Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. L10 MAY 1964 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, MAY 10, 1964 51 The Week in Art by Daniel Thomas Art in New Guinea nr the 12 exhibitions %./which have opened in the past couple of weeks the primitive art from ' New Guinea expectedly hot the most punch, rollecled by Mr. Stephen Kellner and handsomeh ,shown in the remodelled ground floor rooms at the Hungry Horse gallery there are familiar types of fig- ures, masks, bark paintings, canoe prows, gable orna- ments. rte.. from the Seplit. Ma pri Ic. Highland and 51assim areas. all of a high quality which is bound to' disappear. F: x c e ptionally exciting and unfamiliar are two masks from New Britain made of bark cloth stretched over a light frame, roughly In the form of a swooping bird and over Ott. in length, The consistent power of oranttive art Is usually ex - stained by the fact that tIle obJects mostly have ome definite and an- uortant purpose, often a metrical one In rituals con- ,terning death, or sex, or Tood. or the seasons. But since esthetic considera- tions must clearly enter into the making of these oblect e, the primitive artist's chief advantage, would be the simplicity and stability of the society he lives in; everybody knows their p 1 ac e. there Is occultly quite unlike the social mobility of Western society In which a major problem la self-knowledge, :old the assertion or even ise discovery of one's In conseo uence we acacia over-value oriel - minty and unklueneas. We expect all artists to produce something different. But it you arrive at something good. why not stick to it? (As Nolan has stuck to his Kelly. Boyd to his butterfly man. Chagall to his lovers.) The strain. of invention is hatoollv abs.ert for Most primitive artists: Instead they only need perfect or play variations on artistic forms of tested excellence. 'Faking the three lady painters first it Is possible to argue that Elaine Hes- ton showed primitive wis- dom In chooatnqq a pictorial language of se+knowledged strength and self-sufficient vigor-the curvilinear' cubistweb that Fair- weather also uses - andi dress in (s her sun:1194 generous. hedonistic con- tent in this too quality (style. For one expects alt artists to give us their per -I sonal sensibilities, to have personal content of some sort; but to demand a truly personal form is to demand what only a handful of geniuses, Brawl, or Ces- 'inn,. for example, can dis- cover In each century. Better then to borrow any of the Rood styles going. Miss Ilaxton's show at th Macquarie a week IWO didj this. for her rows of Palm p oy collage of coarse hessian In By far the best was the -spectable level of proles- arrer hwIrderleyetanular shapeslttg fll ruadhy,Nanr;rs(esreanteh7, siontiitilitgiarazrndnn rger% frayed edges, IT,' and there was en excellent 'days than 17 abstraction. dark grounds orange. The titles tablet filled with impressed The current extubition in - indicate that it's all about Roman lettering, Some eludes a few familiar near - aboriginal deserts at night, others became too elabor- abstract bits of patterned but the main thing is the step pictorial for the tech- scrubland, but a pleasant nique to be so completely surprise comes with two marked improvement as itEproprlate, though "Dutch fully blown impressionist painting. Her spigot) and Twins" was so unified flgurea subjects. "Girls dribble method ofyears ago ass usually too some overworked and deliberate for the splashes to have much justification, Now that she has aban- doned spun laneity for man show at; Farmer's is careful texture manipula- by a 21 -year -old student non and deliberate design. still at art school, and she seems much more at already noticed for his home, and paradoxically sculpture but here showtna. Austra Ian impressionists centunes. minty reborn - mead this venture: prices range from 3 gns. to about 100 gas:: the pictures all come front London dealers. and are chosen for their beauty and freshness, not their authors' names - many of them In fact bring unattributed to any arils; and hence lower in price than work of equal quality should be. The early Eng- lish watercolor school does somehow have a validity for other centuries and other countries In a way that English painting never achieved. The Freedom !rout Hun- ger, subject demanded from artists for the J. F. Ken- nedy Memorial Art com- petition now on view at the Rural Bank, Martin Place, is just the sort oft thing to keep good pictures' away. The organisers were lucky that Emmanuel Raft, who