2010.q2 | artonview 62 winter 2010

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JAMES TURRELL’S SKYSPACE ROBERT DOWLING LIFE, DEATH AND MAGIC HANS HEYSEN

3 Director’s foreword

exhibitions and displays

6 Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire Anne Gray

10 Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art Robyn Maxwell

16 Hans Heysen Anne Gray

20 Portraits from India 1850s–1950s Anne O’Hehir

22 In the Japanese manner: Australian prints 1900–1940 Emma Colton

acquisitions

26 James Turrell Skyspace Lucina Ward

28 Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3 Jane Kinsman

30 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado Jane Kinsman

31 Mutuaga The drummer Crispin Howarth

32 Nias Anthropomorphic stone monument Niki van den Heuvel

33 Yami House post Lucie Folan

34 Fred and Lyn Williams gift Emma Colton

36 Walangkura Napanangka Untitled Franchesca Cubillo

38 Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation Gael Newton

programs

39 Foundation40 Sponsorship and Development42 Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship

Belinda Cotton

46 Faces in view48 Starry Nights50 At play in van Gogh’s bedroom

Peter Naumann

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(cover) James Turrell Skyspace 2010 installation: lighting, plaster, painted concrete, marble, stainless steel, granite, bronze, water and landscape surrounds 800 x 2800 x 2800 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra photograph: John Gollings

View at the entrance to the stupa inside the Skyspace.

Issue 62, winter 2010

artonview winter 2010 3

Director’s foreword

In the last issue of artonview, I said how pleased we were

with the extraordinary success of Masterpieces from Paris:

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond. At the time,

attendances had passed 230 000 during the 2009–10

summer holiday season, setting a Gallery record. We really

did not expect such very high numbers to continue to the

extent they did during the second half of the exhibition.

We were wrong—so much so that we achieved and

easily overtook a new art museum record during what we

normally consider our off-season, when adults return to

work and children to school.

We were extremely fortunate to be able to extend the

exhibition’s season by nearly two weeks to ensure that

as many Australians as possible could see this fine and

deservedly popular show. It is very rare to be able to extend

the season for a show of such quality and size, particularly

as the exhibition opened in Japan in May. The Musée

d’Orsay, however, generously supported the extra time. In

the end, 477 000 people visited Masterpieces from Paris,

making it easily the most popular exhibition ever held in

Australia. We had 38 000 school children and over 60 000

visitors to the Family Activity Room, which was generously

sponsored by the Yulgilbar Foundation. We printed 64 000

catalogues, an art publishing record in Australia. We

also gained an extra 11 000 new members during the

exhibition. In addition, the exhibition pumped nearly $100

million into the Canberra economy. More importantly,

the exhibition brought great Post-Impressionist works to

Australia, where few are owned, for the appreciation of so

many Australians.

The nearly half-a-million attendance demonstrates the

importance of staging exhibitions of this quality and size

in Canberra, which is a convenient city for people from all

over Australia to visit. Nearly 80 per cent of visitors were

from outside Canberra. It would be impossible, of course,

to mount such exhibitions without the support of sponsors

and programs such as the Australian Government’s Art

Indemnity Australia scheme, the generous contribution

of the ACT government for the national marketing

campaign, corporate sponsors, particularly the National

Australia Bank but also Qantas, and other sponsors and

philanthropists.

The energy and effort that goes into these great

exhibitions should not be underestimated—they command

tremendous time and resources. The Gallery is extremely

grateful to everyone involved in making the exhibition such

a success—from our sponsors to, for example, the Gallery’s

security staff, our shop and cafe staff, cleaners, installation

teams, marketing staff, our members, volunteers and the

staff who volunteered to work extra hours to ensure people

enjoyed their experience at the Gallery.

Now, with Masterpieces from Paris behind us, the

Gallery’s focus is on finalising preparations for the opening

season of its new building.

James Turrell’s spectacular Skyspace, the Gallery’s largest

work, is almost completed, with only the surrounding

area to be landscaped in the new southern garden before

it can open to the public. The Skyspace stupa is the first

one of its kind to be built in the southern hemisphere.

This complex architectural work intensifies our experience

of two elements we take very much for granted in our

everyday lives: the sky and light. We will shortly announce

its opening season.

On 13 August, we open to the public Life, death and

magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art, an

exhibition designed to reveal the power of art made for

rituals of life and death from ancient to recent times. The

animist religion was the earliest in our immediate region

and is still practised in some areas of Southeast Asia.

Objects from museums around the world will complement

the National Gallery of Australia’s own exceptional

collection of ancestral art for this, the first major exhibition

of Southeast Asian animist art ever staged. Unlike similar

Asian exhibitions around the world, which focus on works

from classical Hindu and Buddhist civilisations, Life, death

and magic will reveal the diversity of art produced over

two millennia by animist communities, some of which

still live in mountainous terrain and remote islands. The

Australian International Cultural Foundation and the

Gordon Darling Foundation are generously supporting Life,

death and magic.

Our two major winter exhibitions look at the work

of two exceptional Australian painters of the past: Hans

Heysen and Robert Dowling.

Indonesia, possibly Borneo discovered Flores The bronze weaver 6th century bronze 25.8 x 22.8 x 15.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2006

To feature in Life, death and magic at the National Gallery of Australia in August.

4 national gallery of australia

Hans Heysen began his successful career in Adelaide

in the Federation period. Although he is one of Australia’s

best-known artists, this is the first full retrospective in

over 30 years. It includes his oil paintings, watercolours,

drawings and prints. Heysen’s work was pivotal to the

development of Australian landscape art in the early

twentieth century. He made the Australian gum tree the

monumental hero of his nationalistic pictures. His later

paintings of the rocky, arid region of the Flinders Ranges

from the late 1920s, in the reds and ambers of inland

Australia, depicted our dry sculptural landscape almost

for the first time. Developed by the Art Gallery of South

Australia, this touring retrospective opened at the

National Gallery of Australia on 14 May and will continue

until 11 July. It includes works that have not been shown

at other venues.

Our second winter retrospective is the Gallery’s own

Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire. Robert Dowling

was not only Australia’s first locally trained artist, when

in 1850 he advertised his services as an artist, but he also

later became Australia’s first artist to enjoy a career abroad.

This, the first retrospective of Dowling’s work, has been

curated for the Gallery by John Jones, one of the Gallery’s

inaugural curators of Australian art. The exhibition opened

in Launceston, Dowling’s home town, at Queen Victoria

Museum & Art Gallery in March, where it was very warmly

received by locals. It is currently at the Geelong Gallery

until 11 July—Dowling having worked in Geelong for a few

years after Launceston. Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of

Empire opens at the National Gallery of Australia on 24 July

and will later travel to the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Recent generous gifts have made significant

contributions to the Gallery’s collections of International

Prints and Drawings, Australian Prints and Drawings, and

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art.

The Modernist Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg’s gouache

painting on paper Space-time construction #3 1923 is an

exceptionally generous gift by Penelope Seidler in memory

of her husband, acclaimed architect Harry Seidler. Van

Doesburg is an important figure in early twentieth-century

European art and, along with Piet Mondrian, was a

founding member of the De Stijl movement in 1917.

De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and made a considerable

impact on architecture. Space-time construction #3, in

particular, was a major influence on Harry Seidler’s practice

as an architect. A highly valued personal possession of the

Seidlers since the early 1970s, this work is now a crucial

addition to the national collection.

Another important acquisition for the collection of

International Prints and Drawings is Henri de Toulouse-

Lautrec’s famous poster Eldorado 1892, which brilliantly

captures the bravado of the notorious French cabaret

singer Aristide Bruant. This very large and rare lithograph


complements the Gallery’s important collection of

Toulouse-Lautrec’s works on paper. It was acquired through

the National Gallery of Australia Foundation with funds

raised at the Foundation’s Gala dinner in March.

For the Australian Prints and Drawings collection, the

Gallery received prints and artists books from the collection

of Lyn Williams and the late Fred Williams. This significant

gift includes early works by major Australian printmakers

John Brack, Tate Adams, Jan Senbergs, George Baldessin

and others who shared the printmaking studios with

Williams at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

during the 1960s.

Walangkura Napanangka’s Untitled 2009 was

acquired for the Gallery’s collection of Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander Art with the generous support of

The Myer Foundation in acknowledgment of the 2008

National Apology to the Stolen Generations. This

engaging contemporary work is a large acrylic painting

from the Western Desert region of Central Australia,

the birthplace of this contemporary Indigenous art

movement derived originally from sand drawings.

This valuable and much appreciated addition to the

collection will be included in the opening displays in our

new Indigenous galleries.

The Gallery also received two Indonesian textiles, gifts

of Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, the first lady of Indonesia: a

fine hand-drawn batik from Java and a luminous silk and

silver brocade from Bali. Accompanied by Thérese Rein,

Mrs Bambang Yudhoyono toured the Asian galleries

and the exhibition Emerging Elders: honouring senior

Indigenous artists in March. The two gifts were made in

recognition of the Gallery’s role in establishing Indonesian

textiles as one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant art forms.

Over the past two years, the Gallery has made key

purchases of rare Southeast Asian ancestral sculpture

that will be first seen in our major exhibition mentioned

earlier, Life, death and magic. The recently acquired stone

figure of a grand nobleman from the Indonesian island of

Nias and the tall boldly painted house post from the Yami

community of Taiwan will be among works on display.

The Gallery continues to refresh the important

collection displays. A selection of early Indian portrait

photographs now on show in our new photography gallery

reveals the vitality of Indian culture and the unmistakable

character of Indian photographic portraiture from after

1850 to 1950. The Indian portraits are from the Gallery’s

growing and important collection of early Asian and

Pacific photography.

In addition to vitally needed new facilities, the new

building includes 11 generous spaces for our collection

of Indigenous Australian art, the largest and finest

anywhere. A book on the Indigenous collection will

be published in conjunction with the opening of the

building. It will provide a comprehensive introduction to

Indigenous art from early barks and early Papunya boards

to contemporary urban works.

The new building, nearing completion, will be a special

feature of the next artonview.

Ron Radford AM Director

Ron Radford, Director, Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, first lady of Indonesia, and Thérèse Rein in the Southeast Asian gallery with the two textiles given to the Gallery by Mrs Bambang Yudhoyono.

(opposite) The queue for Masterpieces from Paris, 7 January 2010.


exhibition

Robert Dowling Tasmanian son of Empire

24 July – 3 October 2010 | Orde Poynton Gallery and Project Gallery

Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire is a tribute to a

remarkable colonial artist, the first locally trained artist in

Australia. It opened at the Queen Victoria Museum & Art

Gallery, Launceston, on 5 March, and then at the Geelong

Gallery on 8 May, and will be on display at the National

Gallery of Australia from 24 July to 3 October. It is the

Gallery’s most significant Australian colonial art exhibition

since its John Glover retrospective in 2004.

Although Dowling’s work is held in private and public

collections across Australia and overseas, this is the first

time that a significant body of his work has been presented

to the public. The exhibition includes more than 70 works.

The exhibition and the accompanying book both

explore Dowling’s successful career in Australia and Britain.

It not only re-establishes his place in Australian art history,

but also shows how he earned a place within British art.

Paradoxically, some of his successes have remained hidden

for many years. Breakfasting out 1859, Dowling’s first work

to receive critical acclaim at the Royal Academy, has only

just been correctly attributed to the artist after spending

almost 60 years in the Museum of London attributed to an

English artist.

Who, then, was Robert Dowling? Photographs and

self-portraits suggest that he was a tall slender man, with a

straight back, who was immaculately dressed. He seems to

have been good looking in his youth with dark brown hair

and neatly trimmed beard, brown eyes, rosy cheeks and

a firmly set mouth. From all accounts, he had a directness

of manner, which he probably inherited from his father, a

Baptist preacher, and a man of physical and moral strength.

Dowling likely had few inhibitions; he was a self-made

man—having started his career as a portrait painter by

Robert Dowling Breakfasting out 1859

oil on canvas 61 x 91.5 cm

Museum of London, Britain purchased 1953

Robert Dowling Self-portrait c 1852

oil on board 30 x 25 cm

private collection


teaching himself how to paint. It would seem he believed

in himself and his abilities but was always ready to learn

from whomever he came across—artists Thomas Bock

and Henry Mundy, for instance. His family had a standing

in Tasmanian society, and this would have contributed to

his self-confidence. Moreover, he mixed with men who

played a crucial role in developing the young colony—

men such as the Reverend John West and WP Weston,

who were prominent figures in the anti-transportation

league, believing that the penal system was cruel.

From his father, and from such local dignitaries, Dowling

would have gained a sense of justice and integrity.

But mixing among such society also provided Dowling

with easy access to those who might commission portraits

or purchase paintings. He came from a close-knit family;

his brother Henry, particularly, was a staunch advocate

of his work and encouraged others to purchase or

commission it.

