Around the same time Lina Bryans was changing direction, there was a new generation of young curators on the scene in the Australian art world. John Stringer and Brian Finemore at the NGV in particular.
Finemore was a fan of the early modernist women painters. John Stringer was responsible for the Field exhibition at the NGV in 1968 and also hung Bryans’ second solo exhibition (her last), at Georges Gallery in 1966.
There were only five women chosen by Finemore for a major exhibition at the NGV called You-Beaut Country, Australian Landscape Painting 1837-1964.
Lina, the dazzling colourist, was one of them.
Finemore chose Bryans’ Mallacoota Inlet and wrote to Bryans saying, ‘Your Mallacoota picture looks fine in the exhibition. I hope you are happy about it, as I have made some daring juxtapositions.’
| Lina Bryans, Mallacoota Inlet, 1964, oil on canvas on board, 80 x 102 cm |
Bryans’ painting trips started to take her further inland in 1965. She began painting the desert with all its heat.
This beautifully poetic painting of the Kata Tjuta rockface depicts the crannies and lichens on the ancient form.
| Lina Bryans, Face of Liru, 1965, oil on canvas on board, 101.5 x 81.2 cm |
Julia Ritson
Images:
Lina Bryans: Rare Modern 1909-2000, Gillian Forwood
Leave a Reply