Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

7--- 4 iin 1Q65 :cULTURE fol- lows c o m- merce it seems. Would we be receiving an in- creasing stream of Japanese art without Aus- tralia's increas- ing trade with 'Japan? : Seven years ago a very , large official exhibition , of Japanese painting. printmaking and crafts was circulated here; it was premature, Judging from the apparent con- spiracy to ignore it. But since then the ,cultural exchange has flourished. Our prints have been sent to ' Tokyo's tnternatio n a I I ra, p t shows Quite a few tters have been there to study. And this year Japan got not only its . first big official show ) (Young Australian 1 Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers) but also its second taste of our star cultural export. Aboriginal art from krithem Land. We have recently re- ceived exhibitions of .heir pots, accompanied vice by the actual pot- ter, of whom one, Shoji ilunada, has the high- est of world reputations. Next week another axhibitlon of Japanese .ota opens at Aladdins ( e've had two profes- sional lecture tours on Japanese art. For the past year a real live Japanese landscape de- signer has been at work In Australia. (What bet- ter than -Apanese for 'iv Paddington back- yards?) And we've had at least four mixed shows of prints, especi- ally of the woodcuts in which the Japanese xcel. The last, still -sea rame only a fort- night ago, at the Hungry Horse. Now we've Just had a one - week show at Farmers of woodcuts oy i Kiyoshi Saito. Like 1 *)madas similar show la few months back, the ,,rtIst himself was in :Sydney, and Ike Ham- 'ada, Salto has been generously 4.monstrat- 1Ing his craft to art Mu- ; 1.ni' s and teachers. Let's hope the three or four woodcut artists in Sydney might increase. Farmers' exhibition catalogue tells us that Salto is 'generally re- cognised as the best of the oontemporary Jap- anese printmakers." Not so. Shiko Munakata Is much more generally re- cognised as a candate for their best. Perhaps there's confusion here between "best" and "best-selling." For Sai- to's woodcuts are tech- ) nically superb but i frankly popular, with i agreeable decorative views of picturesque Japan (and New York and Paris. With luck there might be Sydney in the future). And in this he is fully In accord with the Uki- yoe woodcut tradition of the I8th and 19th cen- turies. Utamaro and Ho- kusel, for all the admir- ation from today's con- noisseurs. aimed their art entirely at the Pop- ular market too. "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. gr. /.0"....., ft/ 0.41,/ %F./ apanese I mvasto The week in Art Gv Daniel Thomas What's Art Gallery of N.S.W. -Special exhibitiens: The Art of Drar ang (LAST DAY); Frank Lloyd Wright. architec- tural photographs. Newcastle City Art Gallery.-Loan exhibi- tion: Modem British paintings from Art OW- lery of N.S.W. Walters. - Wendy Pararnor, paintings and drisktrigh unt. - Lance Solomon, paintings. Little Gallery. - Niehola: Heiderich, pot- ter'7 and paintings. Galier7 A.- Leonard Heating, paintings. Clane.-Louis James, paintings. Rmon. Clifton Pugh, paintings. Hungry Horse. - Japanese woodcuts and etching Jutta Fed- dersen, Weaving. Workshop Arts 57:g131175 v .Jcuts, 'smihy - prices 322 to r 0, front 1941 to 19a but mostly recrnt, the Nudes, the New York views, and some Anemones have a large bold swing about them; some quiet grey rectangularities, like the things 111 a Kyoto win- dow. have typically Jap- anese discretion and 4314 WILDNESS But we sometimes for- get that besides discre- tion Japan also has a taste for wildness and violent eccentricity, This could be seen, as inter- preted by Australian ladles, in Farmers' Ac- companying exhibition of Ikebana. These un- inhibited flower arrange- ments believe in im- proving on nature. Twigs and branches are dyed vivid red, white or blue; sternly bent, or plaited, or stood on their heads. Or you can make your own flowers out of crumpled balls of elec- trical flex. Obviously there is a razor's edge between such way-o"t sophisti- cated taste and rip- roaring vulgarity - not that the latter isn't Just as enjoyable. ISRAEL More prints, from Israel this time, were on view this week at BOAC House. Six artists, prices 8 to 48 guineas. The best are Jacob Pins and Aryeh Rothman. Pin's soulful great ex- pressionist woodcuts We know from last year's Komon exhibition. Rothman's etch Inas have Parisian precision and skill; richly tex- tured forms are in- spired by archeologi- cal fragments and lie scattered on bright des- erts of bare white paper. Monument Is out- standing. The rest look a bit p alrovinci. It's ur- °rise to find Yes, Besrg- on in art Cam Sparks. paintings. Von Bertouch, New- castle: Cecily watercolors, native flora. OPENING TUESDAY Dominion.-Fred Sul- ser, paintings. OPENING WEDNESDAY David Jones.-Mat- tnew Smith, Roderic O'Conor, paintings. Fanners. - Fashion Fabric Competition. Macquarie. - K e n- neth Hood. Stens.-Brian Seidel, watercolors; Des di Vinci, jewellery. Aladdin. - Japanese folk pottery. OPENING FRIDAY Toss Bertoneh, New- castle. - Landscape paintings. FRIDAY ART FILMS Workshop Arts Cr litre, Willoughby, a Pm - Cbanrall Cave Art pottery, .11thOg- etc,..____ ner. an angry-AA-1n Melbourne 25 years ago, now purveying pallidly charming lithographs, hand tinted in faded watercolor, of clowns and hobby -horses. ETCHINGS British etchings, while we're on the subJect of s prints, make up this month's selection in the Art Gallery of Ns.w.4 print room. Starling in the 1850s 4 with Samuel Palmer. J.4 M. Whistler, Seyinour4 Haden, it proceeds through the big names, now forgotten, of Lhe4 etching boom which burst in 1930 (like Frank ' Short. D. Y. Cameron, Brockhurst, Bone, Rush - bury, Griggs), to Sick- ert and Augustus John. and ends with' the ab- straction of '.ntliony Gross and S. W..Hayter. and the pop art of David Hackney. Why start in the 1850s? Photography had Just arrived; etching no longer had to service the world's needs for pictorial Information; it became self-conscionsly an art form. Why did British etch- ing bootn and bust early this century? Partly because dealers exploited the provincial British public which mistook a display of laborious skill for art. In any case it's not of- ten you have a chance of seeing art so tot OW of last -lion as Mc Try it. PAINTINGS Wendy Paramor's first one-man show (Winters Gallery) announces a young painter, born 1938, of absolutely authentic talent - and this la highest praise. Here she both messes and successes, but two constant vir- tues: a sense of scale, winch is never fussy, always generous, and a distinctly personal use of earthy color. mustard, red, olive. The look? Brett Whiteley and Roger Hilton in some cases. The content? Perhaps Landscape as a comfortable embrace, as fertility, as lovemak- ing. Prices 12 to 145 guineas. Lance S noon (Dar- linghurst) is a conven- tional Impressionist' rkind painter of the that hasn't dared to exhibit itself before critics in a one-man show for many years. The timidity was ex- Cedalle. He must be Wei beat of his kind stllll alive (he's only 52 and IMMO of the little ones especially if anchored upon something as solid as a farmhouse or a cottage amongst the grey -green hazes, could keep company with early Gruner early Condor. 95 YaSe.s. 35 to 200 glib*