Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

9 See Daniel Thomas, The Hermannsburg watercolourists: The view from the art museum', in Hardy and others (eds), pp.201-16. 10 Max Ragless, Paintings by Albert Namatjira Arunta Native [exhibition catalogue], Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 1946. 11 Mary Corkery, Foreword, in Albert Namatjira: Watercolours of Central Australia [exhibition catalogue], 1947. 12 For example, according to 0. A. Wallent, Aborigines were a fast vanishing race who needed understanding and intervention in order for them to survive. Art was one means of raising public awareness of the Aboriginal 'problem' (0. A. Wallent, in Exhibition of Paintings by the Arunta Group [exhibition catalogue], c.1949). 13 Victor Hall, Namatjira of the Aranda, Rigby, Adelaide, 1962, p.16. A self-taught painter, Rex Battarbee undertook excursions to Central Australia from 1928. The story of Battarbee's meeting with Namatjira in 1934, their painting trip in 1936, and their continuing liaison has assumed mythological status, much as Geoffrey Bardon's role at Papunya in the 1970s. 14 E. C. W., 'Namatjira landscapes in new show', Courier-Mail, 4 November 1947, p.2. 15 Rex Battarbee, statement concerning facts surrounding Aranda artists, n.d., Queensland Art Gallery files, Brisbane. 16 Battarbee, statement, QAG files. 17 For examples of both positions see T. G. H. Strehlow, Rex Battarbee: Artist and Founder of the Aboriginal Art Movement in Central Australia, Legend Press, Sydney, 1956, pp.30-31, and his foreword to Rex Battarbee's Modem Australian Aboriginal Art, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1951, pp.1-7. 18 See Paul Carter's discussion of Namatjira's facility for imitation, which he contends is both a means to win approval and at the same time to reflect western culture back to the viewer, to conceal the cultural message of the paintings: Namatjira's painting has no 'ulterior motive: he is content, as it were, to imitate the European gaze, to flatter European taste. Yet it is exactly this motive which his paintings conceal. The fact is that the motive of these open landscapes is imitation itself — imitation of a technique, imitation of a place. It is in this way that the European viewer is confronted with the reflection of his own culture and not by any means granted entrance to the Aranda country' (p.40). See Paul Carter, 'The art of concealment', Studio International (London), no.1020, vol.201, 1988, pp.39-41. 19 The point has been made in this respect that Namatjira often adopts an aerial view in his paintings, as if from the perspective of the hunter. 20 Strehlow, Rex Battarbee ..., p.25. 21 Rex Battarbee, 'Why I paint in Central Australia', in Strehlow, Rex Battarbee ..., p.46. 22 Battarbee, Modern Australian Aboriginal Art, p.10. 23 When Namatjira travelled to other places he often accounted for them in terms of their suitability as fertile subject matter. On one such trip to Darwin in 1950, to follow up an application for a grazier's licence, Namatjira became fascinated with the ocean, which he was seeing for the first time. 'For a whole day Namatjira stared at the sea. Next day he completed his first seascape' ( Australian Women's Weekly, 16 September 1950, p.37). 'It's not good to drink', he said, 'but I think it will be good to paint' (Batty, p.56). 24 Norman K. Wallis, quoted in Batty, p.106. 25 Strehlow, quoted in Morton, in Hardy and others (eds), p.33. See also C. P. Mountford, The Art of Albert Namatjira, Bread and Cheese Club, Melbourne, 1944, pp.74-9. 26 Haliden Hartt, 'New geography in the Northern Territory', Walkabout, 1 January 1944, pp.23-5. 27 Hartt, p.26. See also Coralie and Leslie Rees, Spinifex Walkabout: Hitch-hiking in Remote North Australia, Australasian Publishing Co., Sydney, 1953. Parallels can be drawn here with Ian Burn's argument concerning the freeing of the landscape from the pastoral image which he claims 'had defined the landscape exclusively in terms of a white use of the land, making an Aboriginal presence seem much more of an intrusion than the token signs of European farming' to the depiction of 'signs of Aboriginal relations and use from the land' (Ian Burn, National Life and Landscapes: Australian Painting 1900-1940, Bay Books, Sydney, 1990, p.196). 28 Ian Burn &Ann Stephen, 'Namatjira's white mask: A partial interpretation', in Hardy and others (eds), pp.268-73. According to Burn and Stephen, although Battarbee was not professionally trained, his 'pictures still function within Western conventions and perception. We have little trouble reading his pictures spatially, we recognise a traditional hierarchy of values and forms, the pictures focus our eyes away from the edges, trees sit at the correct angles, the decorative elements feel more familiar, the overlapping of elements is consistent with a particular picturesque approach and so on' (p.272). 'UNCHARACTERISTICALLY UN-AMBIGUOUS' James Gleeson Structural emblems of a friend (self portrait) pp.174-177 1 Bernard Smith, Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1979, p.221. 2 James Gleeson, letter to the author, 23 August 1996. 3 Gleeson, letter to the author. 4 James Gleeson, 'The necessity for Surrealism', A Comment, no.5. May 1941, unpag. 5 Gleeson, 'The necessity for Surrealism'. 