Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

It was something which gave me a reason and meaning. It became apparent that no matter what lay in front of one, it was the relationship expressed which was important and the relationship that was expressed was through design ... the orderly expression of an idea. Selection here was posed on reason not at the expense of intuition or emotion, but with the belief that thought and emotion are not opposed .4 Margel Harris's early art training had emphasised modelling in clay and plaster. Her mother had been a concert pianist and she was brought up in a musical atmosphere. Her father encouraged an interest in natural history and she learned dance, as movement, under a pupil of Isadora Duncan. However, it was seeing exhibitions by the Russian constructivists Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo and the bronze version of Brancusi's Bird in space c.1926 that inspired her first real aesthetic experience and fired her with an enthusiasm for contemporary art. After attending Bisttram's summer school she and Frank eagerly discussed theosophy and anthroposophy and read vitalist texts such as Havelock Ellis's The Dance of Life, Irma Richers Rhythmic Forms in Art and Claude Bragdon's Old Lamps for New and The Frozen Fountain ,5 Following their marriage in 1930, the Hinders spent three years in Boston where Frank taught at the Child-Walker School of Fine Arts. The teaching was mainly traditional in character but the student atmosphere was vital and stimulating. There were free concerts, ballet and lectures and Frank took advantage of the opportunity to become involved in theatre set and furniture design. He also co-founded an experimental art colony in New Hampshire. In 1933 they attended a summer school run by Emil Bisttram at Taos in New Mexico where they became interested in the work of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera while their interaction with the Pueblo Indian culture confirmed their belief in a basic rhythmic unity of life.6The shared background of their formative years was to have a lasting effect on their art. Studio abstract is based on the architectural structure of their studio in Gordon, Sydney, where Frank Hinder painted the work in 1954. Hinder has used his knowledge of dynamic symmetry to produce a painting that is balanced and classical. There is an interpenetration of line and colour. The palette is limited, sometimes transparent, at other times used to give a feeling of texture. The diagonal lines move in and out of different coloured areas, so instead of acting as confining borders they produce a unified field within the painting. There is a lively rhythm of colour and line across the surface which acknowledges structure, change of light, energy and space, and at the same time suggests the paraphernalia of creativity. By comparison, Margel Hinders Diatropic is completely non-objective and requires the viewer to participate by moving around the work. Line, space and light are used to explore change and irregularity. Her approach is asymmetrical and anti- classical. Using the fundamental principle of dynamic symmetry (growth) Margel Hinder was inspired by the irregularity of plants growing sideways towards some outside stimulus (diatropic). In her efforts to open up space she always tried to lose the centre of gravity in her work. Something, which she said, she tried but never succeeded in doing.7 The Hinders' place in Australian art history and their influence on the art produced in this country began in 1934 when the worsening conditions of the Depression in America led them to settle in Sydney. They arrived in a city with only three commercial galleries and a conservatively run state gallery; there was almost no interest in contemporary art nor were there many books, journals or reproductions which dealt with developments overseas. Nationalism and traditionalism dominated public taste and there was hostility towards abstraction. Frank Hinder recounted that the abstract watercolours he showed in a group exhibition were spat upon.8 After the stimulation of Boston the Hinders initially felt they had landed in a cultural desert until they found a group of like-minded artists in Rah Fizelle, Grace Crowley and Ralph Balsón. Anti­ capitalist, gregarious, and with an interest in constructivist abstraction, the group met in a studio in George Street, Sydney. Crowley had studied in Paris under the painter André Lhote who taught a semi­ abstraction based on cubist principles, while her friend Anne Dangar who was working with the painter Albert Gleizes in France corresponded regularly, keeping the group in touch with Gleizes's teachings. The Hinders' experiences in the United States made them valued members of this group.9 Slowly, communication began to improve. ANew South Wales branch of the Contemporary Art Society was formed, as was the Modern Architectural Research Society. Artists who had been studying overseas began to return home bringing journals and colour reproductions; then in 1939 the Herald and Weekly Times exhibition brought examples of French and British modern art to Australia. Responding to this more receptive atmosphere, in 1939 the Hinders, Crowley, Balsón and Fizelle, in conjunction with Frank Medworth and sculptors Eleonore Lange and Gerald Lewers, staged 'Exhibition 1' at David Jones' Exhibition Galleries, Sydney. Consisting mainly of abstracted figurative works, the exhibition was accompanied by a statement announcing that 'modern painters were abandoning the representation of objects to establish a new realm of visual existence'.10This was the first concentrated attempt by Sydney artists to gain acceptance for abstraction. Unfortunately the group's efforts were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War and although Crowley, Balsón and Frank Hinder continued to exhibit, it was not until the late 1950s that a more painterly and expressive style of abstraction began to be accepted within the Sydney art world. In 1952, two years before he painted Studio abstract, Frank Hinder won the Blake Prize for Religious Art with his entry Flight into Egypt. In 1953 Margel Hinder shared third prize for her entry in the important International Sculpture Competition on the theme of'The Unknown Political Prisoner', sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art, London. Despite the Facing page Margel Hinder United States/Australia 1906-95 Diatropic c.1950-62 Metal 65.5x120x29.5cm Gift of the Godfrey Rivers Trust 1962 Queensland Art Gallery 236 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965