james gleeson (1915-2008) his last drawings, exhibition catalogue

JAMES GLEESON 1915 - 2008

His Last Drawings

2. No 357 24.4.08

56.9 x 76.8cm

JAMES GLEESON 1915 - 2008

His Last Drawings

The works in this exhibition are from James Gleeson’s Estate and have never

been exhibited before. We are grateful to the Art Gallery of New South Wales

and to the Gleeson O’Keefe Foundation for inviting us to join them in the

development and promotion of the Estate.

Front Cover: 1. No 536 15.9.08 42.0 x 59.5cm

We believe this to be the last art work James Gleeson ever completed.

He died 35 days later, on 20th October 2008. In 2008 he finished over 300

drawings, a gargantuan achievement for a very sick 93 year old man.

This exhibition is a selection from his last drawings.

Opening 6-8pm Wednesday 7th May 2014 Closing Saturday 24th May 2014

109 Riley Street, East Sydney NSW 2010 Ph: (02) 9331 2556 www.wattersgallery.com [email protected]

tues and sat: 10am - 5pm; wed thurs fri: 10am - 7pm

Watters Gallery

3. No 403 11.05.08

59.5 x 41.9cm

4. No 375 1.5.08

42.0 x 29.7cm

5. No 425 21.5.08

29.7 x 41.9cm

6. No 370 30.4.08

41.8 x 59.4cm

7. No 457 12.5.08

41.9 x 59.2cm

“I start with a drawing always......”(James Gleeson, 2001 - interview with Anne Ryan and Hendrik Kolenberg, AGNSW)

Drawings were so indispensible to James Gleeson’s way of thinking about and making

art, it seems inconceivable that they are not better known and celebrated. From his very

earliest days as a young man struggling to determine his life’s path – as a poet?

a writer? an artist? – he made drawings, almost always with an eye to developing them

further into paintings.

Gleeson’s drawings were made with a purpose, even if that purpose was not immediately

clear. He built up a rich visual vocabulary that encompassed both the figurative (often

using collages of found images such as mechanical apparatus, microbes and 19th

century illustration), and the abstract. His never-wavering commitment to Surrealism

was mirrored in his embrace of techniques associated with it, such as decalcomania

and frottage. These encouraged chance effects using his chosen mediums of pencil,

gouache, ink, pastel and charcoal. Evenings were never wasted; if he wasn’t reading he

was making tiny drawings in trim sketchbooks or on scraps of paper - rich cornucopias of

ideas and images that often made their way to canvas.

In the early to mid 1970s Gleeson started concentrating on collaged ‘text-drawings’ to

the exclusion of all else. They proved to be a bridge between the hyper-real paintings of

the 1950s and 60s and what was to come after, and revealed to him the full potential of

Surrealist techniques including frottage and decalcomania, text and collage.

In 1977 Gleeson sold much of his past drawing oeuvre to the National Gallery of Australia,

a clean out of his studio that proved to be a spur to fresh creativity. Holidaying at

Peregian Beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, he embarked upon an intensive period

of drawing that explored the dissolution of forms into their essential elements. For the

next five years he drew prolifically, making collages and also experimenting with pastel

and watercolour.

His imagery was turned on its head – literal depictions of the human body as seen in his

early paintings and his imaginary landscapes populated by buff male figures in the 1960s,

were replaced by flayed and visceral bone and sinew, mechanical parts and grotesque

microscopic organisms writ large. In late 1983, he started turning them into paintings.

Charcoal gave Gleeson a freedom and ease in drawing imagery from his subconscious,

while the tonal possibilities afforded him by charcoal were particularly useful with

the translation of his imagery into colour, in oil paint on canvas. Once the charcoal

substructure was complete, it was ordered and resolved with the addition of collage

taken from boxes of pre-cut or photocopied images from books and magazines. This

period proved to be a breakthrough that was to direct the rest of his life, when Gleeson

developed a new vocabulary of forms that became the defining feature of his greatest

works, made in the extraordinarily rich and prolific three decades that followed.

