraordinary story has been told by the Australian writer
and anthropologist Roslyn Poignant in her 2004 book
Professional savages: captive lives and western spectacle.
Cunningham knew nothing of Aboriginal culture,
so the members must have worked together as a group
RA Cunningham’s Australian Aboriginal international touring company
[attributed to] William Robinson,
photographer H Negretti & Zambra printers and publishers
Members of RA Cunningham’s Australian
Aboriginal international touring company,
(left to right): Jenny, Toby her son, her husband
Toby, Billy, Bob, Jimmy and Sussy (Crystal Palace,
London, April 1884) albumen silver carte de visite
on Negretti & Zambra yellow mount
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
to develop a crowd-pleasing repertoire of dances,
songs, boomerang throwing and mock fights in stage
costumes (as they deeply resented requests to be
photographed naked). Cunningham soon realised the
value of professional photography, and sales of images
became a feature of all the European venues. Relatively
few copies of the tour images are known to survive.
Cunningham was undeterred by the death of the
majority of his first troupe and returned to recruit a
second group in 1892 in preparation for the living
ethnological displays planned for the 1893 World’s
Colombian Exposition in Chicago. The Gallery has also
recently acquired photographs of troupe members from
‘Meston’s Wild Australia’, which performed in Brisbane,
Sydney and Melbourne in 1892–93. This company was
established by the Queensland journalist Archibald
Meston who had formerly assisted Cunningham.
Gael NewtonSenior Curator, Photography
artonview autumn 2006 43
German-born photographer JW Lindt made his reputation
in the 1870s–1880s for his studio tableaux portraits
of Aboriginal people made in Grafton in 1872, and
continued to market these images until his death in
1926. Coontajandra and Sanginguble, the two sitters in
his 1893 portrait, were Workii clan members from the
Mount Isa region. They were photographed, possibly
in Sydney in late 1892 but more likely in Melbourne
in January 1893, as members of ‘The Wild Australia
Show’. This event was presented in Brisbane, Sydney and
Melbourne by Archibald Meston, a Queensland journalist
who later became the first Protector of Aborigines in
Queensland. He hoped to tour the company to the
1893 World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago whose
organisers had called for living ethnographic displays.
Meston’s partner in the venture was Harry Brabazon
Purcell, a Brisbane-based stock and station agent who
had rounded up the performers for Meston from across
North Queensland and Central Australia. Purcell delivered
lectures in Melbourne in 1893, showing his considerable
ethnographic knowledge of the central Australian
language groups. The gouges and gashes shown on
Coontajandra’s arm and back, for example, were explained
as evidence of a ritual fighting practice – not traditional
initiation and scarification. Meston was, however, also a
considerable bushman and expert in Aboriginal languages
and culture. He was adept at boomerang throwing too.
Throughout his life, Lindt presented himself as a
gentleman-ethnographer but was more interested in New
Guinea tribes. He never went to Central Australia. The
work is one of his last ethnographic works but significantly
was marketed as ‘art’. It has the tall thin ‘Japanese scroll’
format typical of a style of exhibition print which Lindt
made around 1900. It is modelled on the new Pictorialist
photography and in its elegiac humanism anticipates the
portraiture of Edward S Curtis in America who began his
first Native American Indian portraits in Seattle in 1895.
Gael NewtonSenior Curator, Photography
JW Lindt Coontajandra and Sanginguble, Central Australian Aboriginals
new acquisition Australian Photography
JW Lindt Coontajandra and Sanginguble, Central Australian Aboriginals 1893 carbon photograph National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
RA Cunningham’s Australian Aboriginal international touring company
44 national gallery of australia
new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture
I like living in the twentieth century – to me the world has
never been more beautiful. I am trying to paint the real
world I live in, as beautifully as I can, with my own eye.
More than any other Australian artist, Jeffrey Smart
has explored the aesthetics of the modern urban
environment. Born in Adelaide in 1921, he has devoted
himself to painting images unique to our time: highways
and airports, factories and road signs. Smart asks us to
look again at such prosaic subjects and to consider the
possibility of discovering a new form of beauty in them.
As with the best of Smart’s paintings, the subject
of Waiting for the train c. 1970 is enigmatic. It features
a small group of men, women and children on a
railway platform, evoking a single moment captured
and rendered timeless. Smart’s passion for geometric
forms and artificial colours is evident in the precise
depiction of the man-made elements in the work: the
sign, platform, mesh fence, railing and the buildings.
Jeffrey Smart Waiting for the train
These are in stark contrast to the painterly and dramatic
sky, which is threatening rain. Smart considers such
skies to be an important formal element within his
paintings: ‘Did you ever notice that Titian’s skies are
dark? I need a dark sky for the composition, because
pale blue at the top of a frame looks nothing.’
