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

]Picasso's Belle lrings out alone Mr Alen Warr••• ello••• t.r M••• .,..,. wet ,r111clpel of the lrl1be11e Coll•t• of Art. He first •ludled art al the National Gallery Art School and hi• palnllnJ• are Included In the Vic• IAlrlan National Gallery and Queen, land Art Gal· lery. He ,.·on the Perth Art Prise In 1956. the Bend· 110 Art Prise In 1957, the C r o u c h Memorial Art Prise, Ballarat 1051 and the 196t GetlonJ Art Prise. Mr Warren waa a foundation member of the rouncll for the Vlclo• rlan Society of Dcslrnen for lndnstry, and i. a member of the Victorian i and Queenoland com• ,. mltteea of the lnduatrlal I D••li1n Council, r.l Mr Warren, who waa I I art critic for the Mel• I I bourne Sun-PlclAlrlal for Ji I 25 years, wlll write about I r,a art ienerally In a column ,:. Ji In the Tele1raph enry I ,. Monday. · i/111 L, ........................... -.. By Telegraph Art Writer ALAN WARREN THE Quee111lo11d Art Gallery director 011d hi1 tru1tee1 came u11der fire rece11tly, with director of Au1tralla'1 National Gallery, Mr Jome • Mollisan, calll119 the shots. He questioned the quality of paint– ings In the state gallery collection. Coming from a recognised expert, It Is a serious allegation. He singled out Plcasso's La Belle Hollandaise, a bequest from the late Major Rubin, as the only significant work In the collection. And rightly so. It la a magnificent 1905 example of Pleaaao, one of the artlatlc giant.a of our century. <Matisse and Braque, to name but two of his colleagues, have yet to gain a place in the collection.) Plc • - • o•a la Belle NollendalH or the best collections In the world when the new gallery ooens on 14ie soutli bank ol the river. · If I was awarding any kind ol grad– ing to present-day Australian collec– tions, the National Gallery in Can– berra would earn XXXXX, Mel• bourne's gallery XXXX, Sydney XXX. Adelaide XX with Perth and Brisbane sharing X. Admittedly, acting na a gallery trustee is a thankless task. Alter all these )'ears, there Is still no catalogue ol ,Queensland'• collection avallable for visitors, art rovers or stu– dents although private funds recently • have been made avallable !or Its com– pllatlon. Of what Is shown in the gallery, be• cause of Its present limited space, U!e more notable 11•orks are In arlably bequests lrom Individuals or the Art the collection contain one outstanding example of French Impressionism? Not really- And when It comes to "lams" baa the gallery acquired one top-night ex– amp I e of cubism, fauvism, ex– pressionism, futurism or rnrreallsm, all 20th centur)"art movements? The answer la a simple NO, The trustees' procurement committee may not have unllmlted funds at Its · disposal. • Mr Molllson's point la t.hat the people - you and ~ - will only visit art galleries to see the best. Should the gallery's procurement committee pur– chase, as Mr Mollison maintains, only works of the highest quality? Mr. Mol– llson's views will get a lot ol support. The 1allery should Ignore minor works by Important "names" or large works by minor artists and attemJi~ to upgrade the- status of Its collectlcin within Australia, to begin with. Major Rubin's other gifts, 1ncludln1 two small Picasso'&, a Degas, Vlamlnck, Toulouae-Lautrec and a Renoir are certainly "names" ••• but minor worka by comparison with the larger PicaBBO, • It la utter nonsense to ·think the Apart from the John Peter Russell Queensland Art Gallery will have one landscape, a gift of Lady Trout, doea Gallery Society. Perhape you, as a member of the public, can help by making a bequest. Let me Im~ If you would like to make a ulliution. • TELEGRAPH, MONDAY, OCTOBER I, 1979 · Great disasters of the A SELECTION of portraits, lent by Lady Trout, is currently on display at the Queensland Art Gall cry. The paintings, skelcl1cs and prints come from one of. Brisbane's best known private collcc· Lions. They say much about thr: extraordinary Interests tha~ lead people to buy plctures. But they sny even more about the thinkin~ behind 30 years of conservatlve, public taste-mnkinl!. If there is one qualit~· Lhnt all the works share. it is a. solid wedding-cake richness. The women wear bunches o( Ince. bolts or sllk and an alt· of absolute contentment. It hardly mnt~ers whether the painter is George Bell or Sit· WIiiiam Dargie. It is all n. ffiWTI DIANNE BYRNE \;rip backwards into a. world of gracious self-J)romotlon. J oh n Peter Ru~sell presents his wife as tl sort of late Victorian muse. Dar~– lc's portrait of Robert Menz– ies recalls the dark clays of the Art Advisory Board. There is a. portrait of Gen– eral Eisenhower that is right off the front. cover or Time magazine,.while (our really awful Canders demonstrate the exhibitions most salu– tary lesson. that all good painters are capable of great disasters. At t-hr Victor Mace Onllcry, Qlivc Murray-White's sm II, raw steel labic scul pturrs, llll\ke a very clil ferent poin~ nbout \,he coming togeLh r of nature trnd art. He lives 111osc or the ti me on his Victorian property nnd there ls a quite leglLI- mate lcmpLaLion to read Lhe bei.mnings of his rough-cue bnrs in escarpments and weathered cliff faces. The sides arc as shari1 as bits o( rock, and they are equally immoveable. ·They spread their weight across t he space and bear down 011 the table surface. It is al– most 12 years since Clil'r. Murni.<-WhiLe exhibited his strnngc, J)Olythene balls. In · between. he has used every– thing from painted iron to smoke bombs.His all })art of :1 continuing regard !or good. honest materials. His works arc generally so sim– ply fiUcd together that they appear Lo be found objects. These new pieces. however, are even more subtle. They arc ravishing artilacLs made by an excepLional scu lptor. And so, from the elegant to t he eccentric, or thu s lt would seem. One room or the Ray Hughes Gallery hns a lin of gravel spread around the .floor, in a bright ornnge circle. It is there. Lo inform anyone w)10 comes Lo see the paintings, that he should prepare as well for ·a· dose o( transcendental med– itation. On first acquaintance. the art o( David Ryan and the work of Stephen Killick.look Hke they can both be safely buried. Mantras and mysLicism nre thankfully things of the past. along with sitars nncl )lsychcclelic dresses. But even IC nobody still goes to lndin. (or If Shamanism and Zen• Inspire susp!eion), the eclectic calligraphy and elaborate little images are clover pictorial devices. On one level, they operate as signposts. as elements .that the viewer is m~ant to dwell on. 'fhe result. accord• ing. to Tantrlk lore. wlil be the evocation or powerful spiritual · forces. On the other hnnd, they make ' for )lietilrcs tlrnL arc HS lavish nncl decorative l\S Jewellery. 'fh<'Y nrc stimulatin~ and sensual c,·en as onc-dhnen• sionai objects. ·'