Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

11 Drysdale exhibited fifteen untitled 'Studies for Compositions', together with paintings by a range of artists including Rupert Bunny, Roland Wakelin, Lloyd Rees and Arthur Murch, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 31 May to 12 June 1950. 12 Bernard Smith, Introduction, in Catalogue of the First Exhibition .... 13 See Gavin Wilson, The Artists of Hill End: Art, Life and Landscape, The Beagle Press and The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Roseville (NSW), 1995, passim. 14 Drysdale, quoted in Klepac, p.126. 15 Bernard Smith, Australian Painting Today: The John Murtagh Macrossan Lectures, 1961, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia (Qld), 1962, p.23ff. These lectures represent an important index of taste at the mid-century. 'WHEN THREADS ARE DRAWN ACROSS A NERVOUS-PATTERN' Joy Hester Man and tree pp.192-195 1 From a poem by Joy Hester, originally published In A Comment, no.15, March 1943; reprinted in Janine Burke, Joy Hester, Greenhouse Publications, Elwood (Vic.), 1983, p.47. 2 See Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed, ed. Janine Burke, William Heinemann Australia, Port Melbourne, 1995, p.64. 3 An exception is Image of modern evil: Demon dreamer 1943 (National Gallery of Australia). Reproduced in James Mollison &Jan Minchin, Albert Tucker: A Retrospective [exhibition catalogue], National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1990, p.3. 4 Reproduced in David Burnett, 'The urban nocturne', in Brought to Light: Australian Art 1850-1965, Queensland Art Gallery Collection, eds Lynne Seear &Julie Ewlngton, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 1998, p.186. Memory of Leonski and Spring in Fitzroy use Picasso-esque distorted nudes, similar to those in Guernica 1937, or Seated bather 1930. The former image by Tucker is set on a beach, a bomber plane overhead, with the victim's genitals a crude slash, adjacent to the red stripes of the American flag, a white dove in the girl's hand. In the latter Image by Tucker, a similarly displayed body Is situated in an interior, a window at left revealing the city's skyline at night. 5 Victory girl 1943 is reproduced in Angry Penguins and Realist Painting in Melbourne in the 1940s [exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London], The Centre, London, 1988, p.121; Hester's Frightened C.1945 is reproduced In Michael Keon, Joy Hester: An Unsettling World [exhibition catalogue], Lauraine Dlggins Fine Art Pty Ltd with Malakoff Fine Art Press, North Caulfield (Vic.), 1993, p.15. 6 Given this comparison, and that Frightened is dated c.1945, it is possible this might be an earlier work, perhaps also 1943. 7 See Richard Haese, 'The city of night', in Creating Australia: 200 Years of Art, 1788-1988 [exhibition catalogue], ed. Daniel Thomas, International Cultural Corporation of Australia & Art Gallery Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1988, p.211. 8 Georges Mora, Tolarno Galleries, 10 June 1986, letter to Caroline Launitz-Schurer, Acting Director, Queensland Art Gallery, artist's files, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. 9 Reg S. Ellery, Psychiatric Aspects of Modern Warfare, Reed & Harris, Melbourne, 1945. After the war Tucker spent part of 1947 In Japan attached to the Australian army as an art correspondent. 10 Burke, Joy Hester, p.20. 11 Both works are reproduced in Burke, Joy Hester, p.81. Burke believed Hester to be the only Australian artist to have made images in response to the newsreel footage of the concentration camps. In Brisbane though, young Queensland artist Laurence Colllnson is known to have done a watercolour Landscape with nudes 1945, with figures hanging from trees, and an ink and watercolour, How to grow cabbages Buchenwald style 1948, both in the collection of the University Art Museum, The University of Queensland, Brisbane. Laurence Hope, also from Brisbane, in 1947 completed a series of small works entitled 'Children of war'. Brisbane poet Barrett Reid and Laurence Hope travelled to Adelaide and Melbourne In December 1946 and January 1947, making contact with John and Sunday Reed at Heide, and meeting Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval and Max Harris. See Michele Helmrich, Young Turks and Battle Lines: Barjai and Miya Studio [exhibition catalogue]. University Art Museum, University of Queensland, St Lucia (Qld), 1988, p.9. 12 See Burke (ed.), Dear Sun ..., p.20. 13 Burke (ed.), Dear Sun .... p.20. 14 For a discussion of Die Brücke's ideal of communal utopia see Reinhold Heller, 'Bridge to Utopia: The Brücke as Utopian Experiment', In Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy [exhibition catalogue], ed. Timothy O. Benson, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1993, pp.62-83. 15 Christopher Uhl, Albert Tucker, Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1969, p.88, note 11. 16 Death will find me 1943-44, ink and watercolour on paper, reproduced in Keon, p.12. 17 Comparisons might be made with Hester's Nude in a room c.1943 (private collection) and Man and woman in bed c.1952 (National Gallery of Victoria), reproduced in Burke, Joy Hester, pp.52 & 122 respectively. 18 In 1946 Laurence Hope, then located In Brisbane, produced a watercolour entitled Sleeper, In which the body of a man, awkwardly foreshortened and distorted, appears to slump In a darkened room beside barred windows. Reproduced in Helmrich, P-13. 19 Albert Tucker, 'Paintings by H. D., an unknown Australian Primitive', Angry Penguins, December 1944, pp.24-5. 