There has been a remarkable consistency in Smart’s
paintings since the 1960s, and the artist repeatedly
employs a basic repertoire of subjects and compositional
devices in his works. This allows him to concentrate on
what he considers the most important aspect of his
work. He has said: ‘The subject matter is only the hinge
that opens the door, the hook on which one hangs the
coat. My only concern is putting the right shapes in
the right colours in the right places. My main concern
always is the geometry, the structure of the painting.’
Elena TaylorCurator, Australian Painting and Sculpture
Jeffrey Smart Waiting for the train c. 1970
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Gift of Alcoa World Alumina Australia 2005
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 45
new acquisition Australian Painting and Sculpture
Fred Williams is widely regarded as Australia’s finest
landscape painter of the twentieth century. His
distinctive works have changed the way in which we
perceive the unique topography and vegetation of this
country. In his paintings and gouaches of the Australian
bush Williams devised his own formal language of
mark-making and spatial configuration, combining
his interest in contemporary abstraction with his
enduring concern to express the essence of place.
Born in Melbourne in 1927, Williams studied at the
National Gallery of Victoria School and at the George
Bell Art School in Melbourne. In 1951 he left for London
where he continued his studies at the Chelsea College
of Art and the Central Art School. On his return in
1956, the landscape became his artistic preoccupation
and Williams began making frequent painting trips
to the countryside around Melbourne, later also
travelling further afield to remote parts of Australia.
Fred Williams Landscape
Fred Williams Landscape 1977 synthetic polymer paint on paper Gift of Alcoa World Alumina Australia 2005 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Landscape 1977 was most likely painted on location
at Cavan, a historic property on the Murrumbidgee River
near Yass, NSW, during a painting trip in August of that
year. It is a characteristic example of Williams’s later
works. The composition, divided into horizontal bands,
emphasises the essential flatness of the landscape and the
vast expanse of the sky above. The predominantly earth
colours of the landscape are enlivened by vivid streaks
and dabs of crimson and teal green, the highly textured
earth contrasting with the smooth and empty sky.
Painted in the same year as his solo exhibition
of gouaches ‘Australian Landscape’ at New York’s
Museum of Modern Art, the generic title Landscape
1977 reflects Williams’s interest at this time in not only
describing the particulars of place, but in capturing
the essential nature of the Australian landscape.
Elena TaylorCurator, Australian Painting and Sculpture
46 national gallery of australia
Lola Ryan is from the Dharawal/Eora people and lived in
the La Perouse Aboriginal community in Sydney until her
death in 2003. She was a senior artist who, along with
her sister Mavis Longbottom, had been making shell work
since the 1930s. This tradition dates back to the late 1880s
and was a form of income for the displaced community,
which had relocated from Circular Quay in the early 1800s.
The La Perouse women would use discarded
cardboard as a foundation for their work and use a
fabric base, glitter and sometimes lace in conjunction
with small bivalve shells (two halves) and some mollusc
shells to cover the forms. The combination of different
shell shapes, colours and textures enabled Ryan to create
striking patterns in deliberate, repetitive and contrasting
designs that reflect the shape of the object. She used
the templates and the glue recipe developed by her
father – flour and water mixed with powdered oyster
shells – because, as she told collector Peter Fay, ‘we
didn’t always have araldite’. Mavis Longbottom stated:
Lola Ryan’s Harbour Bridges
new acquisition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
I suppose I’d be 16 when I started making shell work.
I got started because there was money in it and in those
Depression years every little counted. I reckon that you
have to be a bit artistic to do shell work, if not I don’t
think you could make it: to match all your shells and get
the colour into it …. The only place you can see my and
Lola’s shell work at the moment is in the Powerhouse
Museum, which has a display of La Perouse history.
Now and again somebody will come along and ask
us to make something like a box or a Sydney Harbour
Bridge for Mother’s Day or birthdays … Other than that
we don’t go out of our way trying to make a sale.
A selection of Lola Ryan’s Harbour Bridges
were featured in the National Gallery of Australia’s
travelling exhibition Home sweet home: works
from the Peter Fay collection and were donated
to the Gallery by Peter Fay in 2005.
Tina BaumCurator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
Lola Ryan Dharawal/Eora people, La Perouse communityA selection of Harbour
Bridges 2000 shells, mixed media on cardboard
(front, right and back)Donated by Peter Fay 2005
and (far left) proposed acquisition in memory of Dr
Joan Kerr (1938–2004) National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 47
Whether adorning the neck or presented as a collection of
sculptural objects, the geometrical elegance of Hermann
Jünger’s Necklace is strikingly effective. This necklace is
one of a number produced by Jünger that were designed
to give the wearer the opportunity to reconfigure the
work by adding or subtracting some of its elements.
These kits, comprising a gold neck ring and a collection of
pendants to thread onto it, fit into a customised wooden
box meant for open display when the jewellery is not
being worn. The pendants are made of stone and metal,
referencing both the man-made and the natural worlds,
their geometric shapes taken from Euclidean geometry.
