2011.Q4 | Artonview 68 Summer 2011

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RENAISSANCE 9 DECEMBER TO 9 APRIL NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL

CANBERRA ONLY 9 DECEMBER 2011 – 9 APRIL 2012 TIMED TICKETS

NOW AND FOR THE FUTURE

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For accommodation packages call 1300 889 024 or see visitcanberra.com.au/renaissance Vittore Carpaccio Birth of Mary (Nascita di Maria) c 1502–04, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

The exhibition is organised in partnership with the City of Bergamo and its Pinacoteca Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

Giovanni Bellini Madonna and Child c 1475–1476, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

ENJOY CHANDON RESPONSIBLY

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© National Gallery of Australia 2011

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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.

EXHIBITIONS

EDITOR Eric Meredith DESIGNER Kristin Thomas PHOTOGRAPHY by the National Gallery of Australia Photography Department unless otherwise stated RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Nick Nicholson PRINTER Blue Star Print, Melbourne PREVIOUS ISSUES nga.gov.au/Artonview ISSN 1323‑4552 PRINT POST APPROVED pp255003/00078 RRP A$9.95 | FREE TO MEMBERS MEMBERSHIP membership@nga.gov.au | nga.gov.au/ Members TEL (02) 6240 6528 FAX (02) 6270 6480 WARNING Artonview may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now deceased.

The Renaissance: an age of learning, the arts, politics and patronage Simeran Maxwell

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National Indigenous Art Triennial: celebrating contemporary Indigenous arts Franchesca Cubillo

ENQUIRIES copyright@nga.gov.au Produced by the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department

Director’s word

FEATURES

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Creative play: activity rooms at the National Gallery Katie Russell

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Domestic bliss and a hole in the head: conserving two paintings

by Charles Hill Sharon Alcock and Sheridan Roberts

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100 Works for 100 Years: toward Canberra’s centenary Maryanne Voyazis

ACQUISITIONS

24 John Wilson Carmichael The rescue of William D’Oyly 25 Tony Tuckson Red on blue and white 26 Yimam people Yipwon 28 Fiona Foley Stud Gins 29 Danie Mellor A Transcendent Vision (of life, death and resurrection) 30 George Fordyce Story Esther and Emma Mather 31 Bill Viola Passage into night 32 David Barclay and Joseph Forrester Salver 33 Les Blakebrough ceramics 34 GW Bot Garden of Gethsemane REGULARS

(cover) Giovan Battista Moroni Portrait of a child of the house of Redetti c 1570 oil on canvas 43.3 x 33.2 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

35 Travelling exhibitions 36 Creative partnerships 37 News from the Foundation 38 Thank you … 39 Members news

Director’s word Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo opens on 9 December. This is a landmark exhibition for Australia. Not only is it the first time that paintings by many of these early Italian artists will be shown in Australia, but it is also impossible to fully understand Australia’s European cultural tradition without understanding what occurred in the Renaissance in Europe, particularly in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Renaissance is widely known as a golden age, an age of rebirth, an age in which learning and the arts flourished as never before. While most Australians recognise Botticelli, Raphael, Titian and others as famous Italian painters, there has never been an exhibition in Australia that concentrated on Italian Renaissance painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

From time to time, we have seen sixteenth-century late Renaissance Italian paintings in exhibitions in Australia, but never an exhibition that concentrates on the Italian Renaissance itself, and never one that included well-known fifteenth-century early Renaissance masters such as Botticelli, Bellini and Mantegna, and less well-known names such as Perugino, Crivelli, Vivarni

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and Carpaccio. Renaissance also includes paintings by sixteenth-century artists such as Raphael (never seen here before), Titian, Lotto, Palma il Vecchio, Bassano and Moroni.

Each year, millions of tourists from around the world flock to Italy to see fragile, priceless works by these artists. Nearly all these tourists, who include 900 000 Australians, visit the art galleries and churches. Those 900 000 Australians will be delighted to be reacquainted on their own ground with the great Italian Renaissance art they have seen in Italy. But important to us at the National Gallery are the Australians who have not been to Italy, who cannot afford to travel to see the paintings in the birthplace of the Renaissance but can afford to come to Canberra. People in Australia have a unique opportunity to treasure these masterpieces firsthand for the first time here. Among them are thousands of students. As a boy growing up in Warragul in country Victoria, I could never have dreamt of seeing in Australia an original Raphael, Bellini or Botticelli.

That is what especially thrills me about this exhibition.

We are immensely grateful to Italy and in particular to the Accademia Carrara and the City of Bergamo for allowing these

treasures to travel all the way to Australia.

They have never lent so many outside Italy and Europe before. Major international exhibitions are extremely costly and cannot be staged in Australia without generous sponsors, particularly the Exhibition Partner San Remo. There are also our Presenting Partners the Nine Network and National Australia Bank. The Gallery acknowledges the Australian Government, which has indemnified the exhibition through the Australian Government International Exhibitions Insurance program, and above all we are grateful to the ACT Government for their support. I wish also to acknowledge Exhibition Patron the Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer, a member of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia who has supported exhibitions in the past.

Renaissance will also include a family activity room with plenty of engaging activities to promote greater understanding of this important period of art in young Australians. This popular education initiative is generously supported by Baillieu and Sarah Myer’s Yulgilbar Foundation, which has also committed its support to the next three summer family activity rooms.

On 3 November, we announced that Wesfarmers has become the National

The Hon Simon Crean MP, Minister for the Arts, Sam Walsh, Rio Tinto’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Iron Ore, Lyn Williams, widow and manager of the Fred Williams estate, Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery, and Rupert Myer, Chairman of the National Gallery’s Council, in front of a 1963 photograph by David Moore of Fred Williams in the bush garden at Upwey.

Gallery of Australia’s Indigenous Art Partner and will be supporting the next National Indigenous Art Triennial, which opens in May 2012 and is curated

by Carly Lane from Western Australia.

In 2009, Wesfarmers committed to the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship, a National Gallery of Australia program aimed at encouraging and developing arts professionals among the nation’s Indigenous population. We are very pleased that Wesfarmers continues to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders art and professional development.

The retrospective Fred Williams: infinite horizons was a great popular success at the Gallery. Over 60 000 people visited the exhibition during its brief season at the Gallery. The work of this innovative Australian landscape painter tours in 2012 to Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria, from 7 April to 22 July, and the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide, from 31 August to 4 November.

The Gallery’s exhibition Out of the West: art of Western Australia has been well attended and continues into next year. I encourage visitors to see it, as it may be some time before there is another Western Australian art survey exhibition on this grand scale outside Western Australia.

Good strong powerful, currently on display in our Australian galleries, will continue until 15 January. A new children’s exhibition, Play, will open in early February and is sure to excite young visitors and the young at heart.

We launched a new fundraising campaign, 100 Works for 100 Years, on Wednesday 26 October at the National Gallery’s Council and Foundation Dinner.

The campaign aims to acquire one hundred works in recognition of the centenary of the national capital in 2013. Major works will be strategically acquired to strengthen all areas of the collection. I encourage Australians from every state and territory to contribute to this new initiative to celebrate not only Canberra but also one hundred years of building our nation.

Two interesting colonial paintings from South Australia by Charles Hill, purchased in 2008, The back garden c 1870 and Selfportrait 1850s, have recently been revived by the Gallery’s expert conservators. In this issue of Artonview, Sharon Alcock and Sheridan Roberts outline some of the processes and challenges of preparing these works for display in our Australian galleries.

A number of important gifts were recently donated to the Gallery under the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Among these generous gifts were

those by Aboriginal artists Fiona Foley and Danie Mellor, ceramicist Les Blakebrough, visionary benefactors James and Jacqui Erskine and the Gallery’s Council Chairman Rupert Myer. All are featured in this issue of Artonview.

The Gallery also purchased The rescue of William D’Oyly 1841, a dramatic painting by British marine painter John Wilson Carmichael, as well as an exquisite Tasmanian silver salver by Barclay and Forrester from around 1833 and a delicate and intimate double portrait photograph by George Fordyce Story from around 1859. An early twentieth-century Yipwon sculpture was one of the acquisitions of deftly carved wooden hook-form sculptures from the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea.

A group of works by Canberra-based artist GW Bot were also recently acquired with the generous assistance of the artist—Garden of Gethsemane 2000 is featured in this issue.

Ron Radford AM

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Neroccio de’ Landi Madonna and Child c 1470–75 (detail) tempera and gold on wood panel 58 x 43.5 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo bequest of Giovanni Morelli, 1891

THE RENAISSANCE an age of learning, the arts, politics and patronage Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo 9 December 2011 – 9 April 2012 | renaissance.nga.gov.au

The Renaissance is a popular period in art history, and for good reason. Beyond the big names such as Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian and Botticelli, however, the Italian Renaissance is not well understood, particularly outside of its birthplace in Europe. Unfortunately, no public collection in Australia holds significant numbers of Renaissance works which means that, up until now, Australians have had to travel overseas to see and learn about these masterpieces.

Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo will, therefore, delight visitors to Canberra this summer when it opens on 9 December. The main element to attract viewers will be the stunning beauty of more than 70 works and the skill of the artists who made them.

The exhibition will also show some of the relationships between the Catholic Church, the donors of the paintings, the artists’ patrons and the artists themselves. These relationships shifted as the Renaissance moved away from the prevailing Gothic

period in its early stages in the 1400s and into the High Renaissance in the 1500s.

Many aspects of art changed during the Renaissance, including style, technique, medium and subject matter.

This illuminating exhibition, however, also reveals the other variations in the development of Renaissance art—most notably the variation in size of the paintings and the purposes for which they were created.

