Seumas Spark

Critically, the authors remind us that Morrison’s transactional politics mirror his own chameleon-like persona. When he first ran for Liberal pre-selection for the Sydney seat of Cook in 2007, Morrison emerged as the compromise candidate wedged between two factions. It would be a tactic repeated during the Liberals’ 2018 leadership spill, when Morrison was seen as a compromise between Peter Dutton on the hard right and Julie Bishop on the left. Entering the House of Representatives in 2007 under moderates Brendan Nelson and, later, Malcolm Turnbull, Morrison was ostensibly a moderate. Promoted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott to Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Morrison became an abashed conservative.

Ultimately, the authors contend, Morrison is a pragmatist like his ideological godfather, John Howard. Morrison, like Howard, won’t die in an electoral ditch on principle. If an interventionist economic approach – JobKeeper payments, a Keynesian budget – is what separates victory from defeat, so be it. Perhaps that’s why neoliberals have become so thin on the ground inside the Coalition.

Even here, Errington and van Onselen demonstrate that Morrison is a better Liberal Party tactician (he was a director of the New South Wales branch) than traditional retail politicians like Howard. In short, Morrison had a plan to become prime minister, but not a plan once there. Nowhere was the man’s ill-preparedness for the depth of the job – the emotional intelligence required to be the nation’s leader – writ larger than in his mishandling of his first major test: the 2019–20 bushfires that claimed thirty-three lives and destroyed twenty-four million hectares. Holidaying in Hawaii, Morrison petulantly replied to calls for his early return with ‘I don’t hold a hose, mate’. His subsequent visit to burnt-out southern New South Wales looked contrived – just another PR stunt – especially when forcibly grabbing reluctant hands to shake. Yet Morrison has learnt from some (though not all) of those mistakes, and he has undoubtedly grown into the job during the pandemic.

Those events exposed another, darker side of Morrison: an easy willingness to avoid responsibility and to shift blame to others. Where is the contrition for the $1.2 billion Robodebt fiasco (designed under Morrison as Social Services minister), or the bungled water-buyback scheme? Where is the responsibility for the off-loading of the Ruby Princess, for his attacks on former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate, for the ‘sports rorts’ saga, for the tolerance shown MPs Craig Kelly and Andrew Laming? Indeed, when cornered, Morrison eschews the mea culpa and instead doubles down. Criticism is just chatter from ‘inside the Canberra bubble’, he says. The fact that Morrison buys into that sort of cheap populism also blots his legacy, as does his relationship with Donald Trump and his failure to condemn the outgoing president for the January riots.

It’s this surliness, the authors argue, that sees Morrison go after perceived enemies. Consequently, funding cuts to the ABC, to the Australian National Audit Office, and to universities simply look petulant. Moreover, when Covid first appeared, Morrison reassured us we’re all in this together. Before long, Victoria was castigated for its second wave, with Queensland and Western Australia – all Labor states – condemned for border closures. The New South Wales response, however, was described as ‘gold standard’.

Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen conclude that Morrison is still likely to win the next election. But had their book been scheduled for a couple of months later, enabling them to consider Brittany Higgins’s allegations, the Christian Porter saga, Holgate’s very public accusations, the behaviour of Craig Kelly and Andrew Laming, and, of course, what appears to be a bungled Covid vaccination process, their conclusion might have been very different. g

Paul D. Williams is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University.

Biography

The promise of the Bauhaus

A major biography of Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack

Seumas Spark

Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack: More than a Bauhaus artist

by Resi Schwarzbauer with Chris Bell

HistorySmiths $60 hb, 365 pp

With his founding of the Bauhaus in 1919, the German architect Walter Gropius proposed a radical reimagining of the arts and crafts. His manifesto outlined the principles for an institution that would unify architecture, art, and design, creating ‘a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavoured to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists!’ At the heart of this stirring vision was a world in which creativity was directed to practical ends, where function was a fundamental element of creative endeavour. Gropius’s call was both inspiring and timely, and it found ready devotees. In a continent savaged by four years of war, there was urgent need for a new way. Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Oskar Schlemmer were a few of the many who made their way to the German city of Weimar to work with Gropius and to help realise his vision.

Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, born in Frankfurt in 1893, was attracted by the promise of the Bauhaus as a model for art and life. He was already an artist, and military service in World War I had made him a pacifist. At the Bauhaus he could honour both commitments and join Gropius’s project to show society a path to harmony through art. As Resi Schwarzbauer shows powerfully in this rich book, Hirschfeld-Mack’s belief in Bauhaus principles henceforth remained steadfast. In 1919, he and his wife Elenor, along with Marga, their firstborn, moved to Weimar. He started as a student, learning under Klee. Later he graduated to a teaching position, guiding others in the use and theory of colour. His work with colour is among his most enduring legacies as an artist.