This work bridges the space between abstraction and
nature, with the hard, shiny character of the metal
pendants contrasting with the softer, imperfect surfaces
of the granite and lapis lazuli shapes. The heaviness of the
Hermann Jünger Necklace
new acquisition International Decorative Arts
Hermann Jünger Necklace 2005 gold, silver, lapis lazuli Gift of Helen W Drutt English, Philadelphia, through the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
stone elements is alleviated by the beautifully variegated
character of these natural materials, while the play of
light on the metal surfaces offsets their severe outlines.
Born in Hanau, Germany, in 1928, Jünger
taught goldsmithing at the Akademie der Bildenden
Künste in Munich from 1972. On his death early in
2005, he left a legacy as an important inspiration
and mentor to many contemporary jewellers, among
them a number of Australians.
This work is a recent gift to the National Gallery
of Australia from the Philadelphia jewellery scholar and
collector, Helen W Drutt English, a passionate advocate
of the craft and a long-time friend of Hermann Jünger.
Sarah EdgeCuratorial Assistant, Decorative Arts and Design
48 national gallery of australia
‘If you have all of my multiples, then you have me entirely’,
said Joseph Beuys. For the German sculptor, performance
artist, teacher, activist and self-styled shaman, multiples
are physical vehicles for his ideas. They mark his opposition
to panel painting and traditional sculpture as autonomous
genres, while allowing distribution of his work to a
broader audience. Sometimes Beuys’s multiples are relics
from a performance or action, in other cases they are
elaborately planned objects derived from earlier works.
Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee comprises
a stack of felt squares hollowed at the centre to house
an audio cassette. The object is reminiscent of Beuys’s
larger sculptures in which stacks of felt are juxtaposed
with sheets of copper or iron. They suggest the energy
needed to be stored, transmitted or received in order
to effect change in society. The artist’s use of felt is
usually traced to the wartime story of his aeroplane
crash in the Crimea: to heal and warm his body, his
Tartar rescuers rubbed him with fat and wrapped him
in felt. A combination of matted, compressed animal
Joseph Beuys Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee
new acquisition International Painting and Sculpture
Joseph Beuys Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Nee, Nee, Nee, Nee,
Nee [Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No, No, No, No] 1969
felt squares, 32-minute audiotape
no. 45 from an edition of 100 Gift of Dr K David G Edwards National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra © Joseph Beuys, Licensed
by Bild-Kunst and VISCOPY, Australia
fur – sometimes human hair – with wool, cotton or other
fabrics, the insulating properties of felt are remarkable.
When opened, the object recalls a ‘book safe’ where
pages are cut out to hide an item, whether firearm,
illicit substance or banned text. This prompts questions
of the contents: is this tape and the voices recorded on
it being protected, concealed or censored? The soundtrack
described as ‘granny gossip’, co-narrated by Beuys’s
long-time supporters Christian and Johannes Stüttgen,
was recorded at the Staatliche Kunstakademie,
Düsseldorf, in December 1968. It was published
by Gabriele Mazzotta Editore, Milan.
This work, and another generous gift from the David
and Margery Edwards New York Art Collection, Painting
version 1–90 1976, join Beuys’s major installation Stripes
from the house of the shaman 1962–72 1980 and several
other multiples, artist’s books and a film in the collection.
Lucina WardCurator, International Painting and Sculpture
travelling exhibitions autumn 2006
No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi Supported by Principal Sponsor Newmont Australia Ltd, a proud partner of Reconciliation Australia. Also supported by the Indigenous Arts Strategy, Northern Territory Government, the Seven Network, Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia. The project has been developed in association with Bula’bula Arts, Ramingining.
