Tag: S.H. Ervin Gallery
Papunya Tula: 50 Years 1971-2021
Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,After 50 years the Papunya Tula Art Movement has carved out a deep niche in Australian art history, but the settlement itself was a desolate place born from a long history of misunderstandings and misguided policies. The one and only time I visited Papunya, roughly 240 kms north-west of Alice Springs, it was almost deserted. […]
Salon des Refusés 2020
Tuesday, October 13th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,There must be a limit to the industrial quantity of portraits served up annually to the Australian public. This year we’ve already had the Portia Geach Memorial Award at the S.H.Ervin; the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award in Bega; the National Photographic Portrait Prize and the Darling Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in […]
Portia Geach Memorial Award 2020
Tuesday, August 25th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Not even a pandemic can dampen down Australia’s love of art prizes. On the contrary, it’s possible the lockdown has inflamed this monstrous passion, as artists have found themselves in the studio for extended periods with no distractions. Perhaps we’ll soon have an oversupply of art to go with the oversupply of investment units. Those […]
River on the Brink
Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Column,When your Prime-Minister is admiring a McDonalds in Ohio while other world leaders are attending a United Nations summit on climate change, it gives a pretty clear indication of the importance this government assigns to environmental policy. The PM likes to present himself as a real Aussie bloke and his solution to global warming could […]
Destination Sydney re-imagined
Thursday, January 31st, 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Column,In summer 2015 three of the city’s leading public galleries combined forces to stage an exhibition called Destination Sydney, bringing together work by nine prominent local artists, past and present. Although it would be hard to think of a less inspiring title the show seemed to work. At the very least it worked well enough […]
Intrepid Women
Friday, February 16th, 2018 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It’s an historical fact that women have almost always outnumbered men at Australian art schools but accounted for only a small proportion of works acquired for public collections. The times have been a-changing for the past few decades, with no gallery overtly discriminating against female artists, but there is still a debt to be paid […]
Elisabeth Cummings
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,In the annals of Australian art Elisabeth Cummings was an almost invisible presence for the first 30 years of her career. The story would change in the early 1990s when she began to attract serious attention from private collectors, who are always quicker off the mark than public institutions. After a slow start, partly due […]
Margaret Olley
Friday, February 24th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It’s hard to believe it’s been more than five years since Margaret Olley died. She was such a forceful personality I still half expect to see her pushing through a crowd at the Art Gallery of NSW, using her walking frame to clear a path. The art world is notorious for its doublespeak but Margaret […]
Guy Warren
Friday, April 29th, 2016 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Guy Warren is the best proof that a positive attitude is the secret of eternal youth. Having just turned 95, Warren seems as vital as ever. I’ve known him for about 30 years and he hardly seems to have changed. He’s still painting and drawing, still driving, still alert and articulate. He’s one of those […]
Destination Sydney
Friday, January 22nd, 2016 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Destination Sydney is an inelegant title. It may be that Australian audiences only respond to the most banal and descriptive titles but that’s no reason for making shows sound like tourism initiatives. At the risk of coming across as a snob, I can only describe it as vulgar. Complaint registered, I’m happy to record that […]