2010.q4 | artonview 64 summer 2010

SUMMER 2010 | 64Canberra | nga.gov.au

10 December 2010 – 20 March 2011 Tickets: nga.gov.au

Principal PartnersPresenting Partner Léon Baskt

(left) Costume for the Blue God c 1912 (detail), from Le Dieu bleu, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1987

(right) Illustration of the Blue God costume (detail), page 29 in Official program of the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet May–June 1912, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

Immerse yourself in the creative explosion of the Ballets Russes.

NGA_BR_ArtonviewDec.indd 1 23/11/10 10:03 AM

BALLETS RUSSESABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTSCULPTURE IN THE SUNAUSTRALIAN PORTRAITS 1880–1960

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Canberra | nga.gov.au

from the National Gallery of Australia to enhance your art library or for the perfect gift

SPACE INVADERSaustralian . street . stencils . posters . zines . stickersJaklyn Babington

Off the street and into the gallery— 40 artists from around Australia.

$39.95 special NGA price (normally $49.95)

Available from the NGA Shop and selected books stores nationally and by mail order. For more information, nga.gov.au/publications or [email protected] or 1800 808 337.

GREAT NEW BOOKS

FACE Australian portraits 1880–1960

Anne Gray

Featuring over 50 portraits by some 40 artists.


BALLETS RUSSES the art of costume

edited by Robert Bell

A must for anyone interested in the performing arts, the intersection of art and design, or costume and fashion.


LIFE, DEATH & MAGIC2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral artRobyn Maxwell

The finest examples of animist art from ancient times to the 21st century.


ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTcollection highlightsedited by Franchesca Cubillo and Wally Caruana

From the world’s largest collection of Indigenous Australian art.


IN THE SPOTLIGHTAnton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950sGael Newton

Before Madmen there was Bruehl. For anyone interested in photography, advertising and popular culture.


ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS ARTbuilding a national collection

see page 24

Rover Thomas Kukatja/Wangkajunga peoples Cyclone Tracy 1991 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1991. Reproduced courtesy of Warmun Art Centre

BALLETS RUSSESthe art of costumeSEE PAGES 10 AND 36

Giorgio de Chirico Costume for a male guest c 1929 (detail), from Le Bal, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1984. © Giorgio de Chirico/SIAE. Represented by Viscopy

Published quarterly by the National Gallery of Australia, PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia [email protected] | nga.gov.au © National Gallery of Australia 2010

Copyright of works of art is held by the artists or their estates. Apart from uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of Artonview may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without the prior permission of the National Gallery of Australia.

ENQUIRIES [email protected]

Produced by the National Gallery of Australia Publishing Department

EDITOR Eric Meredith DESIGNER Kristin Thomas PHOTOGRAPHY by the National Gallery of Australia Photography Department unless otherwise stated RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Nick Nicholson PRINTER Blue Star Print, Melbourne

PREVIOUS ISSUES nga.gov.au/artonview

ISSN 1323‑4552 PRINT POST APPROVED pp255003/00078 RRP A$9.95 | FREE TO MEMBERS

MEMBERSHIP [email protected] | nga.gov.au/members TEL (02) 6240 6528 FAX (02) 6270 6480

SUMMER 2010 | 64

(cover) Léon BakstCostume for a Lezghin c 1912 (detail)from ThamarNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973

(this page) Entrance to the ‘new look’ National Gallery of AustraliaPhotograph: John Gollings

AUSTRALIAN PORTRAITS 1880–1960paintings from the National Gallery of Australia collection

see page 18

Rupert Bunny Woman in a brown hat (Femme au chapeau brun) c 1917, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1976

6 From the Director

EXHIBITIONS

10 Ballets Russes: the art of costume Robert Bell

18 Australian portraits 1880–1960: paintings from the National Gallery of Australia’s collection Anne Gray

FEATURES

20 Sculpture in the sun Ron Radford

24 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art: building a national collection Franchesca Cubillo

36 The fabric of dance: conserving the costumes of the Ballets Russes Michelline Ford

40 Members Acquisition Fund 2010 Ron Radford

ACQUISITIONS

42 Thanakupi Eran 43 Daniel Walbidi Kirriwirri 44 John Olsen Butcher’s 45 Alick Tipoti Apu Kaz (Dugong mother and calf) cart Deia de Mallorca 46 Morris Louis Nexus II 47 Henri de Toulouse‑Lautrec Moulin Rouge: La Goulue 48 Ratanakosin period Buddhas of the past and future 49 Valerie Sparks El Dorado Springs

50 Travelling exhibitions 52 Facesinview 54 News from the Foundation 56 Creative partnerships 58 Thank you …

SUMMER 2010 | 64

6 ARTONVIEW

7 ARTONVIEW

Now is a great time to visit your ‘new look’ National Gallery of Australia. Our new Stage 1 building was officially opened at the end of September by the Governor-General Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC. The opening marks a new era in the history of the National Gallery of Australia. It is the most significant development for the Gallery since it opened in 1982 and one that we want to share with as many people as possible. This is why we held events almost every day and night during the opening week.

Those who attended the week’s events, or the great many who have visited since, no doubt agree that the new building looks splendid. It provides a magnificent and sympathetic setting for works of art, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Andrew Anderson and PTW Architects should be proud, as should the hardworking construction crew at Manteena and our own staff who contributed to the building. The splendour of the new building is captured by John Gollings, Australia’s pre-eminent

architectural photographer, in his photographs for this issue of Artonview.

At the beginning November we opened our new street cafe next to the new front door. The cafe helps to create a more relaxed and friendly Gallery entrance and has already proved extremely popular.

As part of our opening season program, the exhibitions In the spotlight: Anton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950s and Space invaders: australian . street . stencils . posters . paste-ups . zines . stickers both opened in October.

In New York in the 1920s–40s, photography was overtaking graphic art for magazine advertising and illustration. Australian-born Anton Bruehl was a leader of this new profession. His output was prolific, distinctive and varied. In the spotlight is Bruehl’s first museum retrospective. His photographs and photographic archive were a gift to the Gallery in 2006 from the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, as a result of the vision of his son Anton Bruehl Jr, who felt that his father’s work should be well represented in the country of his birth.

The works of art in Space invaders are drawn entirely from the national art collection. Many of them were acquired in 2007 through the support of the Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund and most of the rest were acquired very recently with the support of Nectar, Johnathan and Calypso Efkarpidis. Space invaders, the first exhibition devoted to street art in an Australian public gallery, is sure to excite and provoke visitors. Street art has flourished in Australia since the 1990s and will particularly interest young people.

Of course, our opening season continues into summer with this year’s blockbuster exhibition Ballets Russes: the art of costume, which celebrates a century since the first productions of Sergei Diaghilev’s famous ballet company in Paris. Diaghilev brought together some of the most important modern artists of the twentieth century and infused new life and creative energy into dance, theatre and the wider world of design. Over 30 years and in several incarnations, the Ballets Russes was linked to the most accomplished choreographers,

From the Director

Ramingining artistsThe Aboriginal Memorial 1987–88natural earth pigments on woodheight (various) up to 327 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased with the assistance of funds from Gallery admission charges and commissioned in 1987Photograph: John Gollings

8 ARTONVIEW

dancers, composers, designers and artists of the time, creating not only exotic, extravagant and enthralling theatrical spectacle but excitement, critical discussion, technical innovation, glamour and scandal wherever it appeared—in Europe, North and South America, New Zealand and of course Australia.

Diaghilev officially established his Ballets Russes company in Paris in April 1911, the same month that the competition for the design of Australia’s new capital city, Canberra, was announced. He could never have imagined that this yet-to-be-conceived city would eventually be the home for one of the three largest collections of the costumes of his great Ballets Russes. This exhibition features 150 costumes and accessories by some of the most notable artists and designers of the twentieth century, including Matisse, Picasso, Braque, de Chirico, Gris, Goncharova, Larionov, Derain, Bakst, Benois, Delaunay and others. More than 50 of the costumes have been restored over the past five years and have never been displayed before, and others have not been displayed for more than a decade. The costumes are the most fragile works in the collection and can only rarely be exposed.

Australian portraits 1880–1960: paintings from the National Gallery of Australia collection will also open this summer, although not in Canberra and not until 27 January 2011. This new exhibition is part of the Gallery’s extensive program of sharing the national art collection with the whole of Australia, and it begins its tour at the University Art Museum, University of Queensland, in Brisbane. The exhibition was conceived as a follow-up to the highly successful Ocean to Outback: Australian landscape painting 1850–1950, which toured regional galleries in every state and territory in Australia from August 2007 to May 2009. The curator of the exhibition, Anne Gray, introduces Australian portraits 1880–1960 on pages 18–19.

Connections, the second exhibition in the new Childrens Galley, near the Small Theatre, explores the rich conversations that can take place between works of art across cultures, place and time. The exhibition pairs Islamic works of art with others under themes such as calligraphy, geometry, colour and the garden. It is intended to show the beauty and diversity of Islamic art and to promote understanding of its influence around the world.

Summer is a glorious time in Canberra and the outdoors once again becomes a great place to be. Since it opened in 1982, the National Gallery of Australia has displayed sculpture around the building—in the Sculpture Garden, on the pathways and on the building itself. Now, with the opening in 2010 of the new building and the new Australian Garden, the Gallery acquired new works for the sculpture display. Among these are Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North 1996, a most valuable work of art generously donated by James and Jacqui Erskine. It stands proudly at the edge of Lake Burley Griffin. James Turrell’s skyspace Within without 2010, the largest work in the collection, forms part of our new Australian Garden on King Edward Terrace. Indigenous artist Thanakupi’s newly commissioned spherical sculpture Eran 2010, acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, marks the new entrance to the Gallery along with an old Gallery favourite, George Baldessin’s iconic 1973 ‘pears’, re-installed in the centre of our new front lawn. The Gallery also commissioned Mari Funaki to design a vertical sculpture to mark the opening of our new entrance and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

9 ARTONVIEW

galleries. The Governor-General unveiled it at the opening. Sadly, it was the artist’s last work before she died.

In other recent acquisitions, a large-scale work by American abstract expressionist painter Morris Louis, Nexus II 1959, joins other works by Louis in the collection. Another rare work by the master of modern poster design, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, has entered the collection—Moulin Rouge: La Goulue 1891, the artist’s first and largest poster, is now on display with Eldorado: Aristide Bruant 1892 (see Artonview no 62) and a group of smaller works by Toulouse-Lautrec. There is a painting Kirriwirri 2010 by young Indigenous artist Daniel Walbidi and a large print and sculpture by the more-established Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti. John Olsen’s Butcher’s cart, Deia de Mallorca 2010, acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, is a brilliant counterpoint to his marvellous Sydney sun, which was made 45 years earlier and has been a collection favourite since it was acquired in 2000. The Gallery has acquired a rare Thai banner painted in the nineteenth century. Few banners from this period have survived and even fewer in such good condition. And, from the very

old to the very new, El Dorado Springs 2007 by Australian photographer Valerie Sparks is a six-metre-long panoramic digital print purchased by the Gallery in memory of a former staff member, Melody Gough, who died in a car accident late last year.

I would like to congratulate and warmly welcome our first Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellows: Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, Associate Curator of Indigenous Objects and Photography at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and Jirra Harvey, National Youth Programs Coordinator, Oxfam Australia. Their projects stood out among many other great proposals. The participants of the Indigenous Arts Leadership program, the other stream of the Fellowship program, have just finished their course at the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre in Canberra and we hope they will take what they learnt back to their communities and into their bright futures.

