ELWYN “JACK” LYNN

“The traces of time are all around us and they have little effect on our senses that is, until it becomes time to paint the house”.

Elwyn Lynn

When he saw the work of the European artists Antonio Tapies and Emil Schumaker in 1958 Lynn’s eyes were opened to the visual excitement that time and the elements can induce. He was touring Europe and had seen their paintings at the Venice Biennale and was astounded that the weathering effect on ordinary everyday items could be the subject for sublime works of art.

He became an immediate enthusiast for textural paintings and was eager to explore the possibilities of this new form of expression and how it could relate to Australia with all its variables and ruggedness of climate.

Texture painting fitted perfectly into the Australian artistic oeuvre, but intellectually in the 50’s it was astray. Australia was isolated and not ready for abstraction – World War II was still fresh in the memory and abstraction was viewed as an international conspiracy. The influence of the traditional and modern figurative painters was in power and difficult to dislodge.

Lynn viewed this disinterest as a challenge and in addition to creating visually uplifting works he applied an intellectual component and titled his works accordingly.

He trusted that the viewer after digesting the visual and tactile elements of the artwork would search for the meaning of the title and understand how the piece fitted the name – unfortunately his trust was in vain. Very few rose to the challenge and visually his work failed to interest those outside of the major collecting institutions.

Lynn provided for his family through teaching, writing and critiquing and every spare moment saw him at work in his studio persisting and finding satisfaction in his output. He never lost confidence in his direction and persevered until the end. He knew that his position in Australian Art History could not be undone and the time for wider appeal of his works would arrive.

When he saw the work of the European artists Antonio Tapies and Emil Schumaker in 1958 Lynn’s eyes were opened to the visual excitement that time and the elements can induce. He was touring Europe and had seen their paintings at the Venice Biennale and was astounded that the weathering effect on ordinary everyday items could be the subject for sublime works of art.

He became an immediate enthusiast for textural paintings and was eager to explore the possibilities of this new form of expression and how it could relate to Australia with all its variables and ruggedness of climate.

Texture painting fitted perfectly into the Australian artistic oeuvre, but intellectually in the 50’s it was astray. Australia was isolated and not ready for abstraction – World War II was still fresh in the memory and abstraction was viewed as an international conspiracy. The influence of the traditional and modern figurative painters was in power and difficult to dislodge.

Lynn viewed this disinterest as a challenge and in addition to creating visually uplifting works he applied an intellectual component and titled his works accordingly.

He trusted that the viewer after digesting the visual and tactile elements of the artwork would search for the meaning of the title and understand how the piece fitted the name – unfortunately his trust was in vain. Very few rose to the challenge and visually his work failed to interest those outside of the major collecting institutions.

Lynn provided for his family through teaching, writing and critiquing and every spare moment saw him at work in his studio persisting and finding satisfaction in his output. He never lost confidence in his direction and persevered until the end. He knew that his position in Australian Art History could not be undone and the time for wider appeal of his works would arrive.

Townscapes and landscapes and the creatures that inhabited them, all form part of the imagery that John Santry is famous for.

One of the first Australian artists to paint rural and urban scenes, his drawing skills and discipline allowed him to capture the areas he frequented, in a style unique to himself.

With his figure studies, he was able to find that hint of larrikin that permeates Australian society. His pastoral landscapes (that were usually painted on a Saturday) contain a serenity and stillness that became his hallmark.

Before the arrival of the émigré artists from Europe, the landscape was the main source of inspiration for the locals. Santry along with fellow members of the Northwood Group would pack their kits on most Saturday mornings and head to the countryside to paint. They wouldn’t return until dusk. George Lawrence, Lloyd Rees and Roland Wakelin were the other members and Douglas Dundas occasionally joined them.

They were sober trips, full of fun and work, with the ritual baked rabbit, pickled onion and bread roll being the meal of the day. The camaraderie between the group remained until the last. At some times they were each others crutch and at others a source of amusement. Wakelin would say “what’s the point in having friends if you can’t poke fun at them.”

Drawing skills and figurative work set Santry apart from the others. He conducted drawing classes from his home on Thursday afternoons and two of his early students were Brett Whiteley and Michael Johnson. He thought Whiteley was a talented showman with a great ability to draw portraits and Johnson equally as gifted though quieter.

Both established profiles much higher than his. He was never envious and drew comfort from his early and significant influence in their development.

