Exhibition - Out of Australia

Out of Australia

Prints and Drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas – II visited this large exhibition when it was showing at the British Museum in June. It is part of a series of exhibitions and events at the British Museum’s Australian Summer Season of Celebration of Australian Culture.

I find the background to this exhibition so absorbing that I felt compelled to include a few facts about it. The British Museum claims to hold the most significant public collection of modern Australian graphic art outside Australia – more than 880 prints and drawings. It is the largest of its kind to be held outside Australia. The exhibition features 126 works by 60 artists from 1940 to the present day and indigenous Australian printmakers.

An important factor around that time in shaping the careers of many non-indigenous artists was travel to the northern hemisphere – the main centres of attraction after World War 2 were London, Paris and New York. They wanted to retain ties with Australia, yet be recognized by the wider world.

The Angry Penguins were a group of artists, poets and writers becoming increasingly frustrated with entrenched conservatism in official Australian culture. They were associated with an avant garde publication of the same name – a focus for helping them to play a major part in outlining a distinctive Australian modernism in the 1940s.

A major exhibition in 1939 of British and French contemporary paintings from post-impressionism to Surrealism had a profound impact on three artists who later broke new ground – Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Arthur Boyd. As access to the new art movements was so restricted in Australia they had to develop their awareness of the new movements from reproductions in publications. The three artists drew their sources of inspiration from both Surrealism and Expressionism. Contact with the few European refugee painters also helped to add to the strong expressionist influence.

Many of them went to Europe after the war and stayed away for prolonged periods of time as the journey there by ship was so long, some never returning to live in Australia.

Apart from the art scene having transformed in the last two decades, the role of Aboriginal Art over this time has taken on great significance and become far more appreciated by the public - the Australian bicentenary in 1988 being a catalyst. The events surrounding this event sparked much more awareness of the suffering of Indigenous people since the European invasion. Rover Thomas and Trevor Nickolls were the first Aboriginal artists to represent Australia in the Venice Biennale, printmaking being a prominent area.  

Surroundings

The room allowed in no natural light. Although each artwork was well lit by directional lighting. All lighting was composed of artificial uplighters, downlighters and general background lighting was quite low and subdued in comparison. The room was was large and self contained. All drawings, paintings and prints were housed in continuous glass cases running along the length of the room. This promoted a look of continuity to the contents and although enclosed, contributed to a feeling of spaciousness.  Recessed areas created a more intimate relationship with the work on display and of being in a more personal space. Other works displayed in cabinets running parallel to the floor even gave me the sensation of being pulled into the space contained within.

Figure 1948

Forms

Albert Tucker – Antipodean Head

I chose to write about this painting particularly because it didn’t interest me at first glance. Infact I was more drawn to Tucker’s other works, but now I think it is a very apt description, encapsulating so well what he was trying to say. When I viewed it against the background of earlier works (Forms (1957), Man with Flower (1950) and Figure (1948)) it really takes on its own significance and I find myself fascinated by his use of inventive techniques to achieve the effects.

It is a painting of a monochromatic brown head in profile on a white background. It looks craggy, cratered and worn and reflects the colour of baked earth. The edges of the head and the shape look deliberately rough, again to echo the landscape. There is a look of solidity and toughness in the head, yet to me it also appears unhappy, miserable, sunken and tearful. However the media was applied it has produced a very rough, broken texture. Some of the paint looks spattered on, especially noticeable around the edges. Perhaps a resist technique was also used and watery paint applied over, then more concentrated liquid paint added and allowed to run in some areas. Perhaps sand or grit was applied to the surface before any paint or resist media – that's if it was used.

Tucker first started using  acrylic paint as he was thought to have been attracted to its tactile permanence and because it enabled him to emulate a dried out appearance, describing the Australian interior and, in this case, the tough resilience and endurance of the Australian stereotype.

Antipodean Head - acrylic

Man with Flower

It is interesting to see from these drawings/paintings the way Tucker's work developed over time and how clearly other artists such as Picasso and Jean Dubuffet influenced him. Looking back over earlier works (Man with Flower 1950 was identified as its forerunner) certain elements have evolved and are echoed in this painting.