Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

(. 4r 1"-- I cs.c saftAVH" 2 3 DEC 1962 Sydney, N.S.W. SUNDAY TiLEGIIIAPH, DECElv The Week. in.art by Daniel Thomas THE last exhibition of the year was at Sydney's newest and most attractive gallery, the Hungry Horse. Only the second show to be held there it continues a high standard and, unlike the other excellent end - of - year mixed dhows at all the gal- leries, the Hungry Horse again makes a point of reminding us that sculpture exists as Well as painting. The two rooms each have sculptures standing in them, and this creates a much more highly charged art -environment than paintings can on their own. There is always the possibility that through familiarity paintings will gradually sink back into the wall, A sculpture. out sere in the room where .you live, does not so easily become invisible, a n d moreover it somehow sets up a spark of energy which extracts the quality from the paintings, makes them continue to give out their spiritual kick. Even tf art is co'lected merely for decoration, standing sculptures are Ideal for defining the spaces within a room (and composing spaces within a room the essential part of interior decoration, not the color schemes for the walls). Indeed after the electri- fying energy of Klippel's show these sculptures by Jomantes and Parr appear rather dead, and fitter for decoration than for exal- tation. Though Parr's steel "Configuration." lunging across the floor like all his striding mon. stem does have a certain disturbing presence. Third time The paintings also are by now - Sydney artists, and although we are now much better served than formerly this kind 'of check up is useful. For instance ReddIngton, spoken of as Adelaide's most important younger painter, is seen here for only the third time in Sydney with a "Diptych" of fleshly abstract forms rather arbitrarily divided In two, and with livelier gouache. The rest are from Mel- bourne. John Bruck's feel- ings for Suburbia (lollipop trees, oceans of red roots) seem to have changed from hate to love with a new color range that is sweet rather than acid. He is now almost a Fred Jessup of suburban landscape. Single pictures by Lay - cock and Bilu offer a chance for second thoughts on these young- er painters since their appearances earlier is year. Laycock's "Moon Probe." if the roc- ket were removed, would be a romantic nocturne landscape, rich, heavy, al- most cloying. The soupy tonality, and the grandoise scale, recall Lord Leighton m a curious way: here is an interesting outcrop of Victorianism, well worth the mining. Bilu does not show his rather forced cosmic Imagery, and has allowed his passionate texturisings to take over the major In- terest This one is yellow- neen and mossy. Unlike the cosmic circles, It does begin to say something to me, maybe something slightly nasty about mould and decay. Three new pictures by Clifton Pugh are of his familiar desert subjects, 51 'D C 11611 C C Mitt 1 ., f.4.-__... ge..-Vi ,,titAw..01: ,.. 7, - :1,-. ....at .i. , ....c Sp; NNW. ii ;170= r.:00 lili Ornamental Cast Iron, from Graeme Robert- son's new book "Sydney Lace." but in his less familiar blonde palette "Dirsjo and Drought" has a scarlet dog challenging the spectator for the mess of animal carcase he has found. The dog is as hallucinatory as one of Francis Bacon's, but although this picture is much less cluttered than Pugh's have been in the confusione is still enough In the back- ground to dissipate the primary image. All the same this is a most inter- esting work from an artist who excels less In the am- biguous or the symbolic, than in the direct, even the snapshot statement. An early oil on paper by Blnekman (catalogued as Brack) and two percevals of 1956 are good examples of the purposeful child- hood fairyland discovered by these Melbourne artists in their nackyards and their bushland. Antipodean. THERE have never been so many books on Australian art as we have had in 1962, The latest is Antipodean Vision (Cheshire. 50/). This is 'in fact the ex- hibition catalogue for the show of Australian paint- ing which opens at the Tate Gallery, London, in January. For the Austra- lian market it has been given hard covers and a new, slightly misleading, title, Since the "Antipodean Group," of Boyd, Perceval, Blackman, Pugh, etc., ex- hibited together in 1959 the word has come to signify their particular Melbourne brand of figu- rative expressionism. The Tate Gallery show includes abstract express ionism from the contemporary period as well as Anti- podeanism, and there are Impressionist and Colonial sections besides. There are three intro- ductions, by Clive Turn- bull (Colonial), Elizabeth Young (Impressionist) and myself (Contemporary). I was rather surprised to find the catalogue releas- ed in Australia, for Toy in- troduction at least was in- , tended specifically for the exhibition visitor in Lon- don; It does not mention artists unless they are in the exhibition and is thus an incomplete account of the contemporary period Architecture AUSTRALIAN archi- tecture has done well with books this year Mo. Three new ones have just ap- peared. Sydney Lace. by °memo Robertson (Georgian House. £10/10/) is the most desirable. It is a huge pic- ture book with 214 excel, lent photographs of our famous 19th cesktury cast- iron ornament,. and is a companion to the same author's "Victorian Heri- tage" which dealt prin- cipally with Melbourne.