Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 1 : Presscuttings, 1959-1962

04 'hem MI 1133 . Press NNW Awn Atellawme, Vide& "ADVERTISER" Adelaide, S.A. '062 . V e Buy oases A Special Correspondent RISBANE, October 31. nod's State Housing Com- ic week came up with the lews since the wiping out housing camps: for the more Commission -built being bought than rented. 2 mouths r 2,000 ere built ion; 1,447 sold (not addition, ouses built ,ild during nths. p.c. of the °uses have . compared ented - a been com- b in less authorities read that the Adelaide Festival of Arta had rejected "The Ham hey eked unsuitable, the aske to be shown an advance copy of the script. Claiming that they would have no time to book another hall if the church decided against them, the Twelfth Night leaders didn't wait for the answer: they switched the play to another theatre. One (probably inevitable) result was a spate of publicity beyond the Is vary ac- Imaginings of any group series of of amateur players. wn up by n in differ- But by no means all th he averages comments were favorable, 3,greementa even from some of those 1 to l 5/ who admitted they had gone along only because r - foch bilit t y a commis& . Testae t ms for get awls m the reg earance o iission area aneral" cople hay that life Ile. arts is no at week or e, two-thirds s of Queens ;aliery have ci "amateurs ailing know - men who own "Amateurs" Meanwhile, the Board of Trustees of the Queens- land Art Gallery has com under fire from one of the city's leading art dealer and private gallery owners. He declares that most o the directors couldn't recognise a piece of creative art from a seed catalogue . . . one-thir of the 11 trustees were wise, but the rest were "amateurs with an appall- ing knowledge of art.' The reason for this blast by private gallery director Mr. Brian Johnstone was the trustees' rejection of two paintings by Brisbane artist Miss Margaret 011ey. IL tot week, Miss 011ey et a new record for an ritya best- ustralian woman artist, hafts decided by selling 38 paintings for suitability of 11,000). a play to b by a leading. Trustees of the Queens - matte society land Gallery include a Supreme Court Judge, two was Patrick university professors, a r Ham Fune neuiptor-artist, two reedit- , be produce cal men, three lawyers. elfth Nigh and two public servants. ,ip in Brig I Hall. The chairman - de- scribed by Mr. Johnstone call Is own as being one of the millet chars. d comment. - has the chat eclined to REACTIONS to the Richards Prize paintings now showing in the Art Gallery range from won- der to bewilder- ment. Some people cannot look at many of 'them without a feeling of .great elation, Others feel that some sort of a trick is being played on them.. At any rate. nobody who sees them remains Indiffer- ent. Why should works of art affect people so variously? Is there no common stan- dard which enables us to say whether strange new crea- tions not. seen before are good or bad? Why should paintings which do not faithfully re- produce a landscape or a nude model but, instead, like music, transmute thoughts, feelings, and visual Impres- sions into pure colour or de- scriptive symbols move sonic people to hostility? When Sir Alfred Munnings was President of the Royal Academy he described all modern art no "violent blows al nothing." He told this story: A kick "It isn't en long ago that Mr. Churchill and I were walking together. Mr. Chur- chill said to me, 'Alfred, If we saw Picasso coming down the street towards us, would you join me in kicking hard a certain part of him?' I replied, 'By Cod, Winston, I would'." A kick enswers nn question and solved no argument. But let its admit that there is an amount of strong feeling against modern artists. And It seems to he vaguely summed up In Mini- nItigs' client° that they ..11111i1111 paha. a !me fn look 2 THI COURIER -MAIL WEDNESDAY NOV 29 1941 cuTRALTRAT-Fic AzEtOo txTf-No, IN SOME. DIREcTlaNS, AS FAR_ As 3 MILES PROM INNER. ciTy ty,k1V,ip "A_ 0) - flalk iF YOU s GC.ING To C051 You ?LEO KB;;\ viNG, Pit14 et JOURNEY INTO THE "YOU BEAUT" COUNTRY OUST 514.01KRE fT'SAO PON r' 11.11,6^- Afctok-tu,'`fifcH 'VE4P111;fia:-/LoR Wike- Q4VE r c/a() V? II ' ifir if 4 a GET CRACKIN/ No STANDING 745Ast ARV 10-30 PH. SATuft PAYS l SUNDAYS incuistbE EXCEPTING LEitpYELz --OF Coup...7 / dpsommEmssumsee ime1; 114 "Modern" art is in the news s Some have praised the : at present, with the H. C. Richards Prize - winning Richards Prize paintings - paintings. Others have : including winning entry, . criticised them. Many corn- "Journey into the 'You : plain they cannot "under- : : Beaur Country No. 2"-on : stand" them and pose the show at the Art Gallery. question: Is this Art? um......E u...............rnt