In the Western District of Victoria in the 1850s,

Dowling painted sympathetic portraits and portrait groups

of the local Aborigines. His Aboriginal subjects, such as

Weerat Kuyuut and the Mopor people, Spring Creek,

Victoria 1856, are unique historical documents. These

images reveal a real interest in and concern for the

Mopor people, in their way of life and their relationship

with their land. He talked with the Aboriginal people,

learned their names, closely observed the clothes they

wore and the tools they used when hunting, and depicted

this in his paintings.

From his Baptist family background Dowling would

have developed a concern for the wellbeing of other

people. We can see this in his social realist painting,

Breakfasting out. Painted in London in 1859, the year

that Charles Dickens wrote A tale of two cities, this work

shows the working class in the streets of London,

including a predatory toff attempting to seduce a young

woman. This Dickensian painting also suggests that

Dowling, like the great author and like some of the

Tasmanian dignitaries he portrayed in his youth, may

have been interested in social reform.

In London in the 1870s, Dowling painted the

watercolour Egyptian banana seller 1878, a carefully

Robert Dowling Weerat Kuyuut and the

Mopor people, Spring Creek, Victoria 1856 oil on canvas

52 x 108.5 cm The University of Queensland Art

Museum, Brisbane gift of Miss Marjorie Dowling, 1952


worked image in which he conveyed the quiet beauty

and radiance of his subject and captured the softness

and exquisite detail of her shawl. In its large scale and

Orientalist subject, A sheikh and his son entering Cairo

1874, reflects Dowling’s ambition. Such subjects were

popular with successful academicians at the time such as

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, who often portrayed the

Orient as exotic, colourful and sensual.

One of Dowling’s last paintings, Miss Robertson of

Colac (Dolly) 1885–86, was a portrait of a young Australian.

The painting is currently the subject of the National Gallery

of Australia’s Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010

(see page 39). Dowling first painted Dolly dressed in

white at her home in the Western District of Victoria.

But Dolly, then aged 19, did not approve of the portrait

and persuaded the artist to repaint her wearing a dark

brown dress. Other successful portrait painters would not

have done so, but Dowling agreed, perhaps entranced

by the charms of young Dolly, but perhaps just out of a

genuine kindness of heart. As the art critic James Smith

commented in Dowling’s obituary in The Argus on

14 July 1886, the artist’s nature was ‘breezy, genial and

sympathetic. He took a cheerful view of life, looked on

the bright side of human nature, and was somewhat of a

laughing philosopher’.

Three years in the making, Robert Dowling: Tasmanian

son of Empire, the exhibition and book, curated and

written by John Jones, reveals the work of a remarkable

character and a fascinating and broad-ranging artist.

As the Director of the National Gallery of Australia,

Ron Radford, has said:

This exhibition aims to return Robert Dowling to his

proper place in Australian cultural history. He was the

first Australian to achieve success at the Royal Academy

in London and the most successful portrait painter in

Australia in the 1880s.

Robert Dowling truly holds a special place in the history of

Australian art, a place that this retrospective affirms.

Anne Gray Head of Australian art

Robert Dowling A sheikh and his son entering Cairo, on their return from a pilgrimage to Mecca 1874 oil on canvas 139.3 x 244.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne presented by a committee of gentlemen, 1878


exhibition

Life, death and magic 2000 years of Southeast Asian

ancestral art

13 August – 31 October 2010 | Exhibition Galleries

Throughout Southeast Asia, the deification of significant

forebears and the veneration of spirits of nature have long

provided the impetus for the creation of superb works of

art. Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian

ancestral art is the first major exhibition to focus on the art

of animism, the oldest of the Asian religions. For thousands

of years, objects have been made to give pleasure to the

living and the dead. Often their designs are simultaneously

appealing and frightening, created to encourage benign

spirits to join in village celebrations and yet providing

protection from dangerous beings and misfortunes. For

this exhibition, some of the finest works of Southeast

Asian animist art have been assembled from around the

world, with generous loans from collecting institutions in

Asia, Europe and America joining works from the national

collection.

Recent acquisitions of animist sculpture by the National

Gallery of Australia will be revealed for the first time and

provide the focus for the themes in the exhibition. A rare

painted Yami house post (see page 32) is pivotal to the

section exploring the majestic wooden architecture of

the region, while two monumental Nias stone effigies of

noblemen—one purchased 2009 (see page 33) and one

in 2008—are central to the selection of objects, textiles

and gold jewellery that proclaim wealth and power. Many

of the textiles from the Gallery’s internationally renowned

Asian collection will also be new to visitors. Here, the focus

is on bold fibre shrouds and delicate barkcloths brightly

painted with curving buffalo horns, widely used as symbols

of abundance. Heavily beaded and interlaced mats from

the collection depict the cosmic tree and the spirit ship

that, along with strange birds, symbolise changes in status

throughout life as well as transitions through the layers

of the universe, especially between this world and the

afterlife. Mats and fabrics are often hung at significant rites

of passage, especially funerals.

Life, death and magic presents a very broad geographic

and temporal vista of the region’s ancestral arts, from

ancient times to the twentieth century and encompassing

Ngaju people Kalimantan, Indonesia

Ceremonial mat (amak dare) early 20th century

bamboo, natural dyes 205.3 x 88.8 cm

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

purchased 1994

Toraja people Sulawesi, Indonesia

Ceremonial hanging and shroud (paporitonoling) 19th

century (detail) cotton, dyes

137 x 181 cm National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra acquired through gift and purchase

from the Collection of Robert J Holmgren and Anita E Spertus,

New York, 2000


mainland and island Southeast Asia. The juxtaposition of

2000-year-old archaeological treasures with nineteenth-

century sculptures, gold ornaments and architectural

elements dramatically demonstrates the ancient and

enduring links between the arts of the Philippines,

Indonesia, Malaysia (especially Borneo), the indigenous

inhabitants of Taiwan and the mountain groups of

Vietnam and southern China. Significantly, the exhibition

reveals the richness of the arts of smaller and more

remote communities often overlooked in exhibitions and

publications in favour of the great stone monuments and

sculptures from the better-known classical Hindu-Buddhist

civilisations such as Angkor and Borobodur.

The exhibition features works in a wide range of media,

including fibre, stone, metal, wood and clay. Always

present at the many rites that celebrate agricultural and life

cycles—most notably harvests and funerals—are sculpture

and textiles, often symbolising the male–female dimensions

of the cosmos that underpin ancestral beliefs. This dualism

is powerfully represented, in ceremony, by the male arts

of woodcarving and smelting and the female arts of

textile, basketry and pottery. Works have been selected to

demonstrate recurring images in animist art such as human

and animal figures, real and mythical, shown seated,

standing and sometimes mounted on fantastic creatures.

Similarly the horns of sacrificial buffaloes, grains of rice

and stars in the night sky evoke fertility and fecundity.

These symbols are displayed at rites enacted to ensure the

prosperity and survival of small communities, while fanged

demonic masks and fierce reptilian forms such as serpents

and dragons serve to repel evil.

The central object in the exhibition is The Bronze

weaver, the Gallery’s superb 600-year-old seated maternity

figure. Found on one of the eastern islands of the

archipelago, The Bronze weaver will share the spotlight

in Life, death and magic with other remarkable rare and

ancient bronzes: a curving ceremonial axe from Roti from

the National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, an enigmatic

Yamdena, Maluku, Indonesia

Ancestral altar (tavu) 19th century

wood 138 x 188 x 3.5 cm

Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam

Sa’dan Toraja people Tondon village, Sulawesi,

Indonesia Granary facade 19th century

wood, pigments 211 x 198 x 10 cm

Fowler Museum of Cultural History UCLA, Los Angeles

gift of Dr and Mrs Robert Kuhn

bulbous flask with spiral ornamentation unearthed in

Borneo from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, and

the splendid figure of a sturdy dog possibly discovered

in Sulawesi and now in the collection of the Honolulu

Academy of Arts.

Among the most beguiling, however, are the bronzes

from the early Dian Kingdom (500 BCE – 200 CE)

discovered in a series of archaeological excavations in the

province of Yunnan in southern China. Objects from the

Provincial Museum in Kunming and smaller local museums

include large drums with dramatic three-dimensional scenes

of weaving and hunting on their lids. The most detailed of

the scenes shows a village house and granaries teeming

with activity—a cameo of life in early Southeast Asia that

are still replicated today in remote hamlets in the Batak

regions of north Sumatra or the Toraja areas of Sulawesi.

The facade of a Toraja granary from the collection of the

Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of Los

Angeles comes from a structure very similar to but two

millennia younger than those of the Dian people of Yunnan.

Another fascinating aspect of the exhibition is the

variety of masks found across Southeast Asia. Frightening

wooden faces—in both anthropomorphic and animal

forms—are stark reminders of the need for powerful

protection from evil spirits and the wandering souls of the

dead. Some of the most striking are the gold burial masks.

Powerful but delicate examples from Indonesia and from

the pre-Hispanic period of Philippine art comprise only the

nose, eye and lip covers along with arching gold eyebrows.

Life, death and magic follows the life cycle from birth

to death and into the afterlife. A wooden baby carrier

from Borneo, borrowed from the Musée du quai Branly

in Paris, protects the child physically while its carvings of

large ferocious faces, with bared teeth and huge shell disc

eyes, provide a barrier to evil spirits. Given the uncertainties

of childhood, it is not surprising that some of the most

powerful art is created to celebrate the great achievements

of adulthood—success at hunting, including warfare and

head hunting, prowess in weaving and the promotion

to high rank and chiefdom. The exhibition will feature a

selection of large gold ornaments, ostentatiously displayed

by nobles from Nias at great communal feasts, from the

Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore.

Arguably the greatest works of art have been created

for funerals of prominent members of the community,

whose spirits may continue to be active in the affairs of the

living. Where the afterlife mirrors the human dimension,

no expense is spared on ensuring that the deceased moves

into the realm of the spirits and ancestors with an enviable

collection of fine grave goods at an elaborate ceremony

Sumbanese people west Sumba, Indonesia

Breast ornament or pectoral (marangga)

late 19th – early 20th century gold, cinnabar

16.5 x 24.2 x 0.8 cm National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra purchased 2005

Sumbanese people Kanatang domain, Sumba,

Indonesia Ceremonial ear pendant

(mamuli ) 19th century gold alloy

10.2 x 9.6 x 1.4 cm National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra purchased 1984


with huge attendances. Beautiful objects—textiles, ivory,

jewellery and vessels of ceramic and bronze—are interred

with the dead during mortuary rites. In many communities,

the bones are later exhumed and the deceased is again

honoured in elaborate secondary burial rites that also

require fine objects and textiles. A number of large

and richly decorated coffins are the epitome of the arts

associated with death. A 2.4-metre-long house-shaped

bronze sarcophagus from the Dian culture of Yunnan

and an intricately decorated, buffalo-shaped nineteenth-

century Toraja ossuary from Sulawesi are among the most

spectacular items in Life, death and magic, demonstrating

the endurance of Southeast Asian art forms and practices

from ancient times into the modern era.

Unusually for a major Asian exhibition, works created

by both men and women are featured together in Life,

death and magic, since the veneration of nature spirits

and ancestral beings, who are themselves both male and

female, requires the creation of powerful works of art by

members of both sexes. Respect for ancestors, including

the mythical creators, the original mothers and fathers

of all things, often demands fine effigies to be placed in

sacred locations and altars in and around the family house

and village compound. Mindful of the role of the ancestors

in the existence of the living and the ongoing wellbeing

of the community, pairs of figures—male and female—are

conspicuous in animist art of Southeast Asia. Their human

form varies from full-bodied realism to stylised minimalism,

and their size from tiny to taller than life-size. Through

magnificent contributions from two great Dutch museums,

the National Museum for Ethnology in Leiden and the

Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the exhibition explores the

most powerful objects created to honour the dead. These

spectacular shrines and altars, often in the form of mythical

founding ancestors, were sites of offerings reverently laid

by generations of descendants.

Southeast Asian art has long been a major focus of

the National Gallery of Australia’s collections, displays and

curatorial research. Through the juxtaposition of works

drawn from the Gallery’s fine collection and the generous

loans of great works of Southeast Asian art from around

the world, visitors will be introduced to the little-known but

truly astounding art of the oldest religion in Southeast Asia.

Audiences will experience art forms and styles that have

endured sweeping changes over many thousands of years

until recent decades. The accompanying publication fully

illustrates this unique assemblage of the finest and rarest

works of ancestral art from Southeast Asia.

Robyn Maxwell Senior Curator, Asian Art

The book Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art, published in conjunction with the exhibition, will be available from 13 August at the Gallery Shop and selected bookstores nationally.