A celebration of the art and life of David Malangi Daymirringu, whose mortuary rites story bark painting appeared on the Australian one dollar note in 1966, this exhibition shows the extensive repertoire of this brilliant and innovative master painter to promote a broader perception and enjoyment of his work. nga.gov.au/Malangi
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth, WA 7 April – 4 June 2006
Place made: Australian Print Workshop Supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia
This exhibition is a snapshot of the involvement of Australian artists in the production of prints at the Australian Print Workshop between 1981 and 2002. Reflecting a broad range of stylistic, technical and political concerns, the prints are selected from an archive of 3,500 works acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 2002 through the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund. nga.gov.au/Placemade
Albury Regional Art Gallery, Albury, NSW 3 February – 26 March 2006
Geelong Gallery, Geelong, Vic. 7 April – 4 June 2006
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition Proudly sponsored by Marsh
One of Australia’s most important post-impressionists, Grace Cossington Smith (1892–1984) was a brilliant colourist and played a vital role in the development of modernism in Australia. This exhibition draws upon a diversity of themes including intimate portraits, iconic images of Sydney Harbour Bridge, landscapes and flower paintings, religious and war images, ballet and theatre performances and the vibrant, shimmering interiors of her home Cossington. nga.gov.au/CossingtonSmith
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld 18 February – 01 May 2006
Tim Maguire Hollyhocks 1991 (detail) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Australian Print Workshop Archive 2, purchased with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2002
David Malangi Daymirringu Luku (foot) 1994 (detail) Private collection, Canberra © David Malangi Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia
Grace Cossington Smith The lacquer room 1935–36 (detail) oil on paperboard on plywood Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © AGNSW Photo: Christopher Snee for AGNSW
National Sculpture Prize and exhibition 2005 A partnership with Macquarie Bank
The National Sculpture Prize is a partnership between the National Gallery of Australia and Macquarie Bank to support and promote Australian sculpture. It is one of the most generous prizes for contemporary art in Australia, with a non-acquisitive prize of $50,000 awarded to the winning artist. The travelling component of the exhibition will feature a selection of the finalists’ work. nga.gov.au/SculpturePrize05
Dell Gallery @ Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, Qld 18 February – 16 April 1006
Moist: Australian watercolours Moist is a rare glimpse into the National Gallery of Australia’s extraordinary collection of Australian watercolours. The title, Moist, refers to the liquid nature of the medium and an implied atmospheric, physical or emotional state of being. The watercolours in Moist demonstrate how Australian artists have created visual representations of such states, presenting works that are highly figurative alongside images of a more abstract emotional intensity. nga.gov.au/Moist
Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs, NT 24 March – 7 May 2006
The Elaine & Jim Wolfensohn Gift Travelling Exhibitions The 1888 Melbourne Cup and three suitcase kits thematically present a selection of art and design objects for the enjoyment of children and adults in regional, remote and metropolitan centres that may be borrowed free-of-charge. nga.gov.au/Wolfensohn
Red case: myths and rituals Yellow case: form, space and design Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Goulburn, NSW 1 February – 26 March 2006
Australian Embassy, Washington DC 10 April – 25 June 2006
Blue case: technology Bundaberg Arts Centre, Bundaberg, Qld 1 February – 26 March 2006
Australian Embassy, Washington DC 10 April – 25 June 2006
The 1888 Melbourne Cup Australian Embassy, Washington DC 10 April – 25 June 2006
Exhibition venues and dates are subject to change. Please contact the Gallery before your visit. For more information please contact (02) 6240 6556 or email [email protected].
Glen Clarke American crater near Hanoi #2 2005 (detail) Vietnamese and US currency, cotton thread, wood National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Seated Ganesha Sri Lanka 9th–10th century (detail) from Red case: myths and rituals National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The National Gallery of Australia Travelling Exhibitions Program is generously supported by Australian airExpress.
artonview autumn 2006 49
The 1888 Melbourne Cup (detail) The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Kenneth Macqueen Summer sky c. 1935 (detail) watercolour and pencil on paper Purchased 1965 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © The Macqueen family
50 national gallery of australia
collection focus
Yvonne Koolmatrie is acknowledged as one of the
finest weavers in contemporary Indigenous visual art
practice. From the Ngarrindjeri nation, and based in her
traditional country at Gerard, in the Riverland of South
Australia, Koolmatrie has initiated a revival of traditional
Ngarrindjeri weaving practices. The Ngarrindjeri people
lived along the Murray River, hence the emphasis on
traps made for catching food from the river. Although
Koolmatrie’s weaving uses customary methods and forms
(e.g. baskets, eel and fish traps) Yvonne has pushed her
weaving beyond the commonly perceived definitions of
‘craft’ as an ancient practice of utilitarian form. Ancient
techniques are now used to create contemporary
sculptural forms, intended for exhibition in art galleries
and museums, rather than functional objects.
Burial mat 2003 is constructed in the form of a
mat, curved around and stitched together in the front.
The bones of the deceased were parcelled together,
painted with ochres and wrapped in paperbark,
then placed inside the woven burial mat, which
was finally placed upright in the fork of a tree.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
In March 2006 a number of recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art acquisitions will go on display. Highlights include a diversity of works and media by renowned artists from South Australia, East Kimberley, Far North Queensland, Victoria and the Torres Strait. Permanent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection displays draw from nearly 6,000 works and major changeovers are installed every six months, with minor changeovers for works on paper occurring every three months.
Yvonne Koolmatrie Ngarrindjeri people
Burial mat 2003 woven sedge grass
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 51
Rosella Namok Ungkum (Aangkum) people Old girls … yarn for us young girls ... about country and family 2004 synthetic polymer paint on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
At only 26 years of age Rosella Namok is a rising young
star on the national contemporary art scene and her work
is sought by public institutions and private collectors alike.
From the Aangkum people of Lockhart River, Far North
Queensland, Namok first gained significant notice for
her distinctive large-scale paintings in the 2000 Adelaide
Biennial of Australian Art, Beyond the pale: contemporary
Indigenous art, held at the Art Gallery of South Australia
for the 2000 Telstra Adelaide Festival of the Arts.
Namok’s technique involves painting with her fingers,
a method derived from the sand-drawing style taught
to her by her grandmother. This process is important in
understanding the relationship between the painting’s
very tactile and sensual surface and the painting’s subject
matter. Her paintings make symbolic use of ovals and
rectangles, and are often about family relationships
and her country’s landscape and weather patterns.
