Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

- , .. '!'he Leacier 19 June 19 83 'i 1 Three Apostles. aurib11ted to Lucas Cranach the Elder (/47]-/553). A frawnem of a larger work c. 1515-20. Uil 011 wood. 28 cm x 40 cm. European works boost for gallery Queensland Art Gallery has on display three of the five works by internationally-known artists whose purchase was negotiated by the gallery's director, Raoul Mellish, during a visit to Europe earlier this year. The works arc Musical l11- s1rume111s. a bronze sculpture by Lipschi1z and 1wo pain- 1ings - Composilion .mr (0110 b/eu by Leier and thm• Apo.11/es by C ranach. The 01her 1wo purchases, sculp!Ures by Anthony Caro /U11iso111 and Marino Marini (Pomo11a/, are due to be received later this year. Together, the five works will mark a significant addition to the gallery·s Euoprean collec- 1ion. Lucas Cranach the Elder I 1472-15531, painter and designer of woodcuts, was born in Kronach, southern Germany, deriving his name from the town . His religious p_anels. in which category his Three Aposlles belongs arc especially noted for their treat· ment of landscape. The upturned faces in the Three Apos1/es imply that it is a fragment of a larger work - possibly an Ascension panel which Cranach is known 10 have been commissioned 10 do for !he Stiftskirchc in Halle or an Assumption . which could well have been one included in an altar-piece he painted for !he La<ly Chapel of this church. Fem and Leger is a key figure in the French art nf this century. He is known a, one of the "giants" of French Cubism an<l as a painter who created one of the most distinctive styles of any 20th centurv artist. Before World War I his name was associated with the Cubist movement and his closest friends included writers like Appollinaire. Max Jacob and Blaise Cendrars and the painters Picasso, Robett Dclaunay, Dychamp a9(l'. Picabia. ·' But the realities· of mechanised warfare brough1 a change in his art. He broke wi1h 1ubism and re1urned to an explicit!)' figura1ivc 1radi· 1ion. He was deeply affected hy 1he "beauty" of precision cnginering and hi~ purpose became 10 celebrate modern u1ban 1echnological culture by mc:,ns of works on heroic S1:ale and of popular imagery. He in1roduced machines ur elements suggesting them into his pain1ings to convey the idea of society-as-machines. The acquisition of Leger's Composi1ion s11r fond b/eu of 1930 is regarded by the Queensland Art Gallery as a most imponant addition to its collection of 20th ccn1ury European an. which already includes paintings by Picasso. Renoir. Vlaminck and Vuillard, lithographs by Munch, Cezannc and Matisse and a tapestry by Sonia Delaunay. Lithuanian-born sculptor .Jacques Lipschitz (1891 -19731 is recognised as one of the mos1 imponant of Cubis1 sculptors and his Mu.1ica/ In· s1ruments will add significant · ly to 1hc representation of Cubist art in Australia. The work was completed in 1925. when Lipschitz moved from 1he heavy block-Cubiit forms to more open forms /sculpTUres lransparemesJ and 1he development of a freer. linear approach closer lo sur• realism. He wrote of Musical In• smune111s that "it is Cubism wi1h a difference: extremely free. open, interpenctrated. and dynamic. The guitar or mandolin becomes a dancing figure and both figure and gu ltar: . become 'a kind of ar• chitec(ure." ,,