Indonesia Standing dog 4th–6th century bronze 43.2 x 15.9 x 37.5 cm Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii gift of the Christensen Fund 2001


exhibition

Hans Heysen

A grand vision: strong forms and bold light

14 May – 11 July 2010 | Exhibition Galleries

One of Australia’s best-known landscape painters,

Hans Heysen (1877–1968) was also one of the most

successful during his lifetime. He changed the way we

view the Australian landscape, with his distinctive gum

trees having now become a part of our national imagery.

This exhibition celebrates Heysen’s work.

Heysen painted the majesty of Australia. He did so

through his images of huge gum trees around Hahndorf

and the stark hills of the Flinders Ranges. Heysen’s largeness

of vision is evident in oil paintings such as Mystic morn

1904, Red gold 1913 and Droving into the light 1914–21.

In these works, Heysen observed nature acutely, portraying

individual species of gum trees in all their specificity—

a river red gum distinguished from a white gum or a

stringybark. But these images are not just descriptive;

they are triumphant portraits, with symbolic resonance.

Heysen ‘humanised’ his trees into dramatic self-conscious

poses, imbuing them with qualities of endurance,

resilience and grandeur. And he arranged his trees within

the landscape as if they were sculptural forms

or architectural columns.

Mystic morn, for instance, depicts two young cows

moving through a eucalyptus grove in the early morning

light. Heysen painted it soon after his return to Adelaide

after studying in Europe for four years, and it reflects his

new awareness of the character of the Australian bush. In

the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, visitors

will be able to see together for the first time four versions

of this image: two drawings, one watercolour and an

oil painting. They will be able to observe how the artist

explored the same subject in different media. In the first

drawing, Group of young trees c 1904, Heysen made a

tentative sketch, possibly outdoors, depicting sinuous trees

and their peeling bark. The second drawing, Study for

‘Mystic morn’ 1904, is a densely worked compositional

study for the oil painting, with very faint grid lines dividing

the image into 16 even rectangles in preparation for

transferring the design onto canvas—a method Heysen

used throughout his career. This compositional drawing

also includes a man beside the cow on the left, showing

that Heysen initially considered including a figure in the

painting. These changes demonstrate the way that Heysen

carefully composed his landscapes—after first having

made a sketch directly from nature. He worked on his

composition to make it more balanced and harmonious,

and sought to direct the viewer’s eye through the image.

The watercolour, Study for ‘Mystic morn’ 1904, may have

been painted before the finished oil, but it could possibly

have been painted after it. Unlike the carefully worked

drawing, it is a freer image, painted in rich strong colours

and using the watercolour medium to capture an intense

light. There are no cows in this image, and the trees are

more interwoven and intertwined. The trees almost seem to

come to life. The work is also related to another oil painting

by Heysen, Sunshine and shadow 1904–05.

Hans Heysen Droving into the light 1914–21

oil on canvas 121.9 x 152.4 cm

Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

gift of Mr WH Vincent, 1922

Hans Heysen Mystic morn 1904

oil on canvas 122.8 x 184.3 cm

Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Elder Bequest Fund, 1904


In 1926, in search of a change in his art, Heysen visited

the Flinders Ranges, more than 500 kilometres north

of Adelaide, and began to depict the ancient mountain

ranges there. Before this, he had been attracted to the

theme of nature laid bare, to scenes of quarries and cliff

faces, but from 1926 to 1933 the dry bare-boned terrain

of the Flinders Ranges became the focus of his art. He

admired the way in which the hills were defined by light.

He captured the sharp profiles of the hills, the clarity of the

light, and the intense colours. But, more significantly, he

saw this landscape as being dateless, frozen in time, and he

captured its haunting silence. Writing to Sydney Ure Smith,

Heysen observed that in the Flinders Ranges the scene was

ready-made, ‘fine big simple forms against clear transparent

skies—and a sense of spaciousness everywhere’.

Heysen was also interested in capturing the Australian

sunlight in all its variety—from a brilliant glare to a misty

haze. And through this he conveyed a sense of the

spiritual or sublime in nature. In Droving into the light

1914–21, for instance, Heysen expressed his love of light,

glowing through the monumental gums at the end of the

day. The massive foreground trees provide scale for

the picture as well as a frame directing the attention of

the viewer towards the centre of the composition.

It is a vision of nature as homely, secure and peaceful;

a promised land.

In addition to his evocative gum tree paintings and

the magnificent barren landscapes of the Flinders Ranges,

the exhibition includes a number of Heysen’s lesser-

known images, from his early student days and his time in

Europe from 1899 to 1903. There are portraits of Heysen’s

wife Sallie and still-lifes depicting the vegetables from

his garden. There are landscapes that reflect Heysen’s

experience of bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, in which

he captured the fierce blaze of the fire and the stifling

heat emanating from it. And there are images of sheep

Hans Heysen Bronzewings and saplings,

1921 1921 watercolour on paper

56.7 x 76.4 cm Art Gallery of South Australia,

Adelaide South Australian Government

Grant, 1937


Hans Heysen Spring 1925 watercolour on paper 39.3 x 49.2 cm private collection

wandering on dusty roads during a drought, which conjure

up the smell of the hot, dry air.

Among Heysen’s intimate and domestic images is the

delightful watercolour of two cats in a tree, Spring 1925.

It is a simple snatch of life—with the cats stretching,

crouching, possibly waiting for coming prey, or maybe just

basking in the sun. Likewise, Bronzewings and saplings

1921 is a sparkling image and one of Heysen’s major

watercolours. Here, the artist depicted a group of albino

turkeys within a sapling glade. The Hahndorf postmistress

had given him a number of bronzewing turkey eggs and,

to his surprise, when the eggs hatched many of the chicks

turned out to be white. The combination of bronzewing

and white turkeys inspired this work. He took much care

in painting the scene, laying down each colour freshly

with a crisp edge and arranging the composition like a

mosaic. Heysen considered it one of his most complicated

pieces of design. Some years after he had painted this

watercolour, the Commonwealth Government commissioned

Heysen to paint a similar work in oil, which he called The

promenade 1953. In Canberra, both the watercolour and

the oil will be shown together for the first time.

There is much to see in this exhibition, which throws

a different light on Heysen. Ron Radford, Director of the

National Gallery of Australia, has summed up the artist’s

achievements:

Heysen made the Australian gum tree monumental and

the hero of his nationalistic pictures. His paintings of the

rocky, arid region of the Flinders Ranges from the late

1920s onward added a new dry and sculptural aesthetic,

emphasising the reds and ambers of inland Australia.

Comprising about 80 works, the exhibition Hans Heysen at

the National Gallery of Australia has been organised and

curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Anne Gray

Head of Australian Art


display

Portraits from India 1850s–1950s

The second display in the National Gallery of Australia’s Photography gallery turns to the important role India played in the development of portrait photography in Asia. The works on display present the vibrant and enigmatic world of Indian studio-based portraiture.

One highlight in the new display is the portrait of the

dashing Maharaja George Jivajirao Scindia of Gwalior—

prominently wearing his sash and medal of the Knight

Grand Commander of the Star of India, awarded to

him in 1946. I first saw him looking down at me in a

dealer’s premises in Jaipur in Rajasthan. He was with

other elaborately framed, hand-coloured photographs

and paintings hanging at rakish angles high on the walls.

Piles of studio shots of children, family portraits, glamour

shots of women and albums by Raja Deen Dayal wrapped

in cloth jostled in the semi-dark with embroideries, softly

shimmering silver jewellery and knick-knacks.

A selection of the photographs I saw that day were

acquired by the Gallery, and they, along with others

bought in recent years, comprise this new display of

photography from the collection. Images on show date

from early in the history of Indian photography, from the

1850s, with the inclusion of plates from William Henderson

and William J Johnson’s The Oriental races and tribes,

residents and visitors of Bombay, the first photographically

illustrated ethnographic publication on India. These

photographs show a high degree of manipulation—their

strangeness attributed to Johnson bleaching out the studio

backgrounds, overprinting them with Bombay scenes from

separate negatives and drawing in features such as foliage.

Also in the display is a splendid array of nineteenth-

century rulers with their inventive blending of traditional

Indian clothing mixed with Western imports such as patent

leather shoes and umbrellas—ensembles that demonstrate

resourceful adjustments to shifting political and social

climates under the British Raj.

Invented in the late 1830s, photography is distinctive

as an art form in the history of many countries because

it was introduced very soon after its appearance in

Europe—arriving without the burden of a pre-existing

tradition. Brought into India by a variety of means—

visiting photographers, missionaries, anthropologists,

ethnographers—locals were quick to pick up cameras,

build up their skills and develop successful businesses. As in

other parts of Asia, Indian royals were particularly astute in

seeing the political potential of the new medium and were

passionate patrons and practitioners.

One drawback of the new medium—particularly in

India, where colour, symbolically and for its own beauty,

permeates every aspect of life—was that it rendered a

highly colourful world in monochrome. The solution was a

truly hybrid form of photography and painting. Techniques

used for hundreds of years by painters of miniatures found

a new application in painting over photographs, particularly

portraits—with the over-painting often almost completely

obscuring the photograph beneath. Photography

developed a distinctive local flavour with regional styles

and essentially a home-grown clientele—as opposed to the

hand-coloured views and portraits from Japan, for example,

which were produced for the tourist trade.

The history of the professional studio photographer is

longer in India than in other more-industrialised countries

where amateur home photography took over by the late

nineteenth century. In India, elderly hand-colourists are still

working today, and long-established studios continue to

do business or have only recently closed. Contemporary

photographers also draw on their predecessors’ studio

work as inspiration. This display of a century of Indian

portrait photography presents examples of a wonderfully

rich and varied art form, one with a long history. Like many

things brought in by the colonising foreigner, photography

was embraced and made unmistakably Indian, in style and

in spirit.

Anne O’Hehir Assistant Curator, Photography

Dias Studio Maharaja Jivajirao Scindia,

Gwalior c 1937 gelatin silver photograph,

watercolour image 29 x 24 cm card 51.5 x 41 cm


purchased 2009


travelling exhibition

In the Japanese manner Australian prints 1900–1940

During Margaret Preston’s second visit to Paris in 1912,

her Australian contact, artist Rupert Bunny, advised her to

look at the Japanese prints at the Musée Guimet. She was

immediately impressed by the asymmetry of the images

and the use of pattern as a key element of design. After

trade with Japan resumed in the 1850s, the rediscovery

of Japanese art and design had a profound influence

on European art. From the 1860s, traditional Japanese

woodblock prints became a source of inspiration for artists

who were receptive to the unique compositions enlivened

by silhouettes, high horizon lines and unusual viewpoints.

Elongated pictorial formats, decorative motifs and spaces

with abstract elements of colour and line superseded

perspective and shadow as the focus of the design.

Arriving in London in 1913, Preston viewed the

important exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e (floating world)

printmaking at the Victoria and Albert Museum and later

described four woodblock prints completed during this

period as having been printed ‘in the Japanese manner’.

The recently acquired Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay)

c 1920 is one of six woodcuts printed by Preston using

Japanese techniques following her return to Australia in

late 1919. Produced to decorate her new flat in Mosman,

on Sydney’s North Shore, this delicate hand-coloured print

with its glowing colours and strong lyrical design is a testament

to Preston’s connection with the formal qualities and

techniques associated with Japanese woodblock printing.

Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay) is included in the

National Gallery of Australia exhibition In the Japanese

manner: Australian prints 1900–1940, which will tour

across regional New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland

and Western Australia from 18 June 2010 to 21 November

2011. The exhibition showcases the work of Australian

artists inspired by the traditional Japanese woodblock

printing art of ukiyo-e. By the turn of the nineteenth

century, Japanese prints were all the rage in England

and France. Australian artists, like their contemporaries

worldwide, were also drawn to the nuanced aesthetic of

Japonisme. Printmakers working in Sydney, Melbourne,

Perth and Adelaide adapted the radical forms, cropped

figures and flat areas of colour that characterised Japanese

woodblock printing to form a distinctly Australian aesthetic.

Some artists experimented with the colour woodblock

method, which involved brushing ink directly onto wood or

Paul Haefliger Sublime Point above Bulli 1936

woodcut, printed in colour in the Japanese manner from one

cherry woodblock on paper printed image 26.5 x 36.6 cm

sheet 26.5 x 36.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

gift of the artist, 1978

Margaret Preston Frenchman’s Beach (Neutral Bay)

1920 woodcut, printed in black ink from one woodblock, hand-

coloured, on thin smooth off-white Japanese-style paper

21 x 26.3 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

purchased 2009 © Margaret Rose Preston Estate.

Represented by VISCOPY, Australia

Lionel Lindsay Beach scene with figures c 1917

etching, printed in black ink from one plate; woodcut, printed in

colour from one block on paper printed image 22.1 x 16 cm

sheet 28.2 x 20.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

purchased 1989 © National Library of Australia


lino blocks, while others applied Japanese aesthetics and

style to various print forms.