From around 1400, during what is now known as the early Renaissance, there was a move away from the style of the preceding Gothic period. Artists began to experiment with perspective, with fuller rounded figures replacing earlier flat forms and with more detailed backgrounds instead of the large blocks of gold of the previous era. Audiences in Canberra will see the lingering influences of that major period in many of the paintings in the first rooms of the exhibition. Works such as Neroccio de’ Landi’s Madonna and Child c 1470–75 demonstrate the Gothic penchant for gilded backgrounds, flattened forms and

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figures. The work is presented in its original gold frame, a feature that extends into the composition’s field of gold surrounding the Madonna and Child.

Neroccio worked only in Siena, an artistic centre with strong conservative traditions. Gothic elements remained strongly embedded long after painting styles elsewhere in central and northern Italy embraced the innovations of the Renaissance. In Neroccio’s Madonna and Child, physical features are generalised and idealised, with the Madonna’s elegant fingers impossibly elongated. Yet the two figures reveal the new intimacy of the early Renaissance: the Child seems to bless his mother, not us, and to look up at her in that startled manner of babies suddenly

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becoming aware of their surroundings.

His Mother glances down, perhaps past Him, with a melancholy air that appears to signal a foreboding, even foreknowledge, of His fate. Moreover, their bodies turn in the picture space, implying movement, unlike the static frontal poses typical of the earlier Gothic style.

In contrast to Siena’s traditional and conservative approach, numerous other artistic centres—including Florence, Milan and Venice—encouraged their artists to experiment. Court painters were often sent by patrons to northern Europe to learn new techniques to bring back to Italy. One of the most important of these innovations to influence the art of the Italian Renaissance was the medium in which artists worked.

The earliest works in the exhibition, such as Neroccio’s Madonna and Child, typify the traditional practice of painting in tempera on wood panel. The later works, however, demonstrate the adoption of oil painting and the preference for canvas as a support.

As with any period of change, no clean and decisive break occurred between old and new, and works from around the turn of the sixteenth century demonstrate this: some remained true to the old medium, some were painted in oil on wood panel and others completely shifted to oil on canvas.

Alongside innovations in style and medium, Renaissance artists took a renewed interest in the art of the Classical past and, in particular, incorporated visual elements of Classical architecture into

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their pictorial repertoire. For instance, in Giorgio Schiavone’s two long, narrow panels from the mid 1400s depicting Saint Jerome and Saint Alexis, the artist portrays the figures within Classical architectural elements. The layout is most striking: a powerful and compact structure in the style of Antiquity, reminiscent of a triumphal arch with its thick pillars, barrel vault and carved mouldings, is set against the limpid glow of a dry, empty landscape that extends into the distance.

Schiavone had a very particular interest in the construction of this work and infrared reflectography shows that a network of measurements, converging lines and meticulous squaring fill the architectural sections in an orderly web.

By revisiting Classical texts and theories, the Renaissance also saw the rise of the ideas of Humanism. As a consequence, Renaissance art saw a shift toward the importance of the individual as opposed the patronage and imagery of the Church. This exhibition charts this, once again, gradual change in subject matter, as individual portraits took the place of religious themes. Patrons were no longer satisfied as diminutive inclusions below the main image of the divine figures in paintings; instead, they themselves became the main subjects.

Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a young man c 1500 is a beautiful example of this new secular subject matter. Against a dark, almost black, background, Lotto has rendered the plump angelic face of a boy not long past adolescence. The smooth oval-faced youth has an ambiguous expression and the artist has used a disconcerting simplicity and purity of line to achieve a painting of remarkable power.

A slender balustrade in light-coloured stone closes the pictorial space at the bottom of the painting.

Another equally interesting portrait demonstrates the sometimes outrageous fashions of the Renaissance. Cavazzola’s Portrait of a lady c 1515–17 is not only remarkable for its size but also for the imposing presence of the young woman whose figure dominates the picture. Great attention was given to every element of her dress, which is typical of a Northern Italian Renaissance gentlewoman: magnificent

deep red and gold gown, cuffed gloves placed on the parapet, white chemise edged in red picot. The most arresting element, however, is the hairstyle known as a capigliara, which consists of a framework with ribbons and locks of false hair placed at the back of the head, over the woman’s own hair scraped back and neatly parted in the centre.

Apart from the Catholic Church, several important families helped shape the artistic output of the cities they ruled.

Along with the famous banking family of Medici, who ruled Florence off and on throughout the Renaissance, other prominent and influential dynasties included the Sforza family, who controlled the Duchy of Milan in the north of Italy.

Members of these families often married royalty from other parts of Europe to cement and increase their power and wealth. Male members of these influential lineages also sometimes became pope, blurring the lines between Church and State to the advantage of their families.

With their power and wealth, these ruling elites became arbiters of artistic style, and many of the artists in the exhibition relied almost exclusively on the patronage of such families.

One of the smallest but most beautiful works in the exhibition was commissioned by the Sforza family. Six tarot cards from a pack of 78 are among the most precious objects to survive from the Milanese court of Francesco Sforza. The tarot cards, or tarocchi, were invented to play with at moments of leisure or as an escape from boredom. They reflect courtly fashion in every detail of their heraldry and the sumptuous golden decoration. The presence of the dove, the crown, the laurel and the palm, insignia of both the Sforza and Visconti families, suggests that the pack was made at the time when the two families were united. Francesco Sforza, who had exclusive right to the emblem of three interlaced diamond rings which are prominent on certain cards, may have commissioned the pack for his marriage to Bianca Maria Visconti.

As well as such frivolous works, many devotional images were also commissioned by private individuals. Large altarpieces

(pages 6–7) Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of a young man c 1500 oil on wood panel 34.2 x 27.9 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

Cavazzola Portrait of a lady c 1515–17 oil on canvas 96.4 x 74.2 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo bequest of Giovanni Morelli, 1891

Carlo Crivelli Madonna and Child c 1482–83 tempera and gold on wood panel 45.9 x 33.6 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

(opposite) Lorenzo Monaco The Man of Sorrows c 1405 tempera and gold on wood panel 34.2 x 24 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo bequest of Giovanni Morelli, 1891

(above) Bonifacio Bembo King of cups 1440s tempera and gold on paper laid on card 17.6 x 8.7 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo bequest of Count Francesco Baglione, 1900

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Giorgio Schiavone Saint Jerome c 1458–60 tempera on wood panel 118.7 x 40.4 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

Ambrogio Bergognone Saint Martha c 1515 oil and gold on wood panel 120.4 x 44.1 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo bequest of Giovanni Morelli, 1891

clearly proclaimed a donor’s wealth and importance, but smaller devotional panels were also very popular. Lorenzo Monaco’s c 1405 image of Christ as the Man of Sorrows shows the physical effects of His Crucifixion. It presents a vision of Christ that had become increasingly important during the Middle Ages, when His suffering became the focus of contemplation, especially for private devotion. The Christ figure, who is both living and dead, is portrayed from the waist up, emerging from the tomb with black bands indicating the Cross behind Him. This type of image is again found in the sixteenth century, but with less gold and a more accurate rendering of the features of Christ. Small-scale devotional paintings such as Andrea Solario’s Ecce homo c 1503– 05 were meant not only to be seen but also experienced. Empathy with the suffering Christ featured prominently in religious life during the Renaissance. With the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, mystical and religious texts, abridged and translated, became enormously popular as manuals for private devotion. In art, devotional images generally took the form of the single figure of Christ viewed close-up against a dark background. Isolated from a narrative context, the dramatic presentation focused not on action but the interaction between the work of art and the worshipper. The goal was to arouse pity or compassion so that the viewer might vicariously experience Christ’s suffering.

Between the two extremes of the intensely devotional and resolutely secular sits a group of works that incorporate the likeness of the painting’s donors with divine figures. In recognition of their earthbound status, however, donors are often shown kneeling below, smaller than their celestial counterparts. Traditionally, donors evoked

their name saints as intermediaries; this is wonderfully evident in Previtali’s Madonna and Child with Saint Paul, Saint Agnes and the Cassotti donors c 1520 in which Saint Paul and Saint Agnes mirror the donors Paolo and Agnese Cassotti. The painting is a sumptuous mass of brilliant colour and glorious fabric. It comes as no surprise, then, to discover the Cassottis’ business was textiles. The painting is also a powerful statement on the status of the rising Italian middle class during the Renaissance.

The art of the Renaissance is exquisite in its detail and technique and can be appreciated today as much as when first made around 500–600 years ago. However, in the twenty-first century some of the detailed elements within the works require some interpretation for the unfamiliar and the non-religious. Almost all works in the exhibition are richly layered with symbolism. Even a simple image of the Madonna and Child is not simply what it might appear to a modern viewer. In Crivelli’s Madonna and Child c 1482–83, for instance, an ornately dressed Mary is crowned Queen of Heaven. She holds her Son protectively with elegant hands, head tilted towards Him as He nestles into her.

The painting, however, is actually much more complicated: the cucumber is a sign of the Resurrection—after three days and nights in the belly of the whale, Jonah awoke beneath a bower of pumpkins or cucumbers; the cherry, a symbol of sweetness, refers to the joy of Heaven; the red carnation, representing ardent nuptial love, refers to Mary in her role as ‘the bride’ of Christ and the personification of the Church; and finally the landscape background, arid on the right and plentiful on the left, might represent the suffering of the world before it was reborn with the Incarnation or perhaps the cycle of the

seasons and, hence, the divine presence in all phases of human existence.

