Tag: painting
Nora Heysen
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 Art Column,Millions are spent nowadays in futile efforts to combat the aging process, but Nora Heysen (1911-2003) seemed to grow more stylish as she got older. Look at the earnest, stolid young woman in her self-portraits of the 1930s, then at the photographs taken in later life. The younger Nora habitually wears her hair pulled back, […]
Salvador Dalí
Saturday, September 26th, 2009 Art Column,There was a sublime moment in Matthew Collings’s successful TV series, This is Modern Art, when he showed footage of Salvador Dalí camping it up and singing the praises of money. “I love tremendously money and gold!” Dalî expostulates. And again, switching to the third person: “Dalí sleep best after one day of work receive […]
Fred Williams & Victor Rubin
Saturday, August 29th, 2009 Art Column,There are many answers to the question: “What is a classic?” It may be a work belonging to a certain period with a taste for ideal forms; an emphasis on balance, stillness and harmonious composition. Another definition sees a classic as something of undying excellence – a work of art that always seems as vital […]
John Brack
Saturday, June 6th, 2009 Art Column,Will Sydney ever see the best of John Brack? The National Gallery of Victoria held its first Brack retrospective in 1987. Following artist’s death in February 1999 there have been further surveys held in Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. Exhibitions have looked at Brack’s portraits, his paintings of the nude, and his relationship with Fred Williams. […]
Margaret Olley: Life’s Journey
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 Art Column,At this stage of her brilliant career there is nothing that any critical review can add to or subtract from the reputation of Margaret Hannah Olley. There have been two retrospectives, two Orders of Australia, four honorary doctorates. She has been painted by Australia’s best-known artists, and hailed for her constant public benefactions. As long […]
Tim Johnson
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 Art Column,Tim Johnson once had a vision of the Buddha in his kitchen in Newtown. “The moment after I saw it,” he told an interviewer in 1991, “it somehow took over my thoughts, said ‘Don’t be afraid’, and floated towards me very quickly, merged into my body, and then said ‘I’ll always be here.’” Neither is […]