The artist’s statement for Old girls ... yarn for us young
girls ... about country and family 2004 is:
From before time … Kuuku Ya’u … Lockhart River
sandbeach people … talk in the sand. Mission came …
teachers showed people how to draw … today kids learn
to write … but we still talk in the sand. Those old girls …
they yarn for us … they remember before time … they
were small girls … grandmothers for them talk in the sand
for them. When I was small … I remember ‘Queen’ …
grandmother for me … remember she yarned to me …
drew in the sand for me … about before time. Old girls
yarn … specially when they make necklaces or weaving …
always yarn about when they were young. One old lady
will draw in the sand … they will yarn about grass and
Puunya … show you where to walk … go find things.
52 national gallery of australia
George Mung Mung (c. 1920 – 1991), a Gija/Kija
visual artist, was a great cultural leader, artist and
teacher at Warmun community [Turkey Creek], East
Kimberley in Western Australia. A respected elder, Mung
Mung began painting in the early 1980s. Using ochres
and natural gum binders, he painted the inseparable
relationship between land and life. Many of his works
embody both Gija/Kija and Christian beliefs. In the
1970s he set up the Ngalangangpum bicultural Christian
school with his friend, fellow artist and elder, Hector
Jandany. Both men taught the stories and songs of their
country to the children in the school, using paintings
as an educational tool. Mung Mung won the 1990
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award
(paintings in introduced media) for Tarrajayan Country.
Texas Country 1985 by Mung Mung is a fascinating
painting: a mix of the mid-1980s Warmun school of
painting, with his own representation of the dark brown
ochre rock formations outlined in white dotting on board.
This painting is similar in style to the watercolour paintings
by Kimberley Wunambal artist Wattie Karruwara (c.
1910 – 1983) that were on display for a major Aboriginal
art auction in 2002. This is particularly evident in the
portrayal of the crocodile figure. The bird in the top
right-hand corner is typically Warmun painting ‘school’.
It is a beautiful example of dual-style painting, in much
the same manner as the late Arrernte artist, Wenten
Rubuntja (c. 1923 – 2005), painted in both the Western
Desert ‘dot’ style and Hermannsburg watercolour style.
Lee Darroch, from the Yorta Yorta nation, and
Vicki Couzens, from the Kirrae/Wurrong nations,
have been integral in reviving cultural awareness of
Victorian Indigenous material culture, particularly in
relation to the customary practices involving possum-
skin cloaks. Both artists have worked with the
Australian Print Workshop, in Melbourne, Victoria,
which is where these works on paper were created.
Darroch’s print Possum skin cloak, circa 2000, is
based on historical works held in the collection of
Museum Victoria and, like Koolmatrie accessing her
people’s cultural heritage in South Australia, Darroch
and Couzens have accessed historical collections holding
their ancestors’ cultural heritage in order to generate
greater understanding in the broader community about
Indigenous art-making in the southeast region of Australia.
Within Victorian Aboriginal clans possum-skin cloaks
were owned by every member of a group: their utilitarian
purpose was to keep the wearer warm and for use as
a blanket or bedding. Intricate designs and markings
incised into the underside of each cloak designated
the specific clan designs of the wearer, in much the
same manner as ceremonial body painting marks.
George Mung Mung Gija/Kija people,
Jambin sub-sectionTexas Country 1985
natural pigments, binders, pencil, crayon on plywood
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 53
Dennis Nona is from the Kal-lagaw-ya/Boigu
language group from Badu Island in the Torres Strait
and currently lives in Brisbane where he is furthering
his artistic studies. Nona is a highly expressive
printmaker, drawing on the elaborate carving of
his people, which he was taught as a young boy,
and his work is held in numerous national and
international collections. Inspired by the coastal life
of his people and his family Nona has stated:
As a young boy I was taught the traditional craft of
wood carving, which, along with my cultural heritage,
learnt through story telling and ceremonies, helped
me to develop my linocut skills that feature intricate
decorative style based on the rich narrative legends of
the Torres Strait Islander people. The symbols I use of
sea creatures, masks and designs are from our traditional
masks, artefacts and my concept-figured designs.
The stunning hand-coloured linocuts Sesserae 2004–05
and Awai Yithuyil 2004 depict customary stories specific
to Badu Island which is part of the west-central group of
the Torres Strait Islands. Sesserae is the name of a young
man of Tulu who went fishing every morning at low tide,
and it is also the title of Nona’s solo exhibition, curated
by the Dell Gallery, Queensland University, in 2005. The
stories for both works are as complex as the images.
Brenda L CroftSenior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
Dennis Nona Kal-lagaw-ya/Boigu peopleSesserae (Badu Island Story) 2004–05 linocut National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Lee J Darroch Yorta Yorta people Possum skin cloak circa 2000 2000 etching on paper Australian Print Workshop Archive 2, purchased with the assistance of the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
a
54 national gallery of australia
Frederick McCubbin completed Afterglow in 1912.