Other works use once familiar stories from the book The golden legend as their cue. Compiled around 1210 by Jacobus de Voragine, the book is a collection of the lives of saints. It became a late medieval bestseller and the tales were extremely well known to contemporary viewers of Renaissance paintings. Bergognone’s rare depiction of Saint Martha, or Martha of Bethany, is a fine example. As the patron saint of domestic labourers and housewives, Martha is often represented carrying out household duties but here the artist has taken inspiration from de Voragine’s famous stories. In the version recounted in The golden legend, following the death of Christ, Martha, with her sister Mary Magdalene and brother Lazarus, travelled to Marseilles in France. There, she rescued the people of Aix from a menacing dragon by sprinkling it with holy water. In Bergognone’s panel from c 1515, Martha holds a brass aspersory and uses the branch in her right hand as an aspergillum to sprinkle holy water onto the serpent writhing under her foot.

Bergognone carefully renders the beast’s scaly underbelly and he echoes the coiled tail in his rendering of the folds of the saint’s mantle.

Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo will be on show only in Canberra from 9 December 2011 to 9 April 2012.

Make sure you don’t miss this exciting opportunity to see beautiful paintings, which will provide a better understanding of why Italian Renaissance art is still so very popular and important.

Simeran Maxwell Exhibition Assistant for Renaissance

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Michael Cook Bidjara people Broken Dreams #3 2010 inkjet print 125 x 100 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2011

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL celebrating contemporary Indigenous arts When it was established in 2007, the National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia had two distinct priorities. First, the triennial would showcase the very best contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art from across the continent. Second, it would provide an opportunity for an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander curator to take the helm and to determine the focus and content of the exhibition, selecting artists who are working at the highest level within their art practice. In this way, the voice and statement of the triennial would be strategically Indigenous.

The inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial, Cultural Warriors, curated by then senior curator Brenda L Croft, invited 30 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to participate. The artists originated from remote communities, regional centres and major cities, and the comprehensive exhibition was developed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and

Islander Day Observance Committee) and the 25th anniversary of the National Gallery of Australia.

In 2011, the National Gallery of Australia welcomed Carly Lane as curator of the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial.

Lane is a Kalkadoon woman from north Queensland, although she has spent most of her professional career in Perth, Western Australia. She initially became interested in working in this sector because of a personal desire to be involved in preserving and facilitating access to Australia’s oldest continuing art practice and culture. As she embarked on her career, she discovered within herself a growing awareness and appreciation of the beauty, diversity and power of Indigenous art and its multiple expression across time, medium and region.

For Lane, her career allows her to truly celebrate, acknowledge and participate in developing a greater understanding of the depth and complexity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.

Lane has worked as a Research Assistant, Assistant Curator and Curator at several

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state and national institutions, including the Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia and Art Gallery of Western Australia. Her career highlights include being the inaugural curator and judge for the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award in 2008 and preselector and judge for the 26th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2009.

Lane is also currently a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Western Australia. This experience and knowledge now comes to bear on the second National Indigenous Art Triennial.

Over 18 months, Lane travelled extensively across Australia, meeting and talking with artists, curators and institutions about what has been occurring in the Australian Indigenous arts sector in different parts of the country. This regionally focussed research provided Lane with a vital professional development opportunity and enabled important conversations with artists to occur. Through

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this process and in consultation with curators at the National Gallery, Lane selected 20 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists who are working at the cutting-edge of contemporary art: Vernon Ah Kee (Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji/Waanyi/Gugu Yimithirr, Qld), Tony Albert (Girramay, Qld), Bob Burruwal (Rembarrnga, NT), Lena Yarinkura (Rembarrnga/Kune, NT), Lorraine Connelly-Northey (Waradgerie, Vic), Michael Cook (Bidjara, Qld), Nici Cumpston (Barkindji, SA), Fiona Foley (Badtjala, Qld), Gunybi Ganambarr (Datiwuy, NT), Julie Gough (Trawlwoolway, Vic), Lindsay Harris (Nyoongar, WA), Jonathan Jones (Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi, NSW), Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda (Sally Gabori) (Kayardild/Kaiadilt, Qld), Danie Mellor (Mamu/Ngagen/Ngajan, Qld), Naata Nungurrayi (Pintupi, WA), Maria Josette Orsto (Tiwi, NT), Christian Bumbarra Thompson (Bidjara, SA), Alick Tipoti (Kala Lagaw Ya, TSI, Qld), Daniel Walbidi (Mangala/Yulparija, WA) and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu (Gumatj, NT).

These artists operate independently

of each other and yet share many things in common. They engage in a discourse that is about Indigenous authorship.

Sometimes these statements are blatant and obvious while others are subtle and sublime. Each one has their own methodology of communication, sometimes it is digital-based, sometimes organic and sometimes synthetic—it is, of course, a representation of the many manifestations of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The title for the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial is unDisclosed and alludes to the way in which information is communicated

by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and within Indigenous communities, particularly through art. Many elements in Indigenous art—whether it is the story, cultural knowledge or obligation to elements of design or representation—are inaccessible or not revealed to viewers for various reasons.

However, it is the discourse about knowledge that reveals an important aspect about Indigenous art. That is, the power is given back to the artist, who has the right to inform the

Alick Tipoti Kala Lagaw Ya people Koedal Baydham Adhaz Parw (Crocodile Shark) mask 2010 fibreglass, synthetic polymer paint, Cassowary feathers, feathers, raffia and seeds 130 x 300 x 70 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2010

Naata Nungurrayi Pintupi people Wilkinkarralakutu—Journeys to Lake Mackay 2010 syntheitc polymer paint on linen 122 x 122 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2010

viewer as much or as little as desired. The artist is the one to decide what level of information or access is disclosed to the viewer.

On 3 November, the Gallery announced that Western Australian-based company Wesfarmers joined as the Principal Partner for the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial. This relationship builds on the existing partnership between Wesfarmers and the Gallery for the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship, consolidating Wesfarmers as the major patron for Indigenous art and Indigenous professional development at the National Gallery.

The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship comprises two programs: one offers ten Indigenous Australians the opportunity to participate in a ten-day arts leadership program every year; the other is offered every two years and gives two mid-career professionals the opportunity to undertake a focused project at the National Gallery of Australia over a two-year period.

In 2010, Jirra Lulla Harvey and Glenn Iseger-Pilkington were the two successful candidates to receive the inaugural

Fellowships valued at $50 000. Harvey holds a Media and Communications Degree and has experience as a journalist and arts writer. Her project is focused on the development of the Gallery’s Indigenous marketing strategy for the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial. Iseger-Pilkington holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) and is currently employed as the Curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. His project involves the development of a digital-based interactive application specifically related to the triennial and designed for mobile devices.

Both of these projects will provide the Gallery with a significant model that will be drawn upon and modified each triennial.

The participants in the arts leadership program for 2011 will also be provided with the opportunity to experience the arts sector at a national level. They will forge a stronger network for the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship program, which will in turn strengthen the sector. The recipients this year are Ruby Alderton, Sharon Nampijimpa Anderson, Victoria Doble,

Georgia Mokak, Suzanne Barron, Zena Cumpston, Vivian Warlapinn Kerinauia, Bradley Harkin, Jack Jans and Robert Appo.

The Gallery’s commitment to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts sector and the development of Indigenous workers in this country is unparalleled.

The vision, leadership and dedication to these important areas are evident in both the National Indigenous Art Triennial and Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship.

These valuable projects and other initiatives of the National Gallery of Australia will continue to impact on the future of Indigenous art in Australia.

When unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial opens in May 2012, it will showcase not only the art of 20 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists but also the curatorial rigour of Carly Lane and the strategic projects of Glenn Iseger-Pilkington and Jirra Lulla Harvey.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

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CREATIVE PLAY activity rooms at the National Gallery

Looking at a work of art is wonderful at any age; making something in response to a work of art can evoke a deep and enduring connection. Such experiences are carried far beyond the event itself and reinforce the pleasure and rewards of engaging in cultural pursuits. For children—the artists, curators, educators and viewing public now and in the future—opportunities to connect with art in meaningful ways have lasting impact.

Over the summer of 2008–09 the National Gallery of Australia included a specially designed family activity room within Degas: master of French art. The public response to this initiative was overwhelmingly positive. The Gallery has embraced the value of these participative spaces, and in 2011 support from The Yulgilbar Foundation now underpins the 16 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

ongoing development of family activity rooms for major exhibitions.

Degas lent itself to performance-based activities, in particular, to behind-the-scenes at the ballet as well as jockeys preparing to race. Costumes, music from the period and stage lighting enhanced visitor immersion in the exhibition’s themes. By manipulating articulated wooden figures, visitors were able to experiment with drawing horses and people in motion.

The painting Van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles 1889 was the catalyst for the design of the family room for Masterpieces from Paris during the summer of 2009–10. The furniture and objects depicted in the painting were carefully reconstructed and placed within a painted room. Visitors could experience the way the artist transformed an intimate and

familiar space into a painting. Objects from still life paintings by Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin were also sourced to allow visitors to compose, observe and draw their own still-life arrangement. On another wall, children constructed the stars, originally painted by van Gogh, to complete his vision of a starry night.

The concepts of colour, shape and pattern informed the development of the family room for Ballets Russes: the art of costume. The groundbreaking set and costume designs by avant-garde artists Natalia Goncharova and Léon Bakst, the radical music of composers such as Stravinsky and Debussy and the choreography of Nijinsky and Fokine lent themselves to activities based on the elements necessary to stage a ballet. Removable coloured tape on an angled wall provided a

Activity rooms at the National Gallery of Australia: (from left) Fred Williams, Degas, Ballets Russes and Masterpieces from Paris.

space and the means for visitors to create lifesize geometric designs and spatial illusions.

