Vale: Gordon Darling

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   7 Dec 2015

In late August, Australia and particularly Australian art lost a national force for good. Gordon Darling AC CMG was a towering philanthropist, a determined and pioneering chairman of national arts organisations, an astute advocate for development of the arts, and an assiduous collector and generous donor. The breadth and vision of Gordon’s passion and generosity touched this Gallery, as it did cultural institutions large and small right across the country.

As well as creating the Gordon Darling Foundation to support innovative, accessible projects at public visual arts institutions, Gordon, with his wife Marilyn, was the driving force behind the establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. The highly strategic convening of the touring exhibition ‘Uncommon Australians: Towards an Australian Portrait Gallery’ in 1992, which drew from collections private and public, including ours, and visited the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) later that same year, was one of his masterstrokes. Intended to ‘whet the appetite and suggest the scope and variety that an Australian Portrait Gallery would encompass’, it ultimately proved successful, with the establishment of the NPG as institution in its own right in the late 1990s.

Jiawei Shen / L. Gordon Darling AC CMG 2006 / Oil on canvas / Purchased with the assistance of the Mundango Charitable Trust and Claudia Hyles 2006 / Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra / © Jiawei Shen

This is just the most prominent example of Gordon’s carefully considered involvement and personal investment in the visual arts. His Foundation’s support for exhibitions, publications, scholarship and professional development mark him as a philanthropist who deeply understood the working life of the art museum. The Museum Leadership Program, presented in partnership with Museums Australia, has been a valuable testing ground for many Gallery staff, myself included, while others have benefited from professional experience in research and development travel funded by the Foundation. Indeed, the breadth of the Foundation’s support to the regions was seen just recently in Queensland with the publication of two major catalogues from the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in Townsville.

Gordon was inaugural chairman of the National Gallery of Australia from 1982 to 1986, a serious art collector with a particular passion for the Hermannsburg School, and a deeply personable individual. During World War Two, Darling spent time in Papua New Guinea, a place he retained a strong affection for.

Gordon Darling was a man of remarkable energy and drive who, with his wife and the board of the Gordon Darling Foundation, worked tirelessly in support of the visual arts sector. His focus and his philanthropic accomplishments were never far removed from artists and from the work of art institutions. In losing him we have lost a truly great Australian.

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Vale: Betty Churcher

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   24 Sep 2015
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Betty Churcher, AO, in conversation at GOMA, April 2014 / Photograph: Joe Ruckli

Since her death on 30 March, Betty Churcher’s AO (1931-2015) distinguished career has been the subject of numerous tributes that have reminded us of the depth and breadth of her influence in the Australian art world. She left a brilliant mark as an art museum director and as a teacher and communicator. Her abiding belief in the role and value of the visual arts in our daily lives defined her work and long public service.

Betty’s upbringing and education in Brisbane provided the foundation for a life dedicated to art and artists. She attended Somerville House and found early encouragement of her passion for art in a headmistress who ensured she could continue her studies — despite her father’s belief that education was not the ultimate necessity for a girl — and she was deeply inspired by art Teacher Pat Prentice. Betty developed a quiet but focused self-determination as a young girl: she was ambitious to succeed and resistant to any limiting proscriptions of the roles of women. She worked as a student teacher at Somerville House, and much later taught at Stuartholme School, where acclaimed painter Davida Allen was one of her students.

Childhood visits to the Queensland Art Gallery (then housed alongside Queensland Museum in the Exhibition Building’s Concert Hall) inspired Betty’s creative life, and her early art practice led to a scholarship to London’s Royal College of Art in the early 1950s. She met and married artist Roy Churcher in 1955, and in 1957 the pair returned to Brisbane, beginning a family and becoming immersed in the burgeoning contemporary art scene.

Betty’s trail-blazing commenced in the 1970s and was unabated for the rest of her life. After completing a Master of Arts at the Courtauld Institute in London in 1977, she returned to Australia to teach art history, a pursuit in which she was inspirational. Through the 1980s, she was the first female Dean of the School of Art and Design at Melbourne’s progressive Phillip Institute of Technology (now RMIT University). She was director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia from 1987 to 1990, and in 1990 became the first — and, to date, only — female director of the National Gallery of Australia. A trained artist and art historian, she was exactly the right figure to lead the NGA into the era of the blockbuster exhibition, and it was unsurprising that in ‘retirement’ she would host several television programs, through which she introduced the beauty and relevance of art to the widest possible audience. She was at once knowledgeable, warm and authentic — the perfect combination for the task.