On behalf of the Gallery, I would like to express our gratitude to Charles Curran, who has retired after seven years as a member of the National Gallery of Australia Council of which he was deputy Chair and after four and a half years as Chairman of the Foundation. He has been invaluable

to the many recent achievements of the Foundation, which has just enjoyed its most successful year to date with nearly $14 million in cash donations and works of art. Charles also diligently chaired the Gallery’s building committee, which helped deliver us our successful Stage 1 building.

Stepping into the role of Foundation Chairman is John Hindmarsh, who has been a member of the Foundation Board since 2004. I warmly welcome John’s appointment. He will bring many years of business experience to the vital work that the Foundation does in supporting the Gallery.

We look forward to seeing you soon at your ‘new look’ National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

Ron Radford AM Director

Indigenous artist Gali Yalkayirriwuy Gurruwirri performs a traditional dance at the media preview for the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 30 September 2010.

Governor-General Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC with Maningrida artists John Mawurndjul and Owen Yalandja at the opening.

Former chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Charles Curran AC and Gallery Director Ron Radford AM at a Foundation dinner, 27 October 2010.

10 ARTONVIEW | EXHIBITION

11EXHIBITION | ARTONVIEW

Ballet is a synthesis of music, illusion, art, artifice, narrative and the nuances of gesture and movement. It is ephemeral, an art of the moment, dependent on the exquisite timing and interpretation of these elements. Dancers on stage can transcend or ruin planned choreography, stagecraft and music can transport an audience to another reality, and the timing and relevance of a production in the real world of society and politics can raise it to the canon or condemn it to obscurity. Musical scores, stage design and choreography can be re-created but costumes remain the only really tangible part of productions and performances given before the advent, and different reality, of film and video recordings of ballet.

The major exhibition Ballets Russes: the art of costume celebrates the centenary of the first Paris seasons of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (Russian Ballet), the dance company that revolutionised ballet with its sensational fusion of art, movement and music and, later, inspired others to continue its legacy, such as Colonel Wassily de Basil’s

Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. This exhibition traces the story of the Ballets Russes through the work of its designers. The costumes and original design drawings for costumes and stage scenery are on display, evoking the exoticism and drama of the companies’ performances.

The National Gallery of Australia holds one of the world’s most extensive collections of costumes from the Ballets Russes. Comprising over 300 costumes from the productions of the Sergei Diaghilev and Wassily de Basil periods of the Ballets Russes it is an important part of the international legacy of dance and stage design from the early twentieth century.

The costumes designed and made for the Ballets Russes were conceived in the context of powerful and emotional artistic collaboration and command attention as persuasive works of art in their own right, long after they ceased to be worn on stage. Diaghilev commissioned leading couturiers and theatrical costumiers to make costumes designed by artists and to bring sketchy ideas to fruition as practical and durable

Ballets Russesthe art of costume10 December 2010 – 20 March 2011 | nga.gov.au/balletsrusses


performance garments. Luxurious materials and the highly developed craft skills of the professional costumier are evident in costumes made for costly productions, while leaner times for the company are revealed in the use of cheaper materials and painted trompe l’oeil decorative effects, executed in some cases by the designer’s own hand.

Their ingenious design, cut and construction, innovative colours and patterns and the use of a variety of fabrics and trim materials come together with the purpose of being worn in complex action by athletic dancers for maximum visual impact on stage. Even now, bearing the ravages of time, use and neglect, they are tangible reminders of the craft of their makers and their wearers.

The exhibition Ballets Russes reveals the result of a major Gallery conservation project over the past five years with 51 of these costumes, many of which were previously too fragile and deteriorated to be put on display, having been fully conserved. The history of each was researched and its materials painstakingly assessed and consolidated, often thread by thread. In Ballets Russes, 48 of the costumes are exhibited for the first time since many of them were last worn in the late 1940s. The Gallery’s Senior Textile Conservator Micheline Ford reveals more on this project and on the discoveries made while conserving the costumes (see pages 36–9).

Included are some of the National Gallery of Australia’s most famous

costumes: Alexandre Benois’s costume for Petrouchka in the 1911 ballet of the same name; Léon Bakst’s 1912 costume for the Blue God (Krishna) in Le Dieu bleu; Henri Matisse’s powerful 1920 costume for a mourner from Le Chant du rossignol; Natalia Goncharova’s joyous costumes from the 1914 and 1937 productions of Le Coq d’or; Michel Larionov’s 1921 Cubist costumes for Chout; Giorgio de Chirico’s Surrealist vision for the young man in 1929’s Le Bal; and André Masson’s Futurist costumes for the 1933 symphonic ballet Les Présages. Each reveals the designers’ imaginative responsiveness to the dance, costume, literary and artistic traditions the European past, the exoticism of Asia, the emergent modernity of the early twentieth

(pages 10–11)Léon BakstCostume for a friend of Queen Thamar, Costume for Queen Thamar and Costume for a Lezghin c 1912from ThamarNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1976 and 1973

(left) Henri Matisse Costume for a mourner c 1920 from Le Chant du rossignolNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1973

(right) Natalia GoncharovaCostume for a seahorse c 1916from SadkoNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1995© Natalia Goncharova/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy

Mikhail LarionovCostume for a buffoon’s wife c 1921from Chout National Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973© Mikhail Larionov/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy


century and the revolutionary fervour of the Russia.

The influence of traditional Cambodian dance can be seen in Bakst’s design of the original skirted costume for the Blue God worn by the Ballets Russes most famous dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky. Of pale yellow watered silk and pink satin, it is embroidered with a closed lotus flower and rays of gold thread and metallic studs, while its crown of fine gold fabric was decorated with embroidered roses. The intricately decorated bodice was most likely designed to suggest the body jewellery seen in Hindu sculpture, while the stiff formality of the costume was echoed in Nijinsky’s performance of sculptural poses rather than active dancing. As Krishna, Nijinsky had

worn bright blue make-up in continuance of the tradition of the god’s skin being turned blue as a result of being bitten by a poisonous serpent. Traces of this blue make-up rubbed off into the fibres of the lining of the costume, giving it a particularly intimate connection to Nijinsky.

Natalia Goncharova imagined vivid marine creatures such as the seahorse and the squid characters for the 1916 ballet Sadko. Her knowledge and love of Russian folk dress can be seen in her design of the costumes and in the shape of the headdresses for the fish characters. The seahorse’s dappled patterns and the squid costume’s undulating tentacles, outlined in metallic lamé over ultramarine silk, allowed the dancers to fluidly interpret Michel

Fokine’s choreography, suggesting the movement of water and the shimmer and iridescence of marine creatures.

For Le Chant du rossignol, Matisse designed costumes based on traditional Chinese Ming court dress in colour orchestrations derived from Chinese ceramics and lacquer. The massing on stage of his courtiers’ costumes, elaborately tailored in silk with loose decorations painted and directed by Matisse, created the impression of a continuous pattern, as if on a scroll painting. The mourner’s cloak, among the most breathtaking of Matisse’s designs, was made from a white felt-like curtain-lining material with appliquéd triangles and chevrons of navy blue velvet inspired by the markings on Chinese deer.


The costumes for Chout are a particularly vivid expression of the Cubo-Futurism that came to be associated with Larionov and Goncharova. Echoing the vividly coloured Cubist scenery graphics, the costumes’ abstracted angular shapes and patterns and flattened, almost deconstructed forms made the dancers a moveable part of an overall scenario. Although based on the conventions of peasant clothing, some of the costumes were visually extended with stiffened buckram, felt, rubberised cloth and heavy cane structures, hindering movement to the extent that the dancers feared that they could not carry out the planned choreography.

Designing for Le Bal, de Chirico drew upon his interest in desolate classical architecture, providing an austere stage with exaggerated cornices, strangely proportioned openings and scattered fragments. This theme of classical architecture is echoed in the guests’ costumes, rendering each performer a moveable element of an architectural ensemble. Jackets and trousers became pilasters and columns, shirts and

dresses roughly sketched examples of the classical orders. Their complexity and weight was further laden with stuccoed wigs for the dancers, adding to an air of ossified antiquity even though George Balanchine’s choreography was light and acrobatic. While the radicalism of rational modernism was taking hold in the late 1920s in Europe, de Chirico’s work for Le Bal is a vivid example of the Italian Novecento design movement that returned classicism to mainstream taste during the 1920s.

After Diaghilev’s untimely death in 1929, several new companies were formed to continue and develop his legacy. The most important of these was Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, formed in Monaco in 1932 by the Russian entrepreneur Colonel Wassily de Basil. Using some of the original Diaghilev sets and costumes, de Basil’s company revived many of the Ballets Russes’ earlier productions and commissioned new works in the innovative spirit of Diaghilev’s earlier company. Following the Ballets Russes tradition, prominent artists and designers were invited to design for these

productions, among them André Masson, Oliver Messel, Étienne de Beaumont, Jean Lurçat, Natalia Goncharova, and the Australians Sidney Nolan and Kathleen and Florence Martin.

André Masson’s Expressionist set for the 1933 production Les Présages was painted with flickering and swirling flame-like images, almost as a diagram for choreographer Léonide Massine’s handling of the dancers as a single organism. While the costume designs are locked into 1930s Futurism, their jagged patterns and sometimes bitter colour orchestrations in the massed and undulating structures of Massine’s choreography brought an almost architectural energy to the stage. This production was seen in Australia only three years after its European premiere, providing Australian audiences with a direct and visceral experience of the modernism in ballet that was being constructed on Diaghilev’s legacy.

The 150 costumes and accessories in Ballets Russes: the art of costume are shown in the chronological sequence of 34 Ballets


Russes performances from 1909 to 1940 and are displayed in ways to suggest the company’s experimental engagement with tradition and the avant-garde. Animated with photographs and film of stage performances and dancers in costume, the exhibition evokes the experience of theatre and dance as seen from both the front and back of house. Original design drawings, studio photographs of dancers and theatre programs provide insights into the work of the Ballets Russes collaborators, while an enormous stage backdrop for Petrouchka will be displayed for the first time since 1999.

The extraordinary colour orchestrations of the Ballets Russes costumes and stage spectacles have inspired rich, kaleidoscopic and discordant colour themes for the design of the exhibition spaces, where expressive lighting has been designed to protect the costumes and suggest the dark intimacy and drama of ballet performance. Excerpts of the original music that was such a memorable part of the sensuous spectacle of the Ballets Russes can be heard throughout the exhibition.

These costumes are only parts of the larger context of the productions for which they were made, but each retains the power to evoke the intimacy and emotional charge between designers, performers and audiences that was central to the Ballets Russes experience. When exhibited, these disembodied and now endearingly vulnerable costumes engage the viewer as dreamlike fragments that appear, overlap and disappear, populating a realm of imagination and memory. Through these fragments, we can glimpse the work and passion of Diaghilev and his designers, dancers, collaborators and successors as they interpreted the great romantic stories and the legends of history against the framework of the moral contradictions of the emerging twentieth century. This exhibition aims to celebrate the centenary of the Ballets Russes by showing how its spirit continues for our time and place.

Dr Robert Bell AM Senior Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

(page 14)Léon BakstCostume for a lady-in-waiting c 1921from The sleeping princessNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973

(page 15)José-María SertCostume designs for Dr Romualdo from Ballet de l’Astuce femininepage 27 in Souvenir program for the Ballets Russes at L’Opéra, May June 1920National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

(opposite)Pavel TchelitchewCostume for a star c 1928from OdeNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973

(above)Natalia GoncharovaMantle from costume for King Dodon c 1937from Le Coq d’orNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973© Natalia Goncharova/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy

André MassonJacket and helmet from costume for a male (in Scene 1) 1933from Les Présages National Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973© André Masson/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy


Australian portraits 1880–1960paintings from the National Gallery of Australia collection

nga.gov.au/portraits

Although the story of Australian art is often centred on the development of our distinctive landscape painting, there was a primacy of portraiture: from the 1830s to the mid 1850s, portraiture dominated art in the older Australian colonies.