Oversized foam shapes covered in coloured fabric were worn by visitors around waists, arms and legs to alter the natural symmetry and movement of the body. Serge Diaghilev’s artistic intention for the Ballets Russes, to surprise and alter the way an audience viewed the relationship between the dancers on stage and the design of the set, became an activity for visitors to engage in.

Fred Williams: infinite horizons, with its focus on the Australian landscape, inspired the creation of a very different activity room.

Staged during winter and spring 2011, the retrospective required an interactive space for visitors of all ages. Williams’s painting The studio 1977 and photographs of the artist’s working environment were utilised in the

development of the room. Activities explored the creation of paintings that were based on his painting excursions into the landscape.

Images of landscapes and details of trees, rocks and leaves, accompanied by the sounds of birds and other noises, were projected onto three screens to simulate Williams’s outdoor experiences. Drawing materials were provided to make the connection with Williams’s sketching process. Inside the studio worktables and chairs, an easel and painting racks provided an opportunity for visitors to understand the lengthy creative process behind the artist’s body of work displayed in the exhibition.

The family activity room designed for Renaissance evokes the harmony of classically inspired architecture combined with Carpaccio's interior domestic scene

Birth of Mary c 1502–04. The room provides visitors with the opportunity to explore the illusion of one-point perspective, construct and place buildings in a Renaissance landscape and draw themselves in the portrait styles of the period.

Jo Krabman, early childhood specialist and National Gallery Program Coordinator, Family and Schools, articulates the guiding philosophy of the family activity rooms in the following statement: ‘The family activity rooms create a magical space to engage with the themes of an exhibition. The experience should be inspiring and uplifting. A space to learn through creative play’.

Adriane Boag Educator, Youth and Community Programs, and Katie Russell Manager, Public Programs

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 17

Charles Hill The back garden c 1870 oil on millboard 57.5 x 48.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2008

The original vibrancy of the work returned as the stained varnish was removed.

DOMESTIC BLISS AND A HOLE IN THE HEAD conserving two paintings by Charles Hill Charles Hill (1824–1916) was an English painter and engraver who arrived in South Australia in 1854 and soon found work in Adelaide as an art teacher. In 1856, he established the South Australian School of Design and initiated a meeting of ‘friends of the Arts’ to form the South Australian Society of Arts. He also began importing art materials, which were difficult to obtain in the colony. Hill was Art Master of the South Australian School of Design until 1881.

He painted primarily genre and narrative subjects but also portraits, for which he won numerous prizes. The National Gallery of Australia acquired three of Hill’s works in 2008, one genre painting and two portraits, which have recently received conservation treatment.

The back garden c 1870 is unusual for two reasons: the subject of the work and the painting support. Pottering about in the back garden is not a common theme in

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Australian paintings of around this time but, here, Hill painted his wife Eliza and two of their eight children enjoying an early summer’s day in Adelaide. Henrietta is knitting and another child is helping her mother water the garden. The copper is lit in the outside laundry and the washing is on the line. Gardening tools and a small dog add further charm to the atmosphere of contented domesticity.

Analysis of the painting revealed that the Winsor & Newton millboard support was prepared with a double-chalk ground rather than the customary oil ground. Chalk grounds are porous and water-soluble and present implications for treating the work with aqueous solutions. They are also more brittle than oil grounds. The Winsor & Newton label on the work dates the board to between 1841 and 1857, indicating that it would have been between 13 and 27 years old when Hill executed this painting.

Underdrawing and changes in composition detected during infrared examination show that the work was not a spontaneous sketch. Traces of old, natural resin varnish imply that he may have varnished the work himself. Perhaps he began this intimate picture simply to use up an old board, keeping it as a meaningful family memento.

When it arrived at the Gallery, the painting was marred by a deeply discoloured varnish layer, and residues of original varnish ingrained in the paint further darkened the surface. The top varnish was removed with a solvent mixture and the older residues required the use of a solvent gel. Damaged corners of the support were stabilised, an isolating varnish layer applied and a little retouching carried out.

This straightforward treatment restored the vibrancy of the work and the feeling of being outdoors on a fine day.

The two portraits arrived dirty, torn

and obscured by discoloured varnish.

Intriguingly, one portrait had a hole through its head and the other a hole through its heart. Both portraits were probably painted before Hill left England in 1854—the barely legible canvas stamp of a stationer from Church Street, Kensington, on Self-portrait supports this view. The paintings, therefore, are well-travelled, coming from England to Adelaide with the artist and being shipped to various parts of Australia as they were passed down through successive generations of Hill’s family.

Given its age and history, the condition of Self-portrait was unsurprising. In the past, paintings in such poor condition would almost always be lined, a process that involves removing a canvas from its stretcher, flattening it and adhering it onto a new piece of canvas. Such an intervention can lead to flattened paint and impasto as well as staining and darkening of the paint. Nowadays, conservators attempt to minimise intervention, treating each particular problem separately to leave the painting in as original a condition as possible. For this reason, Self-portrait has been left on its original stretcher as removal and re-stretching would have involved the loss of an original component and may have also damaged the old, brittle canvas.

The surface was cleaned in stages to remove the top layer of dirt first, followed by the paint splashes and varnish. The prominent position of the hole in the canvas presented the most challenging aspect of the treatment, but fortunately a torn piece of canvas on the turnover edge could be used as a patch. Threads of the patch were painstakingly matched to threads at the edges of the tear to reestablish the integrity of the support. The loss was then filled and retouched to restore visual coherence. Treatment on the second portrait is continuing.

The conservation treatments on the Hill paintings, which varied in complexity and approach, are typical of the ongoing work carried out by Gallery conservators to provide enhanced access to and enjoyment of the collection.

Sharon Alcock and Sheridan Roberts Paintings Conservators

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I

Charles Hill Self-portrait 1850s oil on canvas 61 x 48.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2008

Details of the tear (from top) before treatment, after insertion of the patch and after filling the gap.

Paul Pfeiffer Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse #15 2004 digital colour photograph 121.9 x 152.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Annabel and Rupert Myer AM in honour of the staff of the National Gallery of Australia, 2011 donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

100 WORKS FOR 100 YEARS toward Canberra’s centenary Celebrate the national capital’s centenary and the unfolding story of Australia’s visual culture by participating in the 100 Works for 100 Years campaign. To be involved or for more information, contact Maryanne Voyazis on +61 2 6240 6691 or at maryanne.voyazis@nga.gov.au.

The 100 Works for 100 Years campaign is an exciting new fundraising initiative of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation. Developed to commemorate Canberra’s centenary in 2013, the campaign aims to build the national art collection by raising funds for the acquisition of 100 important works of art, one for each year of Canberra’s existence.

As the nation’s capital, Canberra is a tangible symbol of nationhood and the federation of its states and territories.

The National Gallery of Australia sits proudly in the centre of Canberra and tells the story of our nation through the visual arts. The mission of the Gallery is to create a dynamic and comprehensive visual record of the art of Australia, our region and the world. 100 Works for 100 Years seeks to increase representation of the art and artists of each Australian state and territory as well as art from other collecting 22 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

areas, including Asian art, Pacific art and European and American art.

In its relatively short history, the National Gallery of Australia has been fortunate to have had a very high level of support from corporate and private benefactors. Individual donors have often come together to assist with the acquisition of major works of art for the national art collection. This collective engagement of donors has a powerful impact on the Gallery’s ability to build the collection in significant ways for the benefit of all Australians.

Between 2007 and 2009, the 25th Anniversary Gift program raised in excess of $26 million and supported the acquisition of 13 major works of art. In conjunction with the opening of the Stage 1 galleries in October 2010, the Founding Donors 2010 campaign funded the acquisition of 11 works of

art, predominantly for display in the new Aboriginal and Torres Islander galleries.

The annual Masterpieces for the Nation Fund and Members Acquisition Fund campaigns also serve as examples of the collective engagement of donors and Gallery members in the acquisition of important works of art.

The story told through the national art collection is distinct among Australian collections, and we hope you will be inspired to contribute to this story at this special time in the history of Canberra and the nation. Your participation will continue to build the legacy of the visual arts in Australia for the benefit of generations of Australians to come.

Maryanne Voyazis Executive Director, National Gallery of Australia Foundation

FEATURE | ARTONVIEW 23

John Wilson Carmichael

The rescue of William D’Oyly 1841, oil on canvas, 70 x 105 cm, purchased 2010

The rescue of William D’Oyly 1841 is a finely painted view of a tropical paradise bathed in a warm golden glow. It includes a hazy sky, shimmering water, exotic vegetation and mountains, conveying the visual experience of intense tropical heat. It is the earliest known depiction in oil of the Queensland landscape and the first European image of the Torres Strait Islands; and it tells the dramatic story of two ‘lost’ boys.

The story had captivated the nineteenth-century British public, who learnt about it in news reports. The ship Charles Eaton, an English bark, had been wrecked in 1834 en route from Sydney to Canton. Two months after setting out, it struck a reef near the entrance to the Torres Strait and sank. It was at first thought that everyone on board had perished but, almost two years later, rumours of survivors had begun to circulate. Late in 1836, a young boy, William D’Oyly, the son of a captain in the Bengal Artillery, and a teenager (a former cabin boy), John Ireland, were discovered on

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Murray Island. It is said that that they had been sold to a Murray Islander, and that when they were found they both were in good health, and it is reported that D’Oyly wept for days at being parted from his Murray Island family.

John Wilson Carmichael (1800–1868) was one of the foremost nineteenth-century British marine painters. He never travelled to the Torres Strait, but he painted a number of imagined scenes of exotic places such as this.

