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Conversation | Jan Senbergs and Patrick McCaughey | NGV Australia

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Conversation | Jan Senbergs and Patrick McCaughey | NGV Australia

Jan Senbergs with Patrick McCaughey Artist in Conversation

Jan SENBERGS Altered Parliament House 1 1976 synthetic polymer paint and oil screenprint on canvas 182.5 x 243.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Presented by Mrs Adrian Gibson as the winner of the 1976 Sir William Angliss Memorial Art Prize, 1977 A25-1977 © Jan Senbergs/Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia

One of Australia’s leading artists, Jan Senbergs held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1960. Acclaimed as a painter, printmaker and draughtsman, Senbergs’s work is characterised by its humanist vision, finely-honed sense of the absurd and the artist’s wide ranging curiosity.

Hear from this eminent artist as he reflects on his artistic career with renowned art historian Patrick McCaughey, author of Voyage and Landfall: The Art of Jan Senbergs. The conversation will be followed by a book signing with Jan Senbergs and Patrick McCaughey.

Date: Sunday 20 Mar, 2pm

Venue: NGV Australia Theatre.
Book via the NGV website: 

Exhibition | Making History – The Angry Penguins | Heide Museum of Modern Art

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Exhibition | Making History – The Angry Penguins | Heide Museum of Modern Art

Arthur Boyd, Butterfly Man, 1943. Oil on muslin on cardboard, 55.5cm x 75.5cm, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Bequest of John and Sunday Reed ©Bundanon Trust. Image via Heide Museum of Modern Art website.

Making History celebrates the influential role of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed in the development of Australian art and intellectual culture from the 1930s right up to the early 1980s. The Reeds’ first home at Heide, the Victorian farmhouse now referred to as Heide I, provides the setting for a changing selection of art works, archival material and personal effects which reveal the range of their activities and commitments: as art collectors and benefactors; as instigators of significant cultural organisations; and as cultivators of their extensive property, developed so that one day it would become a public gallery and park for all to enjoy.

The first display features works by the revolutionary and now highly acclaimed artists who congregated at Heide during the watershed years of the 1940s: Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Albert Tucker and Danila Vassilieff—today collectively known as the Angry Penguins, after the progressive journal published by the Reeds and writer Max Harris during this decade.

Exhibition Dates: 16th April to 6th November 2016

Location: Heide II, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Rd, Bulleen VIC 3105. Ph: (03) 9850 1500

Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm, Public holidays, 10am-5pm. Cost (includes entrance to other Heide galleries) $18/$14, Children under 12 and Members – Free.

Curator: Linda Short

Website

Symposium | Turning on Burn: A Reflective Conversation | VCA

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Symposium | Turning on Burn: A Reflective Conversation | VCA

Image: Ian Burn shaving in front of his Mirror Piece(1967), New York.

A symposium presented by Art & Australia at VCA |Turning on Burn: A Reflective Conversation

This symposium explores and speculates upon the work and legacy of Australian conceptual artist Ian Burn (1939–1993). After graduating from the National Gallery of Art School (now the VCA School of Art), Burn spent much of his career working in the avant-garde scenes of London and New York. He was a key member of Art & Language, a collaborative group who produced the ground-breaking publication  Art–Language and included artists Roger Cutforth, Joseph Kosuth and Mel Ramsden. Returning to Australia in 1977, Burn became involved in the Art Workers Union (AWU), a political and social platform that championed artists’ rights and helped change the landscape and expectations under which artists work in Australia. In addition to his artistic practice he also taught art history, developing an individual mode of political critique of art history at the Power Institute in Sydney.

The exhibition 1969 The Black Box of Conceptual Artpresenting the work of Ian Burn, Roger Cutforth and Mel Ramsden and curated by Ann Stephen is currently showing at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery. The work of Ian Burn is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

Speakers include: Professor Rex Butler; Dr Edward Colless; David Homewood; Dr Toby Juliff; ​Paris Lettau; Victoria Perin; Dr Asta Rowe; Dr Ann Stephen; Nic Tammens; Amelia Winata, and David Wlazlo.

For full detals of speakers and the program see: o/turning-burn-reflective-conversation-vca-art-school-auditorium/

Date: 1:30-5:15pm Wednesday 4 May, 2016. Followed by drinks in the Margaret Lawrence Gallery.