Featured in the exhibition is the earliest print created

in the Japanese manner by an Australian artist. Ambrose

Patterson’s woodcut View over the Thames, evening

1904 displays a soft, tonal view of twilight over the River

Thames, with St Paul’s cathedral silhouetted against the

sky. Another rare inclusion is a Japanese-style bound book

of verse written and illustrated in 1905 by Melbourne artist

Violet Teague. This small childrens book contains the very

first colour woodcuts printed in Australia. The book was

exhibited widely, winning an award at the first Australian

exhibition of women’s work in Melbourne in 1907. Night

fall in the ti-tree is a cautionary tale set out through a series

of brief verses reminiscent of Japanese haiku. The rabbits

who live among the tea trees are urged to run, ‘Flirt tails

and away!’, from ‘Man’s merciless traps’.

Working with fellow artist Geraldine Rede, Teague

made the book entirely by hand, using Japanese methods

at every stage of production. The book is bound with the

pages folded at the fore-edge (the edge opposite the

spine) and stitched through the spine with ribbon. The

images are printed from woodblocks with the buff coloured

paper reminiscent of the mulberry paper used by Japanese

printmakers. Coming from a wealthy family, Teague had

the opportunity to travel extensively, and developed

a sustained interest in the aesthetic conventions and

techniques of Japanese woodblock printing. Like Teague,

many Australian artists in this exhibition studied and

worked in Europe. In Paris and London, they were exposed

to exhibitions of Japanese works of art as well as new ideas

in Modern art. After travelling to Japan, artists such as

Margaret Preston and Paul Haefliger achieved a convincing

synthesis of Western and Japanese traditions.

It was Margaret Preston who taught woodblock

printing to Thea Proctor, who in turn instructed the

German-born Haefliger. Haefliger continued his study of

traditional printmaking techniques in Japan, following a

process where the image is cut along the grain of the wood

rather than across the end grain. The hard, slow-growing

cherry wood used by Haefliger was favoured by Japanese

artists. Rice paste mixed with watercolour was brushed

onto the block, which was then hand-printed onto fine,

soft paper using pressure from a bamboo-covered pad

known as a baren. With this method, the printer could

manipulate the ink to produce bold areas of colour, subtle

gradations of tone and fine line work.

Haefliger’s Sublime Point above Bulli 1936 is a

Ambrose Patterson View over the Thames, evening

c 1904 woodcut, printed in colour in

the Japanese manner from two blocks, with additional hand-colouring in gouache on thin

cream paper printed image 21.8 x 30.6 cm


purchased 2000


woodcut, printed in colour in the Japanese manner from

a cherry-wood block. The Sublime Point lookout is on

the escarpment above the Illawarra coast in New South

Wales, with a view south past the town of Bulli towards

Wollongong. In this print, Haefliger depicts a group of virile

young men clambering up the cliff face, looking across

a vast expanse of blue water dotted with the white sails

of yachts and the pattern of undulating sandy bays. He

successfully blends Eastern and Western elements, creating

a uniquely Australian image while using the Japanese

method of colour printing.

Like Haefliger, Lionel Lindsay drew inspiration from

serene depictions of populated Japanese landscapes.

Though focused on traditional values in art, Lindsay was

highly experimental in his use of different artistic practices

to express his poetic vision. A prolific printmaker and

passionate collector of Japanese prints and artefacts, he

enthusiastically explored the possibilities of combining

printmaking methods in works such as Beach scene

with figures c 1917. Here, the Japanese compositional

techniques of cropping tall trees with the border of the

print and the gradual fading of the blue sky into the sea

have been overprinted with an etching to define the finer

outlines of the trees and figures.

Another artist who experimented with Japanese

aesthetics was Murray Griffin. In Cannas 1935, he used lino

rather than wood as the base for his matrix, as the material

was easier to cut and more readily available. The strong

geometric shapes and vibrant colours of the Cannas were

closely aligned to Modernist design. The brushy lines give a

sense of the texture of a woodblock print, with the striking

cropped design recalling the print of irises by the Japanese

artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

In the Japanese manner builds on the successes of the

landmark exhibition The story of Australian printmaking

1801–2005 at the National Gallery Australia in 2007.

This exhibition presented the calibre and depth of the

Gallery’s Australian print holdings and was regarded as

the most comprehensive gathering of works on paper

by artists from Australia and the region. In the Japanese

manner will provide audiences across Australia with a fresh

and inspiring glimpse of some of the National Gallery of

Australia’s most delightful treasures.

Emma Colton Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

In the Japanese manner begins its tour of regional venues at Lake Macquarie Art Gallery, NSW, from 18 June to 1 August 2010. Go to nga.gov.au/japanesemanner for a full list of venues and dates.

Murray Griffin Cannas 1935 linocut, printed in colour from multiple blocks on cream lithographic wove paper printed image 28 x 35.4 cm sheet 32.8 x 43.7 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1978


James Turrell Skyspace

A major new Skyspace by American artist James Turrell nears completion at the National Gallery of Australia.

A Skyspace is a work of art that we enter—and then

we stay to look at light, to ponder and to be moved.

Contrasts between artificial light within the installation

and the changing external atmosphere affect the

appearance of the sky. Colours change and seem more

painterly. Movement is intensified. The sky shimmers and

pulsates and, at times, descends into the space to meet

us. By asking the viewer to take the time to notice these

subtleties, James Turrell reveals the immensity of the

natural world and the sheer beauty of ‘divine’ architecture.

A Skyspace marks the transition between night and day,

and the work is at its most dramatic and most complex at

dawn and dusk.

The Skyspace at the National Gallery of Australia is

a site-specific work, its location chosen by the artist to

complement and accord with the Gallery’s southern

garden. On approach, visitors see a mound surrounded

by water. Only a small portion of the structure is visible

from outside. Being partially subterranean, the sculpture

is established as an integral part of the garden; this also

muffles extraneous sound and reduces light pollution.

Via a long sloping walkway, the visitor encounters a large

square-based pyramid with coloured interior walls. In the

middle of this room, a huge basalt stupa rises, highlighted

by the turquoise water that surrounds it. Two ramps, set at

right angles around the perimeter of the room, converge

on a single entrance on the opposite side of the stupa.

Crossing a small bridge, we enter the stupa, the

Skyspace proper. We find ourselves within a simple domed

space, sparsely furnished with a concrete bench around

the edge. The roof is open, the sky framed in an oculus.

A moonstone, set into the centre of the floor, echoes the

opening above. A bank of lights is located around the base

of the dome, discreetly fixed into the wall of the bench.

This inner sanctum is austere, even church-like. Within the

space, we look up. Even during the day, changing light

conditions, shifting weather patterns and variations in the

seasons, ensure the experience is always different. We

are offered artlessness, simplicity, unhurried perception—

perhaps even the chance of epiphany.

Turrell has made a small number of permanent Skyspaces

in the United States of America, Europe, Britain, Japan and

Israel. To date only two others use the stupa form: Three

gems 2005 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and

Second wind 2005 2009 at the NMAC Foundation in Cadiz,

Spain. The Skyspace in Canberra will open with a series

of special viewings later this year, when the landscaping is

complete. Visitors will then experience this wonderful work

of art, Turrell’s new Skyspace under southern skies.

Lucina Ward Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

James Turrell Skyspace 2010

installation: lighting installation, concrete and

basalt stupa, water, earth, landscaping

800 x 2800 x 2800 cm National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra photographs: John Gollings

acquisition


acquisition

Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3

Space-time construction #3 is a 1923 painting in gouache

on paper by the renowned leader of De Stijl, Theo van

Doesburg. It remained a constant inspiration for the

extraordinarily gifted architect the late Harry Seidler AC during

his years of practice. Seidler’s work, in turn, has had a

great influence on architectural developments in Australia.

Penelope Seidler has now generously donated Space-time

construction #3 to the Gallery in memory of her husband.

Harry Seidler first saw the work at the Museum of

Modern Art in New York in the 1940s, when it was owned

by American collectors Mr and Mrs Burton Tremaine.

The impact of the van Doesburg work on Seidler was

profound—something he outlined on numerous occasions

in lectures and interviews. Its influence was evident in his

designs for the Rose Seidler House in 1949–50. Seidler also

mentioned van Doesburg’s importance for his Rushcutters

Bay apartments of 1963–65 and the family home in Killara

of 1966–67. In a lecture to the Royal Australian Institute

of Architects on 8 October 1980, copies of which are

held at the universities of Melbourne and South Australia,

Seidler noted:

[Concerning] the space that is implicit in this arrangement

of divorced structural trays that carry floors, one can only

recall the paintings of the 1920s such as this one [Space-

time construction #3] by Theo van Doesburg, a remarkable

man who seemed to have predicted what would/will

concern twentieth-century man’s eyes about what he feels

to express this spaciousness, this continuum [of space].

His painting reflects this continuum of being able to look

down and being able to look above from any one space,

sensing that there is something beyond, having an illusion

of something more, that the space keeps on going. It is

not ever restricted or confined. And this is particularly

exploited later in my work of the 1960s in multistorey

buildings. It makes sense both in terms of planning and

expresses a visual quality that underlies my interpretation

of modern architecture.

The significance of the van Doesburg is outlined by Peter

Blake and brilliantly captured in Max Dupain’s photographs

in the 1973 publication Architecture for the new world: the

work of Harry Seidler, which included an illustration and

analysis of the van Doesburg. Seidler generously gave a

group of Dupain’s photographs of his work to the National

Gallery of Australia in 2001.

Space-time construction #3 became a valued possession

of the Seidlers after they acquired it from Berlin dealer

Jürgen Holstein. Holstein had bought the van Doesburg at

an auction of the Tremaine collection and had contacted

Harry Seidler, having seen its importance to the architect in

Blake’s book. The work was also coincidently created in the

year of Seidler’s birth, 1923. As Penelope Seidler recently

recalled, Harry was ‘thrilled’ to own ‘his most favourite

artwork’. In turn, this most influential work in the recent

history of architecture in Australia is now in the national

collection for all Australians to own.

Along with this van Doesburg gouache, Penelope

Seidler has also generously donated a group of early

European Modernist works on paper by artists associated

with the Bauhaus. The gift includes postcards by Paul Klee,

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, which

were created to promote the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923

(again coinciding with the year of Harry Seidler’s birth).

Penelope Seidler gave these to her husband on his birthday.

They provide wonderful examples of the aesthetic and the

passion the Seidlers shared as collectors over the years.

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

Harry and Penelope Seidler (architects)

Interior view, Harry & Penelope Seidler House, Killara, NSW,

1966–67 photograph: Max Dupain

© Harry Seidler & Associates

Theo van Doesburg Space-time construction #3

1923 gouache, graphite, ink


Canberra donated through the Australian

Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Penelope Seidler AM in memory of Harry Seidler AC,

2010


acquisition

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became renowned for his

portrayal of subjects drawn from the Parisian demimonde in

the late nineteenth century, producing astonishing images

executed with an unerring and penetrating eye.

The subject of this famous poster is the singer Aristide

Bruant. Bruant was a notorious character as renowned

for his rich baritone voice as he was for insulting his

audiences. Despite this, his patrons kept coming back

for more, attracted not only to the outrageousness of

his performances but also because he sang lyrics in a

Parisian argot.

Toulouse-Lautrec was a master draughtsman and we

can see this in the seemingly effortless way he has captured

Bruant’s physical presence and character. As one critic of

the day said of Bruant, he was ‘Tall, with a broad barrel

chest and a Napoleonic profile: but his eye is sly and his

lip sardonic’.

Bruant commissioned this poster for his debut in 1892

at the Parisian café-concert Eldorado, which was more

luxurious than some of the seedier café-concerts found

in Montmartre. The poster brilliantly captures Bruant’s

character; his larger than life presence, his signature scarf

and black fedora almost burst from the picture frame.

Behind Bruant is the ominous silhouette of a city ruffian

suggesting the singer’s links with the Parisian underworld.

Bruant was keen to promote such an association to

provide him with the streetwise credentials that attracted

his wealthier patrons, who enjoyed slumming it.

This is an iconic work by Toulouse-Lautrec, who applied

fine-art qualities to low-art subjects. Eldorado with its

sinuous lines, bold colouring and simplified forms also

reveals the artist’s enthusiasm for Japanese ukiyo-e prints.

Now, through the generosity of the National Gallery of

Australia Foundation, this justifiably famous poster will

become one of the highlights of the collection.

Jane Kinsman Senior Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Book

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Eldorado 1892

colour lithograph on two sheets 150 x 99 cm (overall)

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired through the National Gallery of Australia

Foundation, 2010


It is rare that a Melanesian work of art from the nineteenth

century can be attributed to an artist with any certainty,

so the artist known as Mutuaga is a phenomenon. He is

the only named New Guinean artist who was active during

this period and who is responsible for a known body of

outstanding work characterised by small yet monumental

figurative sculpture.

