2014.Q4 | Artonview 80 Summer 2014

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James Turrell Sight unseen 2013 Ganzfeld: LED light Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese (Italy) © James Turrell photograph © Florian Holzherr

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James TurrellImpressions of Paris NGA Contemporary

James Turrell Untitled (XIX B) 2006 reflection hologram (glass substrate) 59.7 x 44.5 cmPrivate collection, New York © James Turrell

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3 Introducing Gerard Vaughan David Perceval

EXHIBITIONS

4 Pyramid schemes EC Krupp

10 Paris at leisure: the summer days of Daumier Jane Kinsman

14 Ancient beliefs, contemporary works Kelli Cole

16 NGA Contemporary Simon Elliott

20 Gods on tour to America Mike Gunn

FEATURES

22 From one National Gallery to another Christine Dixon

24 Khmer treasures Melanie Eastburn

28 Gifts and the gifted Gael Newton

30 Members Acquisition Fund 2014–15 Elspeth Pitt

ACQUISITIONS

32 The Dale Frank Gift 35 Tony Tuckson White with lines (charcoal) black border 36 Clarice Beckett Silent approach 37 Tom Roberts Miss Minna Simpson 38 Albert Croker The buffalo 39 Daniel Walbidi Kirriwirri 40 Edouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel pastels 42 Kanak people Mask

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43 Members news 44 Facesinview 46 News from the Foundation 47 Creative partnerships 48 Thank you …

Published quarterly by the National Gallery of Australia, PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia [email protected] | nga.gov.au

© National Gallery of Australia 2014

Copyright of works of art is held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of Artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia.

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EDITOR Eric Meredith DESIGNER Kristin Thomas PROOFREADER Meredith McKendry PHOTOGRAPHY by the National Gallery of Australia Photography Department unless otherwise stated RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Nick Nicholson PRINTER Blue Star Print, Melbourne

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WARNING Artonview may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.

(cover) Tom Roberts Miss Minna Simpson 1886 oil on canvas 59.5 x 49.5 cmPurchased with funds donated by the National Gallery of Australia Council and Foundation in honour of Ron Radford AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia (2004–14), 2014 100 Works for 100 Years

SUMMER 2014 | 80

2 ARTONVIEW

Editorial

Perhaps the biggest and certainly the most anticipated news over spring was the announcement of Gerard Vaughan as the Gallery’s new Director. The news eclipsed, at least in the media, other important events such as the launch of the Gallery’s new lakeside contemporary art space, NGA Contemporary, and the opening of the Gallery’s Atua in the United States of America.

Of course, with summer comes the glorious light-filled days about which we Australians love to boast; however, few of us have experienced light in the way American artist James Turrell applies it to his art. The summer retrospective at the Gallery covers almost half a century of Turrell’s work and promises to be the most exceptional and memorable international art exhibition in recent times. In our last issue, curator Lucina Ward introduced you to some of the astonishing works you will

see in Canberra this summer, and in this issue Dr EC Krupp takes us to ancient sites that offer insight into Turrell’s monumental sculptures, including the Gallery’s Within without 2010, which can be viewed for the first time in the context of Turrell’s greater oeuvre.

Also in this issue, Jane Kinsman hones in on the wickedly satirical work of Honoré Daumier featured in Impressions of Paris, Kelli Cole highlights her exhibition Alive and spirited, Simon Elliott introduces NGA Contemporary and Michael Gunn travels to America with his exhibition Atua. Highly important loans are given their due in articles by Christine Dixon and Melanie Eastburn, and Gael Newton and Deborah Hart celebrate the extraordinary generosity of major benefactors collector Patrick Corrigan AM and artist Dale Frank. Elspeth Pitt also gives us every reason to show our own generosity by contributing

to this year’s Members Acquisition Fund, the subject of which is an exceptionally rare and luminous painting by convict artist Joseph Lycett.

Some major acquisitions are highlighted, including Tom Roberts’s endearing Miss Minna Simpson 1886, a gift from the Gallery’s own Council and Foundation in honour of our much-admired former director Ron Radford AM, who has left a grand legacy at the Gallery and on the international art stage. He was always very passionate and involved in the life of Artonview and will be missed.

James Turrell Sight unseen 2013 LED light dimensions variableVilla e Collezione Panza, Varese © James Turrell Photographs: © Florian Holzherr

3 ARTONVIEW

Introducing Gerard Vaughan

On 16 October, Professor Gerard Vaughan AM was announced as the new Director of the National Gallery of Australia, a position he took up less than a month later on 10 November. Professor Vaughan’s long and distinguished professional career has been divided between academia and the world of museums and galleries in both Australia and the United Kingdom. He brings to the Gallery a lifetime of experience in art history, museum administration and fundraising.

As an art historian his interests are broad, concentrating on the social history of art and specialising in the study of taste and art collecting, both private and institutional. After graduating from the University of Melbourne with a masters on the French Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Denis, he undertook doctoral research at Oxford University on the collecting of classical antiquities in late eighteenth-century Europe, concentrating on the structure and operation of the art market in Rome. He became a Research Fellow of Wolfson College and was appointed Private Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1989.

In 1994, he was appointed Director of the British Museum Development Trust in

London, where he was closely involved in planning the rebuild of the British Museum with Norman Foster’s Great Court at its centre and was responsible for securing the majority of the funding from the private sector. He returned to Melbourne in 1999 to become director of the National Gallery of Victoria with a brief to oversee the gallery’s complete redevelopment, from reorganising and enlarging the interior spaces of the existing building on St Kilda Road to constructing the new building in Federation Square. A major program of Australian and international exhibitions was launched and the NGV soon became the most visited museum in Australia.

Professor Vaughan’s credentials in fundraising have been proven in both academic and arts institutions. As Deputy Director of Campaign for Oxford, he was involved in the first US-style major fundraising campaign undertaken by any university in Europe. The campaign secured the equivalent of one billion Australian dollars. During his directorship in Melbourne, more than $300 million was raised from private philanthropic sources and many important works of art were acquired through major fundraising campaigns such as the Masterpieces for Melbourne—launched in 2008 to develop the collections.

After stepping down in Melbourne in 2012 and returning to academia for two years at the Australian Institute of Art History at Melbourne University (where a major project has been research for a history of private art collecting in Australia to be published by Melbourne University Press), Professor Vaughan has returned to the gallery and museum sector and follows in the prestigious footsteps of James Mollison AO, Betty Churcher AO, Brian Kennedy and Ron Radford AM in becoming the fifth director of the National Gallery of Australia.

David Perceval, Assistant Director, Corporate Services

Professor Gerard Vaughan AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.Image courtesy National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

5EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW

PYRAMID SCHEMESEC Krupp

Nearly 5000 years ago, the pharaoh Khufu might have commissioned someone like James Turrell to design the Great Pyramid at Giza. The lone survivor from the canonical list of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid is both architectural on the scale of a skyscraper and monumental in its engagement with light. Turrell has leveraged light and the sky for experiential perception over more than four decades. His artful configurations range in scale from the corner of a room to an entire volcano in the American Southwest.

Launching the pharaohAncient monuments, such as Egypt’s pyramids, often possess links to celestial light. They are rooted in observations of the sun, moon and stars and incorporate meanings that were assigned to the sky by antiquity. The Great Pyramid is aligned with deliberate and impressive accuracy to the cardinal directions—north, east, south and west—which originate in the sky. In the northern hemisphere the directional system is anchored by the north celestial

pole, the singular and obvious spot around which the sky seems to spin. In turning about the pole, the sky transports celestial objects from the eastern to the western horizon. All Egypt’s pyramids are on the west side of the Nile and so are affiliated with the western horizon, where celestial objects disappear and enter the netherworld and territory of the dead.

The ancients regarded the sky’s daily rotation as a fundamental aspect of the world. Their experience of the turning sky, evident in the movement of luminous objects that they believed to be divine, prompted them to regard the hub of all that motion as a pivot that stabilises the cosmos and imposes order on the world. The other three cardinal directions develop naturally from the bilateral symmetry of our anatomy and are part of a template of order that we impose on the spaces we inhabit.

The Egyptians called those cardinal directions the ‘pillars of the sky’ and saw them as the structural support that bonds earth and sky. Orienting their pyramids to these directions, they symbolically

miniaturised the cosmos into a monument intended to connect the heavens with earth and accommodate the deceased pharaoh’s transcendental transfer to the upper realm. The dead king’s pyramid was an agent of his spirit’s regeneration.

The theme of death and rebirth is consistent with the pyramid’s symbolic role as the primordial mound of Creation, the first earth to emerge from the undifferentiated waters, and the point around which the world was organised. Egyptians observed the mound of Creation being mimicked each year in the recession of the Nile’s annual flood and in the exposure of the first arable land in the valley for cultivation.

The spirit of the king trafficked with the sky in multiple ways, for the dead pharaoh had several celestial duties to perform. The shafts that descend from the north side of many Egyptian pyramids, and which permitted access for interment, are thought to reference the zone in the northern sky occupied by stars the Egyptians regarded as ‘imperishable’ or ‘undying’. They linked

James Turrell Aten reign 2013 installation; daylight and LED light dimensions variableSolomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York © James Turrell Photograph: David Heald ©SRGF

James Turrell: a retrospective

13 December 2014 – 8 June 2015 | nga.gov.au/jamesturrell

6 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

these stars with the pharaoh’s celestial immortality and his duties after death.

The Great Pyramid is the largest and most ambitious pyramid in Egypt, and its interior chambers and passages include four extraordinary shafts. Too small for a person to negotiate, they extend from chambers deep within the pyramid to levels high on the exterior of the north and south faces. Astronomical calculations for the era of the Great Pyramid (2551–2528 BCE, Fourth dynasty) match the slopes of the shafts with culminations of key stars—Thuban (ancient Egypt’s Pole star), the Belt of Orion (Osiris), Sirius (Isis), and perhaps part of Ursa Minor—over the Giza meridian. These stars were destinations of the pharaoh’s soul, and they suggest that the Egyptians regarded the pyramid as a mechanism to transport the pharaoh through the sky.

Egyptologists have also seen a connection between the pyramid shape and sunlight.

Spreading down from the apex, each of the pyramid’s four sides resembles the way the sun’s rays can break through clouds in a fan of light and make a luminous ramp to the sky. The Pyramid texts, inscribed on interior walls of Fifth dynasty pyramids (2465–2323 BCE), not only tell us that the pharaoh climbs to the sky to join Orion, Sirius and the Imperishable Stars in the north, but also rises to heaven on the rays of the sun. Speaking to the divine sun Ra (Re) in Spell 508, the pharaoh explains, ‘I have laid down myself this sunshine of yours as a stairway under my feet on which I will ascend’. The designer of the Great Pyramid elegantly surfaced the four sides of the monument with fine Turah limestone, cut and polished with knife-blade precision, to turn each face into a brilliantly reflective facet that was visible from afar as a gleaming, triangular bond to the sky.