Venue: VCA Art School Auditorium, Building 877, entry via gate 4 on Dodds Street, Southbank

Further enquiries: Contact the Margaret Lawrence Gallery on 03 9035 9400 or email here.

Exhibition Review | Whistler’s Mother | NGV International

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Exhibition Review | Whistler’s Mother | NGV International

James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 (Portrait of the artist’s mother) 1871, oil on canvas, 144.3 x 162.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 699)

The National Gallery of Victoria’s latest loan exhibition is based around a single painting by James McNeil Whistler – his Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 of 1871, popularly known as the Portrait of the artist’s mother, or just ‘Whistler’s Mother’. Compared to the just-closed Warhol/Wei Wei summer blockbuster, this is a small, intimate exhibition. The painting is on loan from the Musée d’Orsay and the exhibition is filled out with etchings, prints, paintings, furniture and decorative arts from the NGV’s permanent collection. The exhibition sets this single painting into a fresh context, one that enriches our understanding of Whistler and allows us to see works from the NGV collection in a new light.

Installation view of Whistler’s Mother at NGV International, 25 March – 19 June 2016.
Photo: Brooke Holm

I find it impossible to really talk about this exhibition without first dealing with the language being used to promote it. We are told (in the marketing and in the exhibition) that the painting is ‘iconic’ (a word that makes most art historians flinch just a little). It is a masterpiece that sits ‘alongside da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Munch’s The Scream’ it enjoys ‘universal recognition and admiration’. That the painting is famous is true, though, as with so many ‘iconic’ paintings, it has been made world-famous not really through universal appreciation of it as a work of art, but more through universal recognition. After being given a lukewarm reception when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1872, it’s worth was recognised when it became the first painting by an American artist to be purchased by a French museum. When the painting toured the United States in 1933 it drew the admiration of the American public and Franklin D. Roosevelt, not for its formal qualities as painting but for what they saw as a portrayal of stoic motherhood. Roosevelt designed a postage stamp (below) featuring the painting but with the mother isolated from the rest of the composition and given some flowers. More recently it featured it has featured in television shows like The Simpsons and in the Mr Bean movie. None of this is to suggest that the painting is artistically valueless, quite the opposite, but more to introduce the idea that we often use iconic when we mean familiar and well-known, like a famous brand logo. ‘Iconic’ paintings are known by millions who have never seen the original; we have usually only seen reproductions, or adaptions. This is certainly true of Whistler’s Arrangement. I’m still not sure that the Whistler fits Martin Kemp’s good definition of a visual icon from his Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon, which proposes that an iconic image is ‘one that has achieved wholly exceptional levels of widespread recognisability and has come to carry a rich series of varied associations for very large numbers of people across time and cultures.’

United States postage stamp,1934

Does Whistler’s Mother fit the bill? Perhaps, and perhaps exhibitions like this serve to push it further along that path. The journey of an image to icon status is always a fascinating one, and it’s a shame this wasn’t pushed harder in the exhibition in a critical way. For the most part the exhibition falls back on a narrative that suggests that the painting has become iconic because it is a masterpiece, as though from the moment Whistler had finished there could be no other trajectory for it. But, as iconic images go this Whistler is a ‘quiet’ painting, I found it took time and consideration in front of the painting to begin to appreciate what Whistler was trying to convey.

Installation view of Whistler’s Mother at NGV International, 25 March – 19 June 2016.
Photo: Brooke Holm

The exhibition is laid out across several rooms on Level 2 that usually display the Dutch and Flemish works from the permanent collection. On entering the space Whistler the man and the artist is introduced via a series of gauzy, see-through reproduced portraits of him and details of his works. Next we see a reproduction of the famous ‘Whistler’s Mother’ postage stamp and then turning the corner we finally get to see some art. Arranged along the right-hand wall are etchings from Whistler’s series of streetscapes, views of street life, and portraits from Paris, Venice and London. The exhibition text suggests that these etchings provide context by showing us the places where Whistler worked, which they do, but for me the more interesting thing is that they show his technique. In the monochrome etchings we can see Whistler’s keen sense of how to contrast light and dark, sharp lines and hazy edges, and how to find a balance between fine detail and more abstract suggestion. In his Nocturne, for instance, he conveys the sense of ghostly Venetian palaces emerging from a dark foggy night with short thin vertical lines (which recall the Japanese prints that Whistler collected). The short dashes are sparse where they suggest the facade of the palazzo and thick where the shadows gather as the canal disappears between the buildings; the water seems more substantial than the palaces.