The Edwardian era produced two of Australia’s most significant portraitists, George W Lambert and Tom Roberts; the 1920s and 1930s saw the emergence of strong women artists who specialised in portraiture, such as Stella Bowen and Nora Heysen; and, in the 1940s and 1950s, artists such as Albert Tucker produced some of their best works in portraiture. Now is the time to look at the achievements of some of our portrait painters.

This new exhibition shows portraits long-owned by the Gallery and a number of new acquisitions. Indeed, among the first paintings purchased for the national collection were E Phillips Fox’s The green

parasol c 1912 and Hugh Ramsay’s Miss Nellie Patterson c 1903. The exhibition demonstrates the rich range of portraits in the Gallery’s collection from the late-colonial 1880s to the late-modernist 1960s.

The selection of works of art for the exhibition consciously focuses on the quality of the work rather than the subject of the portrait and intentionally pushes the boundaries of what might be regarded as a portrait. In An Australian native 1888, Roberts depicted a type, ‘a native of Australia, a beautiful girl in a pink gown’. She was an example of the healthy and vigorous young Australian-born men and women of the time. Roberts deliberately did not reveal who his subject was, but we believe it to be Australian contralto singer Ada Crossley (1871–1929), who would have been 17 years old at the time and just beginning her career. She was described in 1903 in the Evening

Post, Wellington, New Zealand, as ‘an Australian native’.

Miss Nellie Patterson 1903, on the other hand, was a commission by Dame Nellie Melba of her adored niece. It captures all the personality of the young miss sitting perilously on a plush cushion, dressed in her best party outfit, and demonstrates Ramsay’s mastery of paint—in his depiction of the luscious pink bow in Nellie’s hair, of the brilliance of her sash and of the sheen of her dress.

Artists have often painted themselves as subjects because they were in need of a readily available, patient model. Those who have regularly painted self-portraits have produced a kind of visual autobiography, as well as charting their development and changes in artistic approach. They not only show what the artist looked like but also how they wanted to be seen. Grace Cossington Smith painted herself while she


(left)Hugh RamsayMiss Nellie Patterson 1903oil on canvas122.3 x 92.2 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1966

Grace Cossington SmithStudy of a head: self-portrait 1916oil on canvas26 x 21 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased with funds from the Marie Brakenridge Bequest, 2010

Ian FairweatherPortrait of the artist 1962synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard mounted on composition board92.4 x 72.9 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1976© Ian Fairweather. Represented by DACS and Viscopy

(right)Tom RobertsAn Australian native 1888oil on canvas127.2 x 76.2 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased through the Joseph Brown Fund, 1979

was a student using a bright high-key palette of pinks, blues and greens, with animated brush-strokes—as much an exercise in paint as it was in depicting a person. Nonetheless, she expressed her spiritual essence, showing herself haloed in light, gazing dreamily into the distance.

In his self-portrait Portrait of the artist 1962, Ian Fairweather transformed his face into broadly brushed, painted gestures. He used little colour to convey the aging self. But this is no image of a decrepit man: it is strong, forceful, energetic. Fairweather turned himself into paint. He created an outer expression of an inner spirit, an exploration of the eternal mystery: ‘who am I?’

Anne Gray Head of Australian Art

Australian portraits 1880–1960 is travelling around Australia from 29 January 2011 (see page 51 for venues and dates).

20 ARTONVIEW | FEATURE

21FEATURE | ARTONVIEW

SCULPTURE IN THE SUNThe National Gallery of Australia has expanded its display of sculptures in areas around the building. Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, explores the newly acquired works by Australian and international artists, which are situated in the Australian Garden near the new front entrance and in the much‑loved Sculpture Garden near Lake Burley Griffin.


Since our Sculpture Garden was established between the Gallery building and Lake Burley Griffin, it has been a marvellous place to relax and walk among works by some of the finest Australian and international sculptors, surrounded by native Australian vegetation. The garden has always been much loved. The Sculpture Garden has been a place for art happenings, functions, festivals, concerts, art fairs, weddings, celebrations, dance performances, workshops and discussions among friends. Indeed, even before the original building opened in 1982, works were already being acquired for the planned garden: early acquisitions by Auguste Rodin, Emile Antoine Bourdelle, Aristide Maillol, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Clement Meadmore were among the first, followed by Mark di Suvero, Bert Flugelman, Inge King, Fujiko Nakaya and Robert Stankiewicz, Pukamani poles from Bathurst Island and slit-drums from Vanuatu.

Now, with the opening of our Stage 1 building and the generous assistance of significant benefactors such as James and

Jacqui Erskine and the 2010 Founding Donors, we can continue to expand our display of sculptures in areas around the Gallery. Of course, Stage 1 includes a spectacular new entrance and 11 new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries, which have significantly extended our collection display space; but also with Stage 1 comes the Australian Garden at the new entrance. This new outdoor space provides a perfect opportunity to acquire sculpture for outdoor display—and we intend for newly acquired sculptures to be shown in the Australian Garden from time to time.

James Turrell’s Within without 2010 is the most impressive permanent feature of the new garden and a superb example of Turrell’s art of light. It is a work of rare beauty and offers visitors to the National Gallery of Australia an extraordinary experience of Canberra’s skies. Indeed, Turrell was very impressed with the clarity of Canberra’s skies at the time the work was commissioned. An intriguing combination of pyramid and stupa, Within without amalgamates Eastern,

Western and local cultural traditions that constitute modern Australia. It seems fitting then, that the skyspace complements our new galleries dedicated to the Indigenous art of this country but also our Asian collections. This major work of art, in so prominent a location, has already become a destination in itself.

It is Turrell’s largest and most complex skyspace to date and the largest work in the national art collection. It was partly funded from the support of the many people who visited the exhibition Masterpieces from Paris. The position of Within without in the new Australian Garden on King Edward Terrace also announces the Gallery’s ambition to eventually extend the Sculpture Garden around the building.

An old favourite, George Baldessin’s Pear—version number 2 1973 has been re-installed at the centre of our new front lawn on Parkes Place. For many years, visitors have photographed themselves, their friends and family with the pears as a memento of their time at the Gallery. It is fitting then that this popular work continues to serve


as a beacon at the Gallery. It is now joined by Eran 2010, a large aluminium spherical sculpture by Indigenous artist Thanakupi. The Gallery specially commissioned Eran for Stage 1. It is one of a number of large works that Thanakupi has created with the Brisbane foundry Urban Art Projects. Thanakupi has sustained the longest career for any Indigenous female artist, and Eran is symbolically appropriate for our front entrance. It was acquired through the Founding Donors 2010 Fund.

Another Australian sculpture, also commissioned by the Gallery, sits adjacent to the new entrance. The work Twilight 2010 by Melbourne-based artist Mari Funaki was unveiled by the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC, at the opening ceremony on 30 September 2010, especially to commemorate the opening of our Stage 1 building. It is Funaki’s last work; sadly she died in May this year after a battle with cancer. Funaki was particularly interested in the interplay between negative and positive volume and spaces, which is perhaps why

the inspiration for Twilight came from Indigenous burial poles. The work hints at the shape of a burial pole, and its surface is suggestive of tree bark. Twilight is a respectful tribute to the Indigenous cultures of Australia and powerful final work by one of Australia’s leading jewellers who also made fine sculpture.

The Gallery has also enhanced the sculpture installations on the Lake Burley Griffin side of the building with Antony Gormley’s life-size maquette Angel of the North 1996. Gormley is Britain’s major figure sculptor and is known for his large public projects. This particular maquette was for the enormous, 20-metre-high steel sculpture Angel of the North 1994–98 in Gateshead in northern England. This valuable sculpture was generously given to the Gallery by James and Jacqui Erskine.

Summer is a particularly fine season for Canberra and you will surely find a place to sit and reflect among the Gallery’s sculpture in the sun.


The front of the National Gallery of Australia, showing Thanakupi’s Eran 2010 and George Baldessin’s Pear—version number 2 1973.

Antony GormleyAngel of the North (life-size maquette) 1996cast iron196.5 x 535 x 53 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberragift of James and Jacqui Erskine, 2009

(pages 20–1)James TurrellWithin without 2010lighting installation, concrete and basalt stupa, water, earth, landscaping800 x 2800 x 2800 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased, with the support of visitors to the exhibition Masterpieces from Paris, 2010 Photographs: John Gollings


nga.gov.au/atsiart

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTbuilding a national collection

Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, reflects on the past three decades of strategically building the world’s largest collection of Indigenous Australian art, from which 600 works are now on display in the 11 new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries at the National Gallery of Australia.


The art of Indigenous Australians takes many forms. Despite significant change and diversity, the art retains an underlying unity of inspiration—the land and the human relationships that are associated with it. It is simultaneously connected to the past and engaged with the present.

The designs, patterns and stories that appear in art were taught to Aboriginal people by the ancestors and are reinforced and replicated through ritual, dance, song, body paint for ceremony, rock engravings and paintings, and on utilitarian and ritual objects. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is as alive today as it was thousands of years ago, and as in the ancient past, art is inseparable from everyday life.

In the modern era, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art continues to express Indigenous beliefs and cosmology, and people’s hopes and aspirations in a changing world. The major source of inspiration is the Dreaming, the eternal presence that encapsulates the genesis of the

world, in which the ancestral supernatural beings formed the natural features of the earth and established the laws of science and society. The Dreaming continues to sustain generation after generation of Indigenous peoples who access its powers through ceremony, and through art.

The National Gallery of Australia’s collection of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art focuses on art made for the public domain in the modern era but is also part of the continuum that encompasses ancient rock paintings and engravings, as well as ephemeral ground mosaics, sand sculptures and drawings and body paintings.

As befits a national institution, the collection is comprehensive in its scope and tracks the continuing and evolving traditions of Indigenous art across Australia, with particular emphasis on the work of outstanding artists and significant movements.

Today, the collection’s key strengths include bark painting, sculpture and fibre

weaving from Arnhem Land, early and late painting in introduced media from the deserts, Hermannsburg watercolours, the art of the eastern Kimberley, textiles, prints and photographs and the work of urban-based artists.

The Gallery’s first major purchase was in 1972 and consisted of a series of eight bark paintings by Thomas Nanjiwarra and Bill Namiayangwa dating from the mid 1950s from Groote Eylandt. Under a policy to collect major Australian artists in depth, the Gallery acquired in 1976 an outstanding collection of 139 bark paintings by the renowned western Arnhem Land painter Yirawala. The emphasis remained on the art of Arnhem Land and the Top End and the modern manifestations of the ancient traditions of bark painting and sculpture until the appointment of Ruth McNicolI in 1978, under whose stewardship the Gallery acquired its first Papunya painting in 1980: Mick Wallankarri Tjakamarra’s Honey Ant Dreaming 1973.


The founding director, James Mollison, was keen to further develop the collection. Acutely aware of the nuances of Indigenous Australian art’s visual languages, Mollison and McNicoll were convinced this great tradition of art could hold its place among the other major traditions of the world represented in the Gallery’s holdings: Western art, past and present, and the great religious and tribal art of Asia and the Pacific. When the Gallery opened to the public in October 1982, two Indigenous works, George Garrawun’s Freshwater fish c 1979 and Jimmy Njiminjuma’s Rainbow Serpent with buffalo head and horns c 1980, were among those encountered by visitors when they entered the building. While some Indigenous works were displayed in other spaces in the Gallery, this was a modest but symbolic beginning.