Betty Churcher will be fondly remembered as one of the most passionate and transformative figures of the Australian art museum world. She was at the forefront of her generation in her accomplishments as a communicator on the subjects of art, artists and art history. Betty was endlessly engaged and engaging, and her example will continue to inspire all of us who work to bring art and people together.

It was my privilege to last meet Betty on the occasion of an ‘in conversation’ program about her Australian Notebooks publication at the 2014 Brisbane Writers Festival. She was, despite the then rapidly accelerating challenges to her health, as vital, clear and spirited in framing her responses as she ever once was. When the session ended, all too soon, it was clear that her audience wanted more. We all did.

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From the Director: Curating contemporary Queensland

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   21 Jul 2015

‘GOMA Q’ attends to something of a wicked problem for art museums everywhere: how to engage with the local; to specify what it is without circumventing the national and global contexts in which it functions. While we didn’t conceive of ‘GOMA Q’ to argue for or to locate the essential nature of contemporary Queensland art, the Queensland experience – in some form – irreducibly lives inside it. It does so through the lived experience of those who hold ancestral ties to this country; as much as the recently or newly arrived; and it does so through the difficult-to-divine effects of upbringing and education.

There was no requirement for an artist to have been born here; and nor was their length of residency measured along a sliding scale – only that Queensland played a role in their lives. Ian Fairweather was not born here; nor was Jon Molvig or Sam Fullbrook or Lawrence Daws; but the story of modern Queensland art is incomplete without them. They are ‘of here’, regardless of their birthright or continuity of residence, as are the artists in this exhibition.

‘GOMA Q’ includes those who were born here and still live here; those from here, who perhaps trained here but now live and work elsewhere; and those not from here who have now made Queensland their home. It includes artists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent; and non-Indigenous Australian artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. This is who, and what, ‘Queensland’ is today.

Beginning in early 2014, curators Peter McKay, Bruce McLean and I began visiting some 200 artists and gallerists to gain a deeper understanding of their work and to begin shaping an exhibition of their current practice.  We set out with no overarching conceit, travelling widely, listening intently; meeting with emerging, mid- and late-career artists working in and across a vast range of media. Nothing was off-limits. We argued for and against, making difficult decisions along the way; but ultimately we sought to identify artists who, in our collective opinions, had arrived at a moment of potency and timeliness in their practice. We looked for work that represented a point of departure for established artists – a moment of shift, synthesis or resolution; and a point of arrival for emerging artists – of unexpected impact, agency or currency.

‘GOMA Q’ is the most ambitious contemporary Queensland project we have ever presented. Our hope is that our efforts have caught something that ultimately adds up, something that delineates the current condition. We felt that the exhibition needed to speak to the expanse of the field of art in Queensland, and the disparate and dispersed nature of local practice in this decentralised state. Its strength, I think, lies in its multiplicity.

‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art‘ is at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) until 11 October 2015.

Participating Artists: Vernon Ah Kee; Davida Allen; Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan; Paul Bai; Clark Beaumont; Antoinette J Citizen; Sam Cranstoun; Julie Fragar; Chantal Fraser; Ian Friend; Kim Guthrie; Dale Harding; Jennifer Herd; Naomi Hobson; Pat Hoffie; Anita Holtsclaw; Madeleine Kelly; Moe Louanjli; Ross Manning; Mavis Ngallametta; Liam O’Brien; Lawrence Omeenyo; Brian Robinson; Monica Rohan; Teho Ropeyarn; Gordon Shepherdson; Grant Stevens; Tyza Stewart; David M Thomas; Tim Woodward; Michael Zavros

The exhibition publication GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art includes the work of all generations — emerging, mid-career and senior artists — working across drawing, painting, photography, video, installation, performance, ceramics and sculpture. Also featuring a roundtable discussion with some of the state’s leaders in the arts, GOMA Q touches on many different aspects of the Queensland experience.

From the Director: ‘Transparent’ on tour

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   24 Oct 2014
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Conrad Martens, England/Australia 1801-78 / The homestead, Canning Downs 1852 / Watercolour on paper / Purchased 1998 with funds raised through The Conrad Martens Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal and with the assistance of the Queensland Government’s special Centenary Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

‘Transparent’, the first exhibition to comprehensively survey QAGOMA’s holdings of watercolours inspired by and painted in Queensland, is full of beautifully translucent and often intimately observed works. Having shown at QAG from March to July this year, it’s now heading to a dozen regional Queensland galleries through September 2016.