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Palaces, (1880-1886); printed 1886, plate from A set of twenty-six etchings (or The second Venice set), 1886

Diagonally opposite the series of etchings is a group of Australian paintings including works by Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, Bernard Hall and John Longstaff. This shows the connection between Australian art, Whistler the artist, and ‘Whistler’s Mother’. At this time it was common, if not expected, that young Australian artists would decamp to Europe and set up studios or attend classes in places like Paris and London. The connection is a substantial one, Longstaff was in Paris when the Musee d’Orsay acquired ‘Whistler’s Mother’ and probably went to see it when it was on display.

View of paintings by Australian artists John Longstaff, Arthur Streeton Bernard Hall, Charles Conder, and others. Installation view of Whistler’s Mother at NGV International, 25 March – 19 June 2016.

In the next room we find a range of decorative arts – a Japanese screen, ceramics, and woodcuts. On one wall are Japanese woodcuts by Hiroshige and Gakutei, of the type that Whistler collected. More etchings by Whistler hang alongside, and comparisons and contrasts can be made between the compositions of each. In the centre of the room is a sideboard designed in 1867 by E. W. Goodwin, demonstrating the European fascination with Japanese decorative art., from the black finished meant to imitate Japanese lacquer to the balance between void and solid shapes in the overall composition. Not only do these prints ‘stand in’ for those Whistler owned, but they also reflect that at the time when Whistler and other artists in Europe and America were collecting Japanese art, so too was the NGV. Bernard Hall (whose painting ‘The Connoisseur’ (above) hangs in the previous room) was director of the NGV for over 40 years and he was instrumental in the formation of the NGV’s collection of Asian art. The Japanese woodcuts in this room were both purchased while he was director, as were several of the Whistler etchings.

Japanese woodcuts by Hiroshige and Gakutei.
Installation view of Whistler’s Mother at NGV International, 25 March – 19 June 2016.

Although the sentimental side of the portrait of ‘mother’ is pushed a little too hard in the exhibition, once you stand in front of the painting for a few minutes you begin to see that Whistler’s original title Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 is more fitting. I was struck by the idea that the figure of mother is both central and secondary. On the one hand it is a portrait (the wall text reminds us that people who knew her recognised her) but there is also a sense that Whistler’s mother is merely the subject for a painting of a ‘domestic interior with an old woman’. In this sense there is a link with the Longstaff painting of the mother and baby in the first room, it too is not so much a portrait of a specific woman, but a study of a woman and a child; a deliberation on whites, greys and blues and a glimpse of a moment of intimacy between a mother and her child. In both the Whistler and the Longstaff painting I do not really get a strong sense of their personalities as individuals.

John Longstaff, The young mother, 1891, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 169.5 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by the NGV Women’s Association, Alan and Mavourneen Cowen, Paula Fox and donors to the John Longstaff Appeal, 2013, (2013.766)

To return to the Whistler , it is the possibility for exploring texture, shade, composition and colour that I found really absorbing. I found my eyes drawn first to her face, but as it is in profile there is nothing much to draw us in to a study of ‘her’ so instead the eye follows her silhouette from the white bonnet down across the profile of her face to her lap where the lace-cuffed hand holding a handkerchief briefly interrupts the sea of black. From here the eye follows the line of her legs down to her feet and from there we can step back a little and note the contrast between the figure of the mother and the geometrical arrangement of the rest of the composition. To the left the curtain hangs in folds but presents as a patterned rectangle, rather than a sweep of drapery, and indeed, the rest of the composition is essentially a series of rectangles in different shades – the light grey wall, the framed etchings, the brown box she rests her feet upon. Up close you can see how Whistler uses the weave of the canvas to add texture and shade, dragging his brush across it so that raised weft and warp catch small dabs of paint. This is particularly apparent in the way he has created the look of the lace edging on the bonnet, on the cuffs and the handkerchief. There are also similarities in texture and shading to the Whistler etchings to be drawn out as well, for instance, the black skirt of Whistler’s Mother’s dress falls down toward the floor, where the blackness of the skirt merges with the brown floor in a series of feathery brush strokes, recalling the shadows in the Nocturne mentioned above.