Here, he depicted the moment when the boys were rescued from the island. The recovery vessel, the Isabella, a Sydney-based schooner, lies in wait in the distance, while in the shallows a large group of Murray Islanders crowd onto a barge, holding the pale young William D’Oyly high above their heads. Carmichael conveyed both the joyous recovery of the boys and a sense of triumph against adversity.

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

Tony Tuckson

Red on blue and white 1970–73, synthetic polymer paint on two composition boards, 213.5 x 244.7 cm, gift of James Erskine, 2011, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Tony Tuckson. Represented by Viscopy

Tony Tuckson is one of Australia’s greatest abstract painters and a pioneer of abstract expressionism in this country. The dynamic quality of his mark-making explores the very nature of painting itself.

Red on blue and white 1970–73 is a striking example of the powerful works Tuckson produced in the three years before his death in 1973 at the age of 52. The large gestures of red layered over blue and white that convey a sense of urgency, of spontaneity. Each mark, each layer is a trace of the artist moving across the painting’s surface. His works reveal the painting process, so much so that the act of painting itself in a way becomes a subject of his work. The physicality of the work is combined with the sense of an inner life— with a compressed energy, courage and daring palpably expressed.

Born in Ismailia, Egypt in 1921, Tuckson studied in England and arrived in Australia after the Second World War. He worked as the assistant to the Director of Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1951, and then as Deputy Director from 1957 to 1973. As the

Deputy Director, he was instrumental in building their collection of Aboriginal art. Tuckson’s ongoing interest in the mark-making in Indigenous art was one of the many sources of inspiration for his distinctive approach to materials and the painted surface.

James Erskine’s generous donation of Tony Tuckson’s major painting Red on blue and white and his early work No.81: black/ brown/white c 1965 significantly enhances the Gallery’s ability to represent the work of this remarkable twentieth-century Australian painter and his important contribution to the story of abstraction in Australia and internationally.

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

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Yimam people Korewori River region, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

Yipwon early 20th century, wood, patina, 151 x 5 x 18 cm, purchased 2011

The Korewori River is a remote tributary flowing from the south into the Sepik River of Papua New Guinea. Even today, this rugged area of dense bush and marshland is seldom visited by outsiders. The Yimam people who live in this region have conceptualised a most extraordinary abstraction of the human form known as Yipwon.

This recently acquired Yipwon displays a bold reduction into a two dimensional plane. While the head and feet of the sculpture are apparent, the body is, upon first sight, equally striking and puzzling. Poised upon a single leg with dipped foot, the body of the Yipwon consists of opposing curved hook shapes around a central protrusion. The hooks and central section have been interpreted in many ways: as the heart or soul of the Yipwon protected by ribs, as a cosmological device of stars around the sun or moon and even as the beaks of birds.

One creation story for the Yimam people relates to the origins of Yipwon. Sun, an ancestral hero, carved a great slit drum called Kabribuk and from its discarded splinters sprang to life, forming the Yipwon. They were considered to be the children of Sun and lived in the mens’ cult house. Their nature was described as demonic and they were constantly eager for the hunt and for war.

One day, a relative of Sun came to see the great slit drum but Sun was away hunting, leaving the Yipwon spirits alone in the village.

The Yipwon lured Sun’s relative into a trap and killed him. They danced around the body, drank its blood and cut it into pieces.

When their murderous act was uncovered, they fled into the mens’ cult house. Becoming stiff with fear, they transformed into lifeless

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wooden sculptures. Since then, the spirits of the Yipwon need to be ritually coaxed into their wooden bodies again to help with hunting and warfare.

Yipwon were kept propped upright at the back of the mens’ cult house and, when needed, offerings were ritually applied: small pieces of meat from game animals, herbs, lime, saliva and even blood drawn from a hunter’s or warrior’s body. These applications are evident in the textured surface of the Gallery’s Yipwon.

The finesse of Yipwon places them among the greatest sculptures from Melanesia. However, this is only one of a group of six ‘hook figures’ recently acquired, including four Garra hook forms from the neighbouring Bahinemo people and an impressively tall and ancient Aripa figure from the Inyai-Ewa people, which was preserved in a jungle cave. Hook figures have not been made for cultural purposes for a number of decades and the majority were collected en masse during the 1960s. They created a sensation among artists and collectors in the United States of America and in Europe. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, David Smith and especially Australian Tony Tuckson all encountered and found inspiration in the otherworldly qualities of New Guinean sculpture. Considering their rarity, the National Gallery has been fortunate enough to acquire this remarkable group.

Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Arts

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Fiona Foley Badtjala people

Stud Gins 2003, synthetic polymer paint on wool fabric, dimensions various, gift of Fiona Foley, 2011, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program © Fiona Foley image courtesy of Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane

Large-scale installations such as Badtjala artist Fiona Foley’s Stud Gins 2003 naturally invite viewers to look closer, to investigate detail by enticing them into its boundary. Although minimal in form, Stud Gins reveals a harrowing and powerful story and an aspect of early colonial encounters that is difficult to openly discuss. Acts perpetrated on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are common subjects for Indigenous artists, although many are careful to tell these stories through subtle references in their work. Artists such as Fiona Foley pull no punches.

Foley is a contemporary Australian artist whose compelling works continue to challenge and engage audiences nationally and internationally.

Stud Gins features seven large grey ‘welfare’ blankets similar to those issued by colonial governments to Aboriginal people. In Australian colonial history, as in colonial histories worldwide, the blanket has become a symbol of deliberate acts of genocide by spreading disease and of the horrific doctrines of early white ‘managers’. The blankets, lined in an orderly row, stretched and pinned flat, each feature a single word repeated in bold black lettering: Aboriginal, Women, Property, Defiled, Ravished, Shared, Discarded. These are stark reminders of the forced and repetitive

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sexual exploitation of Aboriginal women by some colonists.

The title, ‘Stud Gins’, also elicits the attitude that white men had toward Aboriginal women, who, at the time, would have seemed exotic and sexually enticing in their nakedness. This attitude was that Aboriginal women were commodities or ‘property’ to be used, defiled, ravished, shared and discarded.

This powerful installation, inspired by an explanation of attitudes by white men toward Aboriginal women in Christine Halse’s 2002 book A terribly wild man, reminds us of our hidden histories.

It reminds us to learn from the past and to acknowledge it so we might better understand and come to accept our shared histories and forge a mutual future.

Foley generously donated Stud Gins to the National Gallery of Australia under the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. It will complement the 26 other works by Foley in the collection. She is one of 20 artists represented in the next National Indigenous Art Triennial, opening in May 2012, which will include a large-scale installation work made by Foley during an artist residency in China in 2010.

Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Danie Mellor Mamu/Ngagen/Ngajan peoples

A Transcendent Vision (of life, death and resurrection) 2010, pastel, pencil and wash with glitter and Swarovski crystal on paper, 207 x 80 cm, gift of Danie Mellor, 2011, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program

Danie Mellor’s exquisitely crafted A Transcendent Vision (of life, death and resurrection) is like a Masonic tracing board, incorporating images of Australian native animals. The dominant blue base of the work is overlaid with Masonic symbols and Hebraic letters, and is further offset by the ochre red of some of Australia’s most icon fauna as well as a rainbow lorikeet from the artist’s home state of Queensland.

Masonic tracing boards are used to teach the secret knowledge of the Freemasons to novices as they are initiated through the three degrees of the fraternity. The Masonic symbols in the tracing board include tools used to design and construct the architecture of ancient cultures, western civilisation and empires. In the context of Mellor’s work, however, it could also be said that these tools that built an empire consequentially dismantled Indigenous culture and the relationship of people to their country through the transformation of land.

The work’s almost life-sized coffin shape and intricate golden frame evoke a doorway into the afterlife, a spiritual porthole, a place where spiritual life and physical death resides and a place where knowledge can be found. In the centre, where the inside of King Solomon’s Temple would typically be depicted, an Aboriginal warrior stands guarding a closed door. What lies beyond is a mystery.

Watching and waiting, the warrior defiantly stares back at the viewer, preventing the passage of the uninitiated.

A Transcendent Vision (of life, death and resurrection) can be understood as an exploration of the parallels between the spirituality, rituals and ceremony of Indigenous Australian people and European society. These Masonic tracing boards were initially chalk drawings made on the table or floor in of a hired tavern room, only to be wiped away so the secret knowledge would not be revealed; much like Western Desert Papunya paintings, which were once drawn in the sand then wiped away to hide sacred ceremonial stories.

Danie Mellor is based in Canberra and has developed a strong practice of conducting cultural and historical research to inform his work. The narratives in his art often crisscross and interweave different cultures. He generously donated this work to the National Gallery under the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, and he is among 19 other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists in the next National Indigenous Art Triennial, which opens in May 2012.

Kelli Cole Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

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George Fordyce Story

Esther and Emma Mather c 1859, albumen silver photograph, 9.2 x 7 cm, purchased 2011

This delicate portrait of Quaker sisters Esther (1849–1939) and Emma Mather (1853–1939) was made by a family friend Dr George Fordyce Story, they called ‘Little Doctor’, Dr Story lived with their grandparents Anna and Francis Cotton on their Kelvedon estate at Swansea on the east coast of Tasmania. The sisters father was Joseph B Mather, a Quaker who owned a drapers and haberdashery store on Liverpool Street in Hobart. Two of the girls sisters and their mother Anna had died by 1858. This photograph was probably taken at Kelvedon where the girls spent their holidays.

