Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 8 : Pressclippings, 1977-1981

A selection that w"ill . ' delight the scholar The Poetical Circle - Fuseli and the British, now at the Queensland Art Gallery, is an ex– hibition so well selected and re– searched that it is a serious scholar's delight. Because of all that care the result is enlightenment. The credit for that part goes entirely to · Peter Tomory, Professor of Fine Art at Latrobe U~iversity, and an authority on Fuseli. • To the Utah Foundation one is grateful for making it all financially possible. In 1963 Professor Tomory discovered, by chance, a folio of 37 important Fuscli drawings in an Auckland private collection and acquired it for this city's museum, of which at the time he was the director. . Ultimately, these draw– ings formed the nucleus for the present exhibition of I00 graphic works, which clearly establishes the common ground between Henry Fuscli and the other eight artists: William Blake (Fuseli's close friend, and Tomory has good arguments for his belief that the New Zealand "find" had been owned originally by no other than Blake), James Barry, John Brown, John Flaxman, James Jeffreys, J. H. Mortimer, Alex– ander Runciman, and, at least potentially, George Romney, the only one of the nine who was seduced by the more lucrative job Thuraclay, Ausuat 23, 1979 of portrait painting. the only way 10 secure a living with painting in 18th century England. The co mmon bond between the nine artists (although they never formed a group) was the passion for the sublime in art and literature of past and present, and a rebellious spirit. • As to Fuseli, the erudite· Swiss, who found a second home in England and died there honoured (though his art was not well reco~nised), and lies at rest In St. Paul's: He was an awe-inspiring intellc,– tuol, with a stupendous knowledge of literature and languages. As an artist he had no formal training, but had drawn incessantly from childhood. [ffiE] His great "school" were Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The grand, sublime and terrible met with his own disposition, and from Michelangelo, and more so from the latter's more immediate Italian imita• tors, st ems Fu se li' s mannerist overemphasis or muscles and strained poses. Fuseli's poetic imagina– tion fed on Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, the Bible, Greek and Nordic Epics, but he also infused more mundane subjects with his particularvision. In the last 30 years there has been a tremen• dous revival of interest in Fuscli, celebrated in large exhibitions in many art centres of the world. II is interesting too, that this revival goes side by •,1i1 • ;1p1tll 1 11@tiiM4 side with the ·devaluation of the sublime in our present-day arts. For serious study of this exhibition the catalogue is indispcnsible. Queensland Art Callery Is showlnc a second exhibition· or qulle dlfferet1t kllld, Our present interest in preserving the traditional folks crafts in thi s "progressing" world of ours, is focused here o the blankets (worn a garments), woven of fin wool on primitive vertic looms by the Navaj Indians of North Ameri The fine collectio dazzles with i\s richness strong-colored geometri designs, which look · modern to eyes used t geometric color paintings and optical vibrations. Alltntlon is drawn lo aa exhibition or excitln1 original llthocraphs am elchln11s by fafflOIII Frencll painter Andre Mano • (b.1896), presenled by Queensland Aris Council II lhe Chic Art Museu • Htil20Julr, Masson ,s an important figure in Modern Art, and particularly in Surrealism. He did not P,ainl in the Dall kind of• handgainted dream photograph style, but in a technique of interweaving lines and forms .which suggest a world in nux where things metamorphose one. into another. He often has practised Automatic Writing, resulting in the intensity and singing lyricism of some of the prints in this show. During the World War II, Masson lived in New York and had widespread innuencc in the States. The early work of Jackson Pollock al so shows the innuence or Masson. This exhibition spans 30 years of the artist's work. It should not be missed. THE CHRONICLE Pase35 Show time has art emphasis The Royal Agricultural Show in Brisbane heralded a number of notable art exhibitions. Eigh1y-1hrec drawings by the English pai111cr Waller Sicker! (1860- 1942) arc on show a1 1he Civic Art Museum, City Hall Brisbane, until Sun– day. Here, pen and ink, soft grey pencil and charcoal arc used with scnsitivi1y, usually on beige, blue or coloured grounds. Grid lines arc of1cn evident. Cross hatching, flat areas and single lines assist tonal cffcm . Subjccl mat– ter includes women in sor– did senings, music hall in- tcriors and urban ar– chitectural scenes. The ar- 1is1's persona lity is reflected in ponrayal of altitudeand ges111rc. Sicken was inspired by the impressionists and in– fluenced by the work of Whistler. His support of OUEENSLAND ART GALLERY 5lh Flier, • Mlle, 160 Am Street, llrislln WEAVING.DEMONSTRATION Mn. LI 11,11111 of Syny wl' demonslr1l1 Nanjo Wtlffll ltdnqun In lht Quttnsland Art Gallry - 2 pm to 4 pm WednHday 11 July and 2 pm to 4 pm Thureday 12 July This presenter/on is ataged in conjunction with the Nav•io blankets ExhibWon the principles of drawings observed by Degas con– s id cra b Iy in fluen ced English art and art teac hing dur ing hi s lifetime. " The Child in Art" show at the Queensland Art Gallery, now drawing lo its dose, includes among its 52 works a watercolour by the early Toowornba-born artist J . J. l-lildcr (188 1-1916), " Paddlers, Rose Day". Probably lhe mosl im– portant currenl exhibition is the Geo rge Bell Retrospecti ve, at the Queensland Universit y Art 1'1uscurn, St. Lucia, until September 9. Here we sec 70 works by the noted 1'1clbournc tenchcr (born 1878), who influ enced so man y Aus1rnllnn artists, in– cluding Quecnslanders Vida Lahey and f\ lclville Haysorn. The co nt em po ra r y painter Anne Graham, wh o ex h ib it s i n Toowoomba, was 1aughl byhim. llcll, himself, trained in Vic1oria, in London and in Paris. Ile carried out mnny portrait commis– sions which earned his mcmbcr, hip of t h e Modern Society of Por- 1roit Painters, nnd hl• wns nn official war art ist du,– lng World Wnr I. Il l, flcxiuility of vi, ion is evident. Iii, mind " as •Jpcn 10 new ideas and he ,cadj ustcd 10 new con– cepts of art as time pro• gresscd. In his early years he favo ure d purely photographic dcpic1io11 or .1ubjcct 111n11cr, but Inter he perceived 1he value of per onal i111cqirc1a1ion. This is cvidcn1 in " Two Female Nudes in Rocky Landscape", pen, in k nncl watercolour on paper, pictured above.