Installation view of Whistler’s Mother at NGV International, 25 March – 19 June 2016.
Photo: Brooke Holm

 

This a small but well-formed exhibition, my only general criticism is that the space feels slightly too large. On the one hand devoting an entire room to ‘Whistler’s Mother’ allows space to really focus in on a single work, but on the other it also divorces the key painting in the exhibition from the rest of the works that meant to provide the context. This is the type of exhibition that encourages visitors to pop in to the gallery for just an hour or so and to spend some time looking at a small selection of works in detail, the type of visit I think should be encouraged as it provides a pleasant counterpoint to the (also enjoyable) experience of devouring a large blockbuster exhibition.

The exhibition runs until June 19th 2016. See the website for further information:  

© Katrina Grant May 2016

Exhibition | Max and Olive: the photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain | Ian Potter Museum of Art

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Exhibition | Max and Olive: the photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain | Ian Potter Museum of Art

Max Dupain, Sunbaker 1937, gelatin silver photograph, 37.7 x 43.2 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gift of the Philip Morris Arts Grant 1982

Exhibition Dates: Tuesday 31 May 2016 to Sunday 24 Jul 2016

A National Gallery of Australia Exhibition

Olive Cotton and Max Dupain are key figures in Australian visual culture. They shared a long and close personal and professional relationship. This exhibition looks at their work made between 1934 and 1945, the period of their professional association; this was an exciting period of experimentation and growth in Australian photography, and Cotton and Dupain were at the centre of these developments.

This is the first exhibition to look at the work of these two photographers as they shared their lives, studio and professional practice. The exhibition includes 71 photographs from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and focuses on the key period in each of their careers, when they made many of their most memorable images. Keenly aware of international developments in photography, Cotton and Dupain experimented with the forms and strategies of modernist photography, especially Surrealism and the Bauhaus, and drew upon the sophisticated lighting and compositions of contemporary advertising and Hollywood glamour photography.

Cotton and Dupain brought to these influences their own, close association with the rich context of Australian life and culture during the 1930s and ’40s. Their achievement can be characterised, borrowing terms they used in discussions of their work, as the development of a ‘contemporary Australian photography’: a modern photographic practice that reflected their own, very particular relationships to the world and to each other.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston Street, University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday 12 noon to 5pm, Monday closed

Supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians. The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

Olive Cotton , Teacup ballet 1935, gelatin silver photograph, 37.5 x 29.5 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Purchased 1983

 

New Book | Hegel’s Owl: The Life of Bernard Smith – Sheridan Palmer

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New Book |  Hegel’s Owl: The Life of Bernard Smith – Sheridan Palmer

A new book by Sheridan Palmer documenting the life and work of Bernard Smith has recently been published.

‘Better to make history than to write about it. What is needed is a brotherhood of some kind, compact, devoted, with a colourful title . . .’ Bernard Smith, letter to Robin Boyd, 1957

Bernard Smith’s ‘brotherhood’ was to become the famous group of Australian artists called The Antipodeans, and Smith was to write their manifesto.

‘The Antipodeans’ exhibition in 1959 was a watershed moment for Australian art. The exhibition included work by Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval, Clifton Pugh and, of course, Bernard Smith. But this is just one of Smith’s significant contributions to the history of Australian art, and one of many instances where he sought to highlight the importance of contemporary Australian art and communicate its role in society. Palmer says, ‘Bernard was emphatic that Australian artists had to retain their autonomy, their difference.’ And Bernard is someone who understood the value of a different perspective, having begun his life as a ward of the State. He would go on to be considered the father of Australian art history. Through years of interviews and exclusive access to Smith’s papers and library, Palmer’s biography reveals the unique character of this exceptional man.

