Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

Portrait prize YET another portrait prize. The £1000 Portia Geach last month and the D300-1900 Archibald next month are unfortunately endowed in perpetuity, but the £.1500 Gal- laher this week is a business prize, and they, thanll goodness, usually don't lost more than a few years. Instead of tossing more money into a field which doesn't greatly interest present day art- ists it might be given to abstract painting for which no prizes exist and which is the serious concern of a majority artists. Or they m ht give it in a neglected field, like printmaking. Obviously the Galla- her has been conceived more as entertainment than as art patronage. It deliberately sets out to oppose the Archibald - nearly double its money (and In fact the largest prize in Austra- lia) and would-be mod- ern when the Archibald is accused of conservat- ism. Why oppose the Archibald? Not because portraiture is a burning issue in art, but simply because the Archibald is traditionally the most publicised art -prize in Australia, The irony is that the Archibald is a pseudo - event. It gets all that publicity becluse the newspapers have very little art, or indeed other local news, to report in the midsummer holi- days. For nearly 40 years it was moreover the rich- est art prize and almost the only one In Austra- lia; 20 years ago it pro- voked a controversial lawsuit. The momentum from these two factors paintingJo ets.lb ,o Is diminishing, but there 'Oleghyorn well solved are probably many obit- tors to the Archibald in a new wa for her- who still think it's the biggest prize, and who still expect a lawsuit. Especially as the vast Archibald crowds sel- dom visit any other ex- hibition at all: once a year, as the holidays lengthen, they remem- ber that the Art Gal- lery might keep the kiddies quiet. The exhibits at the Gallaher expectedly are more modern than in the Archibald exhibi- tion, though the beat of them are all Archi- bald exhibitors; Connor, Cass a la, Counihan, Feverring, Fulbrook, Gleghorn, Molvi g, Orban, Sibley, - Eric Smith. Even some of the better conservative Archibald regulars are here, too: Carington Smith, Valerie Lazarus, Charles Bush, Zusters. Only a few Melbourne moderns including the winner John Brack, and expatriates Arthur and David Boyd are un- familiar in the Archi- bald, What is different from the Archibald is the high proportion of student work left in the exhibition, and the few pictures that are mod - ;ern but extremely bad In a cheap nightclub ;decorator's way. A choice between the tawdry and the dowdy Is the choice between the worst Gallahers and ;the worst Archibalds, and It almost makes one prefer dowdiness. The best are pretty good of course. Brack's winner levi- tates a heavy square TV shaped man above a small square Persian newest, and where In rug, and with its visnal, consequence better teasing induces a state! though risky a.ri, ,ean be What's on in art Art - Special rixhibit Or Ions German Prints of Today (last day). Kenneth Armitage, British sculp- tor; N.B.W. Architect- ure Awards. Newcastle City Art Gallery. - Abstract watercolors by 14 Americans. Gallery A. - Robert Klippel, sculpture. Darlinghurst. - David Stnichan. Darlinghurst Annex. - Heather Dorrough, fabric panels. Aladdina-D. Folkert, batik hangings. Walters. - Group show, Remo - Douglas Watson. Little Gallery. - 15 guineas and under. Commonwealth Bank, Martin Place. - Galla- her Portrait Prize. Collectors Rendezvous -Ignacio Marmot. Copenhagen, Macleay, Street.-Eskimo Art. Orban Stndlo, - Stu-, of worri aricrpr"MV- ous balance which might well symbolize the strain of a profes- sional man's life. Molvig'e pub -keeper is wiry and alert in the corner of a white radi- ance, and is as usual as sensuous in its paint handling as Australian a way not unlike Donald Friend's figure draw- ings, where the drawing Is all nicely overlaid with transparent wash - ea Instead of architec- tural volumes. There are amusing unlikenesses of artist Elwyn Lynn by Ken Reinhard, of dealer Max Hutchinson by Charles Reddington, the lat- ter a very surprising affair from so well- known an abstraction - 1st. It looks a bit like Michael Shaw who has a typically unquiet pop art decapitation. Tom Green moves better than Reddington from abstraction into flgur- The week in By Daniel Thomas ation, and Eric Smith's latest John Olsen hovers successfully be- tween the two. C o n- nor's unlikeness of Dr. Brass is a splendid bit of wind and flame fig- uration, MIXED SHOWS Walters Gallery's mixed show sums up their first year, a gal- lery ulckest with the dent's annual exhibi- tion. OPENING MONDAY David Jones. - Chris- , tian carvings. Hungry Horse.-Mixed paintings; Robin Welch pottery. OPENING TUESDAY Education De pa r t - meat. - Ogburn Studio annual exhibition. Dominion. - Mixed show. Stables, Pymble. - Franklin Bennett. Canberra's Macquarie. -Lloyd Rees drawing. OPENING WEDNESDAY Pottery. - Medieval Art Gallery of N.S.W. Macquarie. -Mire d. paintings and "physi-v olithen.' Stern.-Mixed paint- ings; Verne Just, jewel- lery.Clune.-Martin Sharp. OPENING FRIDAY Von Berteueh. New- castle. - Douglas Ram . Samuj, printed fabric. got fat' lower prices than- elsewhere. For example, Jordan and Dick Watkins for cool color geometry. Richard Wr- ier and Michael Shaw for a nice line In nudes, the latter's the most polished, indeed sauve, thing he's done. To keep them company are the well established Sheila McDonald, Margo Lew- ers and Max Feuerring. Barry Stern's mixtures are seldom of new work. He's best at digging up good pictures of ten marilajzoo-.74.01,3il4 nlioT31 Fairweather, a Vassi- lleff, Perceval, Boyd, Friend, etc. Plus a curiosity by Arthur Boyd's grandmother, a detailed Victorian fami- ly In 1875 with a view through the window to a landscape scarcely different from Arthur's. Downstairs, pots by Miele Trudgeon. The Macquarie mixes new work bysym- pathetic painters. David Strachan s quiet flowers and landscapes are similar to the recent Darlinghurst exhibition. William Salmon's bush landscapes, in a sort of Pre-Raphaelite fauvism uneasily c o tri b shadowed tonalities wink his more personal flat - pattern hot - flashing coloriam. Lloyd Rees, a grand old romantic as usual, sometimes fails to articulate his reced- ing _Panoramas convin- cingly, but with an nle- right subject like "The Timeless Land," a rock face sprouting woolly foliage, he can't ggo wrong, It is a splendid evocation of pale blonde bush and heat, compar- able with Streeton's "Fire's on," but much less flimsy. TEXTILES Heather Derr ough (Dmiingliurst Annex) , makes huge applique wall hangings of simple circular and rectangular forms cut out and sewn to what looks like hes- sian; but if it is, the quality is very high, These are nearly as handsome as a Len French and much, much cheaper. She is an in- terlor designer, Elish- "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. :T 5 DEC 1965 trained under ugh Casson. Miss I). Folkert (Alad- dins) has smaller hang- nail; ,4tik-printed. on "lines and craPki:cl`` se`i)cy- titrieresry ogfot,hiLtrhplirMye. they are mostly too pie: torialto be good decorn- best are ab- stract or aboriginal - inspired. She comes from Germany. The Mary White School Students showed painting (note Candy Raymond), pottery and interior design. but the textiles were the most interesting. The dyeing, batik - printing, block - printing, screen-print- ing, appllaue, a n d needlework are all bettor' done. No doubt s' needlework traditiongNA the 19th century a- ' now moribund, but the technical e x p eriment and skill In these mod- ern textiles has obvious- ly excited the students and may point the way to a textile revival in the decorative arts.