George Story was a physician, an amateur naturalist and a photographer. He was born in England in 1800 and graduated in medicine in Edinburgh in 1824. He immigrated to Australia with his Quaker friend Francis Cotton in 1828 and took up a position as District Assistant Surgeon at Waterloo Point (later Swansea) convict station until 1844. From 1844 to 1845, Dr Story was in charge of the Royal Society gardens in Hobart, after which he lived at Kelvedon with the Cottons, providing medical and horticultural and technical services to the estate. Story was raised a Wesleyan and later adopted the Quaker faith.

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Despite the sisters’ demure posture and simple Quaker dress, Esther, who had already taken her temperance pledge in 1857, was known for her very cheery spirit. She married Charles H Robey in Hobart in 1884 and their daughter Linna (Elinor) studied arts and crafts in England and has a number of craft works in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. Emma also found a partner within the Quaker circle in Tasmania, marrying William Benson. Elinor and her sister Marguerita donated family material to the Quaker collection at the University of Tasmania. The Quaker collection website contains a number of photographs of the Mather family, including later photographs of Esther and Emma and their children.

The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, formed in Hobart in 1832 was the earliest in Australia and remains active to the present day. The Quakers were known for their commitment to thrift, honesty, good works and plain style of dress and lifestyle. The Friends established the temperance movement in Australia and supported various educational, Aboriginal and convict welfare efforts.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography

Bill Viola

Passage into night 2005, colour high‑definition video displayed on plasma screen, gift of Annabel and Rupert Myer AM in honour of the staff of the National Gallery of Australia, 2011, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Tony Tuckson. Represented by Viscopy Photograph: Kira Perov

Bill Viola is a leading contemporary artist and pioneer of video art.

Since the 1970s, his work has evolved into slow-motion meditations, often referring to art of the past, especially medieval and Renaissance paintings. Fire and water are two of his most consistent images.

Many of Viola’s elaborately staged ‘performances’ suggest spiritual or religious ceremonies, notions of rebirth and transformation. His use of slow motion often emphasises this otherworldliness.

Passage into night shows a female figure in the harsh light and heat of the midday sun. The extreme conditions distort and disturb the air, causing her to undulate and flutter. She begins as an apparition within a mirage, a tiny form in the barren landscape. Gradually her person becomes apparent and eventually her dark robes completely fill the screen, obscuring the natural landscape and transforming the image into a pattern of subtly shifting dark blues and, finally, black.

Although her features are revealed, the woman’s identity remains a mystery. The silence adds to the sense of mystery.

Passage into night was completed for The Tristan project—a 2005 collaboration between Viola, director Peter Sellars and conductor

Esa-Pekka Salonen to restage Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde—and subsequently exhibited as part of Love/Death: the Tristan project. The video also resonates with some of Viola’s earlier works. Chott el-Djerid (A portrait in light and heat) 1979, also in the Gallery’s collection, uses similar atmospheric conditions. In the more-recent dual-channel installation The crossing 1996 a walking male figure is consumed by fire on one projection and, opposite, under a deluge of water.

Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

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David Barclay producer and retailer

Joseph Forrester silversmith

Salver 1833, silver, 35 cm (diam), purchased 2011

This presentation salver with its repoussé decoration of thistles, leaves and flowers was one of four similar pieces produced by the Hobart silversmith David Barclay and made by silversmith Joseph Forrester from around 1831 to 1845. It is a work of elegant form and fine craftsmanship, bearing an inscription relating to Anthony Fenn Kemp, an early Tasmanian settler, soldier and merchant and a significant figure in Tasmanian colonial life and business.

David Barclay was born in Montrose, Scotland in 1804 and died in Hobart in 1884. He trained as a jeweller and watch- and instrument-maker in Scotland. He arrived in Hobart on board the emigrant ship Resource on 29 June 1830, establishing his business shortly after as a ‘watch and chronometer maker’ in Elizabeth Street.

Barclay transferred his business to Hobart’s Liverpool Street in 1866 and sold it to William Golding on 18 March 1878.

As Barclay was entitled to be assigned convicts, he employed Joseph Forrester (another Scot from Perth in Scotland, born in 1805) as a silversmith from about 1830 until Forrester’s ticket of leave in 1839, and possibly until his pardon and departure for Victoria in 1845.

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Forrester’s recidivism while in Barclay’s employ and subsequent incarcerations between March 1833 and March 1835 made it improbable that he produced any work for Barclay during that time.

It is therefore likely that this salver was made as an un-engraved stock piece by Forrester and only later engraved with the following inscription on the salver’s central reserve cartouche: ‘Presented to Anthony Fenn Femp, Esq., by 150 of his fellow colonists, Hobart Town, Van Diemens Land, 1834’. It is engraved on its base with the wording, ‘Manufactured in the colony by Mr D Barclay, 1834’, with the stamped maker’s mark ‘DB’.

This work is an important Tasmanian addition to the Gallery’s collection of early Australian metalwork. It creates a connection with the Gallery’s fine c 1848 silver snuff box made by Forrester for Charles Brentani, after he left Barclay, as well as with an 1840s Thomas Bock portrait of Barclay, one of the few colonial portraits to depict an Australian craftsperson.

Robert Bell AM Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

Les Blakebrough ceramics gift of Les Blakebrough, 2011, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

The Gallery has recently acquired a group of 50 highly accomplished ceramic works by Les Blakebrough, gifted by the artist. Blakebrough is one of Australia’s most experienced ceramic artists and brings to this group of works a distillation of a number of design themes that have characterised his work over the past five decades.

Blakebrough was born in Great Britain in 1929 and arrived in Australia in 1948. He was apprenticed to Ivan McMeekin at Sturt Pottery, Mittagong, and become its Director in 1964. He became Senior Lecturer of the Ceramics department at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania, in 1973. Later, he headed the department and, in 1990, he established the University’s Ceramic Research Unit.

While visually reductive, Blakebrough’s forms are strong and grounded in a precise and generous functionality, reflecting his finely honed design sensibility and a celebration of the science of craft. Developing and using his own ‘Southern Ice’ porcelain clay has encouraged him to explore its particular qualities of translucency and crystalline whiteness. The raised relief decoration on a number

Les Blakebrough Bowl (Macdonald ranges gum) 2005 porcelain 18.2 cm, 29 cm (diam) Les Blakebrough Lauren Black (illustrator) Flora Tasmanica edition 3 (Brachyglottis brunonis) 2003 porcelain with decals and lustres 3 cm, 30 cm (diam)

of the works was achieved by masking areas of the unfired clay surface with shellac before sponging away the background to a thinness that, once fired, allows the passage of light. The resulting effect has the subtlety of a watermark and a sense of transience and luminosity that one might expect from a coating of frost or ice on foliage or rocks.

The collection includes a group of Flora Tasmanica plates, decorated with Tasmanian flora subjects by Tasmanian botanical illustrator Lauren Black. Inspired by the famous Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory’s eighteenth-century Flora Danica service, these works elegantly illustrate native species and show the result of the artistic and technical collaboration between Blakebrough and Black.

Les Blakebrough’s generous gift provides the National Gallery of Australia with the most extensive national representation of this important artist’s work and is an authoritative addition to the Gallery’s collection of modern Australian decorative arts and design.

Robert Bell AM Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

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GW Bot

Garden of Gethsemane 2000, linocut, printed in colour from multiple blocks, handcoloured, on thin tapa cloth on paper, 98 x 50.8 cm, purchased with the generous assistance of the artist, 2011

Garden of Gethsemane reveals GW Bot’s mysterious, poetic and insistently elegiac approach to the art of the print.

The work draws together several of the artist’s recurrent themes, including that of the garden—the passing through which is analogous for one’s passage through life. The gravitas inspired by the work’s intrinsic beauty is compounded by its religious connotations.

Gethsemane was the site at which Judas betrayed Christ, and the three sharp slits cut into the top layer of the work’s central section suggest the crucifixes of Golgotha. However, given its essential abstraction, Garden of Gethsemane resists explicit interpretation.

Bot is an artist always careful to compound, rather than restrict, the meanings drawn from her work.

Garden of Gethsemane comprises two prints: the outer work is on blood-red tapa (bark cloth) and the other, underneath, is on heavy paper.

The three slits serve as small portals through which one may view the underlying image; the way the eye passes from one print to the next is

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analogous to the way in which the viewer will one day slip from life into death. When unframed, the tapa layer may be lifted to expose more of the print beneath it. In so doing, one gleans an exquisite sense of expectation as this solemn unshrouding is performed.

The delicate, pictorial detail of the work is typical of Bot’s art, as is her capacity to work with an array of different and unusual papers.

She is one of few contemporary artists to have consistently used the medium of linocut. Although linocuts are often associated with the blockish, stylised work of Modernist artists such as Dorrit Black and Ethel Spowers, Bot’s use of the medium is in this instance far freer and more intricate than that of her artistic antecedents.

Garden of Gethsemane is part of a group of 24 of Bot’s prints and artist books recently acquired by the National Gallery with the generous assistance of this Canberra-based artist.

