Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" A 9 Sydney, N.S V; 48 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, MAY 9, 1%5 tOLAN hos not looked 7 i after his reputation well in Sydney. Except for Olen is ac small shows of Italian and Greek drawings in 1955 and 1956, the ex- after 13 years hibition at David Jones is his first for 13 years and the first since he become Australia's best-known artist on the international scene, indeed the first ever to make the scene. What trickled back looked facile. We de- cided his Australian period, pre -1953, was much better. Well, although the new exhibition is re- assuring in some ways, I still think we were right. There Is a mar- vellous imagery and complex form in some 8t Kilda, Wimmera, arid Ned Kelly pic- tures; the form was still strong in the out- back and Central Aus- tralian pictures. Outside Australia these early works have hardly been seen, anr, we can therefore un- derstand the following rather hard comment about his latest New York show: "Structure has never been a strong point with this artist, but he is now not even attempting it, having become totally ab- sorbed in the mystical business of being Austra- lian." (Arts magazine, Febr salty.) They're right about the structure, though. I don't know about that "being Australian." But as for seeing Australia, nobody does it better than Nolan. As someone said exasper- atedly (and wrongly) about Monet, the great French Impressionist. "He's only an eye, but what an eye!' The new exhibition about Nolan's trip to Aus- tralia last year. Althlugh some of the landscapes contain tiny leprechaun Ned Kellys, the landscape is the main thing. And it's the landscape ei the road to the Adelaide Festival, along the Murrumbidgee land the Murray. or so It The week A r By Daniel Thomas seems to me, having passed that way myself at the same time and being thril- led by the silent billabongs and the great eerie river gums. The exhibition also has eight "Portraits," and these I'm told are certainly Ade- laide ladies en fete, hats loaded with flowers, mouths paintA in various styles including the vin- tage bee -sting. These are satirical (is this new for Nolan?) and amusing, but not the main thing. TI river gums are. And of them River Bend, the great 40 -foot panorama (of 10 panels.; and hung on a curving screen) is a very interest- ing achievement. I don't just mean It's size. I don't just mean get- ting the appearance of the subject so magically right, for one can always depend on Nolan to do that. He lies avoldeo t he issue of structure by r king It quite amazingb allover and uniform in le and texture. The fferent colors. purple, green brown are exactly the same tone. The entire picture sur- face has a strange allover craquelure not from .faulty drying, but deliberate, as if to look like eucalyptus bark. There are sufficient sinuous curved banks to remind one of the Japan- ese screens that Monet 'must have had in mind when he painted his great panoramas of waterlines. Nolan, we find is not just an eye after all, What he sees can't help but be seen in terms of art history, and besides Monet and Japan, there are obviously, with that high -Victorian color- scheme, references to Aus- tralian lithographs and amateur landscapes of the Victorian period. So, we compare River Bend with Monet. We Lind that like Monet there is a lyric poetry of mood. But, more interestingly, it is like Monet a superb decoration and one hadn't thought before of Nolan as a decorator-and I'm not using decoration as a dirty word. Evenness of tone and texture are great virtues in major decorations; they don't interfere with the architecture. Though I've already nominated an Ol- sen for ideal Opera House, th also is the sort of thing or an important public building. and I'd like to see something like it in there too. YOUNG ARTISTS John Peart 19, and Robert Williams, 18 (Wet- ters Gallery) make re- markably self-possessed debuts. Williams is smooth, tonal and textural. Peart is in full control of flicker- ing Mark Tobey callig- raphy. Both, especially Peart, are well worth a plunge for those who like gambling on beginners. Prices 10 to 70 guineas. JEWELLERY I can produce no theory of jewellery (like last weeks theory of weaving), to help appreciate Ann Forrester's silver collars, each set with a stone or a crystal. see that form follows function In the design, that the nature of the material Is respec- ted and so on, but event- ually one only asserts: this is first-rate design, superbly unfussy In scale. Her own catalogue note is good: "I detest decora- tion and In some ways I don't care very much for jewellery-but I like work- ing with metal and I am interested in the rugged auty of the stones." Mrs. rrester herself is as ree- fs tingly beautiful as her jewellery. NEW GUINEA The Melanesian art at both Gallery A and the Hungry Horse is of quite outstanding quality. Col- lecting expeditions take time, and these will prob- ably be the best offered for a year, If you want it, catch it now. POTTERY Alex Leckie (Macquarie) is an exuberant muscular barrel; his pottery corres- ponds exactly, being strong and rotund. His familiar bottles and bird -jars are here again, among them a superb verdigris owl. New are four ceramic sculptures, each of separate Arpforins and balls resting on each other. Preferable are an- other new line in great ovoid jars with primitive greet,, glaze. Airlcan sources are recognisable here and there. Domestic wares are uncatalogued: the vigorous bounce of the exhibition pieces makes a welcome addition to the generally sedate pottery world. VASSILIEFF Danila Vaunter' (Stern), in a loan exhibition of hi bush and city landscapes- Sydney 1938-37, Melbourne thereafter-coincides most interestingly with Nolan. For when Nolan was a boy Vassilleff was just about the only person around to set an example of the artist -as -a-rebel, or as an all - embracing sensualist. That is the horrified Mel- bourne by painting the "slums" of Fitzroy and Collingwood; he simply happened to live there, and to relish the vital anima- tion. Not that he minded a bit of bush when he found it either, and one of the best-and most reflec- tive and orderly for this very spontaneous artist - is a You Yangs subject painted 25 years before Williams succumbed to the same landscape. But for all his personal vitality, the paintings too often have that dingy look of work belonging to art history rather than art.. Ross ManaarIng (also at Stdrn) carves soapstone' into small animals or into abstract objects. This is his fleet exhibition, yet it looks like the modernistic 1930s, presumably because the soft stone itself dic- tates the smooth simplified forms. The majority have some cubist faceting. Far better when he submits en- tirely to that old stream- lining. Prices 25 to 60 guineas. MeMAHON Bettina McMahon (Do- minion, a Sydney -trained artist, in her first ex- hibition, shows horses and riders, knights and cru- saders; some pretty opales- cent color. a display of drawing, but not much more s,ructure than a soap bubble. Prices 16 to 90 guineas. THORPF I.esbla Thorpe (Little Gallery), a well known Melbourne print maker, shows linocuts and wood- cuts of fish, birds, bush - fire, and a trip to Europe. At times commonplace, site's best when closest to the great Japanese tradi- tion of the woodcut. "Lichen" is close to Hoku- sal and none the worse for It. "Afterglow" and "tropi- cs! Fish' are also desir- able, and the technique itself Is by its nature at- tractive. Prices six to 15 guineas. What's on in art Art Gallery of N.S.W.: &eclat exhibitions. Re- ce,.t Australian Sculp- ture; Sculptors' Draw- ings and Lithographs. David Jones: Sidney Nolan, paintings. Dominion: Bettina McMahon, paintings and drawings. Little Gallery: Lesbia Thorpe, woodcuts and litiocuts. Darlinghurst: Donald Friend, paintings. (lune: John Olsen, paintings, d r a w Ines, to pestry. Walters: John Peart, Robert Williams. young painters. Gallery A: New Guinea art, collected by Senta 'Taft. Hungry Horse: New Guinea art, collected by Stephen Kellner, Aladdins: Ann Forres- ter, jewellery. Grana, Wollongong: Anne Shimmins. paint- ings. OPENING TUESDAY Qantas House: Color reproductions published by "Artists of Austra- lia." OPENING WEDNESDAY Macquarie: Ian Fair- weather, illustrations for "The Drunken Buddha." Stern: Mixed show,