Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" DEC196k .ydney, N.S.W. The Week in Art by Daniel Thomas ART patronage by big business is the subject for a few thoughts this week. The latest issue of the New York magazine Art News has some interesting remarks by Thomas Hess on business patronage. In America he says Big Business pursues a frustrated romance with art; it "remains fascinated, like an elephant transfixed by mice." Most of the results he finds unsatisfactory; lt business makes special de- mands the artists produce something In idling gear and go away despising their patrons. Is it really sensible to hope that Picasso might design a bullfight sweat shirt? What about that re- frigerator painted by Dickerson a couple of years back? Were the textiles commissioned from Drys- dale, Dobell, Donald Friend ,and others fifteen years Ago really very good as ,textiles? , The Roy T. Tuffs prizes )(amounting to (1500) for qextile designs by members of the Contemporary. Art Society has just closed in Sydney. When the awards are announced next year it is more likely that they will go to little known names, to textile design specialists, than to any big name painters. Textiles, trademarks , sculptures symbolising the company's goodness and dependability, the acres and acres of murals-all these are better thought of as design problems than as opportunities for the -"fine arts." Bank sets example I entirely agree with Hess when he says "The most dignified and by far the most successful form of business patronage in the arts has been for the company simply to buy good existing pictures or sculptures which it then uses as a collection fqr whatever decorative and promotional aims it wants." The Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, Is the outstanding example of a business building decorated with an art collection: The headquarters of ICI in Melbourne contains the ' biggest such collection that I know of In Australia, In Sydney the Reserve Bank has a small art col- lection and Mr. Dussel- dorp's executive suite has one or two very large paintings by Coburn and Upward which bring it nearer to the desired busi- ness Image of luxury plus progressiveness than any other business Interior I have seen. And, of course. there are the original prints in Melbourne's Southern Cross Hotel which I mentioned a few weeks ago. Collections toured for promotional aims have come to Sydney this year from the Duke of Bedford's Woburn Abbey, and from Mr. Fred Mendel's Mayfair Hann. These were hugely successful. The Claude Lorrain and the Rem- brandt from Woburn, the Braque from Mayfair HUM, have made me, for one, very well disposed to- wards the two businesses. Australian business hall almost over-supplied the country with a rat-race of art prizes. The next in the field would do well to consider direct buying In- stead. Better for decoration In any case works of art are always better as decoration than are purely decoraUye objects: and often cheaper. The South- ern Cross Hotel nearly got a set of quaint old Ameri- can butter -mould replicas jumbo-sized, and very ex- pensive, In plastic stone. instead of Its original Aus- tralian prints. And in place of expen- sive decorative murals It is not only cheaper in the first place to buy paint- ings an d sculptures, they are flexible for rearrange- ment, and with luck sale- able for profit when re- decorating is necessary. The husband and wife team of interior designers, Dale and Pat Keller, who are in charge of the new international hotel In Hong Kong, were In Syd- ney again last week. For the Australian room in their hotel (there is otte for each country), be- sides woollen rugs and maybe some Gordon An- drews furniture, they in- tend to have works by leading contemporary ar- tists, paintings by Messing and Entanuele Raft, sculp- ture by Meadmore for in- stance. And, of course, aboriginal bark paintings. In this way some of the most, vital products of WHAT'S ON TODAY AND NEXT WEEK Art Gallery of N.S.W.: No special exhibitions. Per- manent collection of aboriginal art, Australian and modern foreign painting and sculpture, ENDS MONDAY NOON Macquarie (19 Bllgh Street): Russell Drysdale, drawings for "Journey Among Men." ALL NEXT WEEK Komon (124 Jolley Road, Woollahra): Anniversary show. Hungry Horse (47 Windsor Street, Paddington): Leading Sydney artists. Frances Jones Studio (7 James Street, Woollahra): Christmas show. OPEN WEDNESDAY Clone (59 Mackay Street,: Robert Kennel, sculp- !uFacq 'Chrl Miss exhibttleri ' emission ,GM ,Leatlereegh 'Surety:', ,',Christflua exhibition. Stern (28 Glenmore Road, Paddington): Christ- mas exhibition. NOLr1V FILM "Shine Nolan" first screening., Qantas Theatrette. on h hoVingTitniggl 1.-P7VS:;;Isesi2 ."14: -LLrVit "THE CREATION" a painting for a ceiling by Leonard French. Australian art will be present, but will be easily changed in a few years' time, as all hotel Interiors are. Even though they are not so easily moved (though the two done so tar can In fact be dis- mantled) one of Olsen's ceilings is also being con- sidered. Not only are they exceedingly beautiful, but there is also the point that the Australian roam in the hotel will be a recep- tion room for cocktail parties. Anything below the level of a standing crowd is wasted as decora- tion in such a room; where better than the ceiling and upper walls to spend the money? EXHIBITION THE fortnight's new exhibitions started with Pottery by Bernard Sahm at the Barr,, Stern clat- tery. This included porce- lain as well as stoneware and earthenware. He has a personal sharp -edged style, with sudden changes of direction. The best Of them, a bowl, was reserved for the National Gallery of Victoria. At the Clune Gallery John Monteflore, a young artist, held his second one- man show. There ware some pleasant feathery little pastels and genaches, but his oils unfortunately have abandoned due h straight - forward subject matter as landscape and still life for mystic conga lines of academic nudes in outer space, Last week the Macqua- rie showed Russell Drys - dale's pen and wash sketches for the illustra- tions to his new book "Journey Among Men." They fileL characteristic products(oi his hand, but tusturallt they do not go beyond Ih6 demands of il- lustration. The Komon Gallery's mixed show Ls easily the most Interesting new exhi- bitiotingn. The outstanding non sT't4 Ple ra tg Left by o;" leenenie and unconcerned with how -to-paint It nonethe- less has superb placing of the two figures whose ac- tions-ritualistic, bizarre, meaningless perhaps - are the artist's whole concern. Hodgkinson has a good rich textured pudding on legs (Ills Los Angeles ex- hibition of some months ago is praised and intuit - 'rated in the 'neat Art Intentatirne td Carl Plate re. sin- .. be aa- pended ' fr.. azta truly s.. sin A ent.U- OUS. A bli ire in Sye a days. and .5 .1' . it , "Dr it unmuss ulna t. Mitty Bros ,!e:* big n, .'.c2 Grt since le returi S Syd- ney, hos a tin al ariiract. lambast), . puree n d green wo....th also is a greater ..roteesleast than me . TO re is one of Fren, less goo,' barn - pion 'tinge, S)taitt of Mahe. A e Passniore Is an. event, ,. no paimings by this r..mber of our lead- ing tr any of elder Artists have been seen p ibUclY for two years. Titled "Drawit.g," it is in fact two non-figurative oils on newspaper, originally hal.- zontal judging by their dates, placed upright be- side each . other, and mounted on hardboard. They are roughly joined with gummed tape, and their undulating surfaces show even less thought for survival than did Fairwea- ther's paintings of some years ago. There are de- lectably painted broad bands placed above and below the two joined sheens as Fairweather hat also done at times. The total effect of the compartmented composi- tion, is imposing, lint the painting withinseach sheet of paper, especially the left, is a distracted piling on of lines which has reached the point of messi- ness. A strange picture rather fgateltrts,wegligrella 'Ft