Elspeth Pitt Gordon Darling Graduate Intern, Australian Prints and Drawings

Travelling exhibitions nga.gov.au/Travex Travelling exhibitions supporters

Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix 19 Apr – 11 Jun 2012 Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, Vic National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

25 Jun – 26 Aug 2012 QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld

Fred Williams: infinite horizons 7 Apr – 22 Jul 2012 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Vic 31 Aug – 4 Nov 2012 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA

Australian portraits 1880–1960 3 Dec 2011 – 29 Jan 2012 Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, Gymea, NSW 11 Feb – 12 May 2012 Gladstone Regional Art Gallery, Gladstone, Qld

Details from top: Roy Lichtenstein Nude with blue hair 1994 from the series Nudes purchased with the assistance of the Orde Poynton Fund, 2002

In the spotlight: Anton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950s 18 Feb – 22 Apr 2012 QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld

Fred Williams Sturt’s Desert Pea 1974 purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983 © estate of Fred Williams

Grace Cossington Smith Study of a head: self-portrait 1916 purchased 2010

Space invaders: australian . street . stencils . posters . paste-ups . zines . stickers 18 Nov 2011 – 18 Mar 2012 Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, NSW

Anton Bruehl Puerto Rican singer and rumba dancer Marga and accordionist puppeteer Bil Baird of the Ziegfeld Folies 1944 National Gallery of Australia Research Library, Canberra

Sync not titled (Yoda) 2004 Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund, 2007 © Sync

ARTONVIEW 35

Creative partnerships

This summer’s major exhibition, Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, would not be possible without the vision and support of our corporate and government partners, who have wholeheartedly embraced this exhibition and its importance to the nation.

The ACT Government, through ACT Tourism, is once again Presenting Partner in recognition of the positive impact such exhibitions have on Canberra’s cultural and economic landscape.

The Gallery is also grateful for the support of the Australian Government International Exhibitions Insurance program, which enables exhibitions such as Renaissance to travel to Australia.

San Remo brings its passion for Italian culture and art to the National Gallery as Exhibition Partner, and National Australia Bank and the Nine Network continue their ongoing support of the Gallery as Principal Partners.

The Gallery welcomes, as Major Partners, first-time sponsors Canberra Airport and Lazard, existing partner Qantas, the official airline partner for Renaissance (and for next year’s unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial), and the National Gallery of

Andrew Barr, ACT Minister for Tourism, speaking at the media announcement for Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, 30 August 2011.

36 ARTONVIEW

Australia Council Exhibition Fund. Council Member the Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer has also generously committed her support as Exhibition Patron.

The Yulgilbar Foundation has generously committed to supporting the popular Family Activity Room for not only Renaissance but also the next three summer exhibitions at the Gallery.

The National Gallery is grateful to its committed media partners: JCDecaux, Win Television, The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and ABC Local Radio. Novotel Canberra once again demonstrates its support for the arts and tourism as official accommodation partner, and Flash Photobition makes its contribution as official signage partner.

Finally, we thank our official beverage partners Moët Hennessy Australia and Coopers Brewery and catering partner Ten and a Half.

If you are interested in creating ties with the Australian community through the arts, contact Nicole Short, +61 2 6240 6781 or nicole.short@nga.gov.au, or Eleanor Kirkham, +61 2 6240 6740 or eleanor.kirkham@nga.gov.au.

The Hon Simon Crean, Minister for the Arts, and Ron Radford, director of the National Gallery of Australia, at the media announcement for Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.

News from the Foundation

Second annual Bequest Circle lunch

Thank you

The second annual Bequest Circle lunch took place on Tuesday 23 August 2011 in the magnificent Gandel Hall. Lunch was preceded by an insightful tour of Fred Williams: infinite horizons with exhibition curator Deborah Hart. Council Chairman Rupert Myer AM, Foundation Chairman John Hindmarsh and Gallery Director Ron Radford AM joined guests for lunch. Robert Meller, Bequest Circle member, spoke of his aunt the late Ruth Robertson’s passion for the Gallery.

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2011 successfully concluded in September with an event hosted by Director Ron Radford.

Donors were invited to view the painting acquired with their support: a striking and important self-portrait by Nora Heysen.

Council and Foundation dinner

Following lunch, Bequest Circle member and Visionary Benefactor Ray Wilson OAM toured guests through the Australian Surrealism gallery. The works on display were part of the private collection of Ray Wilson and the late James Agapitos OAM who had passionately collected the world’s strongest collection of work by Australian Surrealist artists.

The Foundation’s AGM was held in October, followed by a joint Council and Foundation dinner to launch the Foundation’s exciting new 100 Works for 100 Years campaign (see page 22–23). This was also the celebration of the one-year anniversary of the opening of the Stage 1 galleries and the Founding Donors 2010 program through which 114 generous donations contributed $1.347 million to acquiring significant works of art for the national collection.

The Bequest Circle is a way to actively recognise and celebrate donors who have chosen to make a lasting legacy by leaving a bequest to the National Gallery of Australia. For more information, please contact Liz Wilson on (02) 6240 6469 or liz.wilson@nga.gov.au.

We are grateful for the generous support of donors to the fundraising initiatives of the Foundation. For more information on how to become involved, please contact Maryanne Voyazis on (02) 6240 6691 or foundation@nga.gov.au.

Council member Warwick Hemsley with Jerry Hall and John Gandel AO, in the Gandel Hall for the 2011 Council and Foundation Dinner, and official launch of the 100 Works for 100 Years campaign.

Robert Meller, Bequest Circle member, enjoys a tour of the exhibition Fred Williams: infinite horizons by curator Deborah Hart.

ARTONVIEW 37

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:

Grants The American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia Inc, New York, made possible with the very generous support of: Kenneth Tyler and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler the Wolfensohn Family Foundation towards the Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift Travelling Exhibitions Program The Gordon Darling Foundation The Lidia Perin Foundation The National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund The Thyne Reid Foundation The Yulgilbar Foundation

Australian Government

Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts through: The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through Art Indemnity Australia Australia Council Department of Health and Ageing through the Dementia Community Grants Program Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency

State and territory governments

Novotel Canberra

Queensland Government through Arts Queensland New South Wales Government through Arts NSW Northern Territory Government through Arts NT Western Australian Government through the Department of Culture and the Arts

Qantas

Corporate partners

Donations

ABC Radio ACT Government, through Australian Capital Tourism ActewAGL Aesop The Age Hillross Avant Card The Brassey of Canberra The Canberra Times Canberra Airport Clayton Utz Coopers Brewery Cre8ive* Diamant Hotel Eckersley’s Art & Craft Flash Photobition Forrest Hotel and Apartments Hindmarsh Hyatt Hotel Canberra JCDecaux Lazard Macquarie Group Foundation Manteena Mantra on Northbourne Moët Hennessy Australia Molonglo Group National Australia Bank NewActon/Nishi Nine Network Australia

Includes donations received from 22 July to 21 October 2011 John B Fairfax AO Elizabeth Fairfax Angela Kent Bruce Terry and Mary Anne Terry

Rio Tinto San Remo The Sydney Morning Herald Ten and a Half Triple J Voyager Estate Wesfarmers

WIN Television

Gifts

Lynda Benglis, John Cheim and Howard Read Dorothy Braund Greg French Estate of Virna Haffer Claudia Hyles David Jensz Eva Orban Ramona Ratas Anneke Silver Southern Highlands Printmakers Linley Stopford Cora Trevarthen Murray Walker

100 Works for 100 Years Dr Murray Elliott AO and Gillian Elliott Timothy Harding and Pauline Harding

Bequests

Estate of Ernest Frohlich John Anthony Gilbert

For more information about developing creative partnerships with the National Gallery of Australia, contact: Nicole Short on +61 2 6240 6781 or nicole.short@nga.gov.au For more information about making a donation, contact: Maryanne Voyazis on +61 2 6240 6691 or maryanne.voyazis@nga.gov.au

38 ARTONVIEW

National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund Timothy Fairfax AM John Hindmarsh

National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board Publishing Fund James Erskine John Hindmarsh Macquarie Group Foundation Ray Wilson OAM

Founding Donors 2010 Fund

The Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer Dr Andrew Lu OAM and Dr Geoffrey Lancaster AM

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2011

Jan Brown Ann Burgess and Miles Burgess Lady Shirley Gobbo Janet Holmes à Court AC Donald Horne and Nanette Horne Hugh Mackay Penelope Richardson The Sharp family

Members Acquisition Fund 2010–11 Maureen C Taylor

Members Acquisition Fund 2011–12 Philip Bacon AM Brian Jones Betty Konta

Members news Members of the National Gallery of Australia play a vital role in sustaining the arts in Australia.

As a member, you can play your part in the life of the Gallery and enjoy the many benefits this brings to you and the community. To become a member, go to nga.gov.au/Members or free call 1800 020 068.

Engage online. Anytime.

Fred Williams

The National Gallery of Australia is delighted to announce that you can renew your membership online through the new members portal. Members will now be able to:

During Fred Williams: infinite horizons, members enjoyed some special events with the curator Dr Deborah Hart, Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post-1920. Dr Hart’s tours of the exhibition provided members and their guests with keen insights into the extraordinary art of Fred Williams and the artist’s innovations in Australian landscape painting.

join or renew online give the gift of membership update your contact information and edit your personal details access the current issue of Artonview and the Artevents brochure stay up to date with news relevant to your membership access members-only specials, discounts and giveaways make contributions to the Gallery.

Simply visit nga.gov.au/Members to start enjoying your membership in a whole new way.

Membership Travel Prize Congratulations to Mr Todd, who won the Membership Travel Prize: a trip for two to Paris, flying with Qantas and staying five nights at an Accor hotel. Mr Todd and his guest will have the opportunity to visit the Musée d’Orsay, home to the extraordinary works of art that were on show in the exhibition Masterpieces from Paris at the National Gallery in Canberra in 2009–10.

Guests at members winter party on 12 August 2011 to celebrate the opening of the retrospective Fred Williams: infinite horizons.

ARTONVIEW 39

Proud sponsor of the National Gallery of Australia’s retrospective Fred Williams: infinite horizons

Touring in 2012 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Vic 7 April – 22 July 2012 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 31 August – 4 November 2012

Canberra | nga.gov.au

Fred Williams Iron ore landscape 1981, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, presented through the NGV Foundation by Rio Tinto, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2001. © estate of Fred Williams

RENAISSANCE table

Renowned Australian chef James Kidman re-imagines the rich tradition of Italian cooking for the home.

