Wieneke Archive Book 3 : Moreton Galleries 1960-61 Presscuttings

Unlike a number of nostulgists who fiddle with the grand mystique of the outback, Sam Fullbrook has actually lived there. returns often to taste its fas- cination and translate some of its magic. His gift is not (or storytelling in the Nolan manner or for the perpetuation of Drysdale sentiment hut for b t ie.!! gene- ralised statement in Iluid paint that seems intent on assembling a few telling colors as a paraphrase 01 seeing. None of his figures or animals has any substance, though their placing in effective relation- ship with their surroundings gives them pictorial existence. The surroundings themselves swift. partly described. partly dissolving, generate interest and indicate a line 01 des elopment. It predominates over literary speculation since the people have only slightly more significance than the landscape, they belong to it. Moods of gentle melancholy arise from the quietness of the light. Fullbrook could well manage a new assessment of his sub- ject in terms of painting, an assessment shorn of mythological irrelevance. 1.11811a. Representationalism at Auction Trear: has been a lot of propaganda gainst the "Impressionist" school of Australian painting in recent sears by people who think you can't have a new movement without wiping out the one before it ; but collectors and connoisseurs don't seem to have taken much notice. But even buyers who knew that prices keep steadily going up must have been surprised at the sale of the late F. J. Wallis's line collection at his home in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield. J. J. Hilder's "The 'Iwo Barrows" brought :s.10 gns: a stag- gering sum tor a small watercolor. In Hilder's lifetime you could have bought it for 20 gns and even only ten years ago the price would have been about £ 100. Penleigh Boyd's "Blue Mountains" went for 36Ogns ; a small Tom Roberts x 4lin.) for 115gns, and his larger "Dandenong Ranges" for 43Ogns. Standing out in the broiling Feb- ruary sunlight, where the paintings were undergoing the most exacting test of their quality, a dozen people bid against each other for Gruner's "Through the Sliprails" 181in. x I lin.) --400gns. The same painter's "Moody Weather," one of those early land- scapes like beaten silver (131ins. by Mins.), got to 2'5gns. Five Blamire Young watercolors, the best collection of that artist's work you could see in any one place, sold at prices varying from 100gns to 150gns. Streeton, Heysen, Minns, Will Ashton and Norman Lindsay were others who more than maintained their values. One pleasant interlude at the sale was provided by a tall woman with a blue sunshade who hid against all corners for a pastel of a girl by that almost forgotten artist Florence Rod - way. The word went round that she had been Florence Rodway's model. Prices were too high for the N.S.W. Gallery, which acquired only one small wash -drawing by the English topographical artist Grimm. and for the Tasmanian Gallery which failed to secure the pictures it wanted. But if the national galleries don't rake up the money now (as they could) to buy these paintings while prices are in the hundreds, they'll he paying in thousands before very long.-D.S. MORETON GALLERIES EXHIBITION 16th to 27th October, 1961 Showing a small Collection of WATER COLOURS AND MONOTYPES by T 0 M GARRETT A.M.P. Building, Edward Street, Brisbane