Category: Journal
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Non Objective Grace Crowley
Just before Australian artist Grace Crowley died in 1979, she bequeathed her remaining paintings to Australian art museums and papers to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I often wonder if artists hold on to particular paintings. The National Gallery of Victoria scored this one and I think it is one of her best.…
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Beach Patterns
Two archetypal beach scenes. So much physicality. So much manliness. A sporty, healthy, idealised and stylised outdoor scene from the 1940s. | Charles Meere, Australian Beach Pattern, 1940 | Meer’s student and partner, Freda Robertshaw, goes on to create a more ladylike family beach scene. At one with nature. Although exhibiting the motherly cautiousness toward an unknown sea. |…
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Ascher Artists’ Squares
History is a beautiful thing. Ascher artist scarves from London were exhibited and sold at both Georges in Melbourne and David Jones in Sydney in 1947. An Australian newspaper at the time referred them as ‘weird distortions… fit only to be worshipped by art devotees.’ They would have created some lovely postwar brightness. Zika Ascher…
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Sol LeWitt PhotoGrids
The grid. The warp. The weft. It’s everywhere. A constant companion. Although LeWitt’s work was a lot about serial images he never stopped changing. Pushed an idea right to the end and then moved on. In the Smithsonian Archives of American Art website there is a lengthy interview with LeWitt from 1974. “The logic of…
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Prince Henry’s
I’ve been taking some time out and looking through images that have been part of my studio for years. I took these photos of the Prince Henry’s Hospital and Nurses Home before it was demolished in 1994 to make way for the Bates Smart designed Melburnian apartments. The architect was hospital specialist Leighton Irwin.
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Crosses to Bear
Looking at some old Art Network magazines from the 1980s and came across this dramatic Linda Marrinon painting. | Linda Marrinon, What I Must Bear, 1982 | Line up for your punishment ladies. Julia Ritson
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Cross Use
The cross form is such a classic. The four quarters of the earth. An indicator of crossroads, or the sign for those unable to read or write. When two lines cross each other at right angles innumerable structures are created. Beautiful decorative devices. | John Nixon, Kaliman Rawlins, 2012 | | Lazar’ Khidekel’, Yellow Cross,…
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Shakespeare Gentleman Illustrator
The first Shakespeare Penguin titles appeared in 1940. They were designed by the steadfast classicist Jan Tschichold. By the late 1960s the series was looking dated. Penguin was trying to be less literal and more cerebral, and designer Germano Facetti had the answer. In revamping the Bard’s work, Facetti commissioned David Gentleman to create an illustration…
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When Text is Enough
When the time came for Paul Auster’s Penguin books to be redesigned, he asked the art director to consider using a typographical rather than image based approach. Good idea Mr Auster. Designer Greg Mollica came up with this elegant solution.
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Atmospheric Content
When Germano Facetti began working for Penguin in 1961, the company had grown so much that the books were looking a bit all over the place. His job was to transform the new titles and reissues into something contemporary while retaining continuity. Facetti’s directive was that, “The pictorial idea, be it drawing, collage or photograph,…
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50 Shades of White
I’m noticing a trend in book design. Many shades of white. I bought these books recently. The covers jumped right out at me. Design as Art is a reprint of a 1970s Bruno Munari classic about all things design and art. Deyan Sudjic’s The Language of Things is also a reprint. The initial cover was very…
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Middlemarch Winter
“Art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to pieces I should find it made up…
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Spooky Spirit
This scary little fellow is a piece of sancai ware pottery from China. Sancai ware is a type of glazing whereby three colours are used to create this delicate effect. Tang sancai wares were sometimes referred to as egg-and-spinach by dealers. The hoofed figurine sits outside the tomb to stop dead people coming out of their graves to made…
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Alfred and Uma
Most of the fabulousness of the National Gallery of Victoria can be attributed to Mr Alfred Felton.
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Grains for the Dead
If the spirit of the ancestor is happy and peaceful then they will look after the living. So best to feed them lots of grain.
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South Yarra Colours
| Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Raw Umber, 2012 | | Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Cadmium Yellow, 2012 | | Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Dusty Pink, 2012 |
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Ellsworth Kelly’s Facade
Ellsworth Kelly, close to 90 years old, recently completed a striking sculpture for Matthew Marks Gallery in Los Angeles. He placed this huge structure onto the building facade. | Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture, 2012, Matthew Marks Gallery, Image: Joshua White/Matthew Marks Gallery, 2012 | Ellsworth Kelly continually re-works his ideas and this sculpture was inspired by one…