6 Smith, p.226. IN FROM THE COLD Leonard Shillam Reclining woman pp.178-181 1 Leonard Shillam confirmed that the title 'Eve' was given to the sculpture by Brian Johnstone (conversation with the author, February 1997). 2 Reclining woman featured in an article on the Johnstone Gallery in Vogue Australia, June—July 1964, pp.63-4, 3 See Glenn R. Cooke, Leonard and Kathleen Shillam: A Tribute [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 1995, p.3, and Herbert Read, Henry Moore: Sculptor, Zwemmer, London, 1934. 4 Dorothy Hartnett, Forms Entwined: The Life Story of Sculptors Leonard and Kathleen Shillam, Pangeza Studio, Stafford Heights (Qld), 1996, p.31. 5 Leonard Shillam, quoted in Lin Boyle, 'People', Toowoomba Chronicle, 10 July 1990, press cutting file, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. 6 Cooke, p.5. 7 Cooke, p.5. 8 Information from conservator Peter Maxwell who supervised restoration work on Reclining woman, March 1997. 9 Peter Vergo, 'The reticent object', in The New Museology, ed. P. Vergo, Reaktion Books, London, 1989, p.49. 10 Charles Saumarez Smith, 'Museums, artefacts, and meanings', in Vergo (ed.), p.11. 11 Saumarez Smith, in Vergo (ed.), p.20. 12 Leonard Shillam, conversation with the author, March 1997. THE URBAN NOCTURNE Albert Tucker and John Perceval pp.182-187 1 Charles Baudelaire, 'Evening Twilight', from 'Flowers of Evil', in Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems, ed. Joseph M. Bernstein, trans. Arthur Symons, Citadel Press, New York, 1990, p.58. 2 Richard Haese, Rebels and Precursors: The Revolutionary Years of Australian Art, Penguin, Ringwood (Vic.), 1988. p.100. 3 Charles Merewether, Art and Social Commitment: An End to the City of Dreams, 1931-1948, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1984. 4 Basil Burdett, quoted in Haese, p.97. 5 Charles Merewether, 'Modernism from the lower depths', in Angry Penguins and Realist Painting in Melbourne In the 1940s [exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London], The Centre, London, 1988, pp.70—71. 6 Humphrey McQueen, The Black Swan of Trespass: The Emergence of Modernist Painting in Australia to 1944, Alternative Publishing Cooperative Limited, Sydney, 1979. 7 Tucker, quoted in Haese, p.173. 8 Robert Hughes, 'Albert Tucker', Art and Australia, vol.1, no.4, February 1964, p.255. 9 Tucker, quoted in Christopher Chapman, 'Surrealism in Australia', in Michael Lloyd, Ted Gott & Christopher Chapman, Surrealism: Revolution by Night, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, c.1993, p.276. 10 Christopher Uhl, Albert Tucker, ed. John Henshaw, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, p.28. 11 Tucker, quoted in James Mollison, Nicholas Bonham & Albert Tucker, Albert Tucker, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1982, pp.37-8. 12 Tucker, quoted in Mollison, Bonham &Tucker, p.38. 13 Margaret Plant, John Perceval, Landsdowne, Melbourne, 1971, and Traudi Allen, John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Vic.), 1992. 14 Haese, p.191. 'SILENCE REIGNS HERE': Russell Drysdale and the Australian Landscape Russell Drysdale Bush fire pp.188-191 1 Jock Marshall & Russell Drysdale, Journey among Men, Hodder & Stoughton, Suffolk, 1962. Pen and ink drawings illustrate the work. For some commentary of the travels, see Margaret Plant, 'Drysdale: Affinities and critics', in Russell Drysdale, Monash University Gallery, Clayton (Vic.), 1987, pp.15-36. For the photographs, see Jennie Boddington, Drysdale, Photographer, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987. 2 Keith Newman, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 1944, p.5. In the same edition, Drysdale illustrated an article by Professor Griffith Taylor, 'Australia's barren spaces', p.8. The next coverage by Keith Newman was headlined: 'Drought lands. Varied pattern falling birthrate of trees menaces the future. But faith is strong and men wring humour from affliction', 18 December 1944, p.5, followed by 'Riddle of the sands. Erosion solution may be buried there. Urgent need for scientific assault', 19 December 1944, p.5. 3 A number of these drawings were shown in the Joseph Brown Gallery (Melbourne) exhibition 'Russell Drysdale Drawings, 1935-1980', 16-31 March 1981, nos 47-50. 4 British poet and critic Herbert Read's studies made the work of English artists well known in the Commonwealth, especially Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory of Modern Painting and Sculpture, Faber & Faber, London, new edn 1948; first published 1933, rev, edn 1936. 5 Sydney Ure Smith, Present Day Art in Australia 2, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1945, p.18. 6 Ure Smith, p.18. 7 See Christine France, Merioola and After, National Trust of Australia (NSW), Sydney, 1986. The Merioola painters and others were later known as the 'Sydney Charm School'. 8 Catalogue of the First Exhibition in England of Paintings by Russell Drysdale (Exhibition no.950, December 1950), The Leicester Galleries, London, 1950. For reactions to the London exhibition see Lou Klepac, The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, Ch.ll, 'The first London exhibition', p.121ff. 9 Klepac, p.121ff. Drysdale's first solo exhibition in Brisbane was at the Johnstone Gallery, 15-30 August 1967. 10 Fourteen paintings were shown at the Macquarie Galleries, 8-21 August 1950. BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965