The drawings in this exhibition were made in the last year of Gleeson’s life and have all the

power and resolution that comes from a lifetime of drawing. Remarkable ‘dreamscapes’,

they suggest imaginary worlds of forms suspended in space, pulsating with energy and a

sense of the infinite. The powerful expansiveness of the universe – both the outer space

of science fiction and the infinite worlds of the microscopic – is all there on these modest

sheets of paper. Gleeson always believed in the power of the subconscious mind and

actively sought to expand conceptions of reality beyond the materially visible, through

a commitment to imagination and chance in his art – these drawings are nothing if not

manifestations of that. They leave no doubt about James Gleeson’s status as the grand

Old Master of Surrealism in Australia.

Anne Ryan is the Curator of Australian Prints, Drawings & Watercolours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2003 she co-curated a major exhibition on James Gleeson’s drawings for the Gallery.

8. No 452 5.6.08

59.5 x 42.0cm

9. No 426 22.5.08

29.7 x 42.0cm

10. No 219 14.1.08

41.9 x 29.5cm

11. No 325 6.4.08

41.9 x 59.5cm

12. No 391 6.5.08

41.9 x 59.5cm

13. No 275 3.3.08

41.9 x 29.6cm

14. No 5 2008

29.5 x 41.8cm

15. No 336 12.4.08

42.0 x 59.5cm

16. No 369 1.5.08

29.5 x 41.8cm

17. No 533 26.8.08

29.7 x 41.9cm

18. No 209 4.1.08

41.9 x 29.6cm

19. No 207 4.1.08

42.0 x 29.5cm

20. No 515 20.7.08

29.6 x 41.9cm

21. No 241 28.1.08

41.9 x 59.5cm

22. No 279 4.3.08

29.6 x 41.8cm

23. No 285 9.3.08

42.0 x 59.5cm

24. No 193 17.12.07

29.7 x 42.0cm

25. No 359 25.4.08

41.9 x 59.4cm

26. No 255 11.2.08

29.7 x 42.0cm

27. No 295 20.3.08

29.6 x 41.9cm

28. No 354 21.4.08

29.6 x 41.9cm

29. No 384 4.5.08

42.0 x 59.5cm

30. No 314 1.4.08

42.0 x 59.5cm

Exhibition catalogue Watters Gallery, Sydney, 7 - 24 May 2014 © Artist,James Gleeson Estate Photographer: Mim Sterling This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted by the Copyright Act no part may be reproduced by any other process without written permission.

List of Works

1. No. 536 15.9.08 42.0 x 59.5cm charcoal, paper collage, powdered graphite, pastel, black felt pen on white wove paper

2. No.357 24.4.08 56.9 x 76.8cm charcoal, powdered graphite, pastel on white wove paper




6. No.370 30.4.08 41.8 x 59.4cm white pastel, watercolour, brush & ink, wash on white wove paper

7. No.457 12.5.08 41.9 x 59.2cm watercolour, pastel, powdered graphite, paper collage, rubber on ivory wove paper


9. No.426 22.5.08 29.7 x 42.0cm charcoal, powdered graphite, pastel, black fibre-tipped pen on white wove paper

10. No.219 14.1.08 41.9 x 29.5cm charcoal, paper collage, powdered graphite, pastel on white wove paper




14. No.5 2008 29.5 x 41.8cm charcoal, powdered graphite, white pastel on white wove paper


16. No.369(b) 1.5.08 29.5 x 41.8cm white pastel, watercolour, brush & ink, wash on white wove paper


18. No.209 4.1.08 41.9 x 29.6cm charcoal, paper collage, powdered graphite, pastel, pencil on white wove paper


20. No.515 20.7.08 29.6 x 41.9cm charcoal, paper collage, pastel on white wove paper




24. No.193 17.12.07 29.7 x 42.0cm charcoal, paper collage, powdered graphite, pastel on white textured wove paper



27. No.295 20.3.08 29.6 x 41.9cm charcoal, paper collage, powdered graphite, pastel, black fibre-tipped pen on white wove paper




31. No.501 5.7.08 27.4 x 39.6cm watercolour, pastel on white wove paper

31. No 501 5.7.08

27.4 x 39.6cm

james gleeson (1915-2008) his last drawings, exhibition catalogue

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