The full program for the free one-day symposium Academia and Bohemia: new perspectives on the National Gallery School, including abstracts and biographies, is now available via the VCA events website. Date: Wednesday 21 June 2017. Venue: Federation Hall, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Grant Street, Southbank.
A new book by Sheridan Palmer documenting the life and work of Bernard Smith has recently been published. ‘Better to make history than to write about it. What is needed is a brotherhood of some kind, compact, devoted, with a colourful title . . .’ Bernard Smith, letter to Robin Boyd, 1957 Bernard Smith’s ‘brotherhood’ was to become the famous group of Australian artists called The Antipodeans, and Smith was to write their manifesto. ‘The Antipodeans’ exhibition in 1959 was a watershed moment for Australian art. The exhibition included work by Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval, Clifton Pugh and, of course, Bernard Smith. But this is just one of Smith’s significant contributions to the history of Australian art, and one of many instances where he sought to highlight the importance of contemporary Australian…
In this lecture Simon Pierse sheds new light on the role that Sir Kenneth Clark (later Baron Clark of Saltwood) played in bringing Australian art to a new audience in Britain during the early 1950s. Pierse examines the crucial part that Joseph Burke, inaugural Herald Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, had in directing Clark’s attention towards the work of Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd and attempts to discover what may have lain beneath Clark’s abiding passion for Australian art and life. Simon Pierse is Senior Lecturer at Aberystwyth University and visiting fellow at the Australian Institute of Art History. His research focuses on British perceptions of Australian art, landscape and identity. His award winning book Australian Art and Artists in London, 1950-1965: an antipodean summer, was published by Ashgate in 2012. Date: Thursday 25th September, 6:30pm…
“The greatest thing that could happen to this State – and the Nation – is when we can get rid of the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquility, and no one would know anything.” Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, former Queensland Premier, the Spectator, London, 12 December 1987. “This, December 2, 1989, is the end of the Bjelke-Petersen era.” Wayne Goss, election victory speech, 2 December, 1989. The one-liner, ‘it could only happen in Queensland’, is now but a well-worn and a meaningless cliché. The conduct that it supposedly represents has now become established as a trans-state phenomenon. Queensland has long-struggled to shake off its reputation as a haven for vulgar hedonism, being intellectually thin, culturally remote with an inglorious history of political corruption, often underpinned by the obligatory acquiescence of its public institutions. This lecture is a personal…
A hidden story: Eugene von Guérard’s Mr John King’s station, 1861 Ruth Pullin With the closing of the National Gallery of Victoria’s touring exhibition Eugene von Guérard: nature revealed in Canberra in July of this year it is timely to reconsider rarely seen works in the light of the close analysis made possible by the exhibition. The enigmatic Mr John King’s station 1861 (Fig. 1), not seen in Australia since 1980 and now returned to its private owners in the UK, is a work that, with its inherent ambiguities and seemingly unresolvable questions, invites renewed attention. Nothing is quite as it seems in Mr John King’s station. Conceived within a compositional and ideological framework derived from the classical European landscape tradition the painting appears to endorse the values and the social and economic concerns of the European landowner. But from…
The Legacies of Bernard Smith A Collaborative International Symposium Thursday, 20 – Friday 21,September 2012, The Australian Institute of Art History, University of Melbourne Bernard Smith could be said to have established Australian Art History. His work was seminal for histories of Pacific encounter and he also was author to some of the country’s most eloquent memoirs. This Symposium brings together an international field of scholars from art history, anthropology, history and literature, as well as curators and writers, to discuss all aspects of Bernard Smith’s wide-ranging work and explore its impact and legacy. Date: Thursday, 20 September 2012, 9.30am -6.00pm and Friday, 21 September 2020 I 9.30am – 5.00pm Venue: Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building, The University of Melbourne, Parkville To download the full Melbourne program, please click here (pdf). There will be a second symposium in Sydney on Friday 9th and Saturday…
Enjoy Your Diversity: the 1960’s Revisited Patrick McCaughey When Clem Greenberg came to Australia in 1968, he admired a lot of Australian painting, more the older moderns than the young mods. But his parting words were: “Enjoy your diversity.” Few took much notice and the 60s has been generally characterised as the time of the young abstractionists with some pop thrown in, ending with the first bits and pieces of Conceptualism. Indeed these were striking new forces on the landscape and so quickly embraced by the institutions. Even the NGV bought from all those exciting first solo shows – Ball, Jacks, Hickey, Hunter etc. The era did have a certain electricity to it: it was the decade of the sell out show and all those fiercely competitive art prizes. I’d like to get some of that ‘electric’ feel across. But…
The Miegunyah Press invites you to the launch of Permanent Revolution: Mike Brown and the Australian Avant-Garde 1953-1997 Richard Haese To be launched by Robert Nelson About the book In 1961 the 22-year-old Mike Brown joined the New Zealand artist, Ross Crothall, in an old terrace house in inner Sydney’s Annandale. Over the following two years the artists filled the house with a remarkable body of work. Launched with an equally extraordinary exhibition, the movement they called Imitation Realism introduced collage, assemblage and installation to Australian art for the first time. Laying the groundwork for a distinctive Australian postmodernism, Imitation Realism was also the first Australian art movement to respond in a profound way to Aboriginal art, and to the tribal art of New Guinea and the Pacific region. By the mid-1960s Brown was already the most controversial figure in Australian art.…
Memorial Tribute to Bernard Smith at the National Gallery of Victoria A memorial tribute to eminent art historian and writer Bernard Smith will be held in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria at 10.30am on Monday 28 November 2011. The event will celebrate the life and achievements of this major figure in the Australian art world. We will acknowledge Bernard’s role as fundamental in Australian art historiography, his contribution to Australian cultural life generally, and his influence on generations of art and cultural historians. To assist with arrangements, could you please notify the NGV at ngv.foundation@ngv.vic.gov.au or phone 03 8620 2415 to allow us to accommodate all those who would like to attend. Date: 10:30am, Monday 28th November, 2011 Venue: Great Hall, NGV International, St Kilda Rd.
