Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

1962 "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. The NN eck Art by Daniel Thomas THERE was nothing new this week that can be seriously recommended for spiritual nourishment. It would be better to catch Meadmore's ex- hlbitlon at Chine's, the best sculpture show for a long time-not that we get more than One or two sculpture shows each year, any- way. Or else catch Newman's oriental objects, some of which have great sculp- tural value, particularly the ritual wine vessels In bronze. These go back more than one thousand years B.C. and It is these which the Chinese them- selves admire most. Best of all would be to Vila the public art museums, where the stan- dards are at least depend- able; Nicholson Museum, the Mitchell Galleries, and the Art Gallery of N.S.W. The Nicholson Museum is too little known. Ad- ministered by the Uniwr- sky of Sydney's Depa meat of Archeology, it Is situated in the quadran le of the main building 1,t the University and is op n onweekdays only, from 0 m. till 4 p.m Its glory is the Ic ig series of painted Gr ek vases. There are also e me Egyptian sculptures in wood or stone, and paintct mummy -cases. Other Works of art, how- ever. have value for us here now, in Sydney. even if not for the whole world, or for all time. The plea- sures of local topography and local history are reel, and the material of this kind in the Mitchell Gal- leries (open on Sunday afternoons as well as week- days) is excellent, though inevitably artistic quality is only a secondary con- sideration. Local art, of course, is the special feature of the Art Gallery of N.S.W. No other State Gallery in Aus- tralia has so good a collec- tion of Australian art, and, more particularly, no other State Gallery exhibits so much of it, There are usually three or four galleries entirely devoted to the history of Australian painting (more or leas, depending on spe- cial exhibitions). Any day of the year the whole development of Aus- tralian art, the aborigines included, can be seen nearly as well as in the survey exhibition destined for the Tate Gallery which caused such excitement at the Adelaide Festival six months ago. The Australian "Impres- sionists" of the 1880s can- not be seen better any- where. from the recent past there is no equal Dobell collection, and the con- temporary room is wide in range and high In quality. The principal weaknesses are early Colonial art (compensated to some ex- tent by the Mitchell Gal- leries) and Melbourne Painting. Something of the atter will be seen, from Wednesday. in a special ex- hibition called 'Rebels and Precursors" which contains the early work of Nolan, Boyd, Perceval, Tucker and other Melbourne painters. Travellers THERE is an honorable tradition of painting tourist views, though Its relevance in an age of high quality photographic re- production is dubious. Andre Fourment's pal- ette-knife p t c tures, ex- hibited In makeshift sur- roundings at Ant hony Horderns' are all inscribed with the *meg of the places he has been to- Wagga, Narrabeen, BaUow, Montmartre (recently?), ..Allee Springs.... NIGHT IMAGE No. 11 (1945) by Albert Tucker, one of the paintings in the "Rebels and Precursors" exhibition which opens on Wednesday at the N.S.W. Art Gallery. Gaudy, vulgar and in- sensitive. they are the very decadence of view Painting. Elaine Keaton, on the sixth floor at Farmer's, has no need to identify her views of Bangkok, Is/ a - hen, New York or Paris. She has grasped certain characteristics of ea c h place, and expressed her delight in travel with a remarkably happy set of paintings in Italian ice- cream colors. They are delicious pictures, good enough to eat. The exhibition is, in fact, a happy marriage of art and commerce. Salesmen THE mixed exhibition at -'- Barry Stern's is mostly tiny pictures for people who want an 'original," pretty. undemanding, and inexpensive. The drawings and prints (e.g. HCESing. Friend, War- ren) are, naturally, better value than the little pot- boiler paintings. An excellent Cedric Flower "Terrace Houses" makes the terraces by other artists on either side of it look very sick. There are more of Rob- ert Hughes' enjoyable land- scapes of breasts and but- tocks. Some new names are Interesting; Guy Stuart. David Newbury, Robert Jacks and Arch Cuthbert - son are all very young painters from Melbourne, and all are abstract expres- sionists. Has the convenient Ms - Unction between Sydney abstraction and Melbourne figuration disappeared? At the Education De- partment.o, Society'sCially annual exhibition has picture's a little bigger, arid a little more expensive, but not much. It is no doubt aimed at a market similar to Barry Stern's, but an older generation of that market; the R.A.S. artists, and mar- ket are growing old to- gether. They like grey air- less pictures, not colorful ones. They are surely not as good as they used to be for Howard Ashton, now 85, sends in a few pictures that are noticeably fresher than most. Their basically impressionist approach to landscape requires open air Painting, but very few, among them the less skil- ful Rupert Richardson, escape a smell of the studio. Gamblers THE Robin Hood compe- tition at Hordern Bros. was won by Guy Grey - Smith with another of his new de Stael-type pictures. It Is a still-life, and it could be that he will achieve more in the Held of such pure painting than in the Australian country that he, like so many others, has felt compelled to explore recently. Fred Williams had more of his lovely saplings, Salkauskaa won the watercolor section, and the winners, and those commended, will make a very pleasant little exhi- bition when it tours Aus- tralia. The section for prisoners was drab, but those for psychiatric patients and for intellectually handi- capped children had more intensity than anything else during the week, and were worth seeing for this 11 nothing else. In nutmnon i 1 5 TODAY AND NEXT WEEK .4, Art Gallery of N.S.W.-G. W. Lambert drawings; 1 Australian paintings. 1 ALL NEXT WEEK 5 Newmans.-Orlental art objects. 5 'Comm.-Fred Williams. a University of Sydney Gallery. - Foundations of 5 Europe 6000 B.C.-600 A.D. a Education Department Gallery.-Royal Art Society. Barry Stern.-Mixed exhibition. Small Town Hall, Mosman.-Mosman Art Prize, S p.m., 5 p.m., '1 p.m., 9.90 pm. Clune.-Clement Meadmore, sculptures. OPENING WEDNESDAY David Jones-The Mendel collection of modern European painting. Art Gallery of N.S.W. - Rebels and Precursors, Aspects of Melbourne painting 1937-1947. Maequarle.-Strom Gould, paintings. Dominlon.-Edward Hall. WEDNESDAY LECTURES "Architecture for Education," by Mr. Walter Bun- g nine, Lecture Room, Public Library, 1.10 p.m. "Sculpture for Living With," by Allen David, TV Chlumel 9,11.30 st.a). (30 minutes). . . . IMO tt1111111.11.1- 111141.1111.1.11$111111.1111111111 ' MIMI What's on