A colour illustration of the work published in a monograph
by the Lothian Book Company, Melbourne, in 1916
shows a late afternoon scene with a pearlescent sky
and the setting sun shining through the trees as bathers
bask in its warmth. Ninety years later the painting
appeared dramatically different. The colours were
muted, muddied and dull, the surface was covered
with a thick, treacly varnish that obscured the vigorous
brushwork characteristic of the artist’s late works, and
the trees on the left-hand side had become a dark,
opaque block. More obvious changes included an
extensive section of raised repair and poorly matched
retouching covering a large proportion of the foliage
Restoring the glow to Afterglow
on the left-hand side. This was matched on the reverse
with a considerable patch of painted canvas stuck
over the original canvas, masking any real evidence
of the actual extent of the damage. There were also
several smaller poorly executed repairs with retouching
over the original paint, plus significant additions by a
restorer to mask the changes wrought by the repairs.
Although the painting entered the national collection
in 1970, very little conservation work had been carried out
since then. What had been done was largely confined to
strengthening the weak original tacking margins to restore
more tension to the support. Closer investigation indicated
that the work had been previously cleaned and that the
present varnish layer comprised multiple applications with
conservation
After treatment Frederick McCubbin
Afterglow 1912 oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
artonview autumn 2006 55
(top left) Before treatment
(top right) During varnish removal, right hand side cleaned and part of the fill revealed on left-hand side
retouching and overpainting below, between and on top
of the layers. The foreground and the trees on the left-
hand side had been given an overall tone, presumably to
make the repaired areas less obvious. Testing with the
usual range of solvents used to remove varnish layers
yielded little success; it was possible to swell the varnish
but removal was a slow and patchy process. Experiments
with gelled solvent systems were more effective. The
process remained slow but the results were dramatic.
Subsequent analysis by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra-
red) micro-spectroscopy, carried out at the Conservation
Department of the Art Gallery of New South Wales,
showed that the varnish was a material more typically
associated with sealing floors than enhancing paintings.
On removal of the varnish most of the overpaint also
came away. This revealed the colours in a truer light and,
even at this stage, the painting bore more resemblance
to the 1916 illustration. The areas of fill were carefully
scraped away and it was discovered that the tear,
although quite large, had not resulted in complete loss
and there were in fact significant amounts of the artist’s
original paint layer still intact under the fill. The remnants
of foliage uncovered in the process showed that the
original tone was lighter, with darkening of the exposed
paint caused by a combination of overpainting during
the previous restoration and the discoloured varnish. The
tear was repaired using a combination of existing old and
new threads. The painting was lightly varnished to give an
even saturation to the surface and areas of damage were
re-integrated with new fills and localised retouching.
The painting now awaits a new frame to match its
revived ‘glow’. In the meantime we can once again
appreciate McCubbin’s masterly handling of paint in all
of its true vibrancy.
David WisePaintings Conservator
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56 national gallery of australia
kenneth tyler collection
Kenneth Tyler at the National Gallery of Australia
Following is an excerpt from Sasha Grishin’s speech for the dinner to thank Kenneth Tyler after he launched the exhibition Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler on 24 November 2005.
a
(top left, top right and middle right)
The Kenneth Tyler masterclass at Megalo Access Arts
(middle left) Kenneth Tyler with James Mollison AO
at the opening of Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler
(bottom left) Professor Sasha Grishin AM with
Alan and Anne Rubenstein at the opening of Against
the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler
(bottom right) The opening of Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler
Thirty-two years ago Ken Tyler, who was then based
in Los Angeles, decided to relocate from the West Coast
to New York. He was cash-strapped and was preparing
to sell his collection of printer’s proofs – several hundred
prints in number. The Australian National Gallery under
its founding director, James Mollison, had gained a
reputation for bold purchases of major collections of
international prints, such as the Felix Man Archive, so
with the assistance of a number of people, within several
months, on Australia Day 1974, over 600 Tyler prints,
proofs and drawings arrived in Canberra. Through an
act of chance and serendipity this was the beginnings
of a continuous collaboration between Ken Tyler
and what is now the National Gallery of Australia, a
collaboration which has continued until the present day.
Thanks to this collaboration we now have an
internationally significant collection of American and
European prints from the 1960s through to the present
day, covering some of the biggest names in American
art from Albers to Warhol: including Hockney, Kelly,
Kitaj, Lichtenstein, Motherwell, Noland, Oldenburg,
Rauschenberg, Stella and many, many others. It is a
collection of great depth from which the Gallery has
managed to stage about a dozen significant exhibitions,
possibly the most memorable of which have been Pat
Gilmour’s Ken Tyler: printer extraordinary 1985,Jane
Kinsman’s Big Americans 2002, and now Jaklyn
Babington’s Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen
Frankenthaler 2005. There is certainly scope in the
collection for many more such major exhibitions.