Book launches will be held on Thursday 16th June 2016 at the National Library of Australia, Canberra with apublic talk by Sheridan Palmer and on Wednesday 20th July 2016 Art Gallery of NSW to coincide with Terry Smith’s lecture. See the Power Publications website for further information: 

Open Day and Founders Talk at Duldig Studio

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Karl Duldig, Koré, 1976, bronze.

Karl Duldig, Koré, 1976, bronze.

The Duldig Studio is open on the second Saturday of every month. On Saturday 9 July 2016, we will be open from 1.00 to 3.00pm. See the award winning Art Behind the Wire exhibition, hear the Founder’s Talk at 2pm or do clay and drawing activities in the Sculpture Garden, for both kids and grown-ups. Entry is by gold coin donation on Open Saturdays.

Founder’s Talk at 2pm: Karl Duldig and the women in his life

Eva de Jong-Duldig, the artist’s daughter will take us on a journey through Karl’s work, focusing on  the ‘kneeling female figure’. The female figure was a key  theme throughout his work, reflecting his deep respect for,  ‘woman – who inspires man in all his achievements’ (Karl Duldig). She will look at work from all periods, and the social and psychological influences which shaped his art.’

Duldig Studio, a public house museum, art gallery and sculpture garden, is the former home and studio of internationally recognised sculptor Karl Duldig (1902 to 1986) and his wife, artist and inventor Slawa Duldig (née Horowitz) (1902 to 1975). In the artists’ charming former home, garden and studio, the sculptures, drawings, paintings and decorative arts tell the story of their creative lives in Vienna, Singapore and Melbourne.

About Karl Duldig and Slawa Duldig (née Horowitz): The Modernist art of Karl Duldig is internationally acclaimed and represented in cities as diverse as Canberra, Vienna, Tel Aviv, New York and Singapore, as well as the province of Fujian, China. His art is included in the collections of the Australian War Memorial, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Australia and National Gallery of Victoria. A prototype of Slawa Duldig’s umbrella invention is in the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences collection, Sydney.

Website: www.duldig.org.au

 

 

Exhibition | We Who Love: The Nolan Slates | Heide Museum of Modern Art

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Sidney Nolan (Lovers and flowers) January 1942 25.5 x 50.8 cm Collection of The University of Queensland Purhcased with the assistance of the Alumni Association and the Peter Stuyvesant Cultural Foundation 1997 © The University of Queensland

Sidney Nolan (Lovers and flowers) January 1942 25.5 x 50.8 cm Collection of The University of Queensland Purhcased with the assistance of the Alumni Association and the Peter Stuyvesant Cultural Foundation 1997 © The University of Queensland

About the Exhibition

We who love: The Nolan slates is a window into the world of renowned Australian painter Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), reflecting a time of artistic experimentation and personal upheaval. From December 1941 to June 1942, Nolan made around 32 paintings on roofing slates. They reveal his distinctive preference for non-art materials, his avant-garde aspirations and his literary interests. Through the paintings, Nolan recorded the end of his marriage, new relationships with patrons John and Sunday Reed, and fears arising from the war in the Pacific. Concerned that there might not be ‘many more tomorrows’, Nolan painted the slates as a remarkable, even desperate, avowal of emotional and creative freedom.

Nolan’s deeply personal paintings on slate have been exhibited as a group just twice since 1943. We who love presents the most comprehensive display of the series ever assembled. Executed in rapid succession, the slates are a painted journal, declaring exultant love and lingering sorrow. Their rich, metaphorical imagery invites viewers into Nolan’s life at a pivotal moment in his development.

Dates3 September 2016 2 April 2017
Location: Heide II
Curator/s:  Chris McAuliffe (Guest curator) Kendrah Morgan (Project curator)
Website

Art Talk – Saturday 3rd September, 2pm

Join guest curator Chris McAuliffe for a tour and discussion of the exhibition We who love: The Nolan slates. Executed in rapid succession during a period of personal and societal upheaval, these key works offer a fascinating insight into one of Australia’s most renowned artists.

Dr Chris McAuliffe is an art historian, writer and curator and currently holds the position of Professor of Art (Practice-led research) at the School of Art, Australian National University, Canberra.

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Warwick Reeder (1950-2016), Director of Heide Museum of Modern Art from 1996 to 2003.

