A DECADE OF AUSTRALIAN PAINTING

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 4

A DECADE OF AUSTRALIAN PAINTING

Modern Australian Painting, 1960/1970. By Kym Bonython. Introduction by R. K. Luck. Rigby. 38 pp, 109 colour reproductions. “There are not many contemporary artists of the brush or chisel who have any determination to feel for and with the new materials of the age.” Thus wrote Dr Earle Hackett about Australian art in general, in a “Meanjin Quarterly” article in 1966: he was discussing specifically the electronics paintings of J S. Ostoja-Kotkowski, whose work was used on “Meanjin” covers for that whole year. At the time, Ostoja-Kotkowski’s designs seemed ultra-avant-garde; now, they seem heavily dated. The whole

area of using variable magnetic field to deflect electron beams in a vacuifin on to a fluorescent screen has been zealously explored, and the results have been startling, to say the least. There is much to delight Dr Hackett in this volume, and it is significant that very little of the work reproduced dates from before 1966. A number of artists (such as Emanuel Raft) who won an early reputation in a more traditional mode (like surrealism) are instead represented by recent work which concentrates on the physics of light and illusion; this would seem to indicate the author’s confidence in new technical developments. Closely linked with this is the work in the “new abstraction” led by Michael 1

Johnson and Sydney Ball; this style is also well represented, along with a number of others. JI. K. Luck describes the situation now as “a state of anarchy,” an allegation which this collection eloquently defends: although each artist is limited to a single painting and there are up to three pictures per page, most openings present a compatible group. All of the artists represented are at least semi-professional, and all the major artists who are still producing important work are included; a surprising number, however, are no longer living in Australia. For its size, this is a rather expensive volume, but the quality of its production more than justifies this.