On the other hand, the interior shafts of the Great Pyramid were never intended

to deliver a visual experience. They are components of a tomb, and their only audience was the dead pharaoh, who in death saw with a different kind of sight. This is illustrated in one of the few surviving capstones, or pyramidions, that were mounted on a pyramid’s summit. A pair of eyes is carved in relief on one side of the black granite capstone of the pyramid at Dahshur of Amenemhet III (1844–1797 BCE, Seventeenth dynasty). Gazing up to a winged sun disc, the eyes convey the idea that the spirit of the sepulchred king has his resurrected eyes on the celestial realm.

Through geometry and light—seen and unseen—the ancient Egyptian pyramid builders loaded their monumental architecture with ideology that allied the ruler with the gods and stabilised Egyptian society with cosmic order. Turrell has also invested in pyramid schemes on a monumental scale with celestial sightlines


and washes of sky light, but with a different purpose and without ideological overlay. The eyes he activates in the landscape are not those of the dead pharaoh, but the living eyes of his audiences.

Turrell’s monuments are accessorised with allusions to the concepts and functions of ancient antecedents, but do not replicate them. Rather, he extracts an elemental visual vocabulary from archaic intent. He deliberately banishes meaning to showcase an immediate, unmediated and aesthetically gripping experience.

Stupa-fiedTurrell has installed something like a pyramid, Within without, on the grounds of the National Gallery of Australia, in the nation’s capital, Canberra. The geographic location suggests institutionalised significance, but in detail, the monument serves the individual eye and not the collective vision. Within without is truncated

at the top and dwarfed by the dimensions of Egypt’s Great Pyramid, but its footprint (twenty-eight metres square) and height (eight metres) almost puts it in the range of the ‘Queens’ pyramids that accompany Khufu’s pyramid. Its strong visual presence is conveyed in part by its respectable size. Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, however, Within without is not oriented with the cardinal directions, and its effect on the visitor is not activated by the cosmography of the ancients.

Lodged in a setting of water, walkways, walls, steps, lawns, and landscaping, Within without encloses a room-sized vase of stone with a skyspace for a mouth. The bottled skyspace, faced with carefully cut basalt, has been likened to a stupa, the key form of symbolic construction that puts meaning into sacred Hindu and Buddhist architecture. The ‘stupa’ in Within without specifically resembles the ancient round stupa at Sirkap, in Pakistan, and

stupas at Sanchi, in central India.The stupa originated in India and, in

Hindu tradition, it combines the concept of the polar, or world, axis with the generative, creative power of the cosmos symbolised by the phallic linga, the primary image of devotion in Shiva temples. The world axis is treated metaphorically as Meru, the cosmic mountain at the centre of the Hindu cosmos, and the stupa is a stand-in for Meru. The linga is usually socketed in a dish-like recess on the floor, the yoni, which represents the complementary female apparatus of creation. The linga is affiliated with light, spirit and consciousness, while the yoni embodies darkness, matter and primordial unconscious being. Turrell’s stupa echoes these ideas, with a round chamber that rises from a square platform of aqua-blue water reflecting the interior of the open pyramid and the daytime sky.

Buddhism appropriated the stupa from Hinduism and dispersed it in monuments

Within without 2010. View of the interior stupa.© James Turrell. Photograph: John Gollings


from Kathmandu to Beijing. The Buddhists turned stupas into monumental reliquaries and shrines that honour the spiritually advanced. They are memorials to inner illumination that serve the living and the dead. Like the linga, the Buddhist stupa represents the world axis and cosmic mountain on which the cardinally configured cosmos is centred.

A traditional stupa comprises a square platform and a hemispherical or bell-shaped cupola, which represent the earth and the sky. The central axis often supports another square or rectangular structure, solid or fenced, which rests upon the cupola and operates as a sanctuary in the celestial realm; sometimes a series of levels or parasols simulate the upper branches of the

tree under which the Buddha experienced enlightenment. The giant eyes painted on Nepalese stupas personify them as a monumental meditating consciousness.

Borobudur, near Yogyakarta, in Central Java, is the world’s largest stupa. It is fundamentally square, cardinally oriented, and, in plan, it resembles a Buddhist mandala, or diagram of cosmic order. The square shape symbolises the earth, and its central, vertical axis is the polar axis that links heaven, earth and the underworld. It is a terraced pyramid, about thirty-two metres high and one hundred and twenty-three metres on each side. Most of its terraces are walkways for perambulation about the central axis and are comprehensively panelled with stone

reliefs that depict spiritual teachings and events in the Buddha’s life.

Apparently built as a pilgrimage destination in the ninth century CE by the Sailendra dynasty, a Buddhist kingdom, Borobudur impels the devotee to enter by one of the cardinal stairways and walk sunwise around the first six levels in succession. The view is restricted on each level by the turns and corners of a mazelike walkway. Near the top, however, the view expands and liberates the eye with the open vault of the sky, an effect that Turrell has designed into the bowl of Roden Crater, Arizona, and in the summit of Water of light (Agua de luz) 2012, in Yucatán, Mexico. At Borobudur, the visual effect was intended to trigger a spontaneous,


experiential spiritual epiphany, and it still does. The pictorial, didactic ornamentation is replaced at the top with an abstract, geometric scene. Rings of bell-shaped, Buddha-enclosing, stone-lattice stupas surround the central solid structure at the summit. The abrupt shift from the confined character of the lower terraces is designed to induce a fundamental change in perception and awaken a kind of enlightenment through a visual impact tethered to the ideology of Buddhist spirituality.

Unlike traditional stupas, which are solid and provide an image of cosmic structure as seen from without, the stupa inside Within without is hollow and provides from within a view of the cosmos with a circularly framed piece of sky. Also, Turrell’s monument does not involve promenade

and ascent but instead directs the eye through the overhead oculus.

Turrell conscripts elemental notions into the structures and geometries he contrives, but he strips them of symbolic imagery and distils them into pure forms and pristine colour. They extract the viewer from symbol and meaning and put the viewer in direct contact with phenomena—visual, tactile and auditory—to confer a contemplative sensibility through an aesthetically powerful experience of light, shape, sound and colour.

EC Krupp is Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles

Extract from ‘Pyramid schemes’, to be published in James Turrell: a retrospective, available at the NGA Shop and selected bookstores.

(clockwise from top left) The Great Stupa at Sanchi, India; Stupa 3 at Sanchi; the stupa of Turrell’s skyspace Within without 2010 in Canberra; the Roden Crater from above; the crater bowl plaza of the Roden Crater; Turrell’s skyspace Agua de luz (Water of light) 2012 in Yucatán, Mexico; the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal in Yucatán; and Egypt’s Great Pyramid from the desert to the south of the Giza plateau.Photographs at Sanchi, in Yucatán and in Egypt: EC Krupp; Photograph of Within without 2010: John Gollings; Photographs of the Roden Crater: © Florian Holzherr



PARIS AT LEISURETHE SUMMER DAYS OF DAUMIER

Jane Kinsman

Between 1853 and 1859, Paris was transformed by Baron Haussmann’s designs of sweeping boulevards, impressive buildings, grand gardens, cafes and public spaces. These became the locations for Parisians in their leisure hours and the subjects for artists who sought to portray contemporary life, including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and, later, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Prior to this, the French caricaturist Honoré Daumier had already created a repertoire of imagery of Parisians at play. Daumier was a major force in the development of the caricature in the nineteenth century. His remarkable skill as a draughtsman is evident in the many lithographs he created from the 1830s onwards.

As a young man in the early 1830s, Daumier often made overtly political compositions. This changed in 1835, when reigning monarch Louis Philippe I introduced censorship laws forbidding the publication of anti-government caricatures in the illustrated press. Daumier turned

from openly criticising the monarchy to focus on the affectations, stupidities and greed of members of French society—the very people who supported the king and his government. In hundreds upon hundreds of devastating caricatures, lawyers, doctors, bankers, landowners, merchants and other members of the bourgeoisie came under Daumier’s critical gaze. His uncanny gift of capturing aspects of the human character, his imaginative compositions, satirical humour and remarkable facility in exploring the technique of lithography contributed to his enduring legacy as an artist.

Daumier went on to create a rich repertoire of contemporary subject matter, some of which the later Impressionists adopted for their art. He catalogued the life of the French capital of his time. His subjects and methods of devising compositions informed the art of Degas and Lautrec in their search for modern themes. All three artists contributed to important developments in French art in the nineteenth century.

Many of Daumier’s caricatures reveal his mastery in depicting the human figure, of foreshortening and of suggesting movement. He developed a repertoire of types, variously attributed with human traits and foibles, from the diabolical to the absurd, which he delineated with the exaggeration of caricature and often with humour. During the summer one year, Daumier published a series of scenes of bathers at the Deligny baths. Originally built between 1801 and 1803, these open-air baths were designed in the Turkish manner. The baths were refurbished in 1842, towed up the Seine and tethered on the left bank near the Chamber of Deputies. Once the playground of the aristocracy during the reign of Charles X from 1824 to 1830, the baths proved popular among Parisian circles, and Daumier created compositions in which he captured in careful detail and with great insight scenes of clambering bathers or of a bobbing father and child. His depiction of the human form and careful characterisation capturing moments in the warmer months

Honoré Daumier Heatwave attire 1854 in Le Charivari, 14 August 1854 lithograph sheet 36.5 x 24.9 cmPurchased 1980

Impressions of Paris: Lautrec, Degas, Daumier

8 November 2014 – 15 March 2015 | nga.gov.au/impressions


reveal his skills in drawing—skills that led one commentator to describe him as the ‘Michelangelo of caricature’. The motif of a throng of bathers indicated by pattering feet along a walkway was something Degas—an avid collector of Daumier’s work—later adopted for his troop of ballet dancers viewed from the orchestra pit as they flit across stage.

The city dweller communing with nature or having a picnic (a growing trend in nineteenth-century France) were other themes Daumier explored. A middle-aged couple deflecting swarms of insects while resting on a riverbank on a summer’s afternoon reveals the ‘perils’ of an otherwise romanticised pastime. The search for a respite from the intensity of urban existence was lampooned by the artist in his series The pastorals (Les pastorals) 1845–46 in which city dwellers act out their fantasies to be in harmony with nature with often disastrous consequences.

The woeful experiences of the capital’s inhabitants in their countryside exploits were mirrored by Daumier in the aspiring aquatic adventures of Parisian men in their boats. In his series Sailors of Paris (Les canotiers Parisiens), aspiringly heroic urban sailors fight Mother Nature or each other on the River Seine and often come to grief: if they are not capsized or drenched by heavy rains in their flimsy Parisian clothing, they are drinking at bars and boasting of their noble feats or carrying out their sailors’ duties in an inept manner.

Daumier’s understanding of the effect of light on a surface, over the human form or vegetation, can be contrasted to the academic tradition of chiaroscuro, where light and dark are used to define forms rather than showing light as it naturally falls on a figure or scene. In this, he was a precursor to ideas later adopted by the Impressionists. Further subjects of Parisian life in the open air include The comedian of

the group (Le plus farceur de la société) of 1847, showing revellers at a picnic—prefiguring Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the grass (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe), which caused such controversy because of its contemporary nature when first shown in public at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. Daumier also wickedly portrays a ‘fashionable’ couple. Arrogant and self-important, they are wearing the latest Eastern-inspired garb during a heatwave in what they no doubt consider to be the height of stylishness, fashion and exoticism. The potentially elegant themes presented by the cafes and streets of Baron Haussmann’s new Paris are not portrayed as such in Daumier’s scenes along the grand boulevards.