A touring exhibition from The University of Queensland Art Museum


Meet the Artist – Louise Hearman | TarraWarra Museum of Art

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Meet the Artist – Louise Hearman | TarraWarra Museum of Art

IMAGE: Louise Hearman, Untitled #1213 2007, oil on masonite. Collection of the artist. Image courtesy and © the artist
Photograph: Mark Ashkanasyra

TarraWarra Museum of Art presents the first survey exhibition of Louise Hearman’s work, curated by Anna Davis and organised and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, MCA from 18 February – 14 May 2017, with paintings and drawings from across her 25-year practice.

Meet the artist and join Fiona Gruber posing questions to curator and artist and gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the work in this exhibition.

Compere: Fiona Gruber, journalist and producer with twenty years experience writing and broadcasting across the arts as a commentator, profile writer, and reviewer

Guests: Louise Hearman, artist and Anna Davis, Curator, MCA and Curator Louise Hearman exhibition

Date: Saturday 18 March, 2pm

Venue: TarraWarra Museum of Art,

Tickets: $20 / $15 concession – book via twma.com.au

Telephone (03) 5957 3100 Email museum@twma.com.au

 

The post Meet the Artist – Louise Hearman | TarraWarra Museum of Art appeared first on Melbourne Art Network.

News and Exhibition | Sidney Nolan’s man behind Ned Kelly mask revealed | Heide MoMA

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News and Exhibition | Sidney Nolan’s man behind Ned Kelly mask revealed | Heide MoMA

Recent research by Paula Dredge and Kendrah Morgan with assistance from the Australian Synchrotron has revelead a face behind the mask of one of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings. From April 22 to May 14 Heide will host a virtual reality display that will allow visitors to explore this ‘face behind the mask.’

1. Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly: ‘Nobody knows anything about my case but myself’ 1945, ripolin enamel on cardboard, 63 x 75 cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Purchased with funds provided by the Friends of Heide and the Heide Circle of Donors 1998
2. Digital colour recreation of first stage of the painting based on X-ray fluorescenceM

From Heide

Working in collaboration with the scientific research centre Australian Synchrotron, and utilising its state of the art technology, art conservators have imaged pigments buried underneath layers of paint to reveal a face behind the mask of Sidney Nolan’s painting Ned Kelly, “Nobody knows anything about my case but myself” 1945.

When examining the painting in 2012, Paula Dredge, Paintings Conservator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Kendrah Morgan, Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne noticed brush strokes underneath the mask of the Kelly helmet. “As this work is one of the first times Nolan painted Kelly, we thought the paint below the helmet might provide insight into his development of this iconic figure,” Dredge said.

Dredge and Morgan contacted Australian Synchrotron, part of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the painting was analysed using an X-ray fluorescence beamline which identified elements to the resolution of the finest brush stroke. With powerful processing, previously invisible layers of colour were revealed to show a face beneath the helmet. “A curious array of blue, yellow and red dots were also visible across the painting and strangely Nolan turned the painting upside down before obscuring the face with Kelly’s black helmet,” Morgan said.

Is the face Nolan’s or Kelly’s? The dots provide a clue. In 1943, while in the Australian Army, Nolan painted Self portrait, (Ripolin enamel on hessian sacking, Art Gallery of NSW), in which he wears strips of blue, yellow and red across his forehead, suggesting an artist’s war paint. By 1945 he had absconded from the Army and was hiding from the authorities. Nolan’s identification with Australia’s best known outlaw is suggested by the title of the work, in Kelly’s own words, and the portrait under the mask.

From April 22 to May 14 2017, visitors can view the face behind the mask as part of a virtual reality display created by Andrew Yip and iGLAM at the University of New South Wales. It will be presented in the library of Heide I, the original home of John and Sunday Reed. Both Ned Kelly, “Nobody knows anything about my case but myself” (1945) and Kelly at the Mine (1946-47) will be displayed alongside a selection of Nolan memorabilia in commemoration of the centenary of Sidney Nolan’s birth.

Presented with support from: Laboratory for Innovation in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, University of New South Wales Australian Synchrotron Art Gallery of New South Wales

 

The post News and Exhibition | Sidney Nolan’s man behind Ned Kelly mask revealed | Heide MoMA appeared first on Melbourne Art Network.