Santry didn’t pursue critical success and never worked with large canvases. He had little need, as he was able to capture the breadth of the landscape on a small panel, and the spirit of a person with a few brush strokes.

He wasn’t a showman he was just quiet and disciplined, with a fine sense of humour.

Kathleen O’Connor’s return to Australia from France in 1948 had an unfortunate consequence. Australian Customs in Fremantle impounded the artworks that she had sent from her Parisian studio and demanded 20% duty. The Custom’s officials had determined that as the paintings were foreign and had come to Australia for sale, duty was applicable. Unfortunately no amount of pleading by the artist or high powered intervention on her behalf could alter that ruling.

As she could not afford to pay the total duty, only 150 of the works survived and the balance was destroyed. In 1948 Australia, there were no arts programs in place to assist in her plight and we are left to ponder the enormity of the loss from a cultural and historical perspective. It was said that Miss O’Connor was vigilant in ensuring that the works she couldn’t afford to keep, were destroyed and did not get redirected.

Born in New Zealand in 1876 Kathleen O’Connor arrived in Western Australia in 1891. Her father, the celebrated engineer C.Y. O’Connor, had accepted the position of Engineer-in Chief with the Western Australian Government. She studied at the Perth Technical School under JWR Linton and at the Bushey School of Art in London under Frank Brangwyn and Hubert von Herkomer.

O’Connor settled in Paris in 1910 and apart from the war years lived and worked there until her return to Australia in 1948. She associated with many artists of her time including, Vuillard, Sickert, van Dongen, Modigliani and Chagall. Her Australasian associates included Rupert Bunny, Frances Hodgkins and Roy de Maistre.

Kathleen O’Connor identified the sitter in this work as Frances Hodgkins to Daniel Thomas during an interview. It was one of those works she chose to include in the 150 pieces she could afford to keep.

It is little known that the acclaimed Australian sculptor Akio Makigawafirst began his career here in Perth having travelled from his hometown Kyushu, Japan in 1974.

A skilled yachtsman, he moved to Perth with the intention of working an apprenticeship as a sail maker with Taskers where he had hoped to eventually learn enough to support himself to sail around the world.

It was through sailing that Makigawa met with the sculptor Tony Jones, and it was Jones who encouraged him to enrol in Claremont Technical College during the sailing off-season to nurture his artistic inclinations that he had left behind in Japan.

Makigawa’s time in Perth was important, not only did he meet his wife Calier at Claremont Tech., the education he received here would shape and define the unique style of work that he became so popular for.

“His Perth art education brought the young Japanese sailmaker into contact with Western-trained teachers and artists-in-residence whose backgrounds were, like his, elsewhere. …In Perth, Makigawa learned to measure his emerging practice against a cultural lineage that extended from the organic vitalism of Henry Moor to the Greenbergien formalism espoused by post-war British sculptors like Antony Caro.” (Adams, 2013, p. 115)

It was specifically his early solo shows at the Fremantle Arts Centre in 1979 and the Fremantle Art Gallery in 1980 that marked the beginning of the national and international attention Makigawa would grow to receive.

He became renowned for his artistic ability to capture the balance and poise of nature, the simplicity and elegance inherent in the materials he used. He had all the makings of the stoicism of his Japanese heritage, refined by the notions of contemporary western form. He was notorious for this instinct for the spirit of things, “mute, impassive marbles, in Makigawa’s hands, became profound representations of sublime human drama – the cyclical journey of life.” (Adams, 2013, p. 115)

This early figurative sculpture by Makigawa is an excellent example of his exquisite sense of symmetry, assured presence and his unique ability to recognise the opportunities of the material he selected.

His cultural background and acute bond with nature is evident in the elegance of the sculptured subject. The line of the neck tilting upwards so as to meet the onlooker with an admiring gaze offers an introverted and unimposing gesture which, as many have said for Makigawa’swork, emanates a quiet peacefulness or zen like quality. The stone itself seems to embody this character and the tones within the rock compliment the light and shadows that undulate the face.

Sourced from the Three Springs area, 300km north of Perth, the stone and subsequent sculpture is synonymous with his time here in Perth and is a tangible representation of this important period of growth in his career as an artist.

It is a rare item and the first from this era of Makigawa’s body of work to come to auction.