This is a biography of a Bauhäusler who in 1940 happened to

be deported to Australia on the Dunera, rather than of a ‘Dunera aiming for economy of material and form and, ultimately, the boy’ who happened to be a Bauhaus artist. It’s a key distinction, reform of society through art’. If Hirschfeld-Mack didn’t sucand a welcome one. The sculptor Erwin Fabian (1915–2020) ceed in reforming society, his other aims were realised gloriously, disliked being described as a Dunera artist, believing that the label and his students loved him for it. Soon Hirschfeld-Mack was prescribed the ways in which his life and art might be understood. taking the Bauhaus to students across Victoria, thanks in part The description would be similarly to the patronage of the art historian inappropriate for Hirschfeld-Mack, Joseph Burke, professor at Meland Schwarzbauer avoids the trap. bourne University, who recognised Hirschfeld-Mack’s wartime arrest in Ludwig’s talents and what could be Britain – made on the basis of his Ger- made of them. man nationality – and his subsequent While Hirschfeld-Mack’s profesinternment in Australia changed sional life flourished, there remained his life, but I doubt that his Dunera the pain of his continued separation experience was the defining event it from family in Europe. Schwarzbauer was for some of his fellow internees. writes tenderly of the love and deHe knew the world already, having votion with which Ello cared for endured the trenches of World War her bedridden mother in her father’s I and much other intolerable sadness, absence. But why did Hirschfeldincluding the death of his brother Mack leave this duty to Ello? By at Verdun in 1916 and the suicide 1953, when Elenor died, postwar of his daughter in 1938. He had felt West Germany was sufficiently the pain of separation, having lived stable that he could have returned apart from Elenor since 1936 when permanently. While the book shows he left Germany for Britain, a move that he had good reasons not to, one forced by his Jewish heritage. Elenor, possible reason for staying in Ausafflicted by multiple sclerosis, had tralia, and potentially the strongest, stayed behind. Internment confirmed isn’t discussed overtly. Shortly after what Hirschfeld-Mack understood Elenor’s death, Hirschfeld-Mack of despair and man’s capacity for married Olive Russell, whom he barbarism. His best-known work, a had known since his internment at woodcut print produced during his Tatura. She was one of many Quakconfinement in Australia, depicts a ers who worked tirelessly on behalf solitary figure looking through barbed of the Dunera internees, providing wire to the stars of the Southern Cross for their welfare and advocating and a vast night sky: this image, in its for their release. The book is coy on various versions, is sometimes known Untitled, 1941 by Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack whether an intimate relationship as Desolation. (reproduced courtesy of Chris Bell) with Olive blossomed before Elenor’s

If time in internment allowed death, but there are implicit clues Hirschfeld-Mack to reflect on the follies of man in pursuing to suggest it did. While such personal matters are not always war over peace, it also affirmed his belief in the universal role for the biographer, in this case there is reason to include them. of art in fostering unity and purpose. After nearly two years in The book dwells on Hirschfeld-Mack’s Christian faith and his internment, he was freed and given an unexpected chance to bring commitment to leading a moral, honourable life: that lens need the Bauhaus to Australia. In 1942, James Darling, headmaster not have precluded discussion of his foibles, if that’s what they of Geelong Grammar School, arranged for Hirschfeld-Mack’s were. Confirmation that he wasn’t a saint would add to what we release on the basis that he was needed for work of national im- know of his burdens and triumphs. portance: he would replace the school’s art teacher, who was on The centenary of the Bauhaus in 2019 prompted fresh war service. Geelong Grammar gave Hirschfeld-Mack a happy interest in those men and women whom Gropius inspired to and rewarding home for the next fifteen years. remake artistic practice. This important and profusely illustrated

Pedagogy was a vital element of his artistic practice: to foster biography, the first major work on Hirschfeld-Mack written in creativity, especially in the young, was almost a moral obligation. English, is a tribute to the enduring power and significance of Schwarzbauer devotes a significant portion of this book to his Bauhaus ideals and to a remarkable soul. Not one to seek acclaim, time at Geelong Grammar. Blessed with a decent salary and Hirschfeld-Mack privileged the importance of art and creativity comfortable living quarters – things he knew not to take for over the conceits of the individual. Nearly sixty years after his granted – Hirschfeld-Mack found time to experiment with meth- death, Schwarzbauer’s fine book gives him his due. g ods of learning and the application of Bauhaus principles. His philosophies, Schwarzbauer writes, ‘concentrated on liberating Seumas Spark is co-author of the two volume Dunera Lives creativity, assisting students in their journey of self-knowledge, (Monash University Publishing, 2018 and 2020).