ART IN SYDNEY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 452, 20 February 1948, Page 10

ART IN SYDNEY

A New Zealander’s Impressions WHAT is happening in the art world of Australia? New Zealanders don’t hear much about these activities. Occasionally a row is reported like the acute difference of opinion about William Dobell’s portrait of Joshua Smith, but tor the rest it is largely a case of "sundering seas," as our correspondent on Australian and New Zealand literature put it recently, Alison Pickmere, an Auckland artist, who spent some months in 1947 studying art in Sydney, has written the following experiences and impressions for "The Listener."

city like Sydney must grow of itself by. ever-widening circles, opening better chances for the artist to express himself. Where there is the established art community, recognition of its importance in public life comes through the opportunity open to many to view the numerous exhibitions through the year; good newspaper reports and discussions; the stimulus given by regular patronage of connoisseurs in acquiring pictures and | sculpture for their collections. So art is | world of art in a large live

on a firmer basis there than it is with us here in New Zealand. It struck me that once a painter has gained recognition in Sydney, his lot is a happy one, for even though creative work has still to break down walls of misunderstanding in Sydney, the way is smooth compared with ours. During the season, which is roughly from May to December, there are as many as three or four shows running at a time in various galleries. The Education Gallery is placed at the disposal of societies for larger exhibitions; then there is the David Jones Gallery, a very fine hall with good lighting, where industrial as well as fine art shows are staged (and the proprietors came up egainst the problem that the Auckland Society had a year or two ago when the hessian-covered walls developed

stains); the Macquarie Galleries, near the Herald, the Grosvenor Galleries in George Street, and others. Each has its public, sometimes of different convictions. There are three or four main Socie-ties-the Royal Society, the Australian Watercolour Institute, the Society of Artists, the Contemporary Group, the Contemporary Society, the Studio of Realist Art, the Sydney Group, and a rtumber of groups of artists banding themselves together for the purpose of exhibitions. The Studio of Realist Art, called SORA, which openeg only in ie

1945, has its own headquarters, social and educational functions, and conducts sketching and life classes. I was struck by the amount of figure work done as against landscape. It is a criticism of art in New Zealand that it is too much preoccupied with landscape. The difference is to be accounted for by the conditions in the two countries. In a great city like Sydney there is less opportunity for the student to paint landscape, and on the other hand models are more easily available. Probably the very fact that there is such a press of people in Sydney disposes artists to paint the figure. Australian attists find our landscape monotonous. It’s too uniformly green. They are in love with the fierce sunlight, the subtle browns, greys, and blues of their own country. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Yes, weight of population and competition among sO many artists, frees an artist from inhibitions as to choice of subject matter and methods of expression. As he watches the other fellow, he becomes more daring himself. A good example of this lack of inhibition was the Merioola Group show at the David Jones Gallery recently. This group is made up of artists living in a colony near Edgecliffe, a close suburb of Sydney. Each one had an alcove at the exhibition. The work itself displayed much diversity and daring-mostly oils in strong colours. Down the centre of the hall ran a screen hung on both sides with photographs provided by a member of the colony who, being a noted photogtapher, had posed the artists in picturesque attitude, with guitar, palm tree, wind-tossed hair, tombstones, and the like. Gaol Into Art School Original teachers exert an influence in Sydney as elsewhere. A large proportion of leading artists of course have studied abroad, and have brought back influences valuable to their home country. I traced a similarity in figure drawing to the work of WilliamDobell, who taught for a time at the East Sydney Technical College, where I studied. Some consider the éollege the best art school.

in Australia. The building itself is remarkable. It is a former gaol, next to the Law Courts at Taylor Square, and is near the Surry Hill slums that Ruth Park wrote of so tellingly in her Harp of the South, the prize-winning Herald novel. The old buildings of the "Tec" are convict-built of sandstone, beautifully finished. The building is altered from time to time, and then some of the magnificent stones may fall to the use of the sculptors in the school. (One day I was standing in the open yard looking at a fine little folded up horse about 3ft x 2ft made from one of these stones, and talking to the modeller, Tommy Bass, when there was a sudden crack, splash and trickle; a little blue egg had fallen from the skies to christen the hofse. Apparently accommodation is just as scarce'in the bird world as for us.) Sculptors are most fortunate in Sydney with their limitless quantities of

lovely fawn brown sandstone. The school of modelling has fine quarters, and some of the students are making wonderful progress, being well on the way to finding the truth in adaptation of materials. They don’t mind hard work, nor do the painting students. The Strict silence that obtains in one or two of the painting classes reduces some of the students to near exhaustion. Woe betide the flippant student who chatters, or worse, makes comment on another’s work. The students themselves make °a colourful sight, especially in summer. Men in shorts, coloured coats, beads, women in pedal pushers, long skirts, men’s old shirts worn loosely as smocks, and Chinese hair-dos. Very ‘soon I found these apparent ecéentricities to be very sensible adaptations to the environment, which inclyded much roving paint, dust, grit and grime. I remember the breaking up at the school at the end of the year, and what a spirit of friendship and attachment to the school was displayed. There were students from all over Australia and one or two from New Zealand, now due for a long vacation. Here and there one heard the words, "I don’t want to go home, let’s go west and form a colony." Quite often artists manage to make themselves reasonably, comfortable in some old attic during the week, and spend their week-ends in a country shack. Round lower George Street and Circular Quay there is a general spattering of the authentic attic studio in the most unexpected places. Lower George Street in particular jolted my first impression. One appears to be in a rather tough area of pubs, old secondrate shops, and industrial works, but just penetrate through a dusty old door | up several flights of dark stairs, and as likely as not there will be comfortable, if old, living quarters. Methods of Painting

Methods of painting are very different from ours. The more novel the method the better, even among students, In his home studio an artist asked me to guess what medium he had used in a small composition. After trying candlegrease, chalk and ink and other more or less accepted media, I gave in. "Bicycle tube mender," he announced with pride, and the sketch was good. Moreover, Henry Moore, the English artist, whose exhibition has been running in the Sydney National Gallery, uses pen and ink, chalk, crayon, and watercolour all together or mixed to great effect. There is competent art criticism in Sydney. Several of the papers have their art critics. The criticisms of the Sydney Morning Herald are followed with live interest by a large public. The critic himself, Paul Haefliger, is a practising artist with sound training and the courage of his convictions. He held a show of his own pictures in October last. I am afraid New Zealand art isn’t taken very seriously in Sydney. All the same I hope that some day an exhibition of our art will be sent round the Australian capitals. Meanwhile, a collection of work by a number of the contemporary artists of Australia is on its way to New Zealand. A big proportion of the artists represented in this collection have dates booked in 1948 for one-man shows, for which they wished to reserve their work, or they are taking the rest of their work abroad.