References

Adams, B. (2013). Marking the journey: the art of Akio Makigawa. In Akio Makigawa (pp. 113-121). Melbourne: Carlier Makigawa.

Mike Parr is a seminal figure in the contemporary Australian art scene. He is best known for his emergence as a performance artist and concept artist in the late 1960’s producing hundreds of performance and multimedia pieces during an important era for the development of that genre within the Australian art scene.

It was a time when performance art was not acknowledged as a visual art, which might explain why Parr emerged with such force.

One of his most renowned early works involved him seated calmly in front of an audience before beginning to attack his forearm with an axe, unbeknownst to the audience that he in fact suffered the loss of his arm as an infant and was wearing a prosthetic arm filled with mince and fake blood.

He is noted for performance works involving a great deal of stress to the physical body, such as an installation of the artist in a gallery for days without food and water, or 100 Breaths a visual/multimedia work during which, with 100 breaths, Parr breaths and holds a different etching to his face. As he suffers loss of oxygen in the bloodstream, his face – the focal point of the video – naturally disfigures and the viewer is subjected to the stress he is inducing on his body. In another work Parr’s face is sewn with thread to disfigure it into an expression of disgrace.

There is a stark contrast between his confrontational performance work and his pensive etchings. On one hand, Parr’s performance work is visceral, physically demeaning, abrasive and deeply concerned with notions of eliciting strong physical responses as well as cognitive; however, he also focuses on notions of memory and subjectivity.

It is these notions of memory and subjectivity that carry through to his etchings, what is lesser known about Parr is his love of drawing, lines and form. While he was making splashes in the 70’s for his controversial performances, he returned to his love of drawing in the 1980’s.

Parr began print making in 1987 when he was invited to create a print for the Bicentennial Folio (a joint commission of the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian Bicentennial Authority) and he has been creating prints ever since.

This work, Echolalia (The Road) – which can also be found in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia – delves into those notions of memory and subjectivity. “Parr has been fascinated with observation and the possibilities and responses of memory distortions. His ‘landscape’ prints are such depictions – memories of views passed by.” (National Gallery of Australia, n.d.)

Echolalia means a repetition of speech, or in this case, when applied to the notion of the road, the repetition of line can be seen as the landscape rushing past the window of a moving train or vehicle – an idea Parr was interested in – or delving deeper, one could interpret any metaphorical meaning of repetition, and road, in the context of space, time and existence.

Although he is best known for his bizarre, confronting and ground breaking performance works, artworks such as this etching by Parr are rare and coveted by the arts community.

References

National Gallery of Australia. (n.d.). Mike Parr. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from National Gallery of Australia Website: http://nga.gov.au/landscapes/Par.htm

Stacha Halpern’s paintings are not easy to forget he would bound into them with an energy and verve that didn’t stop until they were completed. They leave an indelible impression in one’s mind and love them or hate them one never forgets them.

Halpern returned to Australia in 1966 but the reception his work received was disappointing for him. The scrap between the abstractionists and antipodeans was still in play and despite a successful career in France, the Australian public wasn’t ready for a naturalised expatriate whose images seemed to have a foot in both camps – figurative with the antipodeans and expressionist with the others. It would take almost three decades before the public was able to step up to the mark even though Halpern had champions along the way, desperately wanting to help the others to see.

Stan Rapotec, another émigré would say of his own career, after he was mistaken for an overnight sensation “…. I firmly and strongly believe now, that to build up an artist in any field you need twenty years of struggle – struggling, battling, performing, experimenting, exercising and, yes, exposing oneself in one’s work to the full brunt of criticism.”  Halpern had already served an apprenticeship in Paris – he had achieved prominence and success there in just fifteen years but that didn’t count in Australia, he still had his time to serve and one can be confident in saying that he would have given the time, as above all else – including his Polish birthplace and his European successes – he considered himself to be Australian.

Unfortunately Halpern didn’t have another 20 years to give and died through heart disease in 1969 – three years after his return.

Halpern’s position and effect in the international art scene of the 60’s is finally being respected in Australia. A Parisian art critic referred him to as an example of what young French artists should aspire to; he hung in galleries alongside Rothko, Guston and Frankenthaler. His works were exhibited at group and solo shows in Paris, Rome, New York, Amsterdam, Basle and Milan. And unlike many of those Australians that preceded him to Europe, he was to have a real effect in the international art scene, particularly in Paris.