Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

('H Hin IFOUR Melbourne lady painters, not previously known in Sydney cre exhibiting at Barry Sterns. Two of Mem look like the art teachers one supposes they ore, with dull ocathmic exer,zises in semi-abstraction-Valerie Albiston does Fairweath,lrish figut e groups, Yvonne Cohen does angular flocks of birds. "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.s.w X- IV' ;i, ---INIINIIMIIn II.MINI.IIIIkIe.IIINIINIIM#INN+II#MNHMM The WEEK in ART by DANIEL THOMAS. Lady painters from down south minute one made from Sidney Nolan's Galli- poli paintings. It will be commerci- aly1 released on the MGM circuits with the "Solid Gold Rolls Royce." SIDNEY NOLAN Made like the other Qantas films by Geoff and Dahl Collings, It has the same appalling music. When the paint- ings are so illustrative as Nolan's it becomes insulting to have the points rammed further down our throats by t r e a c I V. illustrative music. Why not some electronic music, or some Bach or Brahma pounding along inde- deyn dwentthly thofe sweet/ ry, Apart from the music there's much to enjoy, for these paintings nave not been exhibited. Nolan began them ten THAILAND years ago; a few are In the Leda and the Swan PVA tecinique; ..k T Wales House, an many of the shots are ' uncomfortable exhi- based on drawings, and. bition space in the base- many are large recent ment of the Bank of oil paintings where N.S.W.'s Pitt and Hun- very Australian faces, ter Street branch are 45 though very un-tough. woodcuts by Praphan emerge from thickly Srlsouta, brought to us stirred pastes, in tril- by the Thai -Australian descent plumage colors. Association. Prices eight Or maybe color -film to 15 guineas. colors 'the Leda and the All are scenes from Swans have this Keda- Thai village life, many show children's games strangely similar to western children's. Perfectly respectful of their woodcut tech- Newcastle City Art Ire. Willoughby: Roy nique, and technically Gallery: Australian Fluke. adequate, they have Print, Survey. - Crane, Wollongong: little interest or imag- Von Bertoueh, New- Paul Delprat. 'nation. castle: Francis Lym- Wales House: Pray - But this not their burner, drawings. can Srlsouta, Thailand aim; they are only il- Stern: Four Mel- woodcuts. lustrations, and as such bourne painters. OPENING acceptable. Not much TUESDAY art, but there is genuine Hungry Horse: John Stockdale. Little Gallery: Bea - interest for us in scenes trice Kelly, paintings. from the daily life of Walters: Dick Wat- OPENING our Asian neightbors. kins. WEDNESDAY GALLIPOLI Gallery A: A mixed David Jones: Jannis exhibition. Spyropoulos, paintings Darlinghurst: Godfrey from Paris. THIS year is the fit- Miller. Farmers: Hans Erni, tieth anniversary of Clune: Stuart Dev- paintings and litho- . ANZAC, and Qantas's line, sculpture. graphs from Switzer- ; programme of Austra- Aladdin,: B r l a n land. ; lien art films is now Mundy. Macquarie: Rodney, i increased by a new 21 Worh,hop Arta fen- Waite. 4.. - ' --... chrome look, perhaps from using modern dyes that didn't exist in earlier pigments), and this makes them doubly effective when photographed and re- turned to movie film. Most interesting of course is the theme. Gallipoli is a Greek lam wane, not so far, from Troy, and for Australians to have warred there is to lend Australia a toehold in the great mainstream of myth, literature, art and history (the film is called "Toehold in History"). We are told in the commentary, that in the heat, the Anzacs I fought naked-I'd not, known this, though' there are some well- known old photographs of them naked while swimming their horses.1 and looking like cell- taurs. Nolan's recent, Burke and Wills, on' camels have had the same look. The other two gain, perhaps, 1 rom avoiding the weight, or expected weight, of oil paintings. It may amaze tin m to be told they seem fem- inine anti that w ater- colors and lithogi aphs seem happier mec turns for their softness and warmth. Edith Wall's largish water colors, fres a In color, but rather squashy in form, cele- brate various domes- ticities, mostly garden- ing. Giant poppies loom in a foreground, half lengths of gently ob- sessed people inhabit the growth, hoses wave. Twenty years ago cartoons by MI" Wall were in all the maga- zines, and the distinct character and excres- sion given each face must be a legacy of that career. Prizes 28-35 guineas. Mary MacQueen's work is much the most desirable. In a beautiful lithograph like "Ghost Town" she locks her forms Into proper fugal relation with each other and with the picture area. This Is art, male or female. Then the feminine bit comes with her quite personal color, pale beiges, violets, pinks; an I suppose In her choice of medium, crumbly crayon for the lithographs, or pastel on its own. This feeling for com- forting matt surfaces might well derive from the instinctive womanly problems o. tending babies' skins. ' it re- gardless of sue. guess- ing games these a. still friendly, modest pic- tures, with prices to match, 10 to 35 guineas. Naked Anzacs In battle or not, ancient Greeks have fought naked, for two thousand years in art if again not perhaps in historical actuality. Among other things nakedness in battle stresses the vul- nerability of human beings; the likelihood of becoming a sacrifice. to the Gods, or to the nation. Nolan's Anzacs are made quite passive ac- ceptors of their sacri- ficial ro"e in the emerg- ence of an Australian national Identity. In fact national identity is not created or defined by soldiers but by art- ists, like Nolan himself. It is a major under- taking, no less Import, ..nt, than the problems f individual or global identity. One may not be sure that this series 1 of paintings has really added much till we've seen the originals, but Nolan is certainly mak- ing a Jolly good try at something very im- portant. WHAT'S ON