The works in this unique timeline retrace Queensland’s history from the early colonial era of the mid-nineteenth century to relatively recent times. Along the way, they delineate vistas and landscapes; reveal a modernist enthusiasm for the world of industry; and encompass the post-War era through expressionist images of burgeoning Brisbane.

Watercolour is an unforgiving and an intimate medium that in the right hands, on the right paper, can yield up spectacular and compelling results. Artists who work in the medium know just how demanding it can be, requiring an extraordinary degree of sureness, confidence and speed in paint handling, with missteps impossible to bury under an additional paint layer. Watercolourists are, for good reason, much beloved of watercolour paper suppliers. Many works invariably hit the ground or the studio floor for want of perfect pictorial and painterly resolution, torn in two before they become evidence of the misadventure.

Looking closely at the work in ‘Transparent’, we see the sometimes sketchy under-drawing of pencil; the ridges of paint caught in the chain-like furrows of laid paper; the sparks of body-colour or gouache; the confidence and speed of paint-handling. There are many rewards to be had for giving close regard to this medium.

With a strong British tradition, and a popularity borne of portability, it’s no surprise that watercolour was used in many of the earliest colonial recordings of Queensland and its people, in works by the likes of Conrad Martens and Harriett Jane Neville-Rolfe.

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James Wieneke, Australia 1906-1981 / Near Cape York – landing barge Torres Strait c.1944-45 / Watercolour over pencil on wove, handmade paper / Gift of James and Anthea Wieneke 1980 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © Estate of the artist

The exhibition also shows us that artists of a certain era have been closely involved in the administration of the Gallery. James Wieneke, whose wartime work is featured, would go on to be director of the Queensland Art Gallery from 1967 to 1974. Robert Campbell, who has work in a later rotation of this touring show, was the first appointment to the role of Director, from 1949 to 1951.

Though his time was short, Campbell had quite an impact on the Gallery. He was an early champion of regional touring, having organised the Jubilee Art Train, which took 51 of our most loved paintings to 85 regional centres by rail. It’s pleasing, in light of this, that ‘Transparent’ is our next major regional tour, continuing our commitment to sharing important exhibitions with the state.

Queensland’s broader history is also here in abundance. For example, scarcity of oil paints during the lean times of World War II steered WG Grant toward watercolour. He was prolific and some of his finest results are featured in ‘Transparent’.

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Joe Rootsey, Barrow Point people, Ama Wuringu clan, Australia 1918‑63 / (Cape Melville lava rocks) 1958 / Watercolour on paper / Purchased 1993. Queensland Art Gallery Society / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © Estate of the artist

Working in the 1950s, Indigenous landscape painter Joe Rootsey was subject to inevitable comparisons to Albert Namatjira, but his powerful connection to his North Queensland country, and his luminous portrayals of Cape York were distinctly his own.

Moving into the 1960s and 70s, a local school of Expressionism is represented by Joy Roggenkamp, and the expressionist vein continues in depictions of sand mining country by Robyn Mountcastle, and later, the moody composition of Tom Pilgrim.

The first stop of the tour opens at the Gold Coast City Art Gallery from 25 October, before heading to Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery on 13 December.

See the touring exhibition page for all remaining dates. The beautiful accompanying hardcover publication, featuring an essay on the exhibition by curator Michael Hawker and a survey of the artist papers used for watercolours by conservator Samantha Shellard, will be available at the tour venues, or can be found in the QAGOMA Store or online.

Ben Quilty’s view of Australia at war is a deeply human one

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   20 Jun 2014

Every year, the QAGOMA Foundation Appeal seeks to add to the Gallery’s Collection a work that makes a compelling artistic proposition – one that somehow feels essential to us and might make others feel the same, in 2014, we are presenting a work by a leading contemporary Australian artist, Ben Quilty who is not yet represented in the Gallery’s Collection, but who undoubtedly should be.

RELATED: Sergeant P, after Afghanistan

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Quilty’s view of Australia at war is a deeply human one. Those who have seen the Australian Story documentary ‘War Paint’, which told the story of Ben’s deployment to Afghanistan as an official war artist, will know what I mean. The relationship that Ben formed with members of the armed forces during that experience, and in the months that followed, when many of them visited him to sit in his studio, is the very thing that has enabled works like Sergeant P, after Afghanistan 2012.