Ken Tyler is an unusual artist–printer and a very
unusual person. One of his favourite aphorisms comes
from the German poet Goethe: ‘In the realm of ideas,
everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all
rests on perseverance.’ Some of you may remember David
Hockney telling us a few years ago, that whatever he
would ask of Tyler – the answer was always the same – yes
it can be done. Whereas in an earlier generation, Fernand
Mourlot as a master printer changed our understanding of
printmaking, Tyler as an artist collaborator has redefined
the art of printmaking for our generation. While a Ken
Tyler print has no single stylistic morphology, it does carry
the stamp of a new philosophy of printmaking – Tyler
prints can be big, technically adventurous, but what
is more important, they are visually exciting. Anyone
who looks at Helen Frankenthaler’s Madame Butterfly
colour woodcut and is not excited by it must have their
aesthetic receptors atrophied. For this transformation in
printmaking we are profoundly grateful to Ken Tyler.
What I have learnt is that Ken Tyler is also a person
who has a great generosity. This is not only in reference
to his generosity as a benefactor who for over thirty
years has constantly augmented the National Gallery of
Australia’s archive of international prints, or his funding
of the Tyler Print Fellowship, Tyler Print Internship and
the Kenneth Tyler Collection website, but, and dare I
say more significantly, it is his generosity of spirit and
intellect. So much of our public life is dominated by
mean spiritedness and in Tyler we have a person who is
totally committed to art and to printmaking, and who in
an intelligent and generous manner is promoting both
of these. Ken Tyler is a person who has devoted his life
to printmaking and who has set himself a life mission to
share this accumulated knowledge, to pass on the torch,
and to do it here at the National Gallery of Australia.
Professor Sasha Grishin is Head of Art History at the Australian National University, Canberra
Further information on the Kenneth Tyler Collection is at nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler. On his visit to Canberra in November 2005, Kenneth Tyler also presented a master class and demonstration class at Megalo Access Arts
artonview autumn 2006 57
58 national gallery of australia
tr ibute
Jimmy Wululu (1936–2005)
Jimmy Wululu was a proud Yirritja man of the
Gupapuyngu people. In mourning he is known as
Bulany Daygurrgurr, in reference to his skin name
and clan group. He was born in 1936 at Mangbirri in
central Arnhem Land. The Gupapuyngu homelands
are around Djiliwirri country near Gapuwiyak in north-
east Arnhem Land but many people, like Wululu, live
in central Arnhem Land through family associations,
for it is their mother’s or grandmother’s land. Wululu
was of the freshwater Gupapuyngu people and his
group can be classified according to their natural
environment as Gulunbuy – from the waterholes. His
subjects in painting and sculpture, the creatures and
ancestors who inhabit those waterholes, reflect these
associations. While living mostly in the communities of
Milingimbi, Ngangalala and Ramingining, Wululu would
maintain a strong physical and spiritual connection to
significant Gupapuyngu ancestral sites, through attending
ceremonies, family events and visits to country.
On Milingimbi Island at the Methodist Mission (est.
1923) Wululu attended school and worked at various jobs
there including tending pigs, milking cows, clearing bush
for the garden and airport and building mud brick houses.
Those years as a young adult were also spent travelling
across the region attending his own and peers’ initiation
ceremonies at bush camps on the mainland. After the
Second World War Wululu also attended school in
Darwin at Bagot Reserve and participated in ceremonies,
having ‘foot walked’ there from central Arnhem Land.
Living in a single men’s camp on Milingimbi, Wululu
was taught to paint by his brother and father. He is one
of the last of the generation of central Arnhem Land
painters who hail from the mission era. Like many Yolngu,
when the homelands movement gained momentum
in the 1970s he moved to the newly established
communities of Ngangalala and Ramingining on the
mainland. Wululu was one of the key artists working
out of Ramingining Arts and Crafts from this time and
later, in the 1990s, worked with Bula’bula Arts.
Wululu’s output was impressive. By the 1980s, he
was an established and practised painter at the height
of his powers. He held a position of cultural authority
within his clan and had a significant international
profile as an artist. In 1988, Wululu travelled to New
York to attend the opening of the major exhibition
Jimmy Wululu with Bongu (waterhole) sand sculpture
at the Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, 1992
Photo: The Canberra TImes
artonview autumn 2006 59
Dreamings: the art of Aboriginal Australia at the Asia
Society Galleries. Wululu’s work seemed as ‘at home’
in Indigenous and non-Indigenous group exhibitions.
His work was selected for inclusion in numerous
exhibitions, including Magiciens de la terre, Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989), l’ete Australien à
Montpellier, Montpellier, France (1990); Paintings and
sculptures from Ramingining, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
(1992); Aratjara: art of the first Australians, Düsseldorf,
London, Denmark (1993–94); Tyerabarrbowaryaou 2,
Havana, Cuba (1994); Stories, Hannover, Germany (1995)
and The native born: objects and representations from
Ramingining, Arnhem Land, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney (1996). As well, Wululu exhibited regularly
in commercial galleries, community spaces, biennales
and national Aboriginal art awards. He is represented
in all major public and private collections in Australia
and numerous art collections internationally.