The artist was known to be of positive and cheerful

disposition and, as a carver of great standing, Mutuaga was

nicknamed Oitau (carved man) by his peers. His ability to

transform the utilitarian object—in this case, a lime spatula

(known as enale or gem in the Suau area)—and to make

it into something attractive and covetous was exceptional.

While all lime spatulas from the Milne Bay Province are

decorated to some extent, and many also include a small

figure as the handle, Mutuaga’s works are usually far larger

and show a greater level of sculptural strength.

Little was known about the artist’s identity until

1996, when art historian Dr Harry Beran published

groundbreaking research. Beran identified Mutuaga and his

body of work through some hundred sculptures that had

been mainly sitting unrecognised in museum collections.

We now know Mutuaga was born around 1860 in

Dagodagisu Village in the Milne Bay province of Papua New

Guinea. He died around 1920.

Mutuaga, although he did not adopt Christianity,

gained the friendship and patronage of the missionary

Charles Abel at the nearby Kwato Island Mission.

Mutuaga’s relationship with Abel provided a conduit for

his art beyond the traditional exchange practices of his

community. Missionaries, commodores and even two of

Papua’s first governors acquired Mutuaga’s sculptures.

Unsurprisingly, many of these works later found their way

into galleries and museums across the world.

The National Gallery of Australia’s The drummer—like

the Gallery’s Double figure from Lake Sentani—was

once part of sculptor Jacob Epstein’s collection on non-

Western art. Epstein was known to spend hours silently

contemplating objects in his collection. One can almost

see Epstein sitting in silence with this work in his hands,

enjoying its superb tactile qualities and reflecting on the

work of another great artist obscured by time and distance.

Crispin Howarth Curator, Pacific Art

Mutuaga The drummer

Mutuaga The drummer 1880–90 ebony, lime 36.5 x 4 x 5.5 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

acquisition


acquisition

Nias Anthropomorphic stone monument

Situated off Sumatra’s west coast, the island of Nias is

home to an ancient yet enduring tradition of monumental

statuary in stone and wood. Ancestral and aristocratic

effigies, pillars and seats of honour are still found today in

Nias villages. The layout of traditional villages is dramatic,

with immense wooden houses erected around central

terraces and stone-paved plazas, the venue for important

feasts and gatherings. A striking Anthropomorphic stone

monument (gowe salawa) from Nias is a major acquisition

of Indonesian animist sculpture.

The impressive figure of a nobleman would have been

commissioned as a portrait to preside over a feast of rank

celebrating the patron’s elevation in social and political

standing. While abstract depictions of great chiefs in the

forms of shafts and steles are found across the entire

island, this example is carved in a more realistic style found

especially in the northern villages of Nias.

The squatting or seated human figure is an ancient

feature of animist sculpture throughout Southeast Asia

and this gowe salawa is one of the most striking known

examples of this form. A slightly more eroded partner

to this monument, most likely by the same artist, is on

permanent display in the Louvre in Paris.

On Nias, distinct hierarchical divisions exist between

lower and upper classes. In former times, slaves and

commoners were governed by noble chiefs who traced

their lineage back to mythical founding ancestors. Even

today, status is reinforced by the display of attributes

associated with wealth and power. The Gallery’s gowe

salawa exhibits many markers of high status, including a

gold studded headdress, necklace, bangles and long ear

ornament—typical ceremonial regalia of a Nias nobleman.

The patron’s qualities of bravery and strength are confirmed

by the emphasis of his masculine physical traits, namely his

prominent genitalia, and by his sword and scabbard.

This figure joins another more abstract Nias stone

monument in the collection, and both will be on display

in the exhibition Life, death and magic: 2000 years of

Southeast Asian ancestral art.

Niki van den Heuvel Exhibition Assistant, Asian Art

Nias people Nias, Indonesia

Anthropomorphic stone monument (gowe salawa) 19th century or earlier

stone 160 x 30 x 41 cm

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009


Yami House post

This large and strikingly painted panel is an important new

addition to the Gallery’s collection of Asian sculpture. It was

created by Taiwan’s Yami people, an indigenous group who

live on Botel Tobago (also known as Lanyu or Orchid Island),

a small mountainous isolated island off the south-east coast

of Taiwan. Along with distinctively decorated canoes, the

tomok—the main house post of a traditional dwelling—is

the most culturally valuable art form of the Yami people.

Worldwide, only a small number of significant Yami objects

are held by public museums.

Yami culture shares ethnographic and linguistic

similarities with communities of the northern islands of

the Philippines. Fishing is still central to traditional life and

the flying fish that annually migrate past the island are

considered sacred. The Yami ritual calendar centres on

the flying fish season when ceremonies are performed to

summon, store and prepare the fish.

A typical Yami dwelling consists of a main house built

below ground to withstand frequent typhoons, a separate

work house, and a platform for eating and socialising.

Painted with very similar imagery to the ceremonial canoes,

tomok support the roof apex at the centre of the main

house. Symbolising the connection between sea and

mountain, the tomok is the first element to be erected

after a house site is excavated, and is carefully positioned in

accordance with local lore. Highly valued, tomok are passed

down from one generation to the next and are moved if a

family relocates or reconstructs a house.

One face of this post is decorated with red, black and

white motifs intended to protect the household from

malevolent spirits of the dead (anito). The circular motif,

which typically appears on Yami canoe prows, is called

mata no tatara (eye of the canoe). The figure with spiral

arms and headdress represents Magamoag, the ancestor

who imparted boat-building and agricultural skills to the

Yami, while the goat’s horn motif symbolises longevity.

This tomok will go on display alongside other rare

and fascinating works of art in the Gallery’s forthcoming

exhibition Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast

Asian ancestral art.

Lucie Folan Curator, Asian Art

Yami people Botel Tobago, Taiwan House post (tomok) 19th century wood, pigments 216.6 x 108.8 x 8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

acquisition


acquisition

Fred and Lyn Williams gift

The prints and artists books in the Fred and Lyn Williams

gift capture the milieu of the Melbourne art scene, with

important examples from well-known printmakers including

Tate Adams, Jan Senbergs, Franz Kempf, Noel Counihan

and John Brack. There are also prints by significant artists

not generally recognised for their printmaking, including a

wonderful group of early screenprints by Leonard French

and experimental works by Asher Bilu.

One of Australia’s most significant painters and

printmakers, Fred Williams played a pivotal role in the

development of contemporary art in Australia. Williams

lived in London from 1952 to 1956, undertaking study

at the Chelsea Art School and the Central School of Arts

and Crafts. It was during this period that he learnt the

technique of etching, with works populated by the vivid

characters of music halls and London streets.

Following his return to Melbourne, Williams began

developing new works, while editioning his London prints

at the print workshop at Melbourne Technical College,

renamed the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

(RMIT) in 1960. From 1961 to 1963, Williams used the

workshop on Fridays in the company of Gil Jamieson,

Don Laycock, Tate Adams and Leonard French. He also

established links with a number of RMIT students, including

Guy Stuart, Robert Jacks, Paul Partos and George Baldessin.

Baldessin studied painting at RMIT, adding sculpture

and printmaking in his third and fourth years. The

printmaking course at the college was revolutionised by

Tate Adams, who took over evening classes and established

the first Diploma of Printmaking in Australia in 1960. The

print workshop at RMIT had been opened up to interested

artists in the late 1950s by Adams’s predecessor, Roy Bisley.

It brought students together with painters and sculptors

who wished to experiment with the printed medium.

Williams developed a firm friendship with the much

younger Baldessin, and a strong connection emerged

George Baldessin Walkers II 1966

etching and aquatint, printed in black ink, from one plate,

on thick off-white wove paper plate-mark 20.2 x 30.2 cm

sheet 56 x 69.4 cm National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra gift of Lyn and the late Fred

Williams, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th

anniversary, 2009


between the two artists in terms of both subject matter

and technique. Baldessin’s early work was influenced by the

images of music halls and trapeze artists that Williams had

created in London. In particular, Baldessin was intrigued by

the suspended figure and Williams’s ability to capture the

isolation of performance. Such links are clearly seen in the

etchings by Baldessin that form part of the Fred and Lyn

Williams gift.

A recurring day in the life of MM II 1966 is from

Baldessin’s seminal circus narrative series, with the top-

hatted observer of life as protagonist. In this work, as

in Walkers II 1966, Baldessin negotiates his developing

iconography focused around the detached figure.

Baldessin learnt the process for aquatint from Williams,

using it as an atmospheric device to create texture across

the plate. In Walkers II, the silhouetted figures drift across

a velvety black stretch of barren landscape, an empty

backdrop reminiscent of Williams’s 1950s music-hall

etchings. Influenced by the uninhibited line that Williams

also often employed, Baldessin adopts a loose, edgy

drypoint style to articulate form.

Before his premature death in 1978, at the age of 39,

Baldessin created a significant body of prints marked by

his distinctive use of line and shadow, sexual ambiguity,

theatricality and mystery. The recent exhibition showcasing

George Baldessin’s paintings, drawings, etchings and

sculptures at TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria

provided an opportunity to view rarely seen works from

public galleries, private collections and the artist’s estate. To

celebrate the success of this exhibition a selection of prints

and drawings is currently being shown in the National

Gallery of Australia’s Australian art display, including four

etchings from the Fred and Lyn Williams gift.

Emma Colton Assistant Curator, Australian Prints and Drawings

George Baldessin A recurring day in the life of MM II 1966 etching and aquatint, printed in black ink, from one plate, on thick off-white wove paper plate-mark 26.4 x 25.8 cm sheet 72.2 x 49.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra gift of Lyn and the late Fred Williams, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th anniversary, 2009


acquisition

Walangkura Napanangka Untitled

When we contemplate the wonderful acrylic paintings

from the Western Desert region of Central Australia, we

immediately think of the small Aboriginal community of

Papunya, the birthplace of the contemporary Indigenous

art movement. We imagine a time, some 40 years ago,

when the senior Aboriginal men of the region unreservedly

depicted their sacred ancestral stories in vivid, culturally

rich iconography on any available flat surface. The artists of

this period were Aboriginal men, cultural lawmakers and

ceremonial leaders within the community. They depicted

their sacred Tjukurpa (Dreamings), retelling the stories of

the ancestors.

The history of the Aboriginal art movement has

changed remarkably within this short period. There are

many factors that have contributed to the meteoric rise

of this exciting industry: the land rights and outstation

movement whereby Aboriginal people began to move

back to their homelands from missions and reserves and

hence paint their country; the creation of the Aboriginal

Art Board in 1973, which assisted in establishing and

promoting Indigenous art to a wider commercial art

audience; and the development of government-funded

Aboriginal Art Centres whose sole purpose was to support

encourage and facilitate the development of Aboriginal art

in remote regions. These combined mechanisms ensured

that Australian Indigenous art would no longer sit within

the confines of the ethnographic museums, but would be

launched and catapulted into the fine arts arena.

Today, Aboriginal women also play a major role as

producers of Western Desert paintings, often following in

the footsteps of their fathers, brothers and husbands.

Walangkura (Jackson) Napanangka is a Pintupi woman

originally from the Tjukurla region in Central Australia.

Born around 1940, Napanangka spent the early part of

her life travelling through her families’ country, between

Punkilpirri near Docker River and Walukirritji rock hole on

the south-west side of Lake MacDonald. In the 1960s,

many Pintupi people were leaving their homelands due to

an extensive drought in the region. Walangkura travelled

with her family into the government settlement of Haasts

Bluff and was exposed for the first time to western culture.

She later moved with her husband, Uta Uta Tjangala, to the

Aboriginal community of Papunya, roughly 250 kilometres

west of Alice Springs. It was here in this small Indigenous

community that the germination of the Western Desert

acrylic painting movement began. Tjangala was one of a

small handful of Pintupi, Luritja, Warlpiri and Anmatyerre

ceremonial leaders who initiated, with Geoffrey Bardon,

this new and innovative art movement. From July 1971

to August 1972, some 620 paintings were produced for

the market and later sold at the Stuart Art Centre in

Alice Springs.

Napanangka was exposed to and surrounded by this

proliferation of art; however, she did not begin painting

until 1997 and, even then, not regularly until 2002.

The National Gallery of Australia was fortunate to

acquire a beautiful work, Untitled 2009, by Napanangka

in 2010. This significant painting is a very considered

work, and relates to an important Aboriginal site called

Yanawarri, near Tjukurla, north-west of Docker River in the

Gibson Desert region in Western Australia.

Napanangka’s style is strongly influenced by her late

husband; both artists depict the physical and spiritual

Central Australian landscape in bold and powerful ways.