Writing at the time of Daumier’s death in 1879, his friend the critic Edmond Duranty recognised the important contribution the artist had made to the changing landscape of French art during the century. Commenting, ‘Caricature is


not a mediocre art’, he praised Daumier for his spirit, his qualities of imagination, his observations of the physiognomy and costume of his characters and the expressive nature of his subjects.

In his artistic career, Daumier provided a critical pathway for the next generation of artists—some associated with Impressionism. He left an enduring pictorial heritage of casual, brief observations and the often overlooked, forgotten moments in people’s lives, built on a lifetime of developing a brilliant drawing technique. The compositional devices he employed were daring viewpoints with unusual lighting sources rendered with an extraordinary facility to draw the human figure and express a sense of movement or character. It was a legacy that Degas, in particular, found inspirational and one that informed his art. Lautrec then followed.

The Gallery’s exhibition Impressions of Paris: Lautrec, Degas, Daumier is on display

At the Deligny baths in Le Charivari, 9 July 1858 lithograph sheet 24.9 x 36.5 cmPurchased 1980

A family scene in Le Charivari, 19 July 1858 lithograph sheet 24.9 x 36.5 cmPurchased 1980

An understandable mistake in Le Charivari, 12 January 1857 lithograph sheet 24.9 x 36.5 cmPurchased 1980

Having had the bad idea of taking a siesta by the water in Le Charivari, 3 September 1856 lithograph sheet 24.9 x 36.5 cmPurchased 1980

until 15 March 2015 and includes drawings, posters, prints and illustrated books by these three artists. On display is a selection of seventeen years of caricature by Daumier from the satirical journal Le Charivari, which had been previously kept more or less hidden in old bound volumes but which now have been ‘unlocked’ for display.

Jane Kinsman is Senior Curator of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books and curator of Impressions of Paris: Lautrec, Degas, Daumier


ANCIENT BELIEFS, CONTEMPORARY WORKS

The exhibition Alive and spirited at the National Gallery of Australia is an insightful journey for children and their families into the world of Australian Aboriginal spirituality and mythology. Like the ancient artefacts recently on display in the Gallery’s 2013–14 summer blockbuster Gold and the Incas: lost worlds of Peru, the exquisite works of art in Alive and spirited illustrate ancient beliefs; unlike the objects from Peru, however, they are contemporary works of art illuminating the beliefs of cultures still alive and vibrant today. They are also a vital part of our national heritage—although many of us remain unfamiliar with or unaware of them.

The lively, powerful and sometimes naughty mythological or spiritual beings of Aboriginal Australia take on many forms. In some instances, they are human and, in others, they manifest as animals, sometimes they are both. They took form in the Dreaming, either bringing order and stability or creating trouble and uncertainty, and often reside within the land or emerge from it. They are revered today through art, ceremonial song, dance and storytelling. In Alive and spirited, children can discover the different mythological beings and the many ways in which artists conjure their forms and spiritual presence—in paintings on canvas

or bark, as carved or engraved objects or as weavings, even as multimedia installations.

The journey around the exhibition begins and ends with yawkyawk figures, hanging from the ceiling and floating across the exhibition wall respectively. With fish tails and human bodies, yawkyawks are similar in appearance to mermaids, although they live in freshwater streams and rock pools in the Stone Country of Arnhem Land and their trailing hair are the algae blooms in the region’s waterholes.

Two ultimate creator beings are portrayed in various art forms in the exhibition, the commonly known Rainbow Serpent and lesser-known wandjina spirits. The Rainbow

Alive and spirited

2 August 2014 – 26 April 2015 | nga.gov.au/spirited


Serpent is found in the stories of many Aboriginal cultures. It resides in waterholes, controls the thunder and lightning and creates powerful rainstorms and cyclones when irritated. Wandjinas, painted on cave walls in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, are similarly associated with creation and rain. They have harrowing large black eyes surrounded by thick dark eyelashes and their heads are adorned with halos of hair that represent the clouds. They are depicted covered in shimmering dots that resonate with power, and a shadow lingers in the centre of their chest—a remnant of a missing pearl shell. Wandjinas created the universe and everything in it and

are believed so powerful that the Rainbow Serpent sealed up their lips. If they still had their mouths, it would rain constantly.

Children and adults alike can learn and discover more about these fascinating spirits and others, including the popular and cheeky mimih spirits, in Alive and spirited. The diverse range of colourful and figurative works of art that have captivated children since the exhibition opened in August will continue to do so until April 2015.

Kelli Cole, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and curator of Alive and spirited

Lena Yarinkura Spider web 2010 (detail) natural earth pigments on bush string and pandanus fibre 205 x 214.5 cmPurchased 2011

Nawurapu Wunungmurra Dhalwangu people Mokuy 2010 various sizes natural earth pigments on wood and film projectionGift of Lauraine Diggins, 2013. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

Alec Mingelmanganu Wunambal people Wandjina c 1980 natural earth pigments and oil on canvas 159 x 139.5 cmPurchased 1990 © the estate of the artist, represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency



NGA CONTEMPORARYSimon Elliott

Nestled alongside Lake Burley Griffin and with its sweeping glass curves is Commonwealth Place’s new gallery featuring contemporary Australian art drawn from the national art collection. It is unusual in the history of the National Gallery of Australia to open an annexe, but in September we had the great opportunity to do just that with NGA Contemporary. This offsite space gives locals and visitors Canberra’s first dedicated contemporary art gallery with a truly national scope.

When visiting NGA Contemporary over the summer, you will see some works from artists working across Australia and internationally. The inaugural exhibition in the space includes a selection of the Gallery’s most popular works made after 2000 and in a large variety of media.

Included in the exhibition are works by some of the nation’s leading artists. While no strict curatorial theme is applied to the opening selection of works, themes of identity and self, responses to place, issues of memory and playfulness of materials can be discerned.

Through the window, passers-by are enticed by the twisting forms of duelling stags created from mopeds—their horns, strange rear-view mirrors. The work is Stags 2009, a sculpture by the maker of the Canberra centenary’s Skywhale 2013, Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinini. A play of ideas about technology gone wrong and animals gone wild, it is a great introduction to the art inside.

People who enter are first rewarded by Christopher Langton’s Sugar the pill 1995/2009, a cascading pile of pill-shaped balloons that draws our attention to society’s historically recent addiction to popping pills. Kathy Temin’s weighty yet playful Tombstone garden 2012, with its fun ultra-white fur and soilless garden of memory, was seen last at the end of 2013 in the Gallery’s exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy in London.

Timothy Horn’s dazzling, satirical work Glass slipper (ugly blister) 2001 plays with the familiar folktale of Cinderella—it is a dainty slipper, but one for a giant. Nearby, Inge King’s Celestial rings IV 2012 shows

why she remains a master as she closes in on her centenary year. And two large, otherworldly photographs by Trent Parke, from his series The camera is God, as well as Christian Thompson’s photographic series Australian graffiti 2008 and paintings by Anne Wallace and Michael Zavros, both from Brisbane, complete the room.

Walking deeper into the space, viewers are delighted with some of Australia’s greats, including one of Dale Frank’s brilliant poured-paint works, Mike Parr’s large multi-panelled print Sleep with butter 2005, Tracey Moffatt’s somewhat nostalgic series First jobs 2008, Peter Booth’s captive Man seated on a fence 2012 and Rosemary Laing’s inverted Jim 2010. Among these sits Brent Harris’s shadow play Plato’s cave: painting no 4 2005 and Daniel Walbidi’s Kirriwirri 2014, which traces his father’s land in the remote and beautiful Great Sandy Desert.

Ron Mueck’s Pregnant woman 2002, which invites many comments when exhibited and enquiries when it is not, was shown for a time before making the

The National Gallery of Australia’s new space for contemporary Australian art, NGA Contemporary, on Queen Elizabeth Terrace.


short trip to the National Portrait Gallery for inclusion in its exhibition In the flesh. Bill Henson, whose work has also sustained heated commentary in the recent past, is shown in a softer light with his absorbing and exceptionally poignant Untitled 2011/2012 2011–12, making clear reference to ancient Greek sculpture.

The Indigenous Australian contingent is noticeably strong due to the outstanding work produced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in recent decades. Julie Gough, Ricky Maynard, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori and the more recently emerged but highly accomplished Christian Thompson are among the

internationally recognised Indigenous artists on display.

Canberra locals are represented by the acclaimed Richard Larter’s uncharacteristic work portraying the devastating Canberra bushfires of 2006, eX de Medici’s meticulous watercolour of the well-known Germany handgun the Luger resplendent with moth-fur markings and GW Bot’s linocuts of simplified forms of the landscape that create another language.

Juan Davila’s political prints, Klaus Moje’s glass Rollup vase 2009, Johannes Kuhnen’s Vessel 2007 and Ah Xian’s China China bust 80 2004 show the calibre of artists who have made Australia their home.

While this is the first exhibition in the newly created NGA Contemporary, themed exhibitions sourced from the collection are planned for the year ahead.

The National Gallery of Australia has the largest collection of Australian art in the country, but the current building on Parkes Place is constrained by physical space to properly allow for a full display of this country’s artistic achievement. In addition, over the three decades since the construction of the Gallery, the production of art in Australia and, indeed, worldwide, has changed dramatically and in previously unimagined ways. This mercurial aspect of art has also left the current space ill-suited


for certain great works in the national art collection. NGA Contemporary is no silver bullet, but it does alleviate some of the pressures put on the existing areas dedicated to contemporary Australian art.

NGA Contemporary could not have happened without the support of the National Capital Authority in providing this space to showcase the Gallery’s rich contemporary Australian art collection. The space increases the scope of art we can present—as in the current highlights display—and provides us with greater flexibility in showing the particular strengths of the collection. It also offers a fresh, modern and intimate space that

remains connected to the boulevard and lake beyond the glass frontage.

We hope you will drop in over summer for our highlights display, which will be refreshed in February, and again throughout the year as we endeavour to bring you the best themed displays of contemporary art from our national collection, the first of which will open in May.

Simon Elliott is Assistant Director, Curatorial and Educational Services

(clockwise from top left) At the opening of NGA Contemporary on 25 September 2014, guests are enchanted by Christopher Langton’s Sugar the pill 1995/2009 and a mother and daughter discover Ron Mueck’s Pregnant woman 2002 (currently on display at the Nationl Portrait Gallery); the highlights from the national collection of contemporary Australian art attract passers‑by on Queen Elizabeth Terrace.


GODS ON TOUR TO AMERICA

Every exhibition is the result of many people working together. A curator develops the idea and drives the concept, but the realisation of that idea involves dozens of creative minds. For example, while the overall visual concept of the exhibition is the result of many discussions between a curator and an exhibition designer and, of course, the Director, it is also influenced by other stakeholders such as lending institutions, conservators and venue managers. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects to a travelling exhibition is in discovering how much it changes from venue to venue.

For Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia, the idea to bring the showcases away from the walls of the gallery to reflect the Polynesian

world of islands and archipelagos was one that came from a series of discussions with exhibition designer Patrice Riboust and the then director Ron Radford. This idea of reflecting the islands and archipelagos was extended by a blue-based palette, taken from images of tropical lagoons, for the exhibition space. The walls were the dark-blue colour of deep ocean, while lower walls used to separate areas were painted a light blue. Objects were placed on surfaces painted in a colour reminiscent of beach sand. The effect focused attention on the objects rather than the walls.

Creating ‘island’ display cases sounds simple to achieve but is quite difficult in reality, particularly for objects such as those in Atua, which each has a presence

of its own that can interact or conflict with other art objects. The result, however, was a unique gallery experience, a new idea, and a great success when it was shown in Canberra between 23 May and 3 August 2014, before travelling to the United States of America.

Atua has been on display in the special exhibitions galleries at the Saint Louis Art Museum since 12 October, and these galleries are very different to the Temporary Exhibitions Gallery in which Atua was displayed here. Although the ceilings are noticeably much lower, one of the most prominent features of the space (designed by British architect David Chipperfield and opened in June 2013) is the flow of natural and simulated natural light from

Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia

12 October – 4 January 2015 @ Saint Louis Art Museum | nga.gov.au/atua


the coffered ceilings, which provide a very even spread of filtered light.

The museum’s exhibition designers, led by Philip Atkinson, had to then choose a palette that would work with the objects in the particular quality of light of their spaces. They used two hues of a very light pale green and two of a blue-green colour, a combination that worked very well to give a softened effect in the space. The positioning of objects was more evenly spaced than in Canberra, maintaining a geographical sequence of west to east but losing the archipelago effect.

While it is not surprising that a different venue changes the way we view an exhibition, it is always a pleasure to discover how it changes, subtle or

otherwise. Indeed, the display in Saint Louis provided new insight into almost every piece simply because of the new context. Also, interestingly, some objects that sang in Canberra were quiet in Saint Louis, and those that suddenly came alive were more subdued here. Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia will continue at the Saint Louis Art Museum until 4 January 2015, introducing new audiences to the art of Polynesia and to the National Gallery of Australia’s international program of exhibitions, which included the tour of the Gallery’s Ballets Russes: the art of costume to Japan earlier this year.

Michael Gunn, Senior Curator of Pacific Arts and curator of Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia

Aitutaki Cook Islands Female figure wood, paint 60 x 16 x 13 cmMuseum Five Continents, Munich Acquired 1825

Hawai’i United Sates of America Figure before 1891 wood 48.3 x 15 x 25 cmChurch History Museum, Salt Lake City

Rurutu (attributed to) Austral Islands, French Polynesia Image associated with Tangaroa late 18th – early 19th century wood, sennit (coconut fibre) 80.6 x 20 x 4 cmBritish Museum, London Purchased 1911

Eruera Nia Akamata 2004 wood 142 x 40 x 22 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased 2010 © Eruera Nia

Also touring this summer

Capital and country: the Federation years 1900–1914 Riddoch Art Gallery, Mt Gambier, 13 December 2014 – 22 February 2015

Stars in the river: the prints of Jessie Traill Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 6 December 2014 – 1 February 2015 Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 20 February – 10 May 2015

22 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

FROM ONE NATIONAL GALLERY TO ANOTHER

The National Gallery of Australia has borrowed Barnett Newman’s Yellow painting 1949 from the National Gallery in Washington for a period of two years. Despite the strength of our collection of Abstract Expressionism and Newman’s importance in American art from the 1940s to the 1960s, the Gallery does not own any of the artist’s works, nor does any other public collection in Australia. So, now, his work can be seen in the context of paintings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko, all purchased by the Gallery in the 1970s and 1980s.

Yellow painting consists of a field of vibrant yellow paint interrupted by narrow creamy white stripes down each side. These lines, or ‘zips’, as the artist called them, divide the canvas into fields of pure colour and provide a spatial structure. During his career, Newman worked for many years using only black and white or one or two colours or with fields of intense opposites such as red, blue and yellow. At first sight, this canvas is just a simple exercise in

colour and geometry, but the artist had a larger intention: to provoke the viewer into contemplating new ideas about art and existence.

Rejecting conventional notions such as pictorial meaning reinforced Newman’s search for the ultimate in aesthetics. He saw history as essentially tragic—particularly after the recent example of inhumanity, the Holocaust—so artists, instead, had to look for more. His search for ‘pure idea’ meant going beyond beauty to the sublime, in Edmund Burke’s sense of compelling, even destructive, art. So his painting had another purpose besides decoration or beauty, and it needs the active contribution of the viewer as well as its creator.

Unusually for Newman, Yellow painting has been known by different titles, including ‘Gold’, ‘The hand’, ‘The ladder’ and ‘The secret’. The more banal and descriptive title has lasted. The artist was not interested in the beautiful brushwork of his contemporary Rothko; instead, he made clear the technique of painting over masking tape, then removing it to reveal

previously painted off-white lines. In Yellow painting, the ghost of a rethought central line remains, as he was not concerned with technical perfection.

Newman’s willingness to go to extremes has influenced many other painters, in Australia as well as the United States of America. He is regarded as the forerunner, or even the founder, of colour field painting, practised by Ellsworth Kelly and Syd Ball, among others. Emptying out the content of paintings emphasises the flatness of the support and the minimal pictorial elements needed to make a painting. He seems to exchange narrative, found even in abstracted works by Pollock and de Kooning, for material and intellectual, even spiritual, exploration.

The Gallery is extremely fortunate to be lent such a valuable painting from another national gallery. Yellow painting is now in Canberra and on display in the Abstract Expressionist gallery.

Christine Dixon, Senior Curator of International Painting and Sculpture

Yellow painting 1949 oil on canvas 171.4 x 133.1 cmNational Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Gift of Annalee Newman, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the National Gallery of Art © Barnett Newman/ARS. Represented by Viscopy

23FEATURE | ARTONVIEW



KHMER TREASURESMelanie Eastburn

Through the generosity of the Royal Government of Cambodia, visitors to the National Gallery of Australia now have the opportunity to see three magnificent Khmer sculptures from the collection of the National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. The works are on long-term loan from the museum, which houses the finest collection of Khmer art in the world. The loan is the culmination of a number of years of planning and discussion and marks an exciting new chapter in the longstanding relationship between the two institutions.

The National Museum of Cambodia and the National Gallery of Australia have been collaborating since the early 1990s when preparations began for the exhibition The Age of Angkor, which was shown in Canberra in 1992. At the time, staff from the Gallery worked with Cambodian colleagues to assess and assist with conservation, storage and other needs at the museum. The exhibition was the first to travel from Cambodia following the end of more than two decades of unrest, including civil war and the Khmer Rouge period

from 1975 to 1979. The museum closed in 1975 and reopened on 13 April 1979 (the anniversary of its inauguration on 13 April 1920) but, in the years between, the majority of the museum’s staff, including the director, had been killed. The Age of Angkor was part of Australia’s wide-ranging commitment to Cambodia from the late 1980s, a commitment that also included extensive AusAid-funded repairs to the museum’s roof, which had rotted while the building was closed.

The museum and Gallery have since maintained their close ties. Most recently, the Gallery provided textile handling and preventive conservation training. The Gallery is renowned internationally for its exceptional collection of textiles from India and Southeast Asia and for its skills in conservation, and the textile collection at the National Museum of Cambodia has suffered considerable damage over the decades, principally as a result of environmental conditions.

In 2010–11, as part of a larger project funded by the Getty Foundation, a staff

member from Phnom Penh spent time in Canberra to study textile conservation. The training was then followed up in 2011 and 2013, when two Gallery conservators, Lisa Addison and Fiona Kemp, went to Cambodia to assist with the safe handling and storage of textiles. An improved storage area is in the process of being established at the museum and will be joined later by conservation facilities; both are supported by a generous donation from Andrew Gwinnett, an Adelaide-based businessman who is also a member of the Gallery’s Foundation Board.

With its primary capital at Angkor (Siem Reap), the Khmer empire flourished from the ninth to the fifteenth century and is renowned for its extraordinary temple complexes, especially Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Spanning the seventh to thirteenth centuries, the Hindu and Buddhist works of art on loan exemplify the strength and refinement of sculpture from Cambodia’s Angkor and pre-Angkor periods. Each is an exceptional example of its style: a standing Buddha, an architectural lintel illustrating

Kampong Speu Cambodia Standing Buddha 7th century sandstone 139.5 x 30.2 x 19 cmNational Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh

Angkor Thom Angkor (Siem Reap), Cambodia Prajnaparamita in the form of a child late 12th – early 13th century sandstone 73.8 x 24.2 x 15.6 cmNational Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh


a Hindu narrative and a delicate image of a little girl.

The Buddha, with both hands held in a gesture of discussion and explanation (vitarka mudra), is among the earliest and most intact Buddhist images found in Cambodia. The calm facial expression, tightly curled hair, cranial bump of wisdom and long earlobes are all characteristics of the Buddha. Elegant symmetrical monastic robes cover both shoulders, revealing the graceful form of the body beneath. The style of the figure shows the influence of sculpture from Sarnath in northern India and also relates to eighth-century Mon-Dvaravati images from Thailand.

The sculpture was rediscovered in Trapeang Russei village in Kampong

Speu province in 2010, and it is a great privilege that the National Museum of Cambodia has made this recently unearthed treasure available for visitors to the Gallery in Canberra. The Buddha is one of a number of important early Buddhist and Hindu works of art found in the area and associated with the ancient pre-Angkor sites of Phnom Da and Angkor Borei in nearby Takeo province.

Carved in a dynamic regional style, the lintel displays the essential Hindu creation story of the churning of the sea of milk in which gods and demons work together to release the elixir of immortality. Carved lintels were installed above the doorways of Khmer temples, marking the transition into sacred spaces.

Illustrated in the centre of the sandstone lintel is Mount Mandara, which has been transformed into a post around which the serpent Vasuki is twisted to stir up the sea. To stop the shaft from sinking into the sea, it is supported on the back of the cosmic turtle Kurma, one of the avatars of Vishnu. Above is the great four-faced creator god Brahma seated on a lotus blossom. At either end of the lintel, mythical serpents (nagas) emerge from the mouths of makaras, protective composite creatures with elephant-like trunks, bulging eyes and fearsome teeth. The figures represented along the top edge of the lintel are sages (rishis) shown in prayer.

Recent research by the University of Sydney’s Dr Martin Polkinghorne suggests


the lintel was created in the mid to late tenth century for the temple of Bassac, the most important and substantial in Svay Rieng province in south-eastern Cambodia. The lintel presents one of the earliest known representations of the churning of the sea of milk in Khmer art, a story most famously depicted along an entire gallery of Angkor Wat.

