Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" 7 JU N 196'[ nips. N.S.W. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, JUNE 7, 1964 57 he Week in Art by Daniel Thomas !Eskimos show THE Eskimo Art at the th Art Gallery of N.S.W. is on enchanting exhibi- tion. 66666 1111 llllllllll 1 lllll 11111111111/1111111111111111111111111 These 85 small stone carvings - occasion- ally garnished with bone - and 30 prints are perhaps nearer to folk art than to primi- tive art, for only in a few of the prints and in one carving do the demons and the spirits appear. All else is everyday life, and this is the en- chant men t, for a whole way of life and a whole people are made vivid for us. The way of life is extremely simple. It contains little else but men, women, children and animals-no trees or plants, scarcely any material posPessions. The importar activi- ties are fishi.ig , hunt- ing seals, sewing skins -and playing. The people indeed appear not only as rotund as the seals and otters, but also as playful and amiable. , When the men depend entirely on the animals for their survival, most intim- ate and equivocal rela- tionship must evolve. There is some magical purpose still: some wish that the small carving carried sec- retly around will give some nower over the animal he hopes to kill. Sometimes imaginary animals are hopefully invented, per- haps to add to the food supply. But there is also evident a very complete understanding and sym- pathy for the animal. And it is always sensed physic- ally, not visually; that is the carvings are carried out fully in the round with no single "front" view. There are no back or underneath portions neg- lected and left uncarved. Thus they are truly sculp- tural, the more so in hav- ing no superfluous decora- tion whatsoever. The only exception to this physical rather than Visual sense is that a seal diving or emerging from the water will be chopped MT to show only what is above the surface. Although such carvings have been made for cen- turies more are being made now than ever be- fore (those In the exhibi- tion all date from the mid 19Mrs). Yet even though they are now conscious of eir skill WHAT'S ON TODAY ONLY 5" GM" .' " tgiA?''Inal VIIITY4:42°111. Art Gallery of N.S.W.: Special 00110111am Eskimo Art, tervinge and prints. t. Gay Brenton or." for students' drawings; Rem- brandt technique., libolerabsmigtV vAilk"uTtll. Rudy Kamen: Erie Smith. paintings. Jams,, C Rainy Warn: German grphie art. lgth.2gth only's. tan 1,....,: J. end P. AlnanderoN, fabrics. Hungry Hang: Indonnian and Aboriginal ant. Mantuan.: Tom Green, paintings. David Jones: Lutopean painting, and sculpture. (Intl. Rodin). Worlshop Arts Centre, Willoughby: Sydney printmakers. Feint. Maslen. Chastened: Workehop Arta Centre teeelteri. a Walk Gallery, Hornsby: HandignOpod Children's Art, Robin Hood 1 Cormnill.11. r. G Domlnin: ContempOPE oraryN I PN olis WEDNESDAYh Are. An 0.11.ry of N.S.W.: Austriin Print Surv.Y. Clone Galleries: Strom Gould. c New Crane, Wail 0,:..Las=odo.Wan4ar, Lynn, 0,5,., i nrnrisrn.l.CIuheelintriVraPAehllalerPlutures of Thu Rooks. perhaps, In search of his artistic identity as in search of a more elevated and powerful content than formerly satisfied him. Hence his Christian themes, and all those Blake Prizes, hence the violent Death of Voss subjects, hence a picture hero culled "The Scream." The current exhibition of 10 large abstracts and a few drawings shows him taking up collage, and it also shows two very differ- ent manners, one angular and ultimately cubist, the other with bunched globu- lar or follicular forms. The one constant factor has always been a rare Notgift forknockout cwitholor. just one striking color, but an ability to orchestrate sev- eral colors singingly one against the other (Olsen is another of the few who can do this in Sydney). Nearly always his color is beneiicient. creating warmth and light, and it is not surprising that some of the paintings relate to the beach. Ills pictures have a definite sense of temperature. I would like to suppress the hankering after vio- lent energy in favor of the slow, burning spirit which produced those lovely nin- nies ID years ago, or "Light and Dark Forming" in the present exhibition. Avant-qarde pop art This afternoon Is the last opportunity of catch- ing Francis Bacon and Pop Goes the Easel at the Film Festival, the latter an important documentary on avant-garde pop art. Next Saturday. the Austra- lian painter William Rose, The Contemporary Pol- ish Art opening at the Do- minion on Wednesday should merit special at- tention. Most of the (linters were represented the art market there seems It is a burrowing, womb- In the survey arranged by to be no debasement at all. reeking art, descending therinM useum ofra Modern TheA The prints are a complete- into caves, fiords, thick or Artsso ago, New when the ear lv new art form, evolved vegetation, and even into once of such advanced tinder wise Government the earth ("Seed Stirring," work behind the Iron Inatruction-either in the "To and Ft'o in the Cur - form of stonecuts, Earth" are two of the bet- Lain so startled America, prints front flat stone slabs ter pictures). These pre - carved in relief, or front occupations stir a response sealskin stencils. in us all. and we can ack- nowledge his own concern 6 with them as genuinely 7t experienced. Some useful lessons The Canadian Govern- ment, which is circulating the exhibition, could have sonic useful lessons for us and our future handling of Australian Aboriginal art. At David Jones are a number of European paintings and sculptures, mostly seen before. The invariably very pleasant Paintings that look like Matisse, or Morena or Marquet turn out to be by nobody that one has heard of. But Philip Sutton's "Katie Nude" (very rude) is a most welcome return visitor. And the one ab- stractionist. Spyropoulis, Is most elegant. It is the sculpture which offers the thrill ' genius, not in Ep- stein, nor Emilio Greco, good as they are, but In some small bronzes by Ro- din, not previously seen. Including a sublime figure of a nude dancer-a dyn- amo of three-dimensional form quite apart from the energy implicit in the pose. At Barry Stern's are two dozen etchings and litho- graphs by late 19th and early 20th century German artists such as Lieberman., Slevogt, Thoma, Oppler, Corinth, Klinger, seen here in their fustier rather than their wild moods; and more interestingly Heckel .vith a circus lithograph, and Kollwitz. An attrac- tive life study by Lovis Corinth appears to be a drawing not a print. Downstairs is pottery by Jean James, red earthen- ware with blue or green glazes and indecisive forms; and excellent hand printed fabrics by Julia and Peter Alexandroff. Tom Green's one-man show at the Macquarie is not so very different from his first, held a year ago, which signalled the arrival of an original and welcome talent. There is a little more variety of colour to be found in these sombre landscape abstractions; there Is a more consistent approach to pictorial space. And there is still something unsatisfactory about the awkward shapes in cold Pimping white which sit very flatly over his favorite warm dark in- terlaces, richly layered in their structure. There are 18 paintings at 18 ens. to 150 ens. Erie Smith, at Rudy Ko- mon's, is holding his first one-man show since visit- ing Europe (for the first time) on the 1962 Helena Rubinstein Travelling Art Scholarship. For quite a few years he has been wandering in and out of various differ- ent Sganners, not SQ..MLICh.