Wieneke Archive Book 4d : Artists - Australian & Other Presscuttings

OT - I A HERALD MAGAZINE OF FEATURES, PERSONALITIES, BOOK REVIEWS, ARTS Ar, One of the drawings by Sir Russell Drysdale for his book IF SOMEONE introduced .you to a Friend called Tas, you could. probably spend all day talking to him without having any idea of his internationally respected identity: Sir Russell Drys- aale, doyen of Australian artists, Tas or Tassie to his friends. He is an unlikely celebrity. He is himself, and you get the feeling that nothing could change that. Certainly, there has not been much evi- dence of it over the past 67 years apart from a comfortable lifestyle in a superb spot over- looking Brisbane Water, near Gosford. There are a couple of small Drysdale draw- ings and a painting virtually out of sight in the passage: the painting that has pride of place in he Irving wont r one that Dahl Collings. a Sir Russell talks about his $1,200 book tracting pneumonia when he was in hospital for a hip operation. In the past 15 years, he has had only two exhibitions of drawings in Australia and two shows in London that included oils and water- colours as well as drawings, but Agnew's, the London gallery, is enthusiastic about having a new one. "If I can get enough work done, per- haps towards the end of next year In 1977, a slim volume of poems by the Sydney surgeon Miles Little ("He saved my life") appeared with illustrations by Drysdale. He illustrated the cover of a recent composition, Port Essington, for his friend Peter Sculthorpe. Earlier this year, he did the drawings for the collectors' volume. Now he is trying his hand at a poster. "David Dridan got me back to drawing," said Drysdale, who refers to this lively Adelaide artist as his former gardener. They met when Dridan was a student in Sydney and came to Drysdale' People Russell Drysdale may earn the future historian's title first painter of the true Australia. His harsh co: expansive distances and strong individuals hang on around the world. When they change hands, which often, they sell for many thousands of dollars. Always a painter who found his work a struggle, Dry has had a slim output for more than a decade since his made such an enormous impact on postwar Australia. he has prepared a collection of drawings for publicatio book, a collector's item of 500 numbered and signed c Forty-five of these will be fully bound in leather and c( one of the originals; they will cost $1,200 each. remaining 455, quarter bound in leather, will cost $375 They will be published at the end of the year b Richmond Hill Press, of Melbourne. JILL SYKES was gr a rare interview. "Amazing how they came to mind. Stock- men, horse breakers, family groups, children, pub keepers . . . you know, all those kinds of characters. "There was a grocer's shop which I remember from when I was young. It was north-east of Al - bury at a place I used to take the stock horses to be shod. The store is still there, run as a museum. It had layers of cedar drawers labelled with play- bill writing. It was run by a German and I always remember him opening the drawers to serve out the rice, millet, spires. The kids would come in with a list like that . . ." He picked out a sketch of a young girl who became one of the figures in a drawing he has done, for the book collection, of this shop, whose magic has stayed with him for nearly 50 years. to reappear from his pen in 1979. Drysdale would never have pictured himself as an artist in those days. Though born in Eng- land, his ancestors were pioneers in Australia's pastoral and sugar industries, and he came to live in Australia as a child. He studied at Geelong Grammar and began his working lifeon the land. "I was 23 or 24 when I started painting seri- ously. I had been a jackeroo and a station manager. I had been bossing men around - and then I walked into a school and I was a student. But I took very seriously what my masters said. When you are older, you feel you have a lot of time to catch up. There is no fooling about." Drysdale was luckier than most ma- ture students in the Depression of the 30s: he has always had the backing of a private income. He recalled contemporaries who couldn't keep up the struggle and others who managed it only through financial assistance. "And then there was Arthur Boyd, surrounded by a family of Boyds who would never have let him do anything else! "I have always had enough to paint without having to work at other jobs at the same time - pretty short commons. mind you. I remember that about 15 or lb years after I had really started painting, my accountant rang to con- gratulate me, He said. 'You are now earning just over the basic wage.' " During the war, materials were as much a problem as money. Drysdale recalls that American war artists were generous with paint - in,' and drawing crininn-nt inci, when Donald Sketch of a young girl at the gm "I came across a lot of old d other day, some of them from In said, going over to a bulging fold You come across these things. I h even had them here. The War Mc to me and asked if I had any ci PO IDEAL SPACIOU AMA