The poignant image of a little girl—fondly remembered by many who saw The Age of Angkor—is one of the only depictions of a child in Khmer art. By the small Amitabha Buddha in her topknot, the figure is identifiable as a form of the goddess Prajnaparamita, the embodiment of perfect wisdom and spiritual mother of the buddhas. The girl may have been

a member of a royal family revered in her lifetime or deified following a life cut short.

Created in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, the sculpture relates to the reign of Jayavarman VII (ruled 1181–1218), who oversaw the creation of the extraordinary Bayon temple at Angkor Thom as well as hundreds of other structures throughout the Khmer empire, which extended into parts of present day Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Sculptures of the period include what appear to be royal portraits in the form of Mahayana Buddhist deities, the most famous being of Jayavarman VII.

Cambodia has suffered extensive losses to its cultural heritage through decades of

looting and illicit trade. This long-term loan of three masterpieces of Khmer art from the National Museum of Cambodia provides an outstanding opportunity for the Gallery to present the best Cambodian art to its audiences and to continue to strengthen ties between the two institutions, expanding the Gallery’s commitment to a deeper partnership into the future.

The sculptures are now on display in the Southeast Asian gallery on level one.

Melanie Eastburn is Curator of Asian Art and previously worked at the National Museum of Cambodia from 2003 to 2004

Svay Rieng Cambodia The churning of the sea of milk 10th century sandstone 52.5 x 139 x 20 cmNational Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh


Between 2010 and 2013, Australian businessman, philanthropist and collector Patrick Corrigan AM gave the National Gallery of Australia the opportunity to select from groups of works in his extensive Australian contemporary photography collection of over two hundred works.

His collecting across a wide range of media began in the 1970s, when his transport company became involved in transporting works of art for leading commercial galleries. By the 1990s, Corrigan found that what he enjoyed most was meeting the artists and, in particular, encouraging and supporting young artists. From 2000, Corrigan has collected chiefly contemporary Indigenous Australian art and photography.

Made through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, Corrigan’s gifts to date include seventy-six contemporary Australian photomedia works dating from 1982 to 2008 by twenty-seven artists, with more works on offer. Among the gifts are not only groups of work by nationally and internationally known Australian photomedia artists already represented in the collection but also works by artists not previously represented—although already in view and being considered for acquisition. Corrigan’s remarkable benefaction makes him one of the Gallery’s most generous donors. Even beyond Canberra, he has donated over a thousand works to over fifty Australian public collections since 1986.

For this reason, the Gallery very recently exhibited a representative selection of photomedia works he has given to the Gallery over the years in Gifted artists: donations by Patrick Corrigan AM.

To launch the display on 14 August 2014, Corrigan hosted a reception for the artists represented. I collected comments from the artists during the reception and was moved by the sustained relationships, friendship and heartfelt thanks that they expressed in regard to Corrigan, who is clearly a valued mentor as much as he is a patron. It was evident that his support had often been critical in the early careers of artists, not just by acquisition but also by help with exhibition, publication and travel.

GIFTS AND THE GIFTED


Cherine Fahd describes Corrigan as ‘one of Australia’s greatest art friends’ and says, almost in way of a suggestion, ‘If only there were more Pats in our country’.

Several artists have since relocated and developed successful careers overseas, although sadly Malaysian-born video artist Emil Goh and Australian Brett Whiteley (represented by his little known black-and-white photographs of pissing in Paris) have died. Then director Ron Radford, curators and staff involved in securing the gifts for the nation enjoyed sharing a day with the seven attending artists, Chantal Faust, Mari Hirata, Mandana Mapoor, Patricia Piccinini, Gayle Slater, Matthew Sleeth and Jacqui Stockdale. While here, these artists also made video presentations

on the works on display for the Gallery’s YouTube channel.

This display in the Photography gallery also marked my retirement as senior curator at the National Gallery of Australia in September 2014, after over two decades of service. The baton I pass to Dr Shaune Lakin, who will continue to build on the Gallery’s amazing photography collections, which include the most extensive collection of Australian photomedia from the 1970s to the 2000s thanks to gifts such as Patrick Corrigan’s.

Gael Newton, former senior curator of photography

Patrick Corrigan AM with the works he has given to the Gallery in the display Gifted artists: donations by Patrick Corrigan AM, 14 August 2014.

Sam Shmith View from the Dayvan 2008 pigment print 50 x 50 cmGift of Patrick Corrigan AM, 2013. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Sam Shmith

Patricia Piccinini Subset—green landscape 1997 from the series Protein lattice 1997 Type C colour photograph 80 x 80 cmGift of Patrick Corrigan AM, 2010. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Patricia Piccinini


Joseph Lycett’s Eliza Point showing Captain Piper’s naval villa and garden c 1820 nga.gov.au/members

A miniature painter by trade but banknote forger by renown, Joseph Lycett’s talents for artistry and imitation are both apparent in this view of early Sydney. The upward thrust of a sapling, an array of keenly observed she-oaks, cypress pines and acacias and the formative civic architecture of the fledgling settlement are rendered in a succession of delicate marks. However, it is perhaps the Palladian-style villa and the curious cruciform garden that adorns the hill behind it that most draw the viewer’s eye.

Sydney’s first grand residence, Henrietta Villa belonged to John Piper, a Scottish naval captain whose rapid rise to fame was matched by an equally swift decline. Arriving in the colony in 1810, Piper found an influential friend in Governor Lachlan Macquarie, was appointed magistrate in 1819 and became chairman of the Bank of New South Wales in 1825.

Piper’s legendary parties were habitually reported in the press and the luxurious furnishings of his home extolled. A garden of clover and European fruit trees assembled in the shape of Saint Andrew’s Cross, in recognition of his Scottish heritage, was described by the wife of Macquarie’s

successor, Governor Brisbane, as a veritable ‘second Eden’. In 1827, however, Piper’s questionable financial transactions were exposed. Disgraced, he attempted suicide by drowning but was wrenched from the water by his crew. He withdrew from public office and retired to Bathurst, where he lived humbly until his death in 1851. Lycett’s painting is among a handful of documents that attest to the short but glittering life of Henrietta Villa, which was demolished by 1855, and to the compelling tale of its notorious founder.

Like Piper, convict artist Joseph Lycett was another intriguing figure of colonial-era Australia. He was convicted of forgery in 1811 and sentenced to transportation, arriving in New South Wales in 1814. His talents as an artist were soon grasped, and commissions from government officials in both Newcastle and Sydney ensued. The most coveted of these works were Lycett’s panoramic views of Sydney, at least three of which were undertaken for Governor Macquarie between 1819 and 1820. For these, the convict painter received absolute pardon as reward in 1821. Lycett’s painting of Henrietta Villa is

possibly among the first he made as a free man, although the commissioner’s hand is still apparent—deftly rendered flora in the foreground of the work may have been a request from Piper, who was a passionate amateur native botanist.

Despite colonial art being unfashionable during the first three quarters of the twentieth century, Lycett’s watercolours were eagerly collected, and most were held in public collections by the early twentieth century. The late establishment of the National Gallery in 1982 has meant that examples of pre-1830 art and of Lycett’s work, in particular, have been exceedingly difficult to acquire. Among the last known specimens held in private hands, this rare watercolour will become a central work in the collection, providing a starting point for the Gallery’s otherwise superlative holdings of Australian landscape painting. It will also form an emotive complement to Augustus Earle’s 1826 oil portraits of John and Mary Anne Piper that have been in the national art collection since 1980.

Elspeth Pitt, Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings

Eliza Point showing Captain Piper’s naval villa and garden c 1820 watercolour with gouache 40.6 x 54.7 cm

MEMBERS ACQUISITION FUND 2014–15


32 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

Dale Frank, one of Australia’s foremost contemporary painters, has recently donated a major and most generous gift of works to the National Gallery, including paintings, drawings and multimedia collages. It is the most significant gift by a living artist since the Arthur Boyd Gift in 1975 and presents a remarkable opportunity to represent diverse aspects of the artist’s oeuvre with key examples from thirty-two years of work, from his massive drawings seen only in Italy and New York between 1980 and 1982 to the paintings he produced for the 2010 Sydney Biennale.

Frank’s art over the past three decades has been complex and wide-ranging. There is humour, irony and irreverence underpinning much of his work as well as an ongoing deep commitment to his practice and to the unpredictability of human experience. As Christopher Chapman writes in his monograph So far: the art of Dale Frank 2005–1980, ‘He speaks of the “black space” that confronts the individual: it is a void that can only be filled via an intense process of enduring over time. Frank’s artwork comes into being on its own terms, where, like life, one can never be certain of the outcome’.

Among the great works in the gift are remarkable large-scale drawings that encompass a surreal dimension and are, in a sense, also precise evocations of states of mind and being. In The longing expulsion and self-portrait 1982, one being gives rise to another in an act of replication that also

The Dale Frank Gift

Dale Frank The longing expulsion and self-portrait 1982 drawing in black pencil 188 x 134 cmThe Dale Frank Gift, 2014

33ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW

Dale Frank The universe of wanking pixels 2000 synthetic polymer paint and plastic bottles on linen 260 x 200 x 35 cmThe Dale Frank Gift, 2014

conveys the urge to break free. Part of the intensity of these drawings is the varied approaches to mark-making and attention to fine detail such as small bricks that map the head and the repeated patterns of hypnotic swirling lines.

A feeling of the dream-like nature of the reality and the self is present in paintings such as Frank love and understanding 1993 in which a large blue-purple head set against a bright orange ground appears to be melting and morphing. The inventiveness of Frank’s approach is apparent in his application of the extraordinary range of found objects in his contemporary assemblages. In The universe of wanking pixels 2000, for example, he includes soft-drink bottles that extend from a vibrant blue background like a remarkable relief sculpture. Each of the bottle caps is painted with a precisely selected bright colour, which, from a distance, set up vibrations akin to Neo-Pointillism connecting with the idea of an endless universe of pixels.

The diverse paintings in the gift reveal Frank to be a truly great colourist. His palette in numerous works of the 1980s incorporates acid yellows and greens against dark grounds, while the crisply delineated rainbow palette of his later post-Pop works is integrated with a fascination with patterning.

By the 1990s, Frank’s keen sense of the tactile, inherent qualities of materials was reflected in polyurethane, pigment and dye works applied in veils of carefully


selected colour. These, in turn, led to some of his best known luscious ‘poured’ paintings of the past decade, a number of which were shown in the Sydney Biennale in 2010. These works reflect Frank’s ever-deepening awareness of the ways in which time, flow and interrelationships have occurred in the application of paint itself. As Frank noted in an interview with Ashley Crawford published in the 2004 summer issue of Art and Australia, ‘It is a totally hands-on and cerebral way of painting … more intense than a half-centimetre brush and tubes of oil paint’. The process he says, ‘can take six hours a day in January through to twenty-four hours in July, and that is twenty-four hours where I have to be permanently standing over the painting, consistently considering every minute aspect’.

These impressive works have strong relationships with some of the great Abstract and Abstract Expressionist works in the national art collection and will be shown in displays of both Australian and international art. Also of considerable interest for future researchers is Frank’s donation of his extensive documentary archive, an extraordinary complement to the existing resources on the artist in the Gallery’s Research Library.