won the 1600 prize is an artist of quality whose private sty!' can be honestly interpreLd as sincere concern with human desperation, and flesh and bone forms are Were even before the photo collage of starved 'undies Roca on. Ken Rein- hard was second with a piece of pop -dada: Frank Coe/tarn' was commended for a de Kooning; Judges: James Oleeson, William Dobell, Otherartists Lawson Balfour sending in tive in the result and decked out in too much attenton- an old painting of a pretty NEW GUINEA bark. mask. Hungry Horse Gallery. girl, delicious bit of nothing demanding color suggests fanciful 'miner to do with the case though of letting volumes grow is trier indicate some zuro- is merely than Imaginative. but there it's that a more compact waygood to know this fine her well-known portraits, ;vial,. Italian walls, wails, her natural style -as in Paintings of walls -0i arebition here, and we will' st indeed can experience. They quite eePhistiell`e,' is skill and industry and eldrum, Tom Green, Erie grey collage), painter is still alive; James and in the brown central ---,Obviously be hearing more Smith tat Australian landscapes. The of hint. Prices five to I26 recent exhibition did, how- soaked in time, with private, messages acre tched in land, But tb good onea Wendy Paramor better than usual, Hector 01111. them. public meaaaresen- guineas, ever, contain as well a series of grey gouaches which achieved a most satisfying rhythmic unity. Sheila McDonald, now at Barry Stern's. has not 017 into thick load nt though he is sometimes too Bossily changed style like ncate re paint, stucco- illustrative, or too obvious - her (entitle colleagues. Most like In its smooth con- sistency. ly "designed" he has main- tained a decent and re- design as almost to recoil- Room" and "The Patio" elle one of this wilfulness. are dappled. warm and Altogether a rather smart friendly, with added gen- (Prices. 35 gns, to 125 anal which he here reverts from tleness from the brush to and stylish exhibition. t Owen Shoura first one- the more mechanical painting -knife used else- where (though "Playing Children" is a good bit or knifeworki. His kle nesS shows the dank slew. sel -5tYrear petitions with set subjects cannot help be very until& their art in as unc beach sorties very well mdeed in "Familiar Tribe" or for a different subject in "Bul But." It was a vast improvement on her pre- vious weft illustrations. Prices 35 RIM. to 85 ans. Jude Cassaba exhibition of semi -abstract, tropical Queen stand landscapes, now finished at Rudy Ko- moil's was a less happy change in style. A flimsy. open structure of tropical vegetation, rather illustra- graved In Trojan lettering Macquarie, is a Brisbane. John Rigby now at the have little to ,o with hun- and thou that do II - walls that have becom pec e yludicrous. art of human life. Th painter whose commercial gerUnite the tome are me. art is eyktent in his see- t di Coma is done by actually engrav-t t lous painting; but even Exciting masks :A7d , as Robert Johnson, and the family activittea that popu- ono how impoverish- ed tin rraionism can be withoutfutures. Prices 40 ivided into three roues: one of theScintilla:, guvea tinrisal,,,ibiaug,s. ens. to 200 gns. the painted splashes ever illusion of a splash than i seSt: esebn. sernies and an Explorer riglienseal did. Two others, called "Unconquered Land," with for compositions of crowd - areas of bare Masonit e. use' ed heaps of figures, but even testi paint, and are, like Monteflore and John perhaps the most success- Bell, they do go beyond ful of all Does this point the sterility of art school to a final stage of collage figure compoaltions. Ile Of. say. planks and paving has fondness for decor - stones alone? (Prices, IS alive patterns of meander- gns. to 150 gns) Arian McKay preceded Sheila McDonald at Barry Stern's. This WAS our first this ease eaudish water- Pante reputation in Perth; reigns in some of the tar the works themselves fur- pictures, and the content sight of a painter with gesliancolors of the 18th and 10th find Of contemporary art, Senta's Art Centre, es Elizabeth Street Padding- ton, will specialise in New Guinea art, and will hold occasional exhibitions of paintings. At Dreamt there are some weirdly old fash- ioned looking Illustrations; by Zoltan Fenyeo. a recent, arrival from Hungary. Collector's Rendetvolts, Mg nborigin- Golding House. 443 Kent al body painting. or ex- Street (between Market plorers' skeletons - which.tolnigly indulge his fluent. perhaps and Druitt Streets), la the facile hand. Confusion