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

Jolly_good show, ol' chap with ALAN WARREN "TELEGRAPH" Q UEENSLAND Art Gallery'• latest offeri119 - a mode-i11-Brit11i • 1how - not 011ly 11 exciting but full of 111rpri1ea, Then, havi;,g thought up a title, the. hardworklng organiser UneS .. catalogue introduction tQ Justify his choice ol worda. The works arc In a vnrlety of media from the older generation 1111d make 11 splendid bnckground to !,he ceramics disph,y1.'<i by a younger British generntlon. works from Wyndham Paul Nash, Francis Hod– Matthew Smith and of oourae Francis • Bncon would malte this a mor!' comprehensive collection ot contempornry Brit• lab Art. l)lcl' you know thnt the gallery (M,1,14. Bulldlnc Ann Stl l)OB• - two fine pleoea of .Bernard Leach pottery or that It bad ac- . qulred a minor work by' tbe,late Jbrbar,. Hepworth DBE? . Prankly I must admit I didn't. During her lifetime, He11worth enjoyed a reputation unrivalled by any other Brlttsh woman nrt· lit. IIIIIIIIIII1111111111111111111 And In Orpheus, a bronze and string construction, her concen– tration on formal purity exclude, , ~ nan-formal lngredlenta. · thing In art. hl.s small Reclining Fii;u~e re!lecui thl6 Interest. Another hllltorlcally lm1>0rtant e1thlblt la the 1926 Sutherland etching. Graham Sutherland, an 111<>– lated, somewlmt. controversial figure C remember whlll hapJ.>ened to hla ' portrait or Sir Winston Ohurcl11II) WllS, "" can be seen here, s r~-atly, innuenced by Sam– uel Palmer In hlll earlier days. 111111111111111111111111111111 The controverslnl portrait was destroyed by Lady Ohurchill be– fore her husband died. It was said tbot both Ohurchills loathed the work. Lady Churchill had neither consulted anyone nor In– formed anyone that she was go– Ing to destroy It. Sir Wlruiton said : "It i;nnkea me look half-witted, which I ain't." Lady Churchill promised her husband It would never see the light of day. Rumor had It that Lady Ohurcblll, the portrait's keenest critic, buried It In a cellar and . Slllllhed It to pieces. But the theme - Image and l .!ea - 'NOUlu R[)lliY equally, If n ot more ;j(l t.o Lhe Jll(>l\lU!f:e poLlery recently .een m Brisbane. At least half or the 14 British ceramlcisL.< work on more con– servc.tlve lines and all but two Une hand-built techniquea. WIU1 the diversity ot approach displayed there's something to Interest everyone. However one comment made In the catnlogue could ruffle a Cew feathers or 11rovoke thought. A Bristol Gallery Director la quoted saying thal "95 percent of painting and scul11ture la cra!L and Clve percent or cralt is art." IllIllIIIllII11111111111111.111 ENTRl!S for the Royal Australia11 l11stltut1· of Archltech • 11nual ,,..,.. Medal for architectural e11c1ll1nce make up • small but lll1 • ppolntln1 display at the Que111slORII Chapter'• office (corner Mory and Albert Stremi, Orplleus, • brort•• and • t,111, co11 • truct1a11 by aarb•r• Hepwortll In tlte Quff11sfa111f Art Gallery. Nolan, wjth a dash of bricoleur He would have made m~re reproductions, offer abundant evi• "summary opinions" will '•stimu• L IKE Streeton, Drysdale and Heysen before him, Sidney Nolan has undergone the sea· change of being made Into a culture. hero. And that means, for one thlna, a areal deal of myth•mon1erln1 -of the kind In 'Sid Nolan: Aus• tr • lla', by the• man hlmsetr and Elwyn Lynn (Bay Books: $34.95). It adds Its rhetorical shine to the ·specullnlon of half a dozen other book• and many articles on 1he artist. It Is remarkable how often Nolan Is the subject of short• winded introductions and articles, with writers endlessly and ener• ly MAllY EAGLE g e t I c a 11 y speculating about "myth" and "Australhinness" In his work, and how hi1 ·maalnatlon works mysteriously In hi& art and Imagery. Under the chatter, ,the acclama• tlon and 1ourn1llstlc Immediacy of this writ ng, there ls a fair con– sensua that he ls a poel'lc painter whose methods and errecta are of the sort we accept from our poets without surprise. The words used to descrl·be his work - dlsjuncllon, refraction, confla1ion, otherness, and now I "brlcolage" - mean nothing un• less they describe a poelic method. Eiwyn Lynn's latest rrintrlbu• tlon to Nolan scholarship Is the Idea of the "brlcoleur" - which he takes from Levi-Strauss. It means 1he person who creates from what he has at hand. The idea ls that Nolan "cas1s about, Improvises, amalgamaLes the un• lil<ely and reorients purposes of implements and objects" of the land, life and people he paints. Spellbinding as It can be when Nolan paints at his best. his u~e of spontaneous assoclailons Is noth• ing to exclaim over, much less ad· dress with reverential bowings and scaplngs { O genius. This picture book of 131 color reproductlonR (from 'Moonboy', painted In 1939 to 23 sketches of Outbnckery done over three days In 1978) ls Introduced by Elwyn Lynn with a flourish and a sweep of his cloak 10 one side as he ushers In Sid Nolan on the arm or Lord (Kenneth) Clark. Clark tells us, ''The fact Is that Sidney Nolan Is II genius .. . and a genius cannot do what he wonu, stlll les~ what his admirers want him to do. He Is under orden. Tnlent Is on txien~lon of ordinary life . • . aenlus comes fl'Offl some• \vhere e1st .' 1 sense If he hat! said: "Tllustration dence of Nolan's "evasiveness". late" the public where a 1u1talned Is an extension of ordinary life: "fllp~ncy", ''facetiousness" and analysis will not. poetry comes from somewhere begulllng charm - and In• 1 else" for Nolan has a poetic cldentRlly throw some light on the 1-t seems to me to be on Y part 5 0 m' et h I n g which at times pictures. Just so Iona as we don't or the story. Most of the writing amounts to greatness, but take 'his remembrances for gospel, on Nola~ has been in the nature "gen ius" , Is a word to be used 01· his short.cul de· lnltlons os the of dazzling camouflnge. gingerly - and with reference to usenc.e of the pictures. No one, He Is not • Roger Kemp contln• the artist behind the .palntlnas not even the artist, -<:an stand In ually hammerln1 out • his one ' 1 . 1 • , grand theme over decades, but a not, as I think happens In this or tie viewer. 1 e p r., cha u n splnnln1 maalcal book, to the personality of the Lynn excuse! himself from moonshine. No one who really artist. writing a scholarly dlronoloey ot io,.·0s his work wants the stardust Lynn's Introduction, and the Nolan's oeuvre (which Is ur&entlY to settle and Nolan's career sober- artist's quotalloris paired with the required) on 1he grounds that ly laid out.