Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

66 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, SEPTEMBER %%A962 The Week in Art by Daniel .Thomas THE. TransfieId Art Prize offers 1.:1,1100, nst're nil1110 ' .1 than any other prize in Australia. Only the Helena larger, but that Is a What's On : Rubinstein award is travelling scholarship for Invited artists. It ist.'t a atraieht-out prize for a single painting. The Transtieid Art Prize be donated by a recently established company of Italian origin, and Italy, like Australia, is a country 1 with many art competi- tions. Most Australian eompeti- !Cons. If not completely . open, keep to a few well- worn categories-portraits (preferably of the famous), landscapes. industrial sub- jects (for Industrial don- ors) or "Australian Nations' life." Transfield, however, show some extra Italian Imagination; they Fseem less interested in sub - t matter than in stbnu- ng more purely artistic categoriesz-figure composi- tion this year. with still life and non-figurative ab- stract to follow. Considering the money and the good intentions. this year's exhibition at David Jones is a little dis- appointing, since a year ago the Inaugural competition, for modern landscape. pro- ducet, a very good exhibi- tion Indeed. Australian painting has, of course, always been ob- sessed by landscape, partly because landscape domi- nated Nineteenth Century art at the time when Aus- tralian art emerged, and partly because It has helped In the search for a national identity. Symbols Many of the leading ar- tists here are, In fact, ab- stract landscape painters. It is true that there are artists like Nolan, Black- mail, and Boyd who use figures. but -they have all been painting successfully in London for some years now, and in any case their pictures belong to the category of subject -paint - hut or story -painting I, rather than to figure com- position. In such work the figures exist as symbols for all forts of ideas. but not! primarily as figures. Peed Williams'My God- son" is one of the few pictures in the Transfield I with a figure that has its own human presence. Robert Hughes' erotic "Lovers" have it. so do Ray Crooke's figures gazing out of a window at the "Death of a Mining Town." Eman- uele Raft takes the vulner- able human organism about as far into abstrac- tion flesh as it ian go, yet re- mainsThere arefa few oddities by artists exhibiting their .Srst figure subjects in, years. Sheila McDonald. for instance, b .: otherwise there is quite a flavor of commercial art, typified by Louis Kahan's illustrative street scene with figures. A neutral attitude to the figure need not matter when It becomes an ele- ment in such happy French -looking composi- tions as Guy Grey -Smith's 'Pleuras by the Sea" (like e Stile ), or Stan de Telia's "Surfboard Rid- ers." or John Rigby's "Queensland Bush School.' ' TODAY AND NEXT WEEK Art Gallery of N.S.W.: G. W. Lambert drawings, Australian paintings. ALL NEXT WEEK David Jones: Transfield Prize, modern figure composition. Rudy Komon: Fred Williams. Barry Stern: John Bell. Chatswood Town Hail: Joy Ewart Studio. students' work. Wales House: Illawarra Society of Artists. OPENING WEDNESDAY Chine: Clement Meudmore, sculptures. Macquarie: Michael Shannon paintings Farmers: Anniversary exhibition. Dominion: Spring exhibition Newmans: Oriental Art. OPENING FRIDAY Hordern Bros.: Robin Hood Prize. TUESDAY ART FILMS Barbara Hepworth. Christopher Wren, William Dobeli - Art Gallery of N.S.W., 830 and 830. WEDNESDAY LUNCH-TIME LECTURE "Architecture for Commerce," by John Mansfield, Lecture Room, Public Library, 1.10 p.m. The winning picture by the young Brisbane painter Andrew Sibley is rather more ambitious than such good decoration, and than the commercial illustrators. His .pair of seated "Bathers,' very badly sunburnt, are repre- sented as slack scatlet flaps of meat. His attitude is not negative, it is an atti- tude of disgust. The picture is much less facile than his previous work, but if it retains a degree of smartness this Is no bad fault for a pro- gressive boardroom (if that is where Transfield keeps the winners), and there is soma real imagination in it. Sibley has developed in the shadow of another Queensland painter. Jo Molvig. who won last year' prize. Only Pugh and Dick- erson (both better than in the Rubinstein Scholar- ship) are present from the ranks of those who immedi- ately come to mind as figure painters. John Bell Or else tfiere was Bo- hemia, a world as exotic ost picture -buyers as North Queensland, even though it Is right here in Sydney. This is the world of artists and models, of pub-drinkers and tarts. If the eager buyers came at the Queensland sub- jects via Drysdale, then they came at Bohemia via French best sellers. Lau- trec or Bonnard. Apart from their success, are the pictures good? In some ways yes. The draw- ing is accomplished, fol- lowing the method of Drysdale and Donald Friend. A wide range of quite lovely color is con- trolled in a manner that many East Sydney students have learnt. The composi- tions are sometimes con- fused. Although the work Is often close to art school figure compositions, it has risen above this. The fig- ures may sometimes have uniform features, but there is uldividuality to them, frequently exoress- ed by their poses If not - their faces. HN BELL is a young The artist has a genuine JOSydney painter (24) feeling for his own world. whose first proper one- There is an honorable man show at the Barry. Stern Gallery was a minor tradition of painting this phenomenon this week, world. The 50 or so paintings and John Bell has were all sold within a day, attached himself to it with in2ettig the artist over some credit in interiors with figures like "Bed - This is sot In fam very mysterious when it Is rea- room" and "Group.' lised that the paintings age price of 60 guineas. Art gallery were very ;)heap-an aver - and many much less. And VOR one week only every a lot Is due to an energetic dealer, room at the Art Gallery of New South Wales Is The pictures have sale- devoted to the permanent able qualities. Only one was collection; no temporary very big; none was ab-I exhibitions are being held, street. All were romantid being prepared, or dis- mal colorful figure corn mantled. positions or studies Th There is an opportunity subject matter was exotic. to see many Australian There were, thankfully. paintings. e.g., C. Lloyd very few fantasies this Jones, Deride. Strasser. time like "Pilgrims" or the Peir. Bernard Hall, Rydge. big Ensor-like "Carnival." Bryant. Rouse! and others. The exoticism was mostly a matter of North Queens- land townships and abo- rigines, familiar Russell) Drysdale territory, of which I "Laura" was a good example. CHOICE OF THE JUDGES \\1I( \ IVI/1 IOW ' "The Bothers," by Andrew Sibley, awarded the j Transfield Art Prize (Cot. No. 49)