Unlike Tjangala’s work, however, there is more freedom,

flow and rhythm to Walangkura’s work. It is both forthright

and feminine.

The choice of colours and the nature of the

composition are confident, intricate and intense and

reference the power and heat of the desert. It is imposing

and intimidating to the viewer.

It is a topographical map of the artist’s country,

although painted according to a spiritual scale rather

than a geographic scale: significant cultural sites are large

and dominate the canvas, while discrete locations and

tracks are small and disappear into the work. Australia is

fortunate to have this work in the national collection.

It was acquired in acknowledgment of the National

Apology to the Stolen Generations with generous support

from The Myer Foundation.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Walangkura Napanangka Untitled 2009

synthetic polymer paint on canvas


Canberra acquired in acknowledgment of

the National Apology to the Stolen Generations with generous support

from The Myer Foundation, 2010


acquisition

Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation

Between the 1890s and 1910s, Indian photographer

Shapoor N Bhedwar was prominent in the art photography

salons of Europe and America. Bhedwar (Shapurjee

Nusserwanjee Bhedwar) came from a wealthy Parsi

family in Bombay and in his youth developed passionate

interests in art and Eastern and Western literature. He was

deeply attracted to the Zoroastrian religion of the Parsi

and its origins in ancient Persia from where his people

emigrated to India in the tenth century. Bhedwar was also

an enthusiastic theatregoer and wrote poems and plays

although apparently none were published. He was initially

more successful in sport than the arts, becoming a member

of the first Parsi cricket team to tour England in 1886.

Bhedwar took up photography in 1888 in India to

illustrate one of his own literary efforts and soon became

obsessed with the medium as an art form. Leaving his wife

and son behind, Bhedwar travelled to England to study at

the Polytechnic School in London in 1889. He also learnt

from prominent art photographer Ralph W Robinson

in Redhill, Surrey. He was soon winning medals in the

Photographic Salon (later the Royal Photographic Society).

One reviewer at the time said of Bhedwar: ‘he came, he

saw, he conquered’. One of the artist’s most successful

projects was the series of six tableaux photographs The

feast of roses, which illustrates the hugely popular poem

Lallah Rookh. Written by Irish balladeer Thomas Moore

and first published in 1817, the poem is a romance set in

ancient India.

His most distinctive work is a series of images

illustrating Zoroastrian religious life. Very few photographs

of their religious ceremonies had ever been made public

before this series as only Parsis would have been allowed to

participate. The Naver—invocation is the first in the series

and shows the initiation of a young Zoroastrian priest, the

old priest calling on the Almighty to aid the young initiate

in his work.

By the early 1920s, Bhedwar had apparently ceased

exhibiting and sold his studio in Bombay. He slipped into

relative anonymity. That is until interest in his work piqued

again among Modernist photographers in India in the

1930s before once more fading in the 1960s. Bhedwar

has been largely forgotten for the past 50 years. The fate

of his archive is not currently known but his surviving

prints have begun to be re-evaluated. What is apparent

now is that rather than merely copying European-style

art photography, Bhedwar adapted it to express his own

cultural background. His process as well as the charm and

skill of his work earn him a distinguished place among

pioneering Asian photographers.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography

Shapoor N Bhedwar The Naver—invocation

from the series on the initiation of a young Zoroastrian priest

1892 platinum photograph

32.4 x 26.6 cm National Gallery of Australia

purchased 2009


Foundation

National Gallery of Australia Foundation Gala Dinner and Weekend 2010

The 21st Anniversary of the Foundation was celebrated with a

fund-raising Gala Dinner and weekend of events at the National

Gallery of Australia on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 March.

The event raised over $200 000, which provided

funds to acquire the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph

Eldorado 1892 (see page 30). It is a rare and exceptional

lithograph, which complements the National Gallery of

Australia’s small but important collection of Toulouse-

Lautrec’s works on paper. The Gallery was thrilled at the

opportunity to secure this work for the national collection.

The weekend was a great success. Guests travelled from

across Australia to celebrate. A luncheon in the Sculpture

Garden Restaurant launched the weekend, followed by a

tour of the Conservation and Registration departments.

Saturday afternoon then concluded with a talk on the

exhibition Emerging Elders by Franchesca Cubillo, Senior

Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art.

The highlight of the weekend was, of course, the Gala

Dinner on Saturday night. Guests attended a champagne

reception in the National Australia Bank Sculpture Gallery,

followed by a private viewing of Masterpieces from Paris.

The sumptuous five-course dinner, prepared by Ten and

a Half’s Executive Chef James Kidman, was exquisite. The

weekend came to a close as guests enjoyed an elegant

Sunday brunch at the French Embassy, generously hosted

by His Excellency Michel Filhol, French Ambassador in

Australia, and Madame Catherine Filhol.

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund

The work of art selected this year for the Masterpieces for

the Nation Fund is Robert Dowling’s Miss Robertson of

Colac (Dolly) 1885–86. This is a large and impressive portrait

and is included in the touring exhibition Robert Dowling:

Tasmanian son of Empire. Enclosed with this issue of

artonview is a brochure that provides further information on

the work and the fund. All donors to the fund will be invited

to a function hosted by the Director to celebrate the new

acquisition. For further information or to make a donation,

please contact the Foundation Office on (02) 6240 6454.

Founding Donors 2010

The Founding Donors 2010 program aims to raise

$1 million to assist with acquisitions for the galleries to be

opened later this year. The Foundation is delighted with

the support received so far. Donors are asked to contribute

$10 000, which can be paid over two financial years. All

donors will be acknowledged on the Founding Donors

honour board that will be placed in the entry foyer. For

more information or to receive a brochure, please contact

the Executive Director of the Foundation on (02) 6240 6691.

National Gallery of Australia Bequest Circle

The Foundation is delighted to welcome Gunther Mau and

Cream Gilda Mau as new members to the National Gallery

of Australia Bequest Circle. Gunther and Cream Mau have

been supporters of the Gallery for a number of years and

their generous benefaction is greatly appreciated.

If you have included the National Gallery of Australia

in your will, please let us know so that we can thank you.

If you are interested in joining the Bequest Circle or would

like more information about making a significant and

lasting contribution to the future of the national collection

through a bequest, please contact Liz Wilson, Development

Officer, on (02) 6240 6781.

Further information on this program is available at nga.

gov.au/aboutus/development/bequests.cfm.

Dr TT Tsui

The National Gallery of Australia and the Foundation

were saddened to hear of the death on 2 April 2010 of

Dr TT Tsui. He was one of the Gallery’s most generous

benefactors and a champion of Chinese art.

Dr Bennett Macdonald, Ita Buttrose and Charles Curran at the 21st Anniversary Foundation Gala Dinner, 9 February 2010.


Sponsorship and Development

Ballets Russes: the art of costume

The Gallery is delighted to announce that long-term

supporters, ActewAGL will be a Presenting Partner for the

2010–11 summer blockbuster Ballets Russes. The Gallery

is grateful to ActewAGL for their ongoing and enthusiastic

support, which is testimony to their commitment to the

community and to the arts.

Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire

Manteena Construction is welcomed as an Exhibition

Partner for Robert Dowling, which opened at the Queen

Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston, on 5 March.

This travelling exhibition is currently at Geelong Gallery and

will be at the National Gallery of Australia from 24 July to

3 October 2010.

This is the first time that Canberra-based construction

company Manteena has sponsored an exhibition at the National

Gallery of Australia. The Gallery is grateful for their support.

McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907–17

R.M.Williams, The Bush Outfitter, is generously partnering

with the Gallery for McCubbin. This travelling exhibition

is at Bendigo Art Gallery until 25 July 2010. The Gallery is

grateful for the success of this ongoing partnership.

The Gallery extends its heartfelt gratitude to long-term

supporter of the Gallery the Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-

Damer as Exhibition Benefactor for McCubbin.

Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art

The Australian International Cultural Foundation and

the Gordon Darling Foundation have awarded grants to

support Life, death and magic, an important exhibition

that demonstrates the Gallery’s commitment to original

research, innovative curatorship and scholarly publications.

The support of these grants is essential in making this

exhibition possible. The Gallery is very grateful to the

trustees of both foundations for their insight, leadership

and generosity.

Australian Government

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and

the Arts (DEWHA) generously support the Gallery through

the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach

Program, an Australian Government program aiming

to improve access to the national collections for all

Australians, in particular for the exhibitions Robert Dowling,

Face: Australian portraits 1880–1960 and Roy Lichtenstein.

(left to right) The winners and supporters of the ‘National

Australia Bank Online Masterpieces from Paris

Promotion’, Bree Creaser. Novotel Canberra, Monica Davis and Christine Smith

(Qld), Judith White (WA), Andy and Cherrie Kirk (SA), Avi

Rebera, Senior Partner, NAB Government Business, Gillian and Bill Taylor (Tas), Natasha

Furiosi and Brett Bissett (ACT), Sophie and Wendy Kleeman

(NT), Isabel Hohnen (WA), Venetia and Jeremy Blackman

(Vic), Lesley Hurwood and Peter Donnelly (NSW).


DEWHA also provides welcome support through

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 the Visual

Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian

Government and state and territory governments, which

has provided funding for the Gallery’s travelling exhibitions

Robert Dowling, In the Japanese manner: Australian prints

1900–1940 and Space invaders: Australian street stencils

and posters.

Sidney Myer Fund

The Sidney Myer Fund and its Trustees for this very

generous grant towards the acquisition of Untitled

2009 by Walangkura Napanangka (see page 36) in the

commemoration of the Australian Government’s National

Apology to the Stolen Generations (Australian Indigenous).

Council Circle and the Corporate Members Program

Rupert Myer AM, Chairman of the National Gallery of

Australia Council, and other members of the Council

hosted the annual Council Circle dinner at the Gallery on

28 April. The evening included current sponsors along with

special invited guests.

On 19 May, the Corporate Members Program and

Yalumba Wines held a dinner in conjunction with Hans

Heysen. The evening was hosted by raconteur and

international spokesperson for Yalumba, Jane Ferrari, and

will be the forth such event at the Gallery as part of the

ongoing partnership with Yalumba. The Gallery welcome

Barlens to the Corporate Members Program. Barlens

generously supported the 2010 Sculpture Garden Sunday,

which attracted over 1800 people to participate in the

many activities. We thank them for their contribution in

making the day such a success.

National Australia Bank Art Education and Access Partnership

The National Australia Bank (NAB) supports the National

Summer Art Scholarship and the annual Sculpture Garden

Sunday. Like the National Gallery of Australia, National

Australia Bank is passionate about supporting Australian

communities and helping young people reach their creative

potential. The success of these two programs have been

hallmarks of that commitment. The Gallery is grateful to

NAB and their staff for their support and involvement in

these annual art education and access programs.

Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship

The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship continues

to develop. The Gallery is grateful to Wesfarmers for its

keen interest and generous investment, of both time

and resources, to see this important phase of the project

complete. Thanks also to the consultants Aden Ridgeway

and Fiona Dewar from Cox Inall Ridgeway for their

professional management of the consultation project.

American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia

The American Friends generous grant of US$200 000 was

made possible with the very generous support of Kenneth Tyler

and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler. The grant will support the Gallery’s

department of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated

Books to provide access to the Tyler collection through the

Gallery’s Kenneth Tyler collection website and publications.

Thanks go to Judith Ogden Thompson, who recently

resigned as Director from the Board of Directors, for her

longstanding contribution to the American Friends.

The Gallery looks forward to her continuing friendship and

advice as a member of its Advisory Board.

Senior Curator of Pacific Art Michael Gunn’s compelling

talk about the major exhibition he is currently developing

on Polynesian art was warmly received by American Friends

at the Australian Consulate-General, New York. The Gallery

greatly appreciates the support of the American Friends and

the Australian Consulate-General in hosting this event.

The Gallery is very grateful to the American Friends

for their continued and unwavering support and has

been delighted to see them visit the National Gallery of

Australia this year. In particular, Susan Talbot, President of

the American Friends; Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards and her

partner Michael Crane; Judith Ogden Thompson and her

son Edward Cabot.

The Gallery would like to thank all its partners. If you

would like more information about Sponsorship and

Development at the National Gallery of Australia,

please contact Frances Corkhill on +61 2 6240 6740 or

[email protected] and Belinda Cotton on

+61 2 6240 6556 or [email protected].

Neilma Gantner and Lady Marigold Southey AC in the Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room, which was generously supported by The Yulgilbar Foundation.


development program

Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship

A partnership between the National Gallery of Australia and Wesfarmers

In 2007, Wesfarmers Limited partnered with the National

Gallery of Australia to develop an Indigenous Fellowship to

support Indigenous leadership within the visual arts sector.