Ion Gall ononis The Cou Gallery Thomas)' question 12 the aim ; painters. says... E mus MUST A T LOOK LIKE TREE? well able to paint a tree to iook like a tree. The trouble is surely that, being able, he does not. BUT MUST HE? Is the artist simply a kind of super recording instru- ment f a th t ul ly portraying, with the talent he has, the common vision? What of, for example, the sense of wonder which. looking some- times at a tree, we feel but cannot express? We are all familiar with those magnificent state- mentl-we call them mete piMrs- which poets make when they want to convey this sense of wonder, or when they waist to describe something which Is beyond the reach of purely literal dercripl ion. Poetry Something is somehow added to our understanding when a poet says things like "a woman la a foreign land" or "Hope is a morning in spring." We call a man a poet Just because he cats make orclinnu language convey something more than It seemed ennoble of. And so with painters. Some kinds of painting, like Picasso's, are In a sense like metaphors. It would be wrong to accuse artisti of foiling to paint a tree to look like a tree when thew had no such limited intention. One trouble is that there is certainly no conunon standard. But the belief that there must be can tie you into knots which make appreciation impossible. If you had been brought up to value only, say, the extreme simplicity of Chi- nese drawings, you might easily find MicheIntigelo's florid painting of The Last Judgment utterly distaste- ful. They can both he valued, but for different reasons. There are, in fact, hun- dreds of standards which we apply to different works nr art and the only thing .1110, 1111 .11' 11 1111, By LAURIE THOMAS, director of the Queensland Art gallery. H1,411.11114 I. ....... .11.11111. llllllllllll different to express from what others.have done. They are interested, for example, in trying to con- vey the million and limit- less possibilities of the mind's dreams, the explo- sive world about them, the explosive world within them, the heart's emotions, the essence rather than the mere nppearance of the whole subtle world of mystery, imagination. and fact which impinges upon them. Above all, they are mak- Ink-trying to make works of art which are entirely beautiful, fascinating, or arresting for their own take-little worlds of their own, unlike any other world: and to do it with that Joy of discovery which Colum- bus felt in coming upon a new found land. How do you tell whether the results are any good? Only by recognising whether they've done it well or ill. Victor Hugo once said that there are no good or bad subjects, only good or bad poets. It doesn't mat- ter What an artist's subject Is or whet his intention is, What matters is whether he has done it with technical skill, power, intensity, wholeness and great feeling. People sometimes find these strange new worlds "meaningless." Hut perhaps they're looking for the wrong thing. What Is the "meaning," for instance, of a sunset, or a Greek vase? Paintings, like all works of art, are made to be loved, net to convey messages- though they may do so, Cheap an ninny of the facile and popular pictures of the land- scape which some admire are hardly more titan cheap folrel from nalm,, -orthodox and modern-so that "conventional" painters would have a lair go. This misses the point' completely. Conventional paintings were not pushed out by modern ones. It was simply that the better paintings in any style pushed out the poorer ones. In the Richards exhibi- tion, many "conventional" paintings - such as those by Lloyd Rees, CarIngton Smith. Ray Crooke, Sall Herman. Charles Meere, etc. -are hanging alongside mr "modern' work. I. paintings were rejected It was not because they were old or new. but only be- cause they were not up to the standard of the ones Ming. The best 111181661111111. And If the Richards Prize Is mainly of modern work that is because most of the best painters working today live in their own time and work In a "modern" way, It is true, perhaps, that many people who have been brought up to admire mainly the paintings produced in the Western world since the Renaissance can't for the life of them see why non- representational art is en- titled to be called art at all. It is unlike anything they have learned to call art. They should remember that all great artiste have been modern artists in their own day-and nearly slwsys rejected, at first, by the public for making paintings outrageously unlike what had urns before. If habits painted only for popular taste there would never be any forward move- ment-only repetition. But you ran look in vaina tn throughout history to find single great work of art that b1.111 IV/1111111 in