At the National Gallery of Australia Wululu’s work
was included in the exhibitions Aboriginal art: the
continuing tradition (1989), Flash pictures (1991), as
well as in the touring of The Aboriginal Memorial to
Switzerland, Germany and Russia. The Gallery holds
several bark paintings acquired over some years, which
focus on the subject of honey. The champion in this
group is the sublime Niwuda, Yirritja native honey
1986. It is in such works that Wululu’s excellence as
a painter comes to the fore. He was fastidious in his
attention to detail and meticulous application of paint.
Without doubt, Wululu’s contribution of a group of
hollow log coffins to The Aboriginal Memorial 1987–88 is
his eulogy. His unmistakable stand of thirteen logs depicts
the Yirritja ancestors: Burala the darter, Minhala the long-
necked tortoise and Wuluwarri the catfish. It was their
travels from Gupapuyngu country further east, westward,
that link Yirritja land and people across the area. The
predominant design on the logs is the fine white hatching
which represents the bones of the eel-tailed catfish. The
action of Burala, diving into the pool to snatch the young
fish, is a metaphor for the transition from life to death.
Wululu will be remembered as a friendly, cheerful, robust,
driven, witty man, whose infectious humour combined
with a stoic sincerity in all that he did. When Wululu’s
uncle David Malangi died in 1999, Wululu assumed
responsibility for Yathalamarra, his mother’s country, and
moved there with his family for a time. He is now buried
there, next to Malangi. In the last few years of his life,
Wululu struggled with ill-health and moved back into
Ramingining where he was cared for at home by family.
He is survived by a loving extended family including
his wives and children who will carry on the traditions
of the Gupapuyngu Daygurrgurr through painting.
Susan JenkinsFormer Acting Curator Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
This obituary was written with the assistance of Wululu’s family and in consultation with Bula’bula Arts, Ramingining.
a
Jimmy Wululu Gupapuyngu people, Yarrita Moiety Niwuda-Yirritja Honey natural eucalyptus on bark National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
60 national gallery of australia
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artonview autumn 2006 61
Remembering Philippa WinnIn March 2006 Philippa Winn was to celebrate ten years as an educator
at the National Gallery of Australia. Unfortunately Philippa didn’t
reach this significant career milestone as she died on January 3.
During the past decade Philippa inspired thousands of students
and their teachers who visited the Gallery. Philippa’s passion and
enthusiasm for visual art combined with a vibrant and engaging
personality contributed to her success in developing innovative
programs for youth and people with disabilities. She developed
stimulating and enjoyable exhibitions for the Children’s Gallery
such as In the box, Big spooks and Dog. Philippa was integral
to the establishment and ongoing success of Gallery programs
such as the Summer Scholarship, SubURBAN, the Registered Unit
program for Senior Secondary and College students and special
programs such as those for the University of the Third Age.
Philippa’s concern for and love of the environment and all living
creatures was well known, as was her love of family, her three dogs,
and the farm she shared with her husband John. Philippa’s warmth,
energy and sense of the ridiculous made her a great colleague
and friend to us all.
The Education team
1 Robert Foster, Scott Chaseling, Alice Whish and Donald Fortescue at the opening of
Transformations: the language of craft 2 Jukka Pennanen, Touvi Lindholm, Ambassador of
Finland, Agneta Hobin and Robert Bell at the opening of Transformations: the language of craft
3 Tetsuo Fujimoto, Robert Bell and Tsukasa Kotushiwaki at the opening of Transformations: the
language of craft 4 Gretchen Keyworth, Chris Rivkin, Dudley Anderson and Lisa Anderson at
the opening of Transformations: the language of craft 5 Raphy Star, Ann Star and Robert Bell at
the opening of Transformations: the language of craft 6 Lyn Conybeare, Elizabeth Nosworthy
AO and Roslynne Bracher at the farewell to outgoing NGA Chairman Harold Mitchell 7 Incoming
NGA Chairman Rupert Myer AM and Charles Curran AO at the farewell to outgoing NGA
Chairman Harold Mitchell 8 Alice Whish with her work at the opening of Transformations: the
language of craft 9 Lia Cook with her work at the opening of Transformations: the language
of craft 10 Deborah Hart, Philip Bacon AM and Roslyn Packer at the farewell to outgoing
NGA Chairman Harold Mitchell 11 Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler with the Tyler
team at the opening of Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler 12 Christina
Costaridis, Amy Crago, Hannah Gregory and Rob Bastian at the opening of Against the grain:
the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler 13 Marabeth Cohen-Tyler and Kenneth Tyler with curator
Jaklyn Babington at the opening of Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler
faces in view
11 12
13
jello
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constable • crescent moon • otto dix
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