In 1984, the department of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art was established as a separate curatorial department of the Gallery and Wally

Caruana was appointed the first full-time curator of the collection. By this time, the Indigenous collection had a dedicated budget to acquire works and it developed an acquisitions policy in line with its national role, based on stylistic regions, diversity of practices, historical perspectives, cultural criteria and artistic excellence, in order to tell the story of Indigenous Australian art in as comprehensive a manner as possible. And, given that most Indigenous art stems from several religious belief systems, the Gallery aims to include works that reflect the great ancestral narratives that have shaped this continent.

Building the collection relies on visiting the Indigenous communities and the numerous private and commercial galleries showing Indigenous art around the country. Thirty years ago there were a handful of specialist galleries; while many exist today, most private commercial galleries in Australia now show Indigenous art.

As a consequence of overseas interest in Indigenous art dating back more than a century, not all the acquisitions have been sourced within Australia. In 1984 and 1985, through the Founding Donors Fund, the Gallery acquired a major collection of historical bark paintings and sculptures from across Arnhem Land and adjacent regions belonging to the Czech artist and ethnographer Karel Kupka. Kupka first came to Australia in 1951 and subsequently visited frequently to collect Aboriginal art on behalf of a number of European museums, notably the collection now housed at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.

While the Kupka collection provided historical depth in Arnhem Land, similar approaches were required to build a historical foundation for the separate parts of the collection, given the National Gallery began building its collection in the 1970s—decades after most of the older, established public art galleries and


(pages 24–5)Ramingining artists The Aboriginal Memorial 1987–88 natural earth pigments on wood height (various) up to 327 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased with the assistance of funds from National Gallery admission charges and commissioned in 1987

(page 26)The Bark paintings and sculpture after 1980—north Queensland & Top End gallery.

(page 27)The Urban gallery.Photographs: John Gollings

(from far left)Jimmy WululuGupapuyngu peopleNiwuda, Yirritja native honey 1986natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark144 x 60 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1987© Jimmy Wululu. Represented by Viscopy

Robin NganjmirraKunwinjku peopleLikanaya 1989natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark191 x 81 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1989© Estate of the artist. Represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency

Paddy Jupurrurla NelsonPaddy Japaljarri SimsLarry Jungurrayi SpencerWarlpiri peopleYanjilypiri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming) synthetic polymer paint on canvas372 x 171.4 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1986© Paddy Jupurrurla Nelson, Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Larry Jungurrayi Spencer. Represented by Viscopy


museums in Australia. The purchase in 1985 of William Barak’s Corroboree c 1885 heralded what is now an extensive holding of nineteenth century drawings that are of inestimable artistic and historic significance as they provide rare Indigenous perspectives of the changing nature of Australian society. The collection now includes drawings by, among others, Tommy McRae and Mickey of Ulladulla. A recent addition is a rare drawing by Barak made in 1895 on the reverse side of a mission banner listing the Gospel readings for Holy Week.

Other works that provide the collection with historical depth are the magnificently carved and incised artefacts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as the Murray River broadshield that once belonged to the Surrealist artist Max Ernst and came to the Gallery in 1985 as part of his tribal art collection from his widow Dorothea Tanning. More recent acquisitions of early material include a parrying shield from the Murrumbidgee River area, close by where the National Gallery now stands, two extraordinary jawun (bicornual baskets) and a decorated shield from the rainforests of far north Queensland.

The Torres Strait Islander collection includes a spear-tip carved with the image of an ancestor, which also once belonged to Ernst. The historic aspect of the collection was further enhanced in 2006 by an extremely rare nineteenth-century Torres Strait Mawa mask acquired in 2006. The Gallery’s acquisition of Ken Thaiday Sr’s dance machines and headdresses in 1991 heralded a resurgence in the art of the Torres Strait. In more recent times, a number of artists have emerged from the region, including Alick Tipoti and Dennis Nona, whose prints and sculptures have recently been acquired by the Gallery in some depth.

In the 1990s, the collection of desert art was significantly enhanced to reflect the seminal painting movements that transformed the face of desert art—from the closed contexts of ceremony to the public domain—beginning in the community of Papunya in the Western Desert in the early 1970s. The acquisitions included a selection of works from the collection of Geoffrey Bardon, the catalyst behind the painting movement at Papunya, and the Peter Fannin collection of early Western Desert paintings. Fannin succeeded Bardon as the manager of

Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative from 1972 to 1975. Over the years, the National Gallery acquired a number of seminal works, including Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri’s Men’s camps at Lyrrpurrung Ngturra 1979, Anatjari Tjampitjinpa’s Ceremonial ground 1981 and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula’s Straightening spears at Illyingaungau 2000 (painted only months before the artist passed away). And the collection of works by artists who originally painted at Papunya in the 1970s was crowned by the acquisition in 2007 of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s masterpiece Warlugulong 1977, a seminal work by this pioneering painter from the Western Desert. This great painting was purchased with the generous assistance of a number of the Gallery’s benefactors—Roslynne Bracher and the Paspaley family, David and Michelle Coe and Charles and Eva Curran. Recent acquisitions of the work of Papunya artists have focused primarily on women painters such as Doreen Reid Nakamarra and Walangkura Napanangka, as they have come to the fore in the last decade.

The Warlpiri community at Yuendumu was to follow in the steps of the Papunya artists in the 1980s. Among the Gallery’s first acquisitions were the monumental

(opposite)Jean Baptiste ApuatimiTiwi people Yirrikapayi 2007natural earth pigments on canvas160 x 200 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2007© the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency

Anatjari Tjampitjinpa Pintupi peopleCeremonial ground 1981synthetic polymer paint on canvas182.5 x 182 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 1992© Estate of the artist. Represented by Aboriginal Artists Agency

(left)William BarakWurundjeri people Corroboree 1895charcoal and natural earth pigment, over pencil on prepared linen60 x 76.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, 2009


canvas Yanjilypiri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming) by three senior male artists led by Paddy Jupurrula Nelson and Wakirlpirri Jukurrpa (Dogwood Dreaming) by three female artists led by Liddy Napanagka Walker. Both works, made and acquired in 1985, were the first of a number of collaborative canvases from Yuendumu to enter the collection as the Warlpiri artists carry this tradition of communal ceremonial painting into the public domain.

The Alhalkere Suite 1993, a series of 22 canvases by Emily Kam Kngwarray, emphasised the standing of an artist who came to be one of Australia’s most significant. Her public painting career spanned only a decade, until she died in 1996, but the Gallery holds one of her earliest surviving batiks from 1981. Batik is a popular medium among women artists across the continent, which is reflected in the Gallery’s collection of Indigenous textiles. The collection includes work from Ernabella in South Australia and

Utopia in the Northern Territory, the first communities to take up the Indonesian technique.

The Gallery’s central Australian watercolour landscapes form Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory has benefited greatly through the gifts of large collections of works by Albert Namatjira by Gordon and Marilyn Darling in 2008 and 2009. The Darlings have also been great supporters of the collection through the Gordon Darling Australia and Pacific Print Fund, which has allowed the Gallery to make accessible the most extensive collection in the world of prints in all techniques by Australian and Pacific artists, including works by the first acknowledged Australian Indigenous printmaker, Kevin Gilbert.

The representation of the art of the Kimberley began in earnest in 1984 with the first acquisitions of paintings by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji. Several of these works are associated with momentous

events surrounding the cyclone that had destroyed Darwin only a decade earlier. In the 1980s, Thomas and Jaminji built on local traditions to establish a school of painting in the eastern Kimberley that heralded a new era in Australian art. The holdings of Rover Thomas’s work are extensive in recognition of his groundbreaking contribution to Australian art. They include his series of historical paintings about the cyclone and the pastoral industry in the Kimberley, which were crowned in 2001 with the acquisition of All that big rain coming from topside 1991.

Other significant Kimberley acquisitions in the following years included works by Gija artist Paddy Bedford and paintings by the recently deceased Gooniyandi artist Kunmanara Cherel. The collection of art from the Kimberley was enhanced in 1990 by the addition of two of Alec Mingelmanganu’s life-size canvases of Wanjina, the ancestral beings whose images are found on rock walls and shelters across


parts of the Kimberley. The Gallery now holds substantial numbers of works by artists based in and around Fitzroy Crossing as well as recent works by Bidyadanga artists south of Broome.

The art of Arnhem Land continues to be a major feature of the Indigenous collection. The representation of the area is marked by a number of destination pieces including Narritjin Maymuru’s Nyapililngu Ancestors at Djarrakpi c 1978, acquired in 1986, and Jack Wunuwun’s Barnumbirr the Morning Star 1987—both tours des forces of bark painting. The former is a precursor of the large bark paintings that Yolngu artists from eastern Arnhem Land have been painting over the last decade or so, as in Baluka Maymuru’s Yingapungapu at Djarrakpi 1997. Another artist well represented by his bark paintings from the late 1970s is John Mawurndjul, now recognised as one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. The collection also includes extensive holdings dating from the late 1960s to the

1980s of the work of major bark painters such as Balang (Mick) Kubarkku, Peter Marralwanga, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Djambawa Marawili, George Milpurrurru and Mawalan, Wandjuk and Wanyubi Marika, among others.

The women weavers from Arnhem Land are also making their mark on the art world as evidenced by stunning contemporary large-scale fibre sculptures by Anniebell Marrngamarrnga. The collection of fibre weavings by women artists of Arnhem Land commenced in 1989 with the acquisition of a collection from Maningrida, in recognition not only of the intrinsic artistic qualities of the work but also because it is the main form of artistic expression of Arnhem Land women artists.

While tracking contemporary Indigenous art, the Gallery constantly seeks works of historical significance and in 2006 it was able to acquire a unique painting, Milingimbi Easter panel c 1965. The panel was made as a backdrop for an Easter

pageant at the mission on Milingimbi in Arnhem Land by a number of renowned artists, including Tony Djikululu and Jimmy Wululu. It was one of two panels made at the time and the only one still in existence. Some two decades later artists from the same region, including Djikululu and Wululu, collaborated on one of the jewels in the crown of the national collection—The Aboriginal Memorial, which now graces the Gallery’s new entrance in a specially designed monumental circular space. At the time of its commissioning in 1987, the installation was by far the most ambitious undertaking, in terms of Indigenous art, by a public museum in Australia. And, appropriately, the acquisition relied on public funds provided by the admission fees the Gallery was required to charge at the time.

The Gallery’s collections from the Top End of the Northern Territory include substantial holdings of the unique art of the Tiwi people from Bathurst Island and


Melville Island. A group of tutini or grave posts were installed in the Sculpture Garden when the Gallery’s opened in 1982. In 1992, the Gallery purchased a large collection of the late works of Declan Apuatimi, a major Tiwi artist of the 1980s. More recently the Gallery acquired two large canvases by Declan’s widow, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Jikapayinga 2007 and Yirrikapayi 2007, based on the male and female crocodiles. The Gallery’s strong collection of Tiwi art is brought up to date with the acquisition of Glen Farmer Illortaminni’s bronze Jongijongini (egret) 2005–06. Two large-scale, over-painted prints on cloth from 1984 by Bede Tungutalum, one of the original printmakers at Tiwi Design, were acquired earlier this year.

The Gallery’s collection of prints by Indigenous artists is by far the most comprehensive anywhere. Printmaking became popular among city-based and remote-community artists alike from the 1980s and has become a major area in Torres Strait art in the last decade. The Gallery’s collection includes the work of the first recognised Aboriginal printmaker, Kevin Gilbert, and several by artists such as Avril Quaill, Arone Raymond Meeks and

Fiona Foley, who were among a group of artists in Sydney who established Boomalli, the first cooperative for urban-based Indigenous artists, in Sydney in 1987. The printmaker Banduk Marika, from Arnhem Land but living in Sydney at the time, also showed at Boomalli. Banduk later became the National Gallery Council’s first Indigenous member. Boomalli and similar cooperatives around the country provided opportunities for Indigenous artists to make art and exhibit it—opportunities that, until then, had been by and large denied them by the mainstream art world. They, together with Trevor Nickolls and Thanakupi who had forged careers for themselves in Adelaide and Sydney respectively, belong to a small group of the so-called ‘first wave’ of urban-based artists. The national collection has extensive holdings of their work and that of the second and successive waves of artists who have established themselves in the world of art. Painters such as Robert Campbell Jr, Lin Onus, Judy Watson and Richard Bell are represented by early and late works, while the paintings of Gordon Hookey, Christopher Pease and Julie Dowling have entered the collection in more recent times.