For the first time ever at a Foundation Appeal event, we were able to go straight to the source, when Ben joined me on stage to discuss the work, his time with his subjects both in Afghanistan and in his studio back in Australia, and the art historical context of his painting practice.

Chris Saines CNZM is Director, QAGOMA

Ben Quilty, Australia b.1973 / Sergeant P, after Afghanistan 2012 / Oil on linen / 190 x 140cm / Purchased 2014 with funds from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Appeal and Returned & Services League of Australia (Queensland Branch) / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Ben Quilty

An unspoken story

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Feature image: Ben Quilty in conversation with Chris Saines CNZM, QAGOMA Director

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From the Director: Sam Fullbrook

 
Posted by Chris Saines, CNZM   ●   23 May 2014
Sam Fullbrook: Delicate Beauty Foundation Preview Queensland Art Gallery
Opening night: QAGOMA chair Sue Street AO, Chris Saines CNZM, curator Angela Goddard, former curatorial manager of Australian Art Julie Ewington, QAGOMA Foundation President Tim Fairfax AC, at the Foundation viewing of ‘Sam Fullbrook: Delicate Beauty’

Our ‘classic’ building, the Queensland Art Gallery was recently released back in to its natural condition, with a long line of sight from the Stanley Place entrance through to the rear Asian galleries fully revealed. For that, we owe an enduring debt to its architect Robin Gibson, who sadly passed away last month. The Gallery is widely considered the most accomplished of his many architectural achievements.

The design of the Queensland Art Gallery was founded on a set of recurring geometric principles, the kind formulated in classical Vitruvian architecture. We are the inheritors of a building of timeless elegance; modernist in its unornamented materiality, but undeniably classical in its elegant proportions and perfectly articulated volumes.

That irresistible beauty, to be found in the satisfying relationship of equal parts to a whole, is nowhere better found than Gallery 14 – the Glencore Queensland Artist’s Gallery – a room whose dimensions are precisely that of half a cube.

Sam Fullbrook: Delicate Beauty Queensland Art Gallery
Half a cube: ‘Sam Fullbrook: Delicate Beauty’ installed in the Glencore Queensland Artists’ Gallery

This gallery currently hosts the latest in its ongoing series of exhibitions of the work of important artists who were born, or worked largely, in Queensland: ‘Sam Fullbrook: Delicate Beauty‘.

Fullbrook’s painterly skill and his relentless dedication to his practice mark him as a painter’s painter.  Working from a foundation of fine draftsmanship, he turned his hand from portraiture and figurative studies to landscape and still life.  He was proficient in pastel, watercolour and oil painting and as his mentor, the esteemed portraitist William Dargie, recognised, his ability to manipulate colour and fine tonal gradation was truly outstanding. Our most recent Fullbrook acquisition, Pike’s Farm at Haden 1982–87, is testimony to this.

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Sam Fullbrook, Australia 1922-2004 | Pike’s Farm at Haden 1982–87 / Oil on canvas / Purchased 2013. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery /© Estate of the artist

In a biographical quote from 1967, annotated in Robert Cunningham’s curatorial notes held in the Gallery’s Research Library collection, Fullbrook wrote that he hoped “…to combine in my work tenderness and sweetness, charm, clarity, succinctness, love, passion and religion, and pray to Christ no painting of mine will ever be described as either powerful, strong, brilliant, or clever.”

This tells us a lot about the sort of painter, and indeed, the sort of man, that Sam Fullbrook was. He was not interested in hyperbole, feigned emotion or cheap tricks. In this exhibition, we see works that are tender, sweet, charming, clear, and succinct. On his own terms, we can call him a remarkably successful painter.

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Sam Fullbrook, Australia 1922-2004 / Mermaid as Bride 1971 / Oil on canvas on panel / Gift of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery /© Estate of the artist

The publication accompanying this exhibition is the first on Fullbrook in many years and includes, along with an illuminating essay by our curator Angela Goddard, the transcript of an interview between the artist and John Cruthers, conducted in Oakey in late 1985. In an extensive chat, the painter details his life, his technique and his relationships in the art world. He is frank, but endearing. In this, Fullbrook makes a seemingly obvious but very astute observation:

“Those paintings… that remain, are well painted. There’s no such thing as a badly painted Old Master, so primarily there is technique — technique is the thing that stands the test of time.”

This statement is borne out in ‘Delicate Beauty’. Sam’s pictures indeed stand the test of time.