The Indigenous arts industry is recognised as one of

Australia’s most dynamic and successful contributors on the

international stage—culturally and economically. However,

the number of Indigenous Australians currently employed

in the arts is relatively small. According to the 2006 census,

approximately 2538 Indigenous Australians work in cultural

industries as their main area of employment—representing

about 2.1% of all employed Indigenous Australians.

Of these, 182 work in the creative arts as practitioners

and 652 work as visual arts and craft professionals. In

an industry where Australian Indigenous art and culture

contributes over $400 million to the Australian economy,

these statistics reveal significant imbalances.

This situation is what the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous

Fellowship aims to address by increasing the number of

Indigenous visual arts professionals.

In Wesfarmers’s Reconciliation Action Plan, Managing

Director Richard Goyder provides valuable insight into the

organisation’s philosophy and priorities, which are strongly

reflected in the partnership between Wesfarmers and the

Gallery and in the fellowship:

This Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a commitment

by Wesfarmers to ensure our businesses are places

where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples feel

welcome and valued, as employees, customers and

citizens. In particular … to provide Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander peoples with greater opportunities to

participate in our country’s economic prosperity, through

sustainable employment.

By creating opportunities, by showing respect and by

developing relationships, we can play a part in wiping

out the unacceptable gap that exists between Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider

Australian community.

Both Wesfarmers and the National Gallery of Australia

recognise the importance of creating opportunities through

Katie Maguire, Daisy Andrews and Rosie Goodjie in Broome.

© AAANKA


the fellowship that encourage the exchange of knowledge

between individuals, communities and cultural institutions.

The first phase of the project has been an extensive

national consultation process completed in February this

year. Over 220 visual arts professionals (Indigenous and

non-Indigenous), community members, government and

private organisations, artists, art centre workers and others

from across Australia contributed their views, advice,

evaluation and experience towards refining the goals and

structure of the fellowship.

This extensive consultation process has been invaluable

in shaping the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship,

which will initially run over four years as a professional

program for long-term development, networking, exchange

and mentorship. During those four years, four Fellows

will undertake a high-level, project-based fellowship

program for up to two years in their field of interest. In

addition to the principal fellowship, a further 20 candidates

will participate in a shorter accredited Indigenous arts

leadership program.

Stephen Gilchrist, from the Inggarda language group,

who is currently the Curator of Indigenous Art at the

National Gallery of Victoria is one of the new generation

of Indigenous visual arts professionals. Stephen’s career

demonstrates the critical role that mentorship and

professional development play in creating a viable career

path for Indigenous Australians in the visual arts. For

Stephen, it also began at the National Gallery of Australia,

where he worked as a Trainee Assistant Curator in the

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art department.

Throughout the traineeship, I gained invaluable curatorial

experience and learned much about the Indigenous

visual arts industry, how it is critically interrogated

and received in Australia and internationally and its

contribution to a national visual identity. The traineeship

helped to accelerate my career trajectory and led to my

appointment as Curator of Indigenous Art at the National

Gallery of Victoria … viewed cumulatively, it was an

incredibly exciting and inspiring time in my formative

career … I had also never worked in an institution where

Aboriginal ways of doing things were seen to enhance

rather than undermine the institution. Part of my long-

term personal and career goals is to contribute to the

advancement of Aboriginal people, and I feel strongly

that Aboriginal Art has the capacity to increase a greater

level of understanding of Aboriginal culture to the wider

community. That idealistic seed was planted and nurtured

at the National Gallery of Australia, and the core value that

was shared by me and many others was that art matters.

Person to person, organisation to organisation, community

to community—the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship

program is an initiative of promise, encouragement,

excellence and engagement.

The Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship will be

launched and open for applications in June 2010. The

Gallery is grateful to Wesfarmers for its keen interest and

generous investment, both in time and resources, and

acknowledges the work carried out by Cox Inall Ridgeway

as well as principal consultants Aden Ridgeway and Fiona

Dewar for their management of the consultation project.

Belinda Cotton Head of Development

Benson Saulo, Brian Stevens, Franchesca Cubillo and Elizabeth Liddle in Melbourne.

Nada Rawlins and Aden Ridgeway, Cox Inall Ridgeway, in Broome. © AAANKA


credit lines

Includes donations received from

22 January to 22 April 2010.

GrantsThe 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.

Australian Government:

Department of Health and Ageing’s

Dementia Community Grants Program

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.

Australian International Cultural Foundation

The Gordon Darling Foundation

The Sidney Myer Fund

SponsorshipABC Radio

Accor Hospitality (Novotel Canberra)

ACT Government (through Australian

Capital Tourism)

ActewAGL

The Age

Barlens

The Brassey of Canberra

The Canberra Times

Casella Wines

Champagne Pol Roger

Eckersley’s Art & Craft

Forrest Hotel and Apartments

JCDecaux

Manteena

Mantra on Northbourne

National Australia Bank

National Gallery of Australia Council

Exhibitions Fund

Nine Network Australia

Qantas

R.M.Williams, The Bush Outfitter

The Sydney Morning Herald

Wesfarmers Limited

WIN Television

Yalumba Wines

Yulgilbar Foundation

GiftsAranday Foundation

Ben Frankel

Gordon Darling Foundation

Heather Green and Jock Smibert

Emmanuel Hirsh

Sue Lovegrove

Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer

Betty Nathan

Penelope Seidler AM

The estate of Leslie John Wright

Jason Yeap

Founding Donors 2010Dr Michael Armitage and Susan M Armitage

Lauraine Diggins

John Grant AM and Inge Grant

Richard Griffin AM and Jay Griffin

Peter Hack

Brand Hoff and Peta Hoff

Dr Colin Laverty OAM and Elizabeth Laverty

Ann Lewis AO

Macquarie Group Foundation

Graham Mapp AM and Sue Mapp

Dr David E Pfanner

David Shannon and Daniela Shannon

Lady Marigold Southey AC

Gala DinnerActewAGL

Rick Amor

Dr Michael Armitage and Susan M Armitage

Charles Baillieu and Samantha Baillieu

Betty Beaver AM

Jane Bradhurst

Sir Ronald Brierley

Ann Burge

Christopher Burgess and Christine Burgess

Julian Burt

Nick Burton Taylor and Julia Burton Taylor

John Calvert-Jones AM and Janet Calvert-

Jones AO

Terrence Campbell AO and Christine

Campbell

Campbell Campbell-Pretty and Krystyna

Campbell-Pretty

Maurice Cashmere

Santo Cilauro and Morena Buffon

Laurie Cox AO and Julie Ann Cox

The Hon Mrs Ashley Dawson-Damer

Warwick Flecknoe and Jane Flecknoe

June Gordon

John Grant AM

Maurice Green and Christina Green

Andrew Gwinnett and Hiroko Gwinnett

Michael Hamson and Susie Hamson

The Hon Justice Kenneth Handley AO and

Diana Handley

Meredith Hinchliffe

John Hindmarsh and Rosanna Hindmarsh

Michael Hobbs and Doris Hobbs

The Hon Robert Hunter QC and Pauline

Hunter

John Ingham and Frances Ingham

Peter J Jopling QC

Nick Kelly and Susie Kelly

Sir Richard Kingsland AO, CBE, DFC, and

Lady Kingsland

Lou Klepac OAM and Brenda Klepac

Richard Longes and Elizabeth Longes

Alasdair MacLeod and Prue MacLeod

Rupert Myer AM and Annabel Myer

Baillieu Myer AC and Sarah Myer

Dr Margaret Olley AC

Roslyn Packer AO

Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell

Ralph Renard and Ruth Renard

John Schaeffer AO and Bettina Dalton

Peter Scott and Ofelia Scott

Penelope Seidler AM

Paul Selzer and Linda Selzer

Rosemary Simpson

Zeke Soloman AM

Simon Swaney and Carolyn Kay

Aida Tomescu

Lang Walker and Sue Walker

Ray Wilson OAM

Jim Windeyer and Peronelle Windeyer

Mark Young

Melody Gough Memorial FundCharles Curran AC and Eva Curran

Simon Elliott

Margie Kevin

Denise Officer

Liz Wilson

Masterpieces for the Nation 2010Michael Bartlett

Suzanne Elshoufi

Brian Jones

Robert Logie-Smith and Sue Logie-Smith

Alistair McLean

Graham Reeve

Members Acquisition 2009George Alexander and Dydy Alexander

Robert Allmark

Robin Amm AM

Cynthia Anderson

Ian Anderson

Susan Arnott

Margaret Aston

John Austin and Helen Austin

Jim Bain AM

Ronald Bannerman

Berenice Bannister

Betty Beaver AM

Peter Belling

Dora Berman


Beryl Bevis

Richard Bialkowski and Robyn Bialkowski

Alan Bishop

Michele Black and Rodney Black (Creations

Jewellers)

Catherine Bosser

Stephen Box and Deirdre Box

Adrienne Bradney-Smith

Geoffrey Brennan and Margaret Brennan

Mary E Brennan

Bill Brisbane and Joan Brisbane

Diana Brookes

John Bruce and Barbara Bruce

John Buckingham

Marion Helena Burden

Billie Burke OAM

Robert Cadona

Robyn Cairns and Alex Cairns

Dr Berenice-Eve Calf

Debbie Cameron

John Campbell and Yvonne Campbell

Katrina Chapman

Vikki Clingan

Michael Cockburn and Margaret Cockburn

Graham Cocks and Elizabeth Cocks

Mrs Compton

Edith Gwen Cooper

Hunter Cordaiy

Kerry-Anne Cousins

Anne Coventry

Barry G Cowdell

Michael Creswick

In memory of Philippa Crossley

Jean Cruickshank

Marlene Danza

Rowena Danziger AM and Ken Coles

Dianne Davies

Anne De Salis

Angela Delaney

Peter Di Sciascio

Sue Dobbyns

Susan Doenau

Rosemary Dupont

Desley M Eaton

Peter Eddington and Joy Williams

Dr Murray Elliott AO and Gillian Elliott

Annette Ellis MP

Pauline Everson

Ian Falconer and Mary Falconer

Ilma Ferguson

Gillian Foley

Roslyn Francis

Henry Thomas French

Helen Fyfe

Neilma Gantner

Michael Gillespie and Nicole Gillespie

Marya Glyn-Daniel and Charles Glyn-Daniel

Robert Gnezdiloff and Moya Gnezdiloff

June Gordon

Eileen Gorst

Pauline M Griffin AM

In memory of Marjory Hackworth

Rosemary Halford

Aileen Hall

Natasha Hardy

David Harper and Jenny Harper

John Harrison and Danielle Kluth

Sue Hearn and Alex Byrne

Suzanne Hecker

Bruce Heiser

Marian Hill

Rachel Hilton and James McKenzie

L Holcombe

Yvonne Honnery

Jim Humphreys and Clare Humphreys

Tom Humphreys and Barbara Humphreys

Dr Joseph Johnson CSC, AAM, and

Madelaine Johnson

Brian Jones

Pamela Jupp and David Jupp

Margaret Keogh

Ilse King

Ron Kirkland and Christobel Kirkland

Reg Kitchin and Joan Kitchin

Grace Koch

Betty Konta

Ted Kruger and Gerry Kruger

Brian Lamb and Lynette Lamb

Ruth I Langley OAM

Hendricka Lussick

Liz and Mike Lynch

Steensen Varming (Australia) Pty Ltd

Bronwen Macnamara and Michael

Macnamara

Gwenyth D Macnamara

Tamara Makeev OAM

John Malone

Deborah Malor and Ron Malor

Bruce Marshall and Robin Coombes

Ernie Marton

Margaret J Mashford

Stewart May and Wendy May

Fleur McAlister and Douglas McAlister

EA McCarthy and MJ McCarthy

Tony McCormick

Ruth McKay

Dr Stephen G McNamara

Trish McPherson

Tina Merriman

Joan Miskin and Barry Miskin

Beth Monk and Ross Monk

Meg Mooney

Margaret Morrow

Alan Morschel and Ruth Morschel

Janet Munro

Peter Murphy

Pauline Murray

Robert Nairn

Colin Neave AM

Prof and Mrs Barry W Ninham

Barbara Noden

Linda Notley

Janet Oakley

Brian O’Keeffe AO and Bridget O’Keeffe AM

Robert Oser

John Parker and Joss Righton

Mervyn Paterson and Katalin Paterson

Tom Pauling and Tessa Pauling

Vladimir Pavlovic

David Pearse and Elizabeth Pearse

John Playoust and Therese Playoust

Patricia Porcheron and Robyn Porcheron

Preventative Medicine and Rehabilitation

Centre

Helen Rankin

Gavin Roberts

Dr Pamela Rothwell

Jennifer J Rowland

John Salmons and Leonie Salmons

Annette Searle

Fabia Shah

Richard Shand and Tonia Shand

Roy Smalley

Vivian Spilva and Andrew Spilva

Christopher Haddon Spurgeon

Dr Richard Stanton

Keith F Steward

Gay Stuart and Charles Stuart

Judith Sutton

Elinor Swan

Robert Swift and Lynette Swift

Alan Taylor

Claudette Taylor (for Dunstan)

Sue Telford

Dr DA Thomas

Jacqueline Thomson

Helen Todd

Sylvia Tracey

Norma Uhlmann

Brenton Warren

Ray Watt and Jenny Watt

Mo Wedd-Buchholz

Christine Wellham

Helen White

Dr Stephen Wild

Yvonne Wildash

Muriel Wilkinson

Dr Elizabeth Williams

Forreste Williams

Andrew L Williamson

David Williamson and Angela Williamson

Gratton Wilson

Alison Witter

Bill Wood

Prof Robin Woods AM

Ellen M Woodward

Diane Wright


1 2

4

5 6

3


faces in viewFor more images of programs and events held by

the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, visit

flickr.com/photos/nationalgalleryofaustralia.