Photography and a range of related digital techniques are a hallmark of art today. The Gallery’s collection of photography by Indigenous artists is extensive and includes work by some of the pioneering photographers such as Mervyn Bishop, Peter McKenzie, Leah King Smith, Michael Riley and Ricky Maynard, as well as recently emerging artists rae, Destiny Deacon and Christian Bumbarra Thompson.

The future of Indigenous art is bright with so many new artists with knowledge and skill producing exemplary works. Styles and techniques continue to be passed down from one generation to the next, as artists and their communities find new ways to build upon and develop their traditions in the modern world of art.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, and Wally Caruana former senior curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Adapted from the introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art: collection highlights, recently published by the National Gallery of Australia.

(page 32)Torres Strait Islands gallery.

(page 33)Textiles gallery.Photographs: John Gollings

(opposite)Danie MellorMamu/Ngagen/Ngajan peoplesFrom rite to ritual 2009oil, wax pastel with pencil, glitter and Swarovski crystal on paper, wood178 x 133.5 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009

(left)Christian Bumbarra ThompsonBidjara peopleUntitled #8 (red kangaroo paw) 2008from the series Australian graffiti 2008C-type print100 x 100 cmNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2009Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi


From the time the Ballets Russes collection entered the National Gallery of Australia in 1973 and 1976, the conservation and curatorial departments have been discovering new and exciting things about the rich and diverse collection of costumes.

When the costumes were initially examined in 1980 out of the cardboard boxes that they had been squashed into, they were found to be crushed, creased, torn and badly stained—a poor illustration of what we now recognise as some of the finest design concepts by artists of the early twentieth century. Some costumes were covered in mould, and had dye-bleed transference between the different fabric layers, which indicated they must have been quite wet at some stage. Photographs

of the 1973 Sotheby’s sales also show the costumes being worn by modern dancers as well as being hung up on coat hangers, causing more strain and stress to the already degraded costumes.

The conservation staff donned protective masks for the extremely dusty work to sort, catalogue and repack the costumes into specially designed storage units. It was at this point several important discoveries were made and principal dancers’ costumes were revealed in among the corps de ballet. The conservation of small groups of costumes occurred over the years enabling the public to see these wonderful costumes firsthand.

The textile conservator’s role is to preserve and stabilise the condition of

works of art as well as to maintain the artist’s original intent. Léon Bakst and Aleksandr Golovin’s original 1910 costumes for the female dancers in L’Oiseau de feu were discovered under Natalia Goncharova’s more-vibrant costumes for the 1926 production of the same ballet. With the removal of pink corduroy patches and metallic braid (retained on file for future reference) one of the three costumes from the earlier production was taken back to it’s paler more subtle design, allowing both interpretations to be displayed.

Artist sketches, theatre programs, photographs and film footage of the ballets have become a valuable reference archive. This source material becomes invaluable when identifying costumes or

The fabric of danceconserving the costumes of the Ballets Russes


(opposite)Ballets Russes costumes on display with the original storage trunk before the 1973 Sotheby’s sale.

(top row)Aleksandr Golovin, Léon Bakst and Natalia GoncharovaCostume for a female dancer c 1910, modified c 1934from L’Oiseau de feuNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973© Natalia Goncharova/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy

(from left) details of the metallic braid and corduroy patches from the 1934 production; removal of metallic braid to reveal 1910 design beneath; and the costume design from 1910 production

(above)Natalia GoncharovaHeaddress for costume for a seahorse c 1916from SadkoNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1995© Natalia Goncharova/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy

(from left) before treatment, showing over-padded and distorted mouth; X-ray of damaged internal wire; and the work after conservation treatment

conserving them, particularly when they have undergone subsequent alteration or have deteriorated to such an extent that the original design has become obscure. The original watercolour drawing (held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London) of the costume for a seahorse by Goncharova in the ballet Sadko was a vital clue to the extent of the change that had occurred to the costumes headdress during a restoration done prior to its 1995 purchase by the National Gallery of Australia. Several reproduction fabrics covered the original silk fabric and the headdress had been excessively padded, severely diminishing the original crisp angular outlines of the design. X-rays of the internal wire structure revealed numerous breaks and distortions.

This was also the case with the more recent purchase of Henri Matisse’s 1920 headdress for a courtier from Le Chant du rossignol. Again, photographs were compared with X-rays to reveal the intended concept of the headdress so as to bring it back to its former shape with the careful manipulation of the internal wire structure.

In addition to the illustrations, photographs and film footage, close and careful examination of the costumes can provide an insight into the life and changes a costume has undergone. The conservator sees the hard life the costumes have been put through: the perspiration of the dancers, the colour of the makeup and the wear and tear where dance movements have worn the knees from trousers or torn the


underarms. Patches upon patches have often been hastily applied to damaged areas and have frequently been damaged themselves. Such was the case for recent conservation treatment for the costume for a friend of Queen Thamar designed by Bakst for the 1912 production Thamar. Examination of the costume revealed that the original fabric, although in a degraded state, was still beneath several layers of alterations. A decision was made to remove the darker green additions (to be kept on file) to reveal the original brighter green silk.

A major part of a conservator’s job is to identify materials so that any treatment carried out is not going to adversely affect the work of art. Some of the earliest synthetic fibres have been discovered

on the Ballet Russes costumes such as nitrocellulose rayon, acetate and saran fibre. Infrared and ultraviolet analysis can reveal some amazing things, such as the lost painted dots on the frills of the costume for Columbine from the 1910 production of Carnaval, or allow us to read the customs stamps and inscriptions written in a variety of different inks or pencil. These important inscriptions sometimes limit the types of conservation treatment that can be carried out, preventing solvent cleaning for perspiration or the use of aqueous solutions for the yellowing caused by cellulose degradation. Surface cleaning is one of the first conservation steps taken to remove particulate dust and grime from

the surface of the costumes, often greatly improving the appearance.

While many of the costumes have been conserved and are now considered stable for display, several of the costumes still remain in terrible physical condition with shattered silk components due to the breakdown of the silk or due to the mordents or metallic salts used in the dying process. With enough time, the textile conservator can bring these seemingly hopeless cases back to life. Silk fabrics can be matched and dyed to the exact colours and then either sewn or adhered to support the damaged areas. This often involves complete dismantling of the costumes in order to repair them safely. All stages of the unpicking are documented carefully so that future researchers can see


the original stitching. Costumes that have undergone complete dismantling are the Chief Eunuch from Scheherazade, costumes for the court ladies from Le Chant du rossignol, Chiarina from Carnaval and, most recently, the costume for a squid from the 1916 production of Sadko for which the complex conservation of this extensively damaged costume took over eight months to complete.

Over 50 of the 122 costumes in Ballets Russes: the art of costume are on display for the first time, and many of them have undergone extensive conservation work in the past five years. The display of many of these costumes would also not be possible without the dedicated team of mannequin makers that have been hard at work

crafting the individual supports, as many of the costumes are too small to put on shop-bought mannequins.

The conservation of the Ballet Russes costumes has been a richly rewarding process for the 12 textile conservators who have been working on the collection over the past 30 years. Numerous costumes, some over 100 years old and in fragile condition, still remain within the storage areas of the National Gallery of Australia. Without the dedicated efforts of the textile conservation team these beautiful costumes would not be able to be viewed in all their splendour.

Micheline Ford Senior Textile Conservator

(opposite, left)Costumes from Thamar on display before the 1973 Sotheby’s sale.

(opposite, right)Léon BakstCostume for a friend of Queen Thamar c 1912from ThamarNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1976

(from top) details of the bodice during unpicking of darker green patches to reveal the original brighter green silk; washed central silk panel of the bodice after adhesive repairs; and bodice lining, showing German customs stamp and ink inscriptions of dancers’ names

(above)Léon BakstDress from costume for Columbine c 1942from CarnavalNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973

(details from top) the frills viewed under UV light to reveal the lost painted dots; and the painted cherries on the frills


The Members Acquisition Fund has been set up in response to the many members who have expressed interest in contributing more directly to the purchase of works of art for the national art collection.

We invite every member to contribute to the second work to be supported by this exciting acquisitions initiative: Hans Heysen’s watercolour Spring 1925

Heysen is one of Australia’s most loved artists and is best known for his iconic oil paintings of monumental gum trees and the dry sculptural landscapes of the Flinders Ranges. Heysen’s works in oil and watercolour were pivotal to the development of Australian landscape art in the early twentieth century. Heysen also painted more personal subjects, and Spring is an image full of charm and intimacy.

Spring is one of Heysen’s most intimate and domestic images. It is a simple snatch of life—the season is spring and the tree is bursting with blossom. The Heysen family’s cats are seen crouching and stalking on the branches, eyeing their potential prey. Both cats seem ready to pounce on the birds hidden among the blossoms—or at least to tease them. Or is it in fact the wily native birds that are teasing the cats, which is so often the case.

The watercolour was painted for the amusement of the artist’s children and has remained in the family ever since. We are grateful that they have allowed us to secure this work for the national art collection.

This luminous watercolour was a highlight of the recent Hans Heysen exhibition and quickly became one of the most popular works on display.

With your assistance, Spring will be a striking addition to the National Gallery of Australia’s collection and will be prominently displayed on the walls of our Australian galleries. It is true that we don’t represent Heysen as well as other public collections, who acquired his work when the artist was alive.

In becoming a donor you are actively involved in the development of the Gallery, enabling it to meet today’s challenges and fulfil its role of delivering the finest art to the widest possible audience.

Donations to the fund are tax deductible. Contributions will be acknowledged in Artonview magazine and the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Annual Report.

We hope you will join us in shaping the future of the National Gallery of Australia.


The National Gallery of Australia invites members to contribute to the second annual Members Acquisition Fund.

Members Acquisition Fund 2010Hans Heysen Spring

Hans HeysenSpring 1925watercolour on paper39.3 x 49.2 cm© Hans Heysen. Represented by Viscopy

42 ARTONVIEW | ACQUISITION

The earthen ceramics of Thainakuith artist and master ceramist Thanakupi (Gloria Fletcher) grace the collections of many state and national galleries and museums in Australia. She began her artistic career as a painter in the late 1960s, alongside pioneering Goobalathaldin landscape artist Dick Roughsey, before turning her attention to working with clay—a substance traditionally only used in her clan group by men. With her community’s endorsement, she started creating beautiful spherical textured works of art and has continued to develop her ceramic work over the past 40 years.

Informed by an intimate knowledge of Thainakuith law and culture, Thanakupi’s ceramics reflected the complex narratives of her ancestors. Animals such as kangaroos, emus and fish consume the surfaces of her ceramic vessels and the spaces between are filled with the rhythm and energy of flowing vines.

As an Elder within her community, Thanakupi formally and informally shares her vast cultural knowledge with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. She has done so for several decades.

Thanakupi recently started working with Urban Art Projects, a foundry in Brisbane, to create large-scale aluminium and bronze public works of art. Eran 2010 is one such work and was commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia to mark the entrance of the Stage 1 building, which opened in October this year.