A group of major works from the gift is currently on view in the Australian galleries for visitors to the Gallery to enjoy.

Deborah Hart, Senior Curator of Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920

Dale Frank It was reported ‘that Mr. Dine of “Hambledon Hill” when his vault was opened, now four years after his death, to receive the body of his long time companion Thomas B. Rossieter, on May 4, no less than 7 large snakes were found inside and dispatched by James Martini. Dine and Rossiter, the topic of many a surplus glance and insinuation during their 25 years as companions, Dine’s win of the Melbourne Cup, the squandering of his personal fortune on “Hambledon Hill House”, their complete public friendship hiding the unspoken of criminal acts, but also in their youth, their questionable bonds of friendship with and defense of Jewboy after his drowning. A drowning to avoid his inevitable hanging’. 2009 polyurethane with dyes and pigment on linen 300 x 260 cmThe Dale Frank Gift, 2014


White is an elemental colour in the work of Tony Tuckson. It is the colour of the elegant, whimsical line that journeys its way down a sheet of Masonite to create Tuckson’s grand yet subtle masterpiece White sketch c 1973, a bequest from Lucy Swanton to the Gallery in 1982. It shapes his figures and interiors in the early Matisse-like paintings of the 1950s and is the crux of White over red on blue c 1971, which remains one of the great pronouncements of Abstract Expressionism in Australian art. White with lines (charcoal) black border 1970–73 stands among this rarefied company of Tuckson’s greatest ‘white’ paintings and was donated this year by the artist’s widow, Margaret Tuckson AM, before she passed away in August.

There is no escaping the powerful symbolism of white and its dichotomous relationship with the equally loaded black. White is the colour of purity, light, space, energy and radiance. It is also funereal, with deep religious significance in many cultures as a symbol of the triumph of the spirit over death. As such, there is something eternal and enduring about Tuckson’s late abstractions. After working through figuration and primitivism in the 1950s, he arrived at a spare and elegant realm of distilled resolution, and a purity in his art was attained.

White with lines (charcoal) black border traces a remarkable trajectory from prehistoric art, when man simply painted on stone with calcite and chalk, effortlessly arching its way to twentieth-century

Abstract Expressionism. The broad gestural brush strokes of paint and the shock of the black incised lines evoke the very act of painting itself. The years of observing and internalising indigenous art practices during his numerous visits to Arnhem Land and Papua New Guinea left their mark on Tuckson’s painting, and in White with lines (charcoal) black border something of Tuckson’s energy and presence is palpable, seemingly preserved in the work itself.

Tuckson was largely unrecognised during his lifetime. His duties at the Art Gallery of New South Wales often took precedence over his impetus to paint, so only about 400 paintings exist. The Gallery has sought to build the pre-eminent collection of this great artist’s work for the nation, and Margaret Tuckson’s gift of this remarkable work furthers this important endeavour.

Lara Nicholls, Curator of Australian Painting and Sculpture

Tony TucksonWhite with lines (charcoal) black border1970–73, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 183 x 122 cm. Gift of Margaret Tuckson AM, 2014. 100 Works for 100 Years© Tony Tuckson. Represented by Viscopy


Clarice Beckett, like the visual arts equivalent of a haiku master, was able to distil the essence of her subjects with a minimum of means. Silent approach is a particularly fine example of the strength and delicacy of Beckett’s approach in which no mark is wasted. While the painting exudes a pervasive stillness, the green vegetation in the foreground appears to have a vitality of its own, extending out to the shadowy figure. This fluid organic form is balanced by the vertical power pole (with echoes of the form receding into the distance), a classic Beckett subject indicating modernity. The interplay between structure and softness gives way on the left to the foggy atmosphere in which space itself is the dominant aspect.

A magical aspect of Silent approach is that, for all the restraint of Beckett’s palette, subtle tonalities and subject matter, it is full of presence and imbued with an inner life. In 1919, Beckett moved with her parents to the bayside suburb of Beaumaris, an environment that provided her with evocative inspiration. Despite many challenges, she was driven to paint every day and in all weathers. She also exhibited regularly. While each work is self-sufficient, she felt considerable pleasure in seeing the cumulative effects of her paintings shown together—each illuminating the other.

Beckett’s interest in a tonal approach was informed by Max Meldrum, an influential teacher in Melbourne who espoused a theory of Tonalism. Meldrum considered

her his star pupil and, before long, her independent vision shone through—a fact that he acknowledged in a tribute to her at a memorial exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery in 1936. Tragically, she died far too early, at the age of forty-seven, from pneumonia after catching a chill while painting in inclement weather.

After Beckett’s death, a large number of her paintings were left to deteriorate in a barn and were unsalvageable. Thanks to the great generosity of a number of donors, the Gallery has been able to add Silent approach, one of her most accomplished remaining works, to the national collection.

Deborah Hart, Senior Curator of Australian Painting and Sculpture post 1920

Clarice BeckettSilent approachc 1924, oil on board, 48 x 58 cm. Purchased with the assistance of Ken Baxter and Annabel Baxter, Peter Burrows AO, Kiera Grant, Bill Hayward and Alison Hayward, Colin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh, the Hon Diana Laidlaw AM, John Schaeffer AM and Bettina Dalton, Ezekiel Solomon AM, 2014. 100 Works for 100 Years


Miss Minna Simpson is one of the most delightful and charming of Tom Roberts’s portraits and one of his first major portraits to be painted after he returned to Australia in 1885 from his travels and studies in Europe. The subject, Minna Simpson, was the five-year-old niece of the artist’s future wife, Lillie Williamson. Her fresh face is carefully rendered and framed by her dark hair and white bonnet. She looks directly at the viewer, holding firmly onto her white cat (which looks as if it would very much like to escape her clutches). There is a delightful dynamic in the contrast between the child’s placid face and apparent stability, confident in her firm grasp of the cat, and the movement created by the animal, its facial scowl and paws reaching out toward the bowl of milk. The cat’s action is mirrored to some extent by the two horse-and-rider figures galloping to the right of the table (Roberts clearly made the cardboard cutouts to hold Minna’s attention while her portrait was painted).

Roberts painted the portrait when he returned to Australia, after studying at the Royal Academy in London and travelling to France and Spain between 1881 and 1885. In Europe, he had viewed works by Diego Velásquez, Edouard Manet, James Whistler and others and was obviously keen to put his knowledge about new ways of painting portraits into practice.

He painted Miss Minna Simpson with a tonal palette much admired at the time by Manet, Whistler and others and in homage to Velásquez, the dark background setting

off Minna’s white apron, bonnet and lace, the white cat, toys and dish and the cream tablecloth. As well as using this restricted but contrasting palette, he delighted in juxtaposing the various textures: the crisp softness of the bonnet and apron, the delicacy of the lace, the fluffiness of the fur and the solidity of the dish.

He exhibited the portrait soon after it was painted, at the first annual exhibition of the Australian Artists’ Association at the Buxton Art Gallery in Melbourne in September 1886, in which he also showed significant works such as The artists’ camp c 1886 and A summer morning tiff 1886.

Roberts was Australia’s most important artist and the finest portrait painter of the late nineteenth century. He quickly became

Melbourne’s leading portrait painter and was one of the celebrated group of artists who painted landscapes outdoors around Melbourne from the 1880s. Between 1889 and 1898, Roberts spent much of his time visiting outback stations in New South Wales, painting rural works of a national character. He was commissioned in 1901 to make a vast representation of the opening of the first Federal Parliament in Melbourne, and he moved to England in 1903 to complete the painting (on loan to Parliament House, Canberra, from Her Majesty the Queen). He visited Australia in 1919–20 and returned permanently in 1923 to paint landscapes in a low-key palette.

Anne Gray, Head of Australian Art

Tom RobertsMiss Minna Simpson1886, oil on canvas, 59.5 x 49.5 cm. Purchased with funds donated by the National Gallery of Australia Council and Foundation in honour of Ron Radford AM, Director of the National Gallery of Australia (2004–14), 2014. 100 Works for 100 Years


This large carved sculpture of a Southeast Asian water buffalo is by Tiwi and Iwaidja artist Albert Croker (Gulabagu) and was created in the late 1950s.

Croker was born on the Tiwi Islands in 1908 and inherited his cultural responsibilities from his Tiwi mother. His father was an Iwaidja man from Croker Island off the coast of the Cobourg Peninsula in Arnhem Land who worked as a buffalo hunter with Robert Joel (Joe) Cooper on the Tiwi Islands during the mid to late 1890s and again in the early 1900s. As an adult, Croker worked in various jobs, including hunting feral buffalos as his father did. He also patrolled

the northern coastline as a member of the Snake Bay Coast watch group during the Second World War.

The water buffalo played an important cultural and economic role in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Makassan fishermen from Indonesia engaged economically, culturally and socially with many Aboriginal peoples across the northern coastline, including the Tiwi Islands, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Due to this ongoing engagement with the Makassan, and the introduction of the species by the British in 1824, the water buffalo has been integrated into the Tiwi spiritual, ceremonial and cultural milieu.

Crocker is known for his masterful and unique sculptures of water buffalo, and this piece is his largest representation of the animal. The body, legs and horns were carved from a solid piece of ironwood, and the ears separately. Its smooth round body is painted in the Tiwi art style known as jilamarra (design). It is a sophisticated rendition with a distinctive persona.

This significant sculpture adds to our understanding and the National Gallery’s representation of early Tiwi carving and the greater Tiwi aesthetic.

Franchesca Cubilo, Senior Advisor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Albert CrokerMangala/Yulparija peoples

The Buffaloc 1959, natural earth pigments on wood, 121 x 41.5 x 25.7 cm. Purchased 2014


Kirriwirri 2014 is an energetic new work by Daniel Walbidi, an acclaimed artist whose vision as a painter has gone far beyond the scope of others in the Kimberley region. He has an uncanny ability to continually produce masterpieces, each different from the other yet progressive in style. They reflect the complex desert landscape, full of life, colour and intensity.

Walbidi paints in a meticulous and measured manner, and his skill lies in the unique rendering of his work. His segmented paintings are layered with meaning and the desert hues of his Country but would not be complete with out his signature silver and gold creating veins and crevices that are reflected in the warla (salt lakes) of his Country. He paints ‘satellite’ views of Country in a polished and sophisticated way; he has a slightly stylised yet complex understanding and representation of the traditional Country of his ancestors, the Yulparija people of the central Great Sandy Desert.

The Yulparija people, however, were forced to walk off their Country in the 1960s and 1970s after a prolonged drought. They walked 250 kilometres north-west until they settled at the La Grange Mission in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Before it was transferred to the Pious Society of Missions (Pallottines), La Grange Mission was known as La Grange Feeding Depot; now it is called Bidyadanga. Walbidi grew up in this small coastal

community, but was taught his people’s Dreaming tracks, or song lines, through the oral and artistic traditions of his Elders.