1 Adam Hill with his work Not

everyone’s cup of tea 2009 at the

National Gallery of Australia.

2 Tarek El-Ansary with his family

during the all-night opening

of Masterpieces from Paris,

17 April.

3 Director Ron Radford with

ABC Radio National’s Rod Quinn

during the 36-hour opening

period for the final weekend

of Masterpieces from Paris,

18 April.

4 Tanya Hird, Morena Buffon and

Prue Macleod at the National

Gallery of Australia Foundation’s

21st Anniversary Gala Dinner,

20 March.

5 Local entertainers tickle the funny

bones of security on the final

Saturday of Masterpieces from

Paris, 17 April.

6 Christopher Pease speaks about

the process behind his Cow with

Body Paint 2007 at the Gallery, 28

January.

7 Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, first

lady of Indonesia, Thérèse Rein

and Ron Radford on tour in

the exhibition Emerging Elders

with Franchesca Cubillo, Senior

Curator, Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander Art, 10 March.

8 Will Minchin, the 250 000th

visitor to Masterpieces from Paris,

with his wife Miriam and their

daughter Mathilda, 26 February.

9 Activities to keep visitors

entertainted while queuing for

Masterpieces from Paris at the

National Gallery of Australia,

Canberra, 3 April.

10 Children get their hands dirty and

test their creativity at Sculpture

Garden Sunday in the National

Gallery of Australia’s Sculpture

Garden, 14 March.

7

9

10

2

4

6

8

Starry Nights‘It’s nice to do gigs like this, it reminds you why you do

these things in the first place.’

Tim Rogers, musician

Held over four nights in March, Starry Nights—a National Gallery initiative in

association with ACT Tourism—was conceived as a unique way for audiences to

experience the exhibition Masterpieces from Paris. The event combined late-night

viewings, live entertainment, shopping, food and wine.

The night was designed to appeal to a broad demographic seeking to extend their

exhibition experience into a fulsome night’s entertainment, the line-up of live acts—

Joe Camilleri, Clare Bowditch and Tim Rogers—did not disappoint.

The Gallery’s beautiful Sculpture Garden was the venue for the evening’s Starry

Nights action with headline acts commencing at 9.00 pm, preceded by music from

local DJs and the ANU School of Music. Before the concert, Starry Nights ticket holders

could view the exhibition at their leisure. Then, as the sun set over the Gallery building,

its concrete facade came alive with projections of exhibition images above the stage

and superb performances by leading Australian musicians.

Starry Nights drew on the Gallery’s history of staging live music in the oasis of

the Sculpture Garden. May well it continue …

(top) Clare Bowditch Trio and (centre) their audience. (bottom and opposite) Tim Rogers Band. photographs: Murray Foote



At play in van Gogh’s bedroomThe Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room

‘I liked the children’s room. And I love art. It was fun’.

Rebecca, aged 6

A spectacularly successful aspect of the recent Masterpieces from Paris exhibition

was the fun and educational Family Activity Room. Located midway through the

exhibition, it provided children with a stimulating and safe place to consider and

creatively respond to the works of art they were seeing. Families returned to viewing

the exhibition refreshed and with new insights. A family visit to the exhibition was also

enriched by a childrens trail and childrens audio tour.

The Masterpieces from Paris Family Activity Room was a collaboration between

the Gallery’s Education and Exhibition Design departments. Recreated as a three-

dimensional play space, Van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles provided the concept and the

setting for the room. One parent said it was ‘like being inside van Gogh’s head, being

in his picture’.

Children could enter the painting and recreate puzzles of works of art printed

on each side of cubes on van Gogh’s large bed. Along the opposite wall, children

created origami stars to add to an interactive mural of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry night.

Portraits and still-lifes from the exhibition became the inspiration for self-portraiture

and still-life drawing. Visitors enjoyed sharing time reading childrens stories and

reference books about the art and artists in the exhibition.

Activities were plentiful and were designed to be adapted for children of all ages

and interests. The approach was one of kinaesthetic learning—learning through

hands-on experience and direct physical engagement, making the experiences more

concrete and lasting, more enjoyable and meaningful.

Over the four-and-a-half months of the exhibition, over 61 000 people visited the

Family Activity Room and 13 407 children registered for activities. Given its spectacular

success, the Family Activity Room concept is set to be taken up in Ballets Russes: the

art of costume in December.

Peter Naumann Head of Education and Public Programs

Self-portrait by Ellin, made in the Family Activity Room.

Only Qantas can bring 89 years of experience to the table.And the seat. And the entertainment system. And the cuisine.

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The Qantas A380 by Airbus. Comfort that comes from over 89 years of continuous flying experience.

Qantas is proud to sponsor the National Gallery of Australia.

Diamant Hotel CanberraDISCOVER CANBERRA’S CULTURAL SECRETS Warm up with a glass of port in front of the fi replace of this heritage-listed building close to the city’s fi nest restaurants and bars. Includes a Deluxe Room, continental breakfast, Ferrero Rondnoir chocolates and cultural map with discount vouchers.

Hyatt Hotel CanberraDELUXE HERITAGE EXPERIENCEStay in a 1920s heritage-inspired Park Deluxe Room featuring an iPod docking station, Nespresso coffee machine and DVD player. Enjoy a buffet breakfast at the Promenade Cafe and a 2pm checkout. Tourist information is available from the concierge desk.

The Brassey of CanberraHERITAGE WINTER PACKAGEStay in a Heritage Room and walk to some of the nation’s most iconic cultural attractions. Included in your package is full buffet breakfast, entry to the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, daily newspaper and free parking.

Hyatt Hotel Canberra LUXURIOUS RETREATExclusive use of the Ambassador Lounge awaits Club Room guests. Price includes an extensive continental breakfast, along with pre-dinner drinks and canapés served daily plus a complimentary bottle of Domain Chandon NV and 2pm checkout.

Canberra City YHAWEEKEND RETREATEnjoy 2 nights in this central location featuring a cafe, funky bar, indoor pool, spa, sauna, kitchen and rooftop BBQ. Includes a cooked or continental breakfast plus a welcome pack of cheese, chocolate and champagne.*2 nights in a twin or double

Country Guesthouse Schönegg2-DAY WINTERFEST INDULGENCEBegin your 2 night Winterfest with a 5-course degustation dinner. On Friday indulge in a hot rock massage for 2 at Geranium House Sustainable Day Spa and a 2-course lunch at Poachers Pantry’s Smokehouse Cafe. Includes continental and cooked breakfast.

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buffet breakfast, entry to the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old

massage for 2 at Geranium House Sustainable Day Spa and a 2-course lunch at Poachers Pantry’s

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Democracy at Old Parliament House, daily newspaper and free parking.

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Diamant Hotel CanberraDISCOVER CANBERRA’S

Hyatt Hotel Canberra

with pre-dinner drinks and canapés served daily plus a complimentary

massage for 2 at Geranium House Sustainable Day Spa and a 2-course lunch and a 2-course lunch at Poachers Pantry’s Smokehouse Cafe. Includes continental and cooked breakfast.

and a 2-course lunch at Poachers Pantry’s Smokehouse Cafe. Includes continental and cooked breakfast.

*PERCOUPLE$395

buffet breakfast, entry to the Museum of Australian

Includes a cooked or continental breakfast plus a welcome pack of welcome pack of cheese, chocolate and champagne.*2 nights in a twin or double

welcome pack of cheese, chocolate and champagne.*2 nights in a twin or double

*PERCOUPLE$197

Enjoy a buffet breakfast at the Promenade Cafe and

is available from the

*PERCOUPLE$355

Canberra City YHA SNOW STOPPERRecover from your ski trip with a 1 night city stopover in a quad-share room. Soothe aching muscles in the indoor pool, spa, sauna and enjoy a cooked breakfast. Other facilities include a funky bar and cafe. Single and twin shares also available.

Forrest Hotel & ApartmentsENJOY THE ARTS THIS WINTER Forrest Hotel celebrates HansHeysen, one of the most infl uential artists of the 20th century. Package includes accommodation, hot buffet breakfast, a ticket to the exhibition and a bottle of wine per room.*Per person twin share

century. Package includes accommodation, hot buffet breakfast, a ticket to

*PERPERSON$108

sauna and enjoy a cooked

shares also available.

century. Package includes accommodation, hot buffet breakfast, a ticket to the exhibition and a the exhibition and a bottle of wine per

*Per person twin share

the exhibition and a bottle of wine per room.*Per person twin share

*PERPERSON$46

Book now at wraptinwinter.com or call 1300 889 026*TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. VALID FROM 1 JUNE – 31 AUGUST 2010. SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY.

the city’s fi nest restaurants and bars. Includes a Deluxe

Rondnoir chocolates and cultural map with

Enjoy a buffet breakfast at the Promenade Cafe and a 2pm checkout.

Book now at

a 2pm checkout. Tourist information is available from the concierge desk.

a 2pm checkout. Tourist information is available from the concierge desk.

*PERCOUPLE$240

Shake up your Canberra winter

experience with a snow stopover,

the Fireside Festival or the

Capital Country Truffl e Festival

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Take time out and indulge at Novotel Canberra and enjoy our newly refurbished rooms and facilities.

Our Indulgence Package for 2 includes:

• Accommodation in an Executive King Room• Full buffet breakfast daily in the hotel restaurant• A Poachers Farmhouse Hamper from Poachers Pantry (including gourmet meats, jam and a cooler bag valued at $100)

Accor Advantage Plus members receive their 10% discount and A|Club members will earn points on each stay.

Designed for natural l iving

*Valid 1 June 2010 to 28 December 2010. Conditions apply. Bookings are payable at time of reservation and are non-exchangeable, non-refundable and non-transferable. All rates are per night for single, twin or double occupancy in an Executive King Room. Rates are subject to change and are based on a limited allocation of rooms and subject to availability. Maximum of one Poachers Farmhouse Hamper from Poachers Pantry per room reservation, per stay.

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The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach (NCITO) program is an Australian Government initiative providing $1 million annually to improve access for all Australians to our national collections.

NCITO supports exhibitions from Australia’s national collecting institutions to tour within Australia and overseas, with particular emphasis on increasing regional access to the collections.

The following NCITO-supported exhibitions are currently touring metropolitan and regional Australia:

•RobertDowling:TasmaniansonofEmpire(National Gallery of Australia)

•TheNationalPhotographicPortraitPrize2010(National Portrait Gallery)

•SymbolsofAustralia(National Museum of Australia)

•Littleshipmates–seafaringpets (Australian National Maritime Museum)

Other approved exhibitions will commence touring later in 2010 with a further funding round expected to be announced in June-July.

For more information on NCITO and current NCITO-supported exhibitions visit: www.arts.gov.au/collection/ncito_program.

National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

arts.gov.au

Want to know what’s on out there?

Offer valid until August 31, 2010 for new Herald subscribers only in NSW and the ACT where normal Herald home delivery exists. Prices are GST-inclusive. A deduction of $109 will be made upfront for a delivery period of 26 weeks. Minimum subscription term for this offer is 26 weeks. Cancellation fees may apply for subscriptions paid upfront and terminated prior to expiry. Subscriptions are for individual use only and cannot be sold. Delivery to addresses in security apartment or office buildings is subject to delivery capability. For alternative subscription packages call us on 13 66 66

The Herald’s 3-day entertainment subscription package brings you the essential guide to the best of Sydney’s art, culture, fi lm and much more. Plus you’ll experience the convenience of home delivery every Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning.

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www.deutscherandhackett.com • [email protected]

expertise • integrity • results

important australian and international fine art auction melbourne • august 2010

call for entriesJeffrey SmartSunbathers at Construction Site, 2003

67.0 x 100.0 cm

SOLD November 2007 • $600,000

Price includes buyer’s premium, excludes gst

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2010.q2 | artonview 62 winter 2010

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