Thanakupi’s work with Urban Art Projects on these new large-scale objects further develops her arts practice while maintaining the Thainakuith traditional narratives.

Franchesca Cubillo Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

ThanakupiThainakuith people

Eran2010, aluminium, 270 cm (diam), acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, 2010

Jamie Perrow, Jennifer Isaacs and Mary Stuart with artist Thanakupi and her work Eran at Urban Art Projects, Brisbane, 2010.Image courtesy of UAP

43ACQUISITION | ARTONVIEW

Daniel Walbidi is a young artist whose composition, colour palette, vision and persistence have drawn international attention to the art of his people and his country. In recent years, he has initiated the art movement at Bidyadanga, a community formerly the La Grange Mission, which is 250 kilometres south of Broome and home primarily to the Karrajarri people.

Walbidi paints Kirriwirri, his grandfather and grandmother’s country, incorporating layers of fine dotted lines that crisscross the canvas to show the talis (sand hills) and salt lakes of his desert country. Kirriwirri 2010 is topographic view of his country and depicts a jila (living waterhole) near Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. A palette of translucent whites, bright orange and deep reds are highlighted with outlines of gold paint, and the painting glows as though seen

under the midday sun. The sparse outer edges slowly become denser toward the centre, leading the viewer’s eye to the dark waterhole.

Although only painting for a short time, Walbidi’s current works show maturity beyond his years and demonstrate his mastery in executing some of the most stunning works to come from this region to date. Walbidi is a young man with an extraordinary vision to successfully reveal the strength, depth and vibrancy of his culture and country to the world.

Tina Baum Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Daniel WalbidiMangala/Yulparija peoples, Purungu skin

Kirriwirri2010, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 152.5 x 152.5 cm, purchased 2010


John Olsen is one of Australia’s most accomplished artists. His work came to the fore in the 1960s with paintings such as the National Gallery’s Sydney sun 1965 and the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s Spanish encounter 1960. When these works were first seen in Australia they were a revelation. In particular, Olsen had discovered a fresh way of conceiving of place where observed realities and internally felt responses could be distilled and conveyed simultaneously.

Half a century after Spanish encounter, Olsen reveals the ongoing inspiration of Spain in his powerful and engaging Butcher’s cart, Deia de Mallorca 2010, his first painting relating to Spanish culture to enter the national art collection. Olsen had received private support to travel to Europe in 1956. The most lasting impact on him came from living in Spanish villages, principally Deia. He was struck by the peasant culture surrounding him, by ritual and processions and by specialist tradespeople.

In Butcher’s cart, Deia de Mallorca, Olsen reflects on the poverty of civil war-ravaged Spain and the idea of making more with less,

like the rudimentary ingredients of a Spanish meal that could be transformed into magnificent paella. He notes that meat on carts was displayed in large chunks, no matter which part it came from. ‘The resulting scene had a primitive, animalistic vitality about it. I’m reminded that all art is memory of old-age things.’

The image of the butcher’s cart becomes a symbolic vehicle for transporting the baggage of life. Enmeshed in painterly looping lines connected with the cart are ‘friends’ that come along on the journey: the dog that rides on top, the cat in the lower left (a reference to Olsen’s many studio cats), the rabbit on the right (possibly destined for the pot) and various people. Olsen himself appears in a self-portrait in the lower right, wearing his artist’s beret. Butcher’s cart, Deia de Mallorca is among the most outstanding paintings by Olsen in recent years—a remarkable achievement by this octogenarian artist.

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

John Olsen

Butcher’s cart, Deia de Mallorca2010, oil on composition board, 200 x 300 cm, acquired with the Founding Donors 2010 Fund, 2010. © John Olsen. Represented by Viscopy


Alick Tipoti’s 2008 linocut print Apu Kaz (Dugong mother and calf ) is stunning in its scale and visual richness. It resonates with the special relationship between the hunters of Zenadh Kes (Western Torres Strait) and the sea’s creatures and expresses some of the respected cultural knowledge and laws that govern those relationships.

Tipoti demonstrates a masterful use of intricate patterning, derived from his childhood woodcarving experiences on Badu Island, to represent the strong currents that flow through the Western Torres Strait. In the Kala Lagaw Ya language of this region, there are over 80 words to describe the ebb and flow of different tides. Such detailed knowledge is crucial for people whose livelihood depends on the sea. The tidal currents reflect the changing seasons and dictate the times and durations of the dugongs’ visits to sea-grass feeding areas, which in turn affect hunting patterns.

Contrasted against these sinuous rippling lines are the bold forms of the dugong mother teaching her calf how to dive, preparing it to feed and fend for itself. Tipoti endows these gentle, grazing mammals with exquisite grace as they carve a powerful arc down through the water. In the irregular top edge of the print, he highlights the dugong’s fluked tail. Tipoti brushed acid onto the linoleum block, which allows the ink to pool in organic hollows, creating the mottled effect of the dugongs’ skin when seen underwater. The soft watercolour wash over the top of the print depicts the golden sunlight shimmering down through layers of blue water.

Apu Kaz was the 2008 grand-prizewinner of the Silk Cut Award, which fosters appreciation of linocut prints and encourages creativity in the medium. It was generously gifted to the Gallery by the Silk Cut Foundation and is now on display in the new Torres Strait Islander gallery, Apu Zaz is complemented by sculptures, headdresses and other newly acquired prints from the region, such as Dennis Nona’s Mutuk 2010 and Billy Missi’s Kulba Yadail (Old lyrics) 2006. Together, these works of art show the depth and vibrancy of Torres Strait culture, its intimate connections with the pristine island environment and the way profound cultural knowledge is being conveyed through innovative aesthetic practices.

Elizabeth Howell Gordon Darling Graduate Intern

Alick TipotiTheo Tremblay (printer), Editions Tremblay NFP (print workshop)

Apu Kaz (Dugong mother and calf)2008, linocut on paper, printed image 220 x 114 cm, sheet 240 x 120 cm, gift of The Silk Cut Foundation, 2010. Represented by the Australian Art Print Network


‘Nexus’ means connection or link. The painting, made in 1959, marks the transition between two series of important paintings by Morris Louis, who created a new style of Abstract Expressionism in the last five years of his short life. The style was later called Post-painterly Abstraction by the critic Clement Greenberg. The artist was born Morris Louis Bernstein in 1912 in Baltimore and went to New York in 1936, first using the name ‘Morris Louis’ in 1937. He returned to Baltimore in 1940 before moving to Silver Spring, near Washington DC, in 1952.

A decisive moment for Louis’s art came in 1953, when Greenberg introduced him and Kenneth Noland to the new aesthetic of Helen Frankenthaler, who was soak-staining her canvases. Louis then developed his distinctive art of staining unstretched canvases. After destroying 300 paintings made between 1955 and 1957, he experimented with overlapping poured washes of thinned paint

on unprimed canvas for the Veils series of 1957–59. His next series, Unfurled 1960–61, featured brilliantly coloured diagonal stripes at the edges of giant canvases.

In Nexus II, plain fields of colour are pushed to the sides. Thin washes of denim blue on the left and jade green on the right are separated by an off-white panel. The effect of harmonious, even blissful, colour is intensified by the simplicity of means the artist uses, and the large size of the work. The artist’s widow, Marcella Louis Brennan, outlived him by nearly half a century. Her will generously left Nexus II to the Gallery, to join his other two fine paintings.

Christine Dixon Senior Curator, International Painting and Sculpture

Morris Louis

Nexus II1959, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 243 x 340 cm, bequest of Marcella Louis Brenner, the artist’s widow, 2010. © 1959 Morris Louis


The appearance of the poster Moulin Rouge: La Goulue on the Parisian streets in 1891 established the reputation of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the French art world. The dance hall Moulin Rouge had opened in October 1889 and proved a popular haunt among the city’s demimonde. By 1891, however, attendances had fallen and in a competition the proprietor Harold Zidler chose Lautrec’s poster design to advertise the venue.

The result was sensational in its scale and originality, revealing Lautrec’s brilliance as a draughtsman. Instead of depicting the venue itself, a commonplace method for such publicity, he focused on the performers. One of his favourite subjects, Louise Weber, called La Goulue (The Glutton), was known for her outrageous behaviour. She is shown performing her high-kicking dance, provocatively raising her hem to reveal her red stockings and white frilly bloomers. The scandalous La Goulue was even known to wear nothing at all under her billowing skirt on occasions, which added to her notoriety. Yet, Lautrec has portrayed her facial expression with great sensitivity, indicating her vulnerability. Such skilful characterisation was something not seen in poster art before.

In front of La Goulue, we see her regular partner, the remarkable and willowy ‘boneless’ Valentin le Désossé (Jacques Renaudin). This gentleman amateur dancer (La Goulue was paid) wears his signature top hat and tails. The silhouetted crowd of onlookers, beautiful patterning of La Goulue’s blouse, sinuous lines and simplified forms—devices Lautrec borrowed from Japanese ukiyo-e prints—complete the picture.

In the history of poster design, Lautrec remains its most pre-eminent figure and Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is most iconic. The original poster remains one of the rarest and is, therefore, especially desirable for the national art collection. The acquisition of the work was generously funded by National Gallery of Australia Foundation and the bequest of the late Orde Poynton AO, CMG.

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

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Moulin Rouge: La Goulue1891, colour lithograph on three sheets, image 91 x 117 cm, acquired through the National Gallery of Australia Foundation and the Poynton Bequest, 2010


Buddhas of the past and future is a rare cloth banner painted in Thailand. The paintings were used in Buddhist monasteries, where they were unrolled and displayed on special occasions and for festivals in the Buddhist calendar, to teach and inspire the monks and devotees. Largely due to environmental factors, banners seldom survive from the 19th century or earlier. Of those known, few are as elaborate as this work.

The painting features the most recent 28 of a potentially infinite number of Buddhas of the past. Each Buddha, flanked by a pair of attendants, wears simple monastic robes and is seated in meditation atop a lotus throne.

In the centre of the lower register, surrounded by celestial musicians and dancers, is a golden stupa constructed by Indra, the green-skinned god. The stupa houses the relics of Shakyamuni, the historical and best known Buddha, including the long hair he cut when renouncing his princely existence.

Against a vivid red disc, Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, appears encircled by a host of heavenly beings. Still attached to the material world, Maitreya is bejewelled and elaborately attired. Pointing to the arrival of Maitreya and his retinue is Phra Malai, a monk with supernatural powers, shown here in conversation with Indra.

Dividing the two parts of the painting is a line of text giving the names of its donors, Mae Thai and Pho Kon, whose generosity attracted spiritual merit. The price of the painting is also recorded: eight tamlueng (a weight of silver currency used in Thailand in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries).

Melanie Eastburn Curator, Asian Art

Ratanakosin period (1782–present)

Buddhas of the past and future1820–50, gouache and gold on cotton, 316 x 117 cm, purchased 2009


El Dorado Springs is an architectural fantasy by Melbourne photomedia and installation artist Valerie Sparks. It takes its panoramic mural form and inspiration from an 1849 French multi-panel woodblock wallpaper that combined images from America, Europe, Asia and Africa (the National Gallery’s 1805 Dufour et Cie wallpaper was a model for such later nineteenth-century productions).

Sparks uses the latest digital imaging techniques to place Asian monuments and figures of worship with both European and Asian heritage buildings from present day Melbourne, including the Russian Orthodox Church in East Brunswick and Linh Son Buddhist Temple in Reservoir. These are lifted out of time and place to reside peacefully along the banks of a mysterious misty river lined by Australian native trees and lush exotic flora, against a backdrop of the Zagros Mountains. The buildings and motifs were selected as references to the generations of migrants and cultural influences

that make up present day Victoria and point to very contemporary issues of migration. Today, Australia is a blended society, and the beauty and tranquility of the image gives hope that peaceful coexistence is an achievable state.