NGV Symposium – ‘Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art’ A range of speakers will discuss the origins and evolution of the Western Desert Art movement. Speakers include: Fred Myers, Silver Prof & Chair, Department of Anthropology, New York University Dr Philip Batty, Senior Curator, Anthropology (Central Australia), Museum Victoria Dick Kimber, historian & catalogue contributor Prof Paul Carter, Chair in Creative Place Research, Deakin University Paul Sweeney, Manager, Papunya Tula Artists Bobby West Tjupurrula, Papunya Tula artist About the Exhibition Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art features over 200 of the first paintings produced at Papunya in 1971–72 by the founding artists of the Western Desert art movement. The exhibition includes works by artists such as Uta Uta Tjangala, Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi and Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula. Tjukurrtjanu establishes the connection between these first works on board and their iconographic sources: the ancestral designs that embellish objects, the…
La Trobe History Research Seminar Dr Sheridan Palmer Honorary Fellow, Australian Centre, University of Melbourne Hegel’s Owl: the Biography of Bernard Smith and the Importance of Distance Date: Thursday 22 September, 12:05 to 1:15 pm, Venue: Seminar Room, Ground Floor, Borchardt Library, Melbourne (Bundoora) Campus For more information please contact Dr Robert Kenny (Convener) Phone: (03) 9479 1132 or Email: r.kenny@latrobe.edu.au or history@latrobe.edu.au (RSVP not required).
AAANZ Annual Conference, 2011 – ‘Contact’ 7-9 December 2011, Victoria University of Wellington Announcing the 2011 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual conference, on the theme of ‘Contact’ to be held at Victoria University, Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, Wellington, New Zealand Delegates are advised that the format of the 2011 conference is different from recent conferences in that there is no Call for Sessions, only a Call for Papers. Delegates are asked to address one of the major strands of the conference in their proposals. Papers will be placed into cognate groupings within these broad strands. This form is being adopted in the interests of coherence and to streamline the timetabling of sessions. Your cooperation is appreciated. The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand 2011 Annual conference is focused on the single overarching theme Contact. ‘Contact’ evokes encounters between…
David R. Marshall Eugene Von Guérard and Daylesford: His Paintings for W.E. Stanbridge This paper, which arises from research for the catalogue for Ruth Pullin’s Eugene Von Guérard exhibition, currently on display at the NGV, examines Von Guérard’s views of the Daylesford district and their preparatory studies. It explores the interaction between Von Guérard’s training as a topographical artist in Italy and Germany and the picturesque mindset of the colonial public to whom his paintings were addressed. It also looks at the role of W.E. Stanbridge of Wombat Park as patron. Date: 6:30pm, Monday 2nd May Venue: Room 150 Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville All Welcome Drinks and nibbles provided (gold coin donation appreciated). The seminar will be followed by dinner in Lygon St. Please RSVP Mark Shepheard (shepm@unimelb.edu.au) if you plan to join us for dinner.
emaj (electronic Melbourne art journal) issue 5 is now available The editors are pleased to present the 2010 issue of emaj. This is the fifth issue of the journal, which was founded in 2005 as a research platform for postgraduate art historians. Over the past five years the journal has broadened its focus and publishes the work of emerging scholars and established scholars. The table of contents for the latest issue can be found below – follow the link for full abstracts and articles. emaj is an open source journal and all articles are freely available to be downloaded without a subscription. http://www.melbourneartjournal.unimelb.edu.au/E-MAJ/currentissue.htm emaj is published annually in association with the University of Melbourne School of Culture and Communication. A call for papers for the 2011 issue will be available soon – see the website for further information. French, Floral and Female:…
Dr Caroline Jordan (Lecturer, Art History, History Program, La Trobe University) Educating Americans about Modern Australia: The Carnegie Corporation’s Art in Australia 1788-1941 exhibition to the USA and Canada, 1941 Date: Thursday 2 September When and Where? Time: 12:05 to 1:45 pm Venue: History Meeting Room, David Myers Building East E125, La Trobe University (Unless otherwise notified). Seminars are open to anyone who wishes to attend. For more information – Please contact Dr Robert Kenny r.kenny@latrobe.edu.au or history@latrobe.edu.au