Lavishly illustrated with photographs by Sharyn Cairns, Renaissance table includes over 100 recipes for all occasions and an introduction on Italian food, art and history

by Christine Dixon.

James Kidman’s Renaissance table is a beautifully conceived and photographed collection of recipes designed for the home cook. Kidman’s passion for quality ingredients, simple yet innovative combinations and the abundance of Italian hospitality brings new vitality to Italian cooking.

RRP $49.95 204 pages, hardcover ISBN 9780642334244 Available from the NGA Shop, NGA mailorder and selected bookstores.

The Renaissance table range also includes other cooking products.

James Kidman’s

RENAISSANCE table

lu x u r y i s p e r son a l

Lazard, one of the world’s pre-eminent corporate advisory firms, congratulates the National Gallery of Australia on Renaissance: 15th and 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, another stunning exhibition for the people of Australia.

Melbourne Level 33 101 Collins Street Melbourne Vic 3000 Tel +61 3 9657 8400

Sydney Level 44 Gateway Building 1 Macquarie Place Sydney NSW 2000 Tel +61 2 9256 9900

Perth Level 36 Exchange Plaza 2 The Esplanade Perth WA 6000 Tel +61 8 9223 0400

150 years old

www.lazard.com

Marco del Buono and Apollonio di Giovanni (attributed) Love procession c 1440s (detail), Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, bequest of Antonietta Noli, widow of Carlo Marenzi, 1901

CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART

Direct from one of the most exciting contemporary art environments anywhere in the world

On show until 29 January 2012

at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra

Public programs Art and Nation Conference: Chinese art 1949 to now Saturday 19 November 2011 Gallery talk: Shen Jiawei Thursday 1 December 2011

SUPPORTED BY: MINISTRY OF CULTURE, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SPONSOR

Open 9 am – 5 pm daily. Free general admission. Lawson Crescent Acton Peninsula Canberra. 1800 026 132 The National Museum of Australia is an Australian Government Agency.

Discovery space: Activities for the whole family Weekdays 9–25 January 2012 Festival Day Thursday 26 January 2012 All programs are free, bookings essential. For further details visit www.nma.gov.au

HANDWRITTEN ten centuries of manuscript treasures from staatsbibliothek zu berlin including

Erasmus Bach Galileo Napoleon Newton Mozart Curie Goethe Dickens Einstein Machiavelli Nightingale Beethoven Dante Luther Darwin Michelangelo

International Exhibitions Insurance Program

Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane 3 December 2011 — 4 March 2012 PRESENTED BY

PRINCIPAL BENEFACTOR

PRINCIPAL DONOR

For airline and hotel packages visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/matisse

TOURISM AND MEDIA PARTNERS

EXHIBITION ORGANISED BY

TICKETS Exhibition organised by the Queensland Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions Australia with the exceptional participation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Funding for insurance has been provided through the Queensland Government Exhibition Indemnification Scheme, administered by Arts Queensland.

Henri Matisse / Figure drapée dans un peignoir, main droite soutenant le visage (Figure draped in a peignoir, face resting on right hand) 1929 / Collection: Bibliothèque nationale de France / © Succession H Matisse /Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney, 2011

Xuanzang (c.602 – 664) - Journey to the West

Hou Leong RENAISSANCE

John Curtin School of Medical Research

Welcome to Hindmarsh, a diverse, multidisciplinary group of companies with offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin and Sydney. A leader in property and construction, Hindmarsh is building the communities of tomorrow.

For over 30 years, Hindmarsh has focused on creating high quality buildings which enhance urban living and working environments to maximise our client‘s return on investment.

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The Silk Road Gallery 19 Kennedy Street, Kingston Shops, Canberra Phone 02 6295 0192 www.silkroadgallery.com.au

Hindmarsh has completed many landmark buildings across Australia, with total project value exceeding $1 billion. A leader in delivering special purpose institutional facilities, Hindmarsh is currently working on over $600m worth of special projects across Australia, including College of Science at Australian National University ($240m) and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI – $200m).

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Adelaide

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PICASSO Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris Seven decades of creative genius from the most influential artist of the 20th century.

Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney only opens 12 November 2011

Timed entry tickets ticketek.com.au/picasso Stay & See® packages showbiz.com.au/picasso

ART

Co-organised by the Musée National Picasso, Paris, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Art Exhibitions Australia Strategic and Government partners

Principal sponsor

Major sponsors

Principal donor

Le baiser (The kiss) 1969 Pablo Picasso Bequest 1979, MP220 © Succession Picasso 2011/Licensed by Viscopy, 2011 © Paris, RMN/Jean-Gilles Berizzi © Musée National Picasso, Paris

GALLERY

N SW

JOHN OLSEN born 1928 Landscape In Series 1994 Estimate $140,000 - $180,000

Italy in style

Grand Tour of Italy April 5–24, 2012 With Dr Nicholas Gordon

Sept 17 – Oct 6, 2012 With Carolyn Andrew Follow in the footsteps of travellers past and visit the renowned sites that make Italy such a perennially popular destination.

Along the way you will gain an insight into the history, art and architecture of ancient Roman, medieval and Renaissance Italy. The itinerary features three and four night stays in a small town on the Bay of Naples, Rome, a medieval village in Umbria, Florence and Venice. A highlight of the tour is a private evening viewing of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Some excellent meals and carefully selected accommodation complement the sightseeing program. $6,500 pp, twin share (land content only) $1,700 single supplement

Sicily and the Aeolian Islands April 12–30, 2012 With Jeni Ryde

Oct 4–21, 2012 With Dr Kathleen Olive A carefully designed journey showcasing the major attractions of the islands – Greek temples, Byzantine mosaics and Arab architecture, but also some of the lesser-known towns and natural beauty of the island. We commence with the Greek sites of Syracuse and Agrigento, before moving on to the Arab and Norman world of Palermo and the north coast. Over four days in the scenic Aeolian Islands, we explore Lipari and take a cruise to Stromboli and Panarea. The journey concludes with three nights in Taormina, in the shadows of Mount Etna, a celebrated European holiday spot for two centuries. $6,950 pp, twin share (land content only) $1,250 single supplement

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

Also available Southern Italy Calabria to Rome March 2012 17 Days ◆ $6,500 per person*

Venice City, Republic, Empire March/April 2012 16 days ◆ $5,750 per person*

Oman and Jordan A journey through Arabia March/April 2012 17 days ◆ $6,900 per person*

Iran Civilizations of Persia April 2012 22 days ◆ $6,995 per person* * Twin share, land content only

Keep in touch!

Subscribe to our electronic and print mailing lists for the latest information on our tours at www.academytravel.com.au Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000 Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or

1800 639 699 (outside Sydney) Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123 Email: info@academytravel.com.au Web: www.academytravel.com.au

I will discover a fresh view on art Modern furnishings and stylish décor combined with high quality hotel facilities and friendly service make Mantra on Northbourne perfect for visitors to the National Gallery. The hotel’s central location and luxury 4.5 star rating combined with Zipprestaurantbar make it an ideal venue for enjoying a casual meal with friends, catch up with business colleagues or simply relax over a coffee.

Find your mantra. Call 13 15 17 or visit mantra.com.au 25/10/11 9:49 AM CA_535

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ABC Local Radio is a proud supporter of the National Gallery of Australia’s summer blockbuster Renaissance.

To win the ultimate Renaissance experience in Canberra listen to ABC Local Radio in 2012.

John Brack

(1920 – 1999) Woman and dummy, 1954 oil on canvas 51.0 x 66.0 cm SOLD AUGUST 2011 • $630,000 Price includes buyer’s premium

call for entries important australian and international fine art auction sydney • may 2012 for obligation-free appraisals, please contact Sydney Damian Hackett Merryn Schriever 02 9287 0600

Melbourne Chris Deutscher Lara Nicholls 03 9865 6333

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ACCOMMODATION IN THE HEART OF THE NATIONS CAPITAL & TWO SPECTACULAR EXHIBITIONS EXCLUSIVE TO CANBERRA

Includes: • Accommodation in Heritage room for two guests.

• Two tickets to the Renaissance exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.

Handwritten:

NOVEMBER 2011 - APRIL 2012

ten centuries of manuscript treasures from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

• 20% off the price of the exhibition catalogue for the Handwritten exhibition at the National Library available at the library book shop.

• Full buffet breakfast for two.

• Complimentary bottle of Chianti.

• Free parking and daily newspaper.

Subject to availablility, and the dates of the exhibitions. Extra nights $188.00. Extra person is $40.00 per night. Discounted catalogue at the National Library only available for guests who book accommodation through The Brassey of Canberra. Library only package cost $207.00

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Giovanni Bellini Madonna and Child c 1475–1476, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

ENJOY CHANDON RESPONSIBLY

N AT I O N A L G A L L E RY O F A U S T R A L I A , C A N B E R R A

SUMMER 2011 | 68

SUMMER 2011 | 68

RENAISSANCE 9 DECEMBER TO 9 APRIL NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL

CANBERRA ONLY 9 DECEMBER 2011 – 9 APRIL 2012 TIMED TICKETS

NOW AND FOR THE FUTURE

OR 132 849

For accommodation packages call 1300 889 024 or see visitcanberra.com.au/renaissance Vittore Carpaccio Birth of Mary (Nascita di Maria) c 1502–04, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo legacy of Guglielmo Lochis, 1866

The exhibition is organised in partnership with the City of Bergamo and its Pinacoteca Accademia Carrara, Bergamo