Sparks draws on her degree in Pacific Studies and anthropology to make connections between globalisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and world political and environmental issues of the early twenty-first century. She sees her use of digital montage as a form of documentary practice, commenting that her hyperreal photography ‘allows us to create images that are not visually available to us in the physical spaces we live in but perhaps more accurately represent the interconnected spaces and complex relationships of contemporary global systems’.

Gael Newton Senior Curator, Photography

Valerie Sparks

El Dorado Springs2007, mural-size digital montage inkjet photograph (pigment inks on archival paper), 100 x 600 cm, edn 4/5, purchased 2010 in memory of Melody Gough 1983–2009, with assistance of her National Gallery of Australia colleagues and friends

Travelling exhibitions supporters

National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

Travelling exhibitionsnga.gov.au/travex

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Anton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950s

23 Oct 2010 – 6 Feb 2011 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT

29 Apr – 13 Jun 2011 Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT

25 Jun – 11 Sep 2011 Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Vic

IN THE JAPANESE MANNER

Australian prints 1900–1940

20 May – 14 Aug 2011 Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Qld

2 Sep – 21 Nov 2011 Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, WA

ROBERT DOWLING

Tasmanian son of Empire

19 Nov 2010 – 13 Feb 2011 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA

(details from left) Robert Dowling Jeremiah Ware’s stock on Minjah Station 1856, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Mrs Mary Overton Gift Fund 1997 | Paul Haefliger Sublime Point above Bulli 1936, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist, 1978 | Anton Bruehl Puerto Rican singer and dancer Marga and puppeteer Bil Baird of the Ziegfeld Follies c 1943 for Esquire, February 1944, National Gallery of Australia Research Library | Lister Mr Sinister 2010, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2010 | Margaret Preston Flapper 1925, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased with the assistance of the Cooma–Monaro Snowy River Fund 1988

ARTONVIEW 50

SPACE INVADERS

australian . street . stencils . paste-ups . zines . stickers

30 Oct 2010 – 27 Feb 2011 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT

9 Apr – 5 Jun 2011 UQ Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld

1 Sep – 5 Nov 2011 RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Vic

18 Nov 2011 – 18 March 2012 Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, NSW

AUSTRALIAN PORTRAITS 1880–1960

paintings from the National Gallery of Australia collection

29 Jan – 27 Mar 2011 UQ Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld

9 Apr – 10 Jul 2011 Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT

23 Jul – 4 Sep 2011 Warrnambool Art Gallery, Warrnambool, Vic

Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift

nga.gov.au/wolfensohn

The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn Gift enables people from all around Australia to discover and handle art. Made possible by Jim Wolfensohn, the gift comprises three art‑filled suitcases—Blue case: technology, Red case: myths and rituals and Yellow case: form, space and design—and the 1888 Melbourne Cup. The Gallery has been touring the Wolfensohn Gift cases to schools, libraries, community centres, regional galleries and nursing homes since 1990. To make a booking for 2011, contact [email protected] or (02) 6240 6650.

51

ARTONVIEW

52 ARTONVIEW

Life, death and magic1 Lesely and Brian Oakes

2 Nacy Ganter, Harold Ganter, Caroline Turner and Glen Barclay

National Gallery opening week 3 Libby Bright and Stephen Southwick

4 The Urab Dancers performing traditional dance and song from Poruma Island in the Torres Strait

FACES IN VIEW

1 2

3 4

5 6

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The Big Draw11 Participants at this year’s event

Community Day12 Performers entertain children near the

Gallery’s new entrance

5 Patricia Hill, Yvonne Brereton and Rupert Myer

6 Sophia Sambono, Brenda L Croft and Vicki Grieves

7 David Gaykamangu, Euphemia Bostock and Djon Mundine

8 Gali Yalkayirriwuy Gurruwirri

9 John and Janet Calvert‑Jones

10 Ricardo Idagi on the warup, a tradition drum from Mer (Murray Island) in the Torres Strait

7 8

9 10

11 12

News from the FoundationThe Foundation has supported the National Gallery of Australia since 1989. We provide people with the opportunity to be part of the bigger picture in Australia, to help build the nation’s heritage through the arts. To be involved, contact Maryanne Voyazis on +61 2 6240 6691 or at [email protected].

54 ARTONVIEW

Naming Rights of Gandel HallOn 26 August 2010, the National Gallery of Australia announced a landmark gift of $7 million from well-known, Melbourne-based philanthropists Pauline Gandel and John Gandel AO. As original Founding Donors, Pauline and John Gandel have shown a commitment to the National Gallery of Australia since it opened in 1982. This wonderful and significant act of benefaction has been honoured through the naming, in perpetuity, of the new function space as the Gandel Hall, which has already proven an ideal venue for exhibition openings, dinners and special events, as well as public programs, school and education activities.

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010 Thankyou EventGallery Director Ron Radford hosted an event to thank donors to the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010. He spoke about the importance of including Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly) 1885–86 in the national art collection as well as the significance of Robert Dowling as Australia’s first locally trained artist.

National Gallery of Australia Bequest CircleThe Bequest Circle has recently welcomed Julian Beaumont, Elisabeth Holdsworth and Robert Holdsworth as new members. If you are interested in joining the Bequest Circle or would like more information, please contact Liz Wilson, Manager of Membership & Development Programs, on (02) 6240 6469 or at [email protected].

His Excellency Michael Bryce AM, Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Pauline Gandel and John Gandel AO at the Foundation dinner celebrating the opening of Stage 1.

Ardyne Reid, Elizabeth Mackie and Pat Gault from Colac, Victoria, with Robert Dowling’s Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly) 1885–86 at the Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010 Thankyou Event.

55 ARTONVIEW

Foundation Gala Dinner to celebrate the opening of Stage 1One of the major events of the opening week of the Stage 1 development in September was the Foundation Gala Dinner. This special dinner was held in the presence of the Governor-General, Her Excellency Quentin Bryce AC, and was the first to be held in the stunning new Gandel Hall. Among over 180 major donors and guests we were pleased to see our Visionary Benefactors Pauline Gandel and John Gandel AO and Marilyn Darling AC and Gordon Darling AC, who contributed significantly to funds for the Stage 1 redevelopment.

Founding Donors 2010 Private Viewing and BrunchMembers of the Founding Donors 2010 program attended a private viewing of the 11 new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries during the opening week. The Senior Curator, Franchesca Cubillo, provided a comprehensive and informative tour, which was followed by a champagne brunch in the magnificent Gandel Hall.

Fond farewell at Foundation AGMThe Gallery Foundation’s Annual General Meeting was held on 27 October 2010. Charles P Curran AC was the Chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation Board since 2006 and in 2010 led the Foundation in its most successful fundraising year to date. He is succeeded by John Hindmarsh, who has been a Foundation Director since 2004 as well as a close friend and supporter of the Gallery.

Rupert Myer AM and Charles Curran AC with Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North (life-size maquette) 1996, a major new gift from James and Jacqui Erskine.

Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, leads a private viewing of Stage 1 for the 2010 Founding Donors.

56 ARTONVIEW

Creative partnershipsThe National Gallery of Australia is committed to forging strong creative partnerships and is grateful for the support and vision of our sponsors and partners. If you are interested in creating ties with the Australian community through the arts, contact: Frances Corkhill on +61 2 6240 6740 or at [email protected] or Nicole Short on +61 2 6240 6781 or at [email protected].

Old friends support Ballets RussesActewAGL and the National Gallery are joining forces once again for the 2010–11 summer blockbuster Ballets Russes: the art of costume. ActewAGL have been partnering with the Gallery for 10 years and are a highly regarded local company, especially when it comes to supporting the community and the arts. Their ongoing generous support has assisted the Gallery in realising many great exhibitions and projects, including Degas: master of French art in 2008–09.

The National Gallery of Australia foyer, featuring Max Ernst’s sculpture Habakuk 1934/1970.Photograph: John Gollings

(top, from left)Natalia GoncharovaCostume for King Dodon c 1937 (detail)from Le Coq d’orNational Gallery of Australia, Canberrapurchased 1973© Natalia Goncharova/ADAGP. Represented by Viscopy

Indigenous artist Thanakupi’s Eran 2010 marks the entrance at the National Gallery of Australia.Photograph: John Gollings

Ngoia Pollard Napaljarri Swamp around Nyrrupi 2006 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2006

57 ARTONVIEW

‘New Look’ National Gallery—Opening Season partnersThe opening week of celebrations for the ‘new look’ National Gallery was tremendously successful.

Demonstrating their commitment to supporting and promoting their Indigenous art and artists, the state and territory governments of Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia made it possible for artists to travel to Canberra to participate in events, promotion and public programs. The leadership and vision shown by these governments is to be congratulated.

For the first time, Moët Hennessy Australia partnered with the Gallery for all the opening week of events and there is no doubt that the quality of the wine and the generosity of this sponsorship contributed greatly to a sensational week.

Through strong partnerships with Channel Nine, Fairfax Media (Canberra Times, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age), JCDecaux, WIN TV and ABC Local Radio, the Gallery created a national media, marketing and advertising campaign to inform and engage audiences. All partners will continue with the Gallery to promote this summer’s major exhibition Ballets Russes: the art of costume.

The crowds that have flowed through the doors over the weeks since the opening are testament to the success of the expansive and diversified marketing campaign for the opening season. We owe these crowds largely to the support of our treasured Media Partners from Masterpieces from Paris.

Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous FellowshipCongratulations go to the successful candidates selected to participate in the inaugural Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Fellowship program. The Fellowships, valued at $50 000, have been awarded to: Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, Associate Curator of Indigenous Objects and Photography at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, for his project ‘Digital directions: Indigenous Australian art in the National Gallery of Australia collection’; and Jirra Harvey, National Youth Programs Coordinator, Oxfam Australia, for her project ‘Indigenous communication strategy for the National Gallery of Australia’.

Wesfarmers and the Gallery have also partnered with the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre and Forrest Hotel & Apartments to present the Arts Indigenous Leadership program. Ten positions, each valued at $11 000, have been awarded to: Nadeena Dixon (NSW), Tahjee Moar (NSW), Alison Furber (NT), Freja Carmichael (Qld), Emma Loban (TSI, Qld), Renee Johnson (SA), Kim Moulton (Vic), Gabriel Nodea (WA), Ron Bradfield Jr (WA), Sharyn Egan (WA).

For more information on the program and its recipients, visit nga.gov.au/wesfarmersfellowship.