Walbidi showed a strong interest in painting as a child and created wonderful images of Dreaming narratives. His chance to return to the birthplace of his father, however, did not come until many years later in 2007, when, as a young emerging artist in his mid twenties, he and a small group of senior Yulparija artists returned to their Country for the first time since departing forty odd years earlier. On the journey, the Elders and cultural leader disclosed their cultural knowledge of the Country. It was an emotional time for all, particularly the elderly members of the group, who could finally reacquaint

Daniel Walbidi Mangala/Yulparija peoples

Kirriwirri2014, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 180 x 150 cm. Purchased 2014 Reproduced courtesy the artist and Short St Gallery, Broome

themselves with their ancestors. For younger members, such as Walbidi, it was a journey of discovery.

Walbidi was also able to get a bird’s eye view of the Country while flying over the area in a helicopter. Only then did he fully comprehend the depth of his paternal inheritance. He returned from the experience with not only a strong sense of connection to Country but also a deeper understanding of it. An understanding he seeks to share with others inside and outside his community.

Kelli Cole, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art


Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a group of young French artists formed a brotherhood that came to be known as the Nabis and included Edouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel. They first came together as students in the late 1880s at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris and then continued their studies at the Académie Julian. There, they received tuition by the avant-garde artist Paul Sérusier, who argued against an art simply copying nature. Vuillard and Roussel adopted the Japanese sense of space, sinuous lines and patterning that

they so admired in ukiyo-e prints. They also rejected the idea of painting in situ using an easel, in the manner of the Impressionists. They were not interested in capturing the fleeting moments of landscapes and cityscapes as they considered the approach too superficial.

Vuillard admired seventeenth-century Dutch painting and Japanese ukiyo-e, particularly the imagery of the everyday and commonplace. He especially focused on interior views of family and friends such as seen in his sensitive portrait of a young

girl in pastel—a medium he increasingly adopted after 1900. Like the master of nineteenth-century pastel, Edgar Degas, before him, Vuillard found he could achieve rich, dense colours in layers by working in pastel. Vuillard beautifully captures the slight awkwardness of a recalcitrant, pre-adolescent girl, self-absorbed and slouched in a chair, in A young girl seated in a chair in the studio 1909. In a masterful manipulation of space, he placed his subject at the top of the composition to suggest depth in the manner of Japanese spatial depiction

Edouard Vuillard and Ker‑Xavier Rousselpastels

Edouard Vuillard A young girl seated in a chair in the studio 1909 pastel and charcoal 47.9 x 36.5 cm

Ker-Xavier Roussel Faun and nymphs in a landscape 1910 pastel and charcoal 26.6 x 35.9 cmThe Poynton Bequest, 2014


while boldly leaving a vast expanse of floorboards in the foreground. The French public appreciated such domestic imagery, as simplicity and the personal were in stark contrast to the hectic pace of Parisian life at the turn of the century. This included Dr and Madame Prosper-Emile Weil, the original owners of the pastel and important patrons of Vuillard.

In the tradition of Symbolist artists and writers, Nabi members were connected by their common desire to devise art through the creation of ornament and decorative

surfaces and the use of vivid colour. This was particularly the case for Roussel, who adopted brilliant colour for his pastel Faun and nymphs in a landscape 1910, which he applied in layers ending with an azure blue to highlight the forms of the trees. His love of the Latin poets Virgil and Ovid and French Baroque artist Nicolas Poussin is evident in this Arcadian landscape.

Inspiration from classical literature and the adoption of bold colours were aspects of French art that intrigued several Australian artists at the turn of the century,

including Rupert Bunny. These recently acquired works of art, both funded by the Poynton Bequest named after the late Dr John Orde Poynton AO, CMG, represent the kind of French art that resonated with Australian artists at the time. Vuillard, in particular, influenced the artist Walter Sickert, who in turn played an important role in the history of Australian art.

Jane Kinsman, Senior Curator of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books


Kanak peopleMask19th century, wood and paint, 48.5 x15.5 x 21 cm. Purchased 2014

This carved wooden mask is iconic of the traditional Kanak cultures of New Caledonia. Masks from these cultures all have a gleaming black patina and the greatest examples, from northern New Caledonia, sport a prominent hooked nose, as this one does. Its deeply sculpted features have a remarkable roundedness of form, giving the mask a distinctive welcoming personality offset by the grimace of the mouth.

This type of mask was first recorded in 1792, but very little knowledge of their indigenous context remains today as many were destroyed, along with their customary use, by early French missionaries and colonial administrators, and only a very few have been produced since the 1850s.

The mask would have been worn at certain events by a chief during his lifetime and then, after the chief’s death, by a performer representing the chief mourning at his own mortuary ceremony. The black colour is symbolic of the passage to the underwater world of the dead and is the colour mourners paint themselves for the ceremony. However, these masks were not solely considered funerary objects, they were also connected to other events such as a traditional money ritual.

Performers who wore them were covered by a cloak of dark pigeon feathers while brandishing a spear or special club. The triangular section above the mask’s face supported a giant mass of human hair, which was bundled above and along the lower edge of the mask, forming a beard of dreadlocks. The wearer underneath all this hair and feathers was able to see only though the toothed mouth.

New Caledonia is the area of Melanesia least represented in the national art collection; however, this recent acquisition is the finest of the small handful of exceptionally rare Kanak masks in Australian collections.

Crispin Howarth, Curator of Pacific Arts

43 ARTONVIEW

Members news

Family funThe membership team has been working hard to grow our program of events for families and mini-members, offering these members an opportunity to meet like-minded families and to make the Gallery their home away from home.

The winter event Boo! was our first family movie night. Adults relaxed with a glass of wine and children enjoyed milk and cookies while watching the thirty-minute animated adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s family favourite The Gruffalo. The movie was followed by a torchlight tour in search of ‘creatures’ in the Indigenous art galleries.

Summer at the Gallery begins with the annual mini-members Christmas performance, which, this year, is Tutus and tinsel, featuring a company of ballet dancers and coordinated by Liz Lea, Artistic Director of Canberra Dance Theatre.

We have more exciting plans for 2015. So, if you have children, now is a great time to grow their cultural awareness with our mini-members events. And, if you have family friends, consider a gift membership this Christmas.

A contemporary summerThis summer our attention turns to contemporary art, both Australian and international. James Turrell: a retrospective is due to open in a matter of weeks and we have some very exciting and unique events planned for our members to experience this mesmerising exhibition. As entry to the retrospective is controlled, we remind members that you absolutely must pre-book your timed-entry tickets through Ticketek prior to arriving at the Gallery.

We are also very excited about NGA Contemporary showcasing works from the Gallery’s large collection of contemporary Australian art. Some wonderful events for members will introduce you to this new lakeside destination venue for art lovers. For details on all upcoming summer events, check the members website at nga.gov.au/members. Events fill up very quickly so be sure to book early!

As a member, you can play your part in the life of the National Gallery of Australia and enjoy the many benefits this brings to you and the community. To join, go to nga.gov.au/members or free call 1800 028 068.

Mini‑members enthralled by The Gruffalo at the special winter event Boo!, 18 July 2014.

44 ARTONVIEW 44 ARTONVIEW 44 ARTONVIEW

FACES IN VIEW

1 2

5

6 7

3 4

Gifted artists

1 Chantal Faust with her work City of lost children 2 2007 during a reception at the Gallery hosted Patrick Corrigan AM, 14 August

Arthur Boyd: agony and ecstasy

2 Senator the Hon George Brandis QC on tour with Ron Radford AM before the opening of Arthur Boyd, 5 September

45 ARTONVIEW 45 ARTONVIEW

8 9

10

11

11

12 13

NGA Contemporary

3 Michael Baldwin, Jo Ferguson and Malcolm Snow at the launch of NGA Contemporary, 25 September

4 Gabrielle Harris and Tish Karunarathna

5 Helena Cataldo and Linda Uzubalis

Wesfarmers

6 Wesfarmers Fellow Susan Barron working in the Gallery's conservation lab, 22 May

Polynesian community celebration

7 Anna Hausia, Cinara Tonga and Moala Taione, 19 July

8 Samoan dance troupe Tama Tatau

9 Jessica Shirley and Hanna Shea

10 Anton Helmke and Julia Gormly

Stars of the Tokyo stage

11 Kelly O’Hara and Kevin Thomson at Sip sake with the stars, 8 August

Benefactors dinner

12 Kelli Cole, Sue Wood and Colonel Craig Wood, 10 September

Cambodia visitors

13 The Venerable Savoeun Vin, Abbot of Khemararangsi Buddhist Temple, ACT, and His Excellency Hab Touch, Director-General from the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, 29 August

46 ARTONVIEW

News from the Foundation

In recognition of exceptional benefactorsOn 10 September, the Foundation held a dinner in which Foundation Chairman John Hindmarsh AM thanked the many generous benefactors to three significant fundraising initiatives: the Bequest Circle, 100 Works for 100 Years and the Honorary Exhibition Circle.

Bequest Circle and Foundation Board member Dr Andrew Lu OAM spoke about his passion for the National Gallery and his long-term commitment to the future of Australia’s national art collection.

Director Ron Radford AM and curators provided tours through the galleries for guests to see the works donated or acquired as part of 100 Works for 100 Years. It was inspiring to see so many exceptional and important works acquired with the support of many generous donors, whether through magnanimous cash donations, gifts of works of art or enduring bequests.

Also in September, Ron Radford hosted an event to thank donors to this year’s Masterpieces for the Nation Fund. Benjamin Duterrau’s An infant of Van Diemen’s Land 1840 was on display for guests to see up close the important colonial portrait they helped acquire.

Bequest CircleNational Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle member and ardent collector Alan Boxer sadly passed away in late June 2014. He has bequeathed eighteen paintings and one maquette to the Gallery, including major works by important Australian artists such as Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, Donald Friend, Sidney Nolan, John Olsen, John Perceval and Albert Tucker.

The Bequest Circle welcomed new members Dr Geoffrey Lancaster AM and Jodie Leonard and another wishing to remain anonymous. The Bequest Circle dinner was held on 10 September 2014.

Foundation Annual General MeetingThe Foundation’s AGM was held on 26 November 2014, with many members attending and others from around Australia and the world participating by proxy vote.

The support of donors to the fundraising initiatives of the Foundation is greatly appreciated. To get involved, contact Liz Wilson on (02) 6240 6691 or [email protected].

Donors to the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2014 observe up close Benjamin Duterrau’s exquisite An infant of Van Diemen’s Land 1840 at the special thank‑you event, 17 September 2014.

Roslyn Packer AO, Ron Radford AM and Ray Wilson OAM at the Benefactors dinner for the Bequest Circle, 100 Works for 100 Years and the Honorary Exhibition Circle, 10 September 2014.

47 ARTONVIEW

Creative partnerships

Blue sky, yellow sky, pink sky thinkingFollowing its run at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, James Turrell: a retrospective arrives at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra this December. This enormous show spans nearly five decades of American artist James Turrell’s perception-altering light sculptures.