Symposium program now available | Academia and Bohemia: new perspectives on the National Gallery School

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Symposium program now available | Academia and Bohemia: new perspectives on the National Gallery School

Students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, 1895.

The full program for the free one-day symposium Academia and Bohemia: new perspectives on the National Gallery School, including abstracts and biographies, is now available via the VCA events website.

Date: Wednesday 21 June 2017.

Venue: Federation Hall, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Grant Street, Southbank.

Registration: 

Enquiries: Alison Inglis (email).

Summary of Symposium Program
10.15am: Registration

10.30am-12.15pm: Session One
Professor Su Baker (Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne): Introduction.
Assoc. Professor Alison Inglis (University of Melbourne) and Fiona Moore (University of Melbourne): The National Gallery School from 1867 to World War One – collection, creativity and chroniclers.
Annelies Van de Ven (University of Melbourne): “Moulding the Public Taste” – Casts in the NGV collection.
Michael Varcoe-Cocks (National Gallery of Victoria): Awakening passion: The formative decades of the National Gallery School.

12.15-1.15pm: Lunch

1.15–3.00 pm Session Two
David Belzycki (Independent Scholar): Folingsby: innovator and instigator.
Dr Stephen Mead (Independent Scholar): The Cannibal Club: A home for Melbourne art students.
Alexandra Ellem (University of Melbourne): Hugh Ramsay & His Mentors: ‘Australia … does not yet realize what she has lost in him, but she will in time’ (John Longstaff).

3.00-3.30pm: Afternoon break

5.30 – 6.30pm: Keynote Lecture, Federation Hall, Victorian College of the Arts
Terence Lane OAM: The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition: A Cultural Landmark.

6.30 – 7.30pm: Drinks and Conversation, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts
Fiona Gruber ‘in conversation’ with Elizabeth Gower, followed by a viewing of 9 X 5 NOWExhibition.

7.30 pm: End of event

The post Symposium program now available | Academia and Bohemia: new perspectives on the National Gallery School appeared first on Melbourne Art Network.

Lecture | Dr Christopher Heathcote – Discovering Dobell | TarraWarra Museum of Art

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William Dobell Gentleman conversing with a prawn 1970 oil on panel 27.8 x 25.4 cm Private collection © Sir William Dobell Art Foundation

William Dobell Gentleman conversing with a prawn 1970 oil on panel 27.8 x 25.4 cm Private collection © Sir William Dobell Art Foundation

2pm, Saturday 22 July

Dr. Christopher Heathcote, curator of Discovering Dobell, as he shares his fresh insights into the work of William Dobell.

Exploring in detail Dobell’s London years, his portraits of Sydneysiders, and the more experimental New Guinea paintings, Heathcote’s lecture will present a close examination of the artist’s practice, shedding new light on the processes and methods by which the artist developed ideas from sketches to paintings.

Exploring in detail Dobell’s London years, his portraits of Sydneysiders, and the more experimental New Guinea paintings, Heathcote’s lecture will present a close examination of the artist’s practice, shedding new light on the processes and methods by which the artist developed his ideas through several drawings and studies to reach one or more paintings.

Dr. Christopher Heathcote is one of Australia’s foremost art critics and has written on a broad range of topics from Arthur Boyd and Edvard Munch to Virginia Woolf and Michelangelo Antonioni. An authority in twentieth-century culture, he is the author of several books including the highly acclaimed Inside the Art Market: Australia’s Galleries 1956-1976, as well as A Quiet Revolution: The Rise of Australian Art 1946-1968 considered the definitive account of the period. Christopher Heathcote has also written several artist monographs, including A Quest for Enlightenment: The Art of Roger Kemp, and the groundbreaking Russell Drysdale: Defining the Modern Australian Landscape which was published jointly by the Tarrawarra Museum of Art and Wakefield Press.

Tickets $20 / $15 concession & members.
Tickets include entry into the exhibitions Discovering Dobell and Dobell’s Circle.

Book here:

 

 

The post Lecture | Dr Christopher Heathcote – Discovering Dobell | TarraWarra Museum of Art appeared first on Melbourne Art Network.

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