20 Albert Tucker, 'Exit Modernism', Angry Penguins Broadsheet, no.1, 1946, p.10. See also Viktor Löwenfeld, The Nature of Creative Activity, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1952. 21 The cry for help is Illustrated in Tucker, 'Exit Modernism', p.9; Hester's Screaming man c.1945, Ink and pencil on paper, Is reproduced In Keon, p.17. 22 Hester, quoted In Burke (ed.), Dear Sun ..., p.52. 23 Angry Penguins, an arts and literature magazine, was a key site for Modernism in Australia in the 1940s. It also proved to be the target for a famous cultural hoax. In 1944 poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart sought to discredit 'modernism' (and Angry Penguins's editor Max Harris) through the fake persona of Ern Malley. 24 Despite being a member of the inner circle of Melbourne modernists, Joy Hester had only one pen drawing published in Angry Penguins (The time lag / a middle class dressing room c.1943, private collection) and her work was rarely exhibited or collected during her lifetime. 25 Hester's Girl 1957, brush and ink, Is reproduced In Burke, Joy Hester, p.162. 26 Robert Rooney, 'Bottom of the well', The Weekend Australian Magazine, 24-25 May 1986, p.14. 27 Quoted in E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, 5th edn, Phaldon, London, 1977, pp.174-5. THE JUDGING OF SUSANNAH Daphne Mayo Susannah pp.196-199 1 The spelling of Susannah varies in different references, and Is often spelled without 'h'. The actual story of Susannah and the Elders Is found in the Apocrypha of many versions of the Bible (in the Roman Catholic Bible It is Chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel). The Roman Catholic Church recognises most of the writings of the Apocrypha and designates them as Deuterocanonical, that is, added to the canon later, and they are Included In the Latin Vulgate Bible. Apocrypha is a Greek word meaning 'hidden (things)' and It Is used in different senses: things too Important or precious which are kept hidden; things that are not good enough, that Is, questionable, secondary or heretical; things that are considered outside the Hebrew 'canon'. 2 F. L. Cross & E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1974, p.1325. 3 Mary D. Garrard, Artemesia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1989, p.191. 4 J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend, Thames & Hudson, London, 1983, pp.234-5. 5 Graeme Sturgeon, The Development of Australian Sculpture, 1788-1975, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978, p.46. In 1939 the Australian monumental sculptor William Leslie Bowles wrote: 'Sculpture is essentially an art for men. Women may be successful exponents of It; but in the modelling of huge figures in clay and the carving of masses of marble and stone, It is rare indeed that a woman can stay the course' (W. Bowles, 'A sculptor's problems', Art in Australia, 15 November 1939, p.31). 6 Judith McKay, 'The Return of the Prodigal Son', Arts National, vol.2, issue 5, May-June 1985, p.53. 7 See Judith McKay, 'Daphne Mayo', in Heritage: The National Women's Art Book: 500 Works by 500 Australian Women Artists from Colonial Times to 195 5, ed. Joan Kerr, Art and Australia, Roseville East (NSW), 1995, illustration p.404. 8 George Blalkie, 'A little woman ... with a man-size job', Sunday Mail, Brisbane, 21 October 1962, p.2. 9 McKay, 'The Return of the Prodigal Son'. The first woman to win the award was Louisa Starr in 1867, shortly after women were admitted to the Academy. 10 Judith McKay, Daphne Mayo: A Tribute to Her Work for Art in Queensland, Friends of Daphne Mayo, Kangaroo Point (Qld), 1983, p.2. 11 Sturgeon, p,73. According to Sturgeon, burgeoning nationalism prolonged the popularity of traditional academic sculpture due to the requirements of public commemorations. 12 The Queensland Art Fund held its inaugural meeting in 1929, with over two hundred subscribers led by Mayo and Vida Lahey. Their objective was to raise money for art purchases for the Queensland National Art Gallery. For a full description of Mayo's Involvement see McKay, Daphne Mayo: A Tribute to Her Work .... 13 Judith McKay, Daphne Mayo, Sculptor [exhibition catalogue], University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1981 p.11. 14 Jean Bellette, 'Aristide Maillol', Art in Australia, 1 September 1941, p.54. 15 McKay, Daphne Mayo, Sculptor, p.11. 16 Sturgeon, p.89. 17 McKay, Daphne Mayo, Sculptor, p.11. 18 For example, The Return of the Prodigal Son was the winning entry for the Edward Stott Travelling Scholarship at the Royal Academy in 1923. 19 Society of Artists Book, Society of Artists (Sydney, NSW), Ure Smith, Sydney, 1942, p.68. 20 Lloyd Rees, 'Daphne Mayo', in Australian Present Day Art, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1943, p.66. 21 McKay, Daphne Mayo, Sculptor, p.12. 22 The Elders are now held in a private collection In Brisbane. A WAVE TO MEMORY' Sidney Nolan Mrs Fraser pp.200-205 1 Barrett Reid, 'Fraser Island, looking west', In Making Country, HarperCollins Publishers, Sydney, 1976, p.106. 2 For the most up-to-date account of the relationship, see Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed, ed. Janine Burke, William Heinemann Australia, Port Melbourne, 1995, pp.17ff. 3 Burke (ed.), Dear Sun, p.28. 4 M. E. McGuire discusses the Influence of Walkabout on Sidney Nolan and Australian Modernism In general in his article 'Whiteman's Walkabout', Meanjin, vol.52, no.3, Spring 1993, pp.517-25. 5 Nolan visited Fraser Island on two occasions, in late July 1947 and again in October 1947. ENDNOTES 311