The ACT Government, through VisitCanberra, are the Presenting Partner for the exhibition. VisitCanberra is well known for identifying and promoting Canberra’s major attractions of which James Turrell is sure to be the highlight this year. Canberra will be the only city in the southern hemisphere to host this showcase of Turrell’s extraordinary art, which will place Turrell’s Within without 2010 at the Gallery in the context of the artist’s long career.

ActewAGL and Actew Water are appropriately one of the exhibition’s Principal Partners as the power of light, which is pushed to the extreme in Turrell’s work, will challenge many visitors. The other Principal Partners are National Australia Bank and Nine Network, both of which are ardent and regular supporters and promoters of exhibitions and programs at the Gallery.

Qantas, the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, Palace Cinema, Molonglo Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Gallery of Australia’s Council Exhibition Fund have all contributed to bringing this retrospective to Australia as the exhibition’s Major Partners.

WIN Television, JCDecaux and Fairfax (through The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) are joined by the Gallery’s newest Media Partner Broadsheet. These media relationships significantly raise the national profile of the Gallery’s major exhibitions. They also engage audiences through special promotions—so keep an eye out for these during James Turrell.

Accommodation Partner Novotel Canberra and Signage Partner Flash Photobition continue to lend their support and once again the Gallery’s Beverage Partners Coopers and Moët Hennessy Australia assist in the festivities that will take place over the course of the exhibition.

If you are interested in creating greater social ties with the Australian community through the arts, contact Claire Moore, +61 2 6240 6740 or [email protected].

James Turrell Breathing light 2013. Los Angeles County Museum, California. Purchased with funds provided by Kayne Griffin Corcoran and the Kayne Foundation. © James Turrell. Photograph: Florian Holzherr

48 ARTONVIEW

GrantsAmerican Friends of the National Gallery of

Australia, made possible with the generous support of Kenneth Tyler AO and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler

Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Australian National University Centre for

European StudiesThe Gordon Darling FoundationWolfensohn Family Foundation

Corporate partnersABC RadioACT Government, through VisitCanberraActewAGLActew WaterThe AgeAesopAPTAudiAvant CardBarlensBroadsheetThe Brassey of CanberraCanberra AirportThe Canberra TimesClayton UtzCoopers BreweryEckersley’s Art & CraftFlash PhotobitionForrest Hotel and ApartmentsForty Four TwelveHotel RealmJCDecauxMaddocksMoët Hennessy AustraliaMolonglo GroupNational Australia BankNational Capital AuthorityNational Collecting Institutions Touring and

Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians

National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund

Nine Network AustraliaNovotel CanberraPalace CinemasPricewaterhouseCoopersQantas AirwaysQantas FreightTicketekThe Sydney Morning HeraldWesfarmersWIN Television

DonationsIncludes donations received from 4 July to 3 October 2014Donna BushColin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh

100 Works for 100 YearsDavid Thomas OAM and Barbara ThomasThe Thomas FoundationEzekiel Solomon AMGeoffrey White OAM and Sally White OAM

Honorary Exhibition Circle PatronsThe Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer AMJames Erskine and Jacqui ErskineRupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer

National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board Publishing FundWayne KratzmannEzekiel Solomon AM

Gifts of works of artAmerican Friends of the National Gallery of

Australia, made possible with the generous support of David Knaus

Anderson and LowArtbankLissant BoltonTorin Boyd and Naomi IzakuraBarbara CampbellDoreen CoburnDarryl CollinsEastgate and HolstAnna EglitisMurray FaggAnne FergusonAnne Marie GrahamJim GrayKatherine HattamNicci HaynesKim HedrichMr and Mrs Lee Kip LeeMelbourne Art FoundationJoanna MendelssohnMike Parr and John LoanePatsy PayneRanamok Glass PrizeSelina RedmanRio TintoDavid Stephenson

Masterpieces for the Nation 2014Andrew BennettJudith BiboRobert BlacklowGillian BorgerDr Berenice-Eve CalfMC CasteloMaureen Chan

Kathryn ClarkeTony D’Orazio and Belinda D’OrazioFiona DavidsonJW de Burgh PersseRobyn A DuncanMarya Glyn-DanielGillian Gould and Dr Hugh SmithJudy Henderson, in memory of Lily LittlejohnDr Anthea HyslopHelen JacksonMargaret KellondDaphne KokDouglas John McAlister and Fleur McAlisterSimon McGillGeoffrey Pack and Leigh PackLyn RiddettWendy Robson, Hannah Robson and

Isabelle RobsonClaire ScottJ Margaret ShawProf Ken Taylor AM and Maggie TaylorPeter White and Anne WhiteLes Wright and Norma Wright

Members Acquisition Fund 2013–14Dr Anthea HyslopRosemary Miller

National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions FundWarwick HemsleyJeanne Pratt AC

South Australian Contemporary Art FundMacquarie Group Foundation

Tom Roberts FundPhilip Bacon AMJohn Calvert-Jones AM and Janet Calvert-Jones AOThe Calvert-Jones FoundationThe Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer AMTim Fairfax ACAndrew GwinnettWarwick HemsleyJohn Hindmarsh AMJane HyltonWayne KratzmannAllan Myers AO, QCJeanne Pratt ACRay Wilson OAM

Textiles Storage Project at the National Museum of CambodiaAndrew Gwinnett

Treasure a TextileMaxine RochesterThe Foundation also thanks those donors who

wish to remain anonymous

THANK YOU…

Exhibitions, programs and acquisitions at the National Gallery of Australia are realised through the generous support of our partners and donors. The National Gallery of Australia would like to thank the following organisations and people:

49 ARTONVIEW

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Generating creative energyHelping to generate creative energy is something we’ve been doing for almost a century. We’re proud to be the Principal Partner of James Turrell: A retrospective and bring this summer’s NGA blockbuster to our city. And our history is just the beginning.

James Turrell, Breathing light 2013 Ganzfeld: LED light into space, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Kayne Griffin Corcoran and the Kayne Foundation© James Turrell, photo ©Florian Holzherr

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Jeffrey Smart Self Portrait at PaPini’S, 1984–85oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas85.0 x 115.0 cmSolD for a record $1,260,000 (inc BP) august 2014

now consigningfor our 2015 fine art auctions

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*Conditions apply. Prices are per person (pp) twin share. Prices are correct as at 2 October 2014 but may fluctuate if surcharges, fees, taxes or currency change. Book by 28 November 2014, unless sold out prior. Prices based on Twin Window Staterooms – Cat. A on the UTUWE18: 14 August 2015. Prices include port charges. Prices are subject to availability. Offers may be withdrawn at any time. A limited number of offers are available on set departures. A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 pp is due within 7 days of booking. Australian Pacific Touring Pty Ltd ABN 44 004 684 619. ATAS Accreditation #A10825. APT1225

CALL 1300 216 380 www.aptouring.com.au/USA2015 or see your travel agent

ORDER YOUR FREE BROCHURE AND DVD TODAY

UTUWE18

ASK ABOUT OUR AIRFARE OFFERS

*Conditions apply. Discount doesn’t apply at Eckersley’s online store.

14-00262

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‘Willinga Plume’ by Virginia King

C•A•N•B•E•R•R•A

Canberran Owned and Operated

The Brassey of CanberraBelmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600

Phone: 02 6273 3766 Email: [email protected]

CALL FOR BOOKINGS THROUGH THE HOTEL 1800 659 191

OR REFER TO OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRASSEY.NET.AU

CANBERRA’S ONLY HERITAGE BOUTIQUE HOTEL (EST. 1927)

tailored small group Journeys› Expert tour leaders › Maximum 20 in a group › Carefully planned itineraries

Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney)Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123Email: [email protected]: www.academytravel.com.au

ITALYIn StyleVenice: City, Republic and EmpireMarch 19 – April 2, 2015$6,550 pp, twin (land content only)Unpack your bags for 15 days and explore Venice in depth.

Grand Tour of ItalyApril 5-22, 2015$7,500 pp, twin (land content only)Naples, Rome, Umbria, Florence and Venice, with private Sistine Chapel viewing and fine meals.

Lakes and Villas of Northern ItalyApril 23 – May 9, 2015$8,490 pp, twin (land content only)Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and Lake Garda and the Veneto.

Renaissance Courts of ItalyMay 7-22, 2015$7,500 pp, twin (land content only)Milan, Mantua, Florence, Urbino and villas around Rome.

Sicily and the Aeolian IslandsMay 8-24, 2015$7,650 pp, twin (land content only)Greek and Roman ruins, superb mosaics and volcanoes.

Rome to Turin: Italy’s western shoresOctober 8-24, 2015$7,900 pp, twin (land content only)Etruscan sites, Elba, Pisa, the Cinque Terre and elegant Turin.

Visit academytravel.com.au for detailed information

tailored small group Journeys› Expert tour leaders › Maximum 20 in a group › Carefully planned itineraries

Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney)Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123Email: [email protected]: www.academytravel.com.au

ITALYIn StyleVenice: City, Republic and EmpireMarch 19 – April 2, 2015$6,550 pp, twin (land content only)Unpack your bags for 15 days and explore Venice in depth.

Grand Tour of ItalyApril 5-22, 2015$7,500 pp, twin (land content only)Naples, Rome, Umbria, Florence and Venice, with private Sistine Chapel viewing and fine meals.

Lakes and Villas of Northern ItalyApril 23 – May 9, 2015$8,490 pp, twin (land content only)Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and Lake Garda and the Veneto.

Renaissance Courts of ItalyMay 7-22, 2015$7,500 pp, twin (land content only)Milan, Mantua, Florence, Urbino and villas around Rome.

Sicily and the Aeolian IslandsMay 8-24, 2015$7,650 pp, twin (land content only)Greek and Roman ruins, superb mosaics and volcanoes.

Rome to Turin: Italy’s western shoresOctober 8-24, 2015$7,900 pp, twin (land content only)Etruscan sites, Elba, Pisa, the Cinque Terre and elegant Turin.

Visit academytravel.com.au for detailed information

Experience art, history and culture at national museums and galleries. Be a spectator at a range of exciting sporting events or create your own adventure and explore the great outdoors with a variety of spectacular locations for hiking and cycling. Experience family fun with a range of hands-on activities at our national attractions and excite your tastebuds with Canberra’s vibrant dining scene.

Discover Canberra this summer! Book now at accorhotels.com

Novotel Canberra from $175Mercure Canberra from $143ibis Styles Canberra from $110ibis Styles Canberra Eaglehawk from $110ibis budget Canberra from $89

*Subject to availability from 1 December 2014 to 28 February 2015 inclusive. Rate based on accommodation in a standard room with buffet breakfast for 2 people. Continental breakfast only at ibis budget Canberra. Bookings must be prepaid at time of booking and are non transferable and non refundable. For full terms and conditions visit www.accorhotels.com

Canberraa summer holiday to remember!Enjoy overnight accommodation and buffet breakfast for 2 at your choice of Accor hotels.

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James Turrell: a retrospectiveat the National Gallery of Australia

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James Turrell: a retrospectiveat the National Gallery of Australia

James Turrell Untitled (XIX B) 2006 reflection hologram (glass substrate) 59.7 x 44.5 cmPrivate collection, New York © James Turrell

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