58 ARTONVIEW

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

The Gordon Darling FoundationThe National Gallery of Australia

Council Exhibitions Fund

Australian Government

Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts through:The National Collecting

Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians

Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia, and through Art Indemnity Australia

Department of Health and Ageing through the Dementia Community Grants Program

State and territory governments

Queensland Government through Arts Queensland

New South Wales Government through Arts NSW

Northern Territory Government through Arts NT

Western Australian Government through the Department of Culture and the Arts

SponsorshipABC RadioNovotel CanberraACT Government through

Australian Capital TourismActewAGLThe Age

The Brassey Hotel of CanberraThe Canberra TimesCasella WinesCoopers BreweryDiamant HotelEckersley’s Art & CraftForrest Hotel and ApartmentsJCDecauxManteenaMantra on NorthbourneMoët Hennessy AustraliaMolonglo GroupNational Australia BankNational Gallery of Australia

Council Exhibitions FundNewActon/NishiNine Network AustraliaQantasR.M.Williams, The Bush OutfitterSpaderThe Sydney Morning HeraldTriple JWesfarmers LimitedWIN TelevisionYalumba WinesYulgilbar Foundation

DonationsIncludes Donations received from 23 July to 32 October

Andrew Andersons AOChris CarlsenMaurice CashmerePeter Court and Sibella CourtJim Cousins AO and Libby CousinsLauraine DigginsDr Murray Elliott AO and Gillian

ElliottTerence Fern and Lynn FernPauline Gandel and John Gandel AOPeter J HackNeil Hobbs and Karina HarrisLesley KehoeGail KinsellaBeverly Knight and Anthony KnightPaul Legge-Wilkinson and Beryl

Legge-WilkinsonJason ProwdJohn StoryKaely Woods and Mike WoodsJason Yeap OAM

Founding Donors 2010

Marc Besen AO and Eva Besen AORoslynne Bracher AMJohn Calvert-Jones AMDr Tony Clarke and Michelle ClarkePawl CubbinAJ Foulkes and M G CleghornLinda GregoriouRichard Griffin AM and Jay GriffinWarwick HemsleyRosanna HindmarshThe Keys familyKristian Pithie Chapman GalleryRoslyn Packer AOJohn Walton AMRay Wilson OAM and the late Mr

James Agapitos OAMAlbert Wong and Sophie WongMark Young

Gifts

Barbara BlackmanGretel BootesGhostpatrolAsh KeatingMurray KirklandJanette LucasMarcalla Brenner Revocable TrustJoan McAuslanBeth Townsend SinclairJoan SwansonRonald Walker and Mrs Pamela

WalkerYok

Masterpieces for the Nation Fund 2010

Brett BackhouseTony EastawayJo-Anne Flatley-AllenBob HitchcockPatricia NossalRon Price and Fay Price

Paul Robilliard and Hanan Robilliard

Angus M Robinson and Jeanette Robinson

The Stefanoff familySpectrum Consultancy Pty LtdSydney Joy StewartProf Ken Taylor and Maggie TaylorJoy Warren OAMTessa Wooldridge and Simon

Wooldridge

Members Acquisition Fund 2009

Geraldine Gibbs and William Gibbs

Bill Davy Memorial Fund

Jim Culbertson and Geoffrey TrueBrett Falkiner and Josephine

FalkinerSandy Gordon and Sue GordonPeter Henderson AC and Heather

HendersonRupert Myer AM Marjorie Wilson

Melody Gough Memorial Fund

Roslynne Bracher AMIrene Delofski and Ted DelofskiVictoria Worley

The National Gallery of Australia extends thanks to the many anonymous donors who provided support during this period.

Thank you …Exhibitions, programs and acquisitions at the National Gallery of Australia are realised through the generous support of our partners and donors. The National Gallery of Australia would like to thank the following organisations and people:

For more information about developing creative partnerships with the

National Gallery of Australia, contact:

Frances Corkhill +61 2 6240 6740, [email protected]

For more information about making a donation, contact:

Maryanne Voyazis +61 2 6240 6691, [email protected].

Proudly presenting the Ballets Russes exhibition.

ActewAGL Retail ABN 46 221 314 841 actewagl.com.au CCA71010/14

For over 10 years we’ve been sponsoring major exhibitions at the NGA and we’re proud to be the Presenting Partner for this summer’s blockbuster, Ballets Russes: the art of costume.

Because we’re local we get involved and put our energy behind many of the artistic and cultural events that make our region so vibrant.

59 ARTONVIEW

Proudly presenting the Ballets Russes exhibition.

ActewAGL Retail ABN 46 221 314 841 actewagl.com.au CCA71010/14

For over 10 years we’ve been sponsoring major exhibitions at the NGA and we’re proud to be the Presenting Partner for this summer’s blockbuster, Ballets Russes: the art of costume.

Because we’re local we get involved and put our energy behind many of the artistic and cultural events that make our region so vibrant.

‘Your will is your chance to recognise the kindness of friends and to say thank you to the cultural institutions that have contributed to your quality of life.’Ray Wilson, Bequest Circle member

Claude Monet Waterlilies c 1914–17 (detail) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1979

Bequest CirClenga.gov.au/bequests

Telephone +61 2 6240 6469

Email [email protected] National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

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Level 1, 341 George St Sydney NSW 2000Ph: + 61 2 9235 0023 or 1800 639 699 (outside Sydney)Fax: + 61 2 9235 0123Email: [email protected]: www.academytravel.com.au

tailored small group Journeys

v Expert tour leadersv Maximum 20 in group v unhurried itineraries

STAY WHILEA Rome

Venice: city, republic and empireMarch 2011 $5,750 twin share (land content only)Tour leader: Dr Kathleen OliveUnpack your bags for 14 nights and explore the city that ruled a Mediterranean empire for 1,000 years. Includes excursions to Ravenna, Padua and the Palladian Villas. Boutique 4-star hotel.

Rome: from antiquity to THE baroqueMarch 2011 $5,400 twin share (land content only)Tour leader: Angus HaldaneIn the company of art historian Angus Haldane, take an in-depth look at the eternal city. Walking tours and museum and gallery visits are complemented by excursions to Etruscan Tarquinia and Tivoli with accommodation in a centrally located 4-star hotel.

Florence and the Italian RenaissanceMay 2011 $5,750 twin share (land content only)Tour leader: Dr Kathleen OliveDiscover the art, architecture and history of a city which was the jewel of Renaissance Italy through a program of walking tours and museum and gallery visits. Day trips to important sites in Tuscany and accommodation in a lovely 4-star hotel complete the experience.

Paris: revolutionary city July 2011 $5,495 twin share (land content only)Tour leader: Dr Michael AdcockWith 14 nights in a centrally located hotel, this tour examines Paris before, during and after the French Revolution. Walking tours to key sites such as the Louvre, the Left Bank and the Bastille are complemented by day excursions to Versailles, Fontainebleau, Vaux-le-Vicomte and Rouen.

For detailed itineraries and booking information visit www.academytravel.com.au

Also available in 2011vBerlin to the Black ForestvGrand Tour of ItalyvIran: Civilizations of PersiavIstanbul to MoscowvNorth East USAvSicily and the IslandsvSouthern ChinavVerdi and Puccini’s Italy

Keep in touch!Get our latest brochure and keep in touch with our regular newsletter. Delivered by email or post. Sign up at: www.academytravel.com.au

Proud supporters of creativity and excellence in performance, arts and design.

NGA SHOP SHOP FOR THE SEASON Indigenous arts | books and catalogues | jewellerycalendars and diaries | prints and posters | fine art cards

Open 7 days 10.00 am – 5.00 pm Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2601 | free call 1800 808 337 (02) 6240 6420 | [email protected]

MEM

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RECEIVE

10% DISCOUNT

Providing you with outstanding results for over a decade...

FREE, CONFIDENTIAL APPRAISALS OF YOUR ARTWORK PRIOR TO AUCTION

CONTACT: Sydney 02 8344 5404 Melbourne 03 9832 8700 [email protected] WWW.MENZIESARTBRANDS.COM

15 DECEMBER 2010 MELBOURNE SYDNEY VIEWING 2 – 5 DECEMBER MELBOURNE VIEWING 9 – 14 DECEMBER

ENTRIES INVITED – MARCH 2010•

AUSTRALIAN & INTERNATIONAL FINE ART

TIM STORRIER Evening 1995 Sold September 2010

$234,000 inc. BP (Record for the artist at auction)

for obligation-free appraisals, please contact

Sydney Melbourne Damian Hackett Chris Deutscher Merryn Schriever Richard Ennis 02 9287 0600 03 9865 6333

www.deutscherandhackett.com • [email protected]

important fine art auction sydney • april 2011

call for entries

Ian FaIrweatherTombs in Peking, 1936

51.0 x 54.0 cm

EST. $270,000 – 350,000

C•A•N•B•E•R•R•A

B A R T O N

Canberran Owned and Operated

Belmore Gardens and Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600

Telephone: 02 6273 3766 Facsimile: 02 6273 2791Toll Free Telephone:

Email: [email protected] Web: http: //www.brassey.net.au

Set in two and a half acres of lawns and gardens on the fringe of the parliamentary triangle and within walking distance of Parliament House, the National Gallery of Australia, Lake Burley Griffi n and

Canberra’s most elite residences, embassies, cosmopolitan restaurants, nightclubs and Manuka & Kingston shopping villages.

for obligation-free appraisals, please contact

Sydney Melbourne Damian Hackett Chris Deutscher Merryn Schriever Richard Ennis 02 9287 0600 03 9865 6333

www.deutscherandhackett.com • [email protected]

important fine art auction sydney • april 2011

call for entries

Ian FaIrweatherTombs in Peking, 1936

51.0 x 54.0 cm

EST. $270,000 – 350,000

Pan

or

am

a

Jeff BridgesHanging out

Chris Masters Telling it how it is

Wonderlandmalice for alice

September 31, 2010

going gagaHow this lady is broadening her creative horizons

Alex (25) and Jess (23)

gave it a five-star ratingFind your moment in the new-look Panorama, every Saturday, only in The Canberra Times.

Find new ways to enjoy your weekend with Panorama, now with even more ideas on things to do, where to eat, what to see, read and watch, as well as new puzzles and new columnists.

www.findyourmoment.com.aufind moment

10-12787

Novotel Canberra has had a face lift and is looking a real masterpiece with its fully refurbished bar, restaurant and lobby areas. Located in the heart of Canberra makes us the perfect hotel for that special break or occasion.

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

Novotel Canberra is a proud supporter of the National Gallery of Australia.

Designed for natural l iving

*Conditions apply. Visit novotel.com for details

65 Northbourne Ave, CanberraReservations 1300 65 65 65

ROOMS FROM

$218*

EXPERIENCE thE NEw look NovotEl CANbERRA

per night

Today_Karl & Lisa_FP_ArtonView_280x217.indd 1 24/06/2010 12:21:25 PM

Canberra | nga.gov.au

from the National Gallery of Australia to enhance your art library or for the perfect gift

SPACE INVADERSaustralian . street . stencils . posters . zines . stickersJaklyn Babington

Off the street and into the gallery— 40 artists from around Australia.


Available from the NGA Shop and selected books stores nationally and by mail order. For more information, nga.gov.au/publications or [email protected] or 1800 808 337.

GREAT NEW BOOKS

FACE Australian portraits 1880–1960

Anne Gray

Featuring over 50 portraits by some 40 artists.


BALLETS RUSSES the art of costume

edited by Robert Bell

A must for anyone interested in the performing arts, the intersection of art and design, or costume and fashion.


LIFE, DEATH & MAGIC2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral artRobyn Maxwell

The finest examples of animist art from ancient times to the 21st century.


ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTcollection highlightsedited by Franchesca Cubillo and Wally Caruana

From the world’s largest collection of Indigenous Australian art.


IN THE SPOTLIGHTAnton Bruehl photographs 1920s–1950sGael Newton

Before Madmen there was Bruehl. For anyone interested in photography, advertising and popular culture.


ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS ARTbuilding a national collection

see page 24

Rover Thomas Kukatja/Wangkajunga peoples Cyclone Tracy 1991 (detail), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1991. Reproduced courtesy of Warmun Art Centre

SUMMER 2010 | 64Canberra | nga.gov.au

10 December 2010 – 20 March 2011 Tickets: nga.gov.au

Principal PartnersPresenting Partner Léon Baskt

(left) Costume for the Blue God c 1912 (detail), from Le Dieu bleu, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1987

(right) Illustration of the Blue God costume (detail), page 29 in Official program of the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet May–June 1912, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The National Gallery of Australia is an Australian Government Agency

Immerse yourself in the creative explosion of the Ballets Russes.

NGA_BR_ArtonviewDec.indd 1 23/11/10 10:03 AM

BALLETS RUSSESABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTSCULPTURE IN THE SUNAUSTRALIAN PORTRAITS 1880–1960

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2010.q4 | artonview 64 summer 2010

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