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Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century
Willy Lenski Life may be seen as a gesture 1987. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on jute, 50.9 cm x 92.2 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1988. © Willy Lenski 1988.
Willy Lenski Study for 'Life may be seen as a gesture' 1987. Watercolour and pencil on buff fabriano paper, 25.9 x 45.7 cm (image - sight). The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of the Artist, 1988. © Willy Lenski 1988.
Willy Lenski Final composition study for 'Life may be seen as a gesture' 1987. Xerox with opaque white and black marker,24.1 x 38.5 cms (image - irregular) 28.0 x 43.2 cms (sheet). The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of the artist, 1988. © Willy Lenski 1988.
Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century
Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century explores the centrality of drawing to the artistic practice of British and Australian artists, including Stanley Spencer, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale and Frank Auerbach.
Drawn from The State Art Collection, this exhibition brings together significant figurative oil paintings and their preparatory drawings – a number of which have never been shown before. Form and feeling is focused upon technique and process, exploring the differing approaches to line, shape, contour and materiality as these artists progress preliminary sketches into finished works.
This exhibition explores a facet of early twentieth-century British and Australian art history in which teaching institutions in England, in particular the Slade School of Art in London, informed the emergence of a group of ‘radical’ Modern artists that broke with a more academic tradition. As previously taught in academic settings, drawing functioned as a study tool for many British and Australian artists, one stepping stone in a much larger creative endeavour. Drawing from models, or life drawing, in a studio space was common practice and the emphasis of line and contour as a style was passed on from teacher to student. However, in the hands of the artists that emerged under this new paradigm, drawing can be read as the site of creative exploration.
This approach also influenced key figures in Australian Modern art, and informed critical debates about the future of art in Australia in the twentieth century. Form and feeling brings to the fore the politics of collecting in Australian public institutional history, wherein Modern British art was keenly collected – particularly after WWII. This exhibition explores the influence that these artists had upon the Australian art scene at the time and restages this influence for audiences today.
AGWA acknowledges the generous contribution of Unios, whose lighting products bring Form and Feeling: Artists’ Studies of the Twentieth Century to life.
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Frank Hinder Flight into Egypt 1952. Oil and tempera on hardboard, 96.5 x 75.5 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of the Friends of the Art Gallery, 1953.
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Frank Hinder Flight into Egypt c1951. Pencil and coloured pencil, 26.3 x 20.6 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of Frank Hinder, 1983.
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Frank Auerbach Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, Night 1972-1973. Oil on hardboard, 127 x 126.5 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1974. © Frank Auerbach 1972-1973.
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Frank Auerbach Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, Night c1972-c1973. Pencil and coloured pencil on cartridge paper, 22.5 x 22.5 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of Frank Auerbach, 1974.
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William Dobell Rock fisherman (Portrait of Harry Stevenson) 1953. Oil on hardboard, 151 x 100.3 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1955. © The Art Gallery of Western Australia.
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William Dobell Sketch for 'Portrait of Harry Stevenson' c1953. Gouache. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1954.
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Russell Drysdale The gatekeeper's wife 1965. Oil on canvas, 100.3 x 125.7 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1965. © Russell Drysdale, 1965.
![Russell Drysdale not titled [Studies for 'Gatekeeper's wife'] c1964.](http://artgallery.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/1965-00D1_drysdale_web.jpg)
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Russell Drysdale not titled [Studies for 'Gatekeeper's wife'] c1964. Pen and brown ink, 25.3 x 37.7 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of the artist, 1965.
Artist focus: Stanley Spencer
Paintings:
Stanley Spencer cuts an eccentric figure in twentieth-century British art history. He is unique for his depiction of biblical imagery in the twentieth century. Spencer located the Spiritual in the quotidian by depicting Biblical scenes set in his home village of Cookham. Spencer is also known for his identification of the Divine in physical and sexual intimacy, an approach that was received with mixed results in the early twentieth century. Spencer held an enduring love of the pre-Renaissance Italian paintings, and a key part of his originality lay in this fusion of the Old Masters with contemporaneous art practices. Distortions of scale in his paintings are a particular marker of Spencer’s visual vernacular. His paintings are made with a flat and sparing application of colour, yet his works have a highly sensual quality to them.
In 1938 Spencer embarked on his series Christ in the Wilderness, a planned undertaking of 40 paintings, one for each day and night of Lent. During this period of Spencer’s life, he felt an affinity for Christ’s exile, being set up in a small flat in London after having been banished from his home in his beloved village Cookham. Spencer wrote:
“I did … forty little squares and then filled in as many as I could with how Christ may have spent each day, the great adventure all by himself with leaves and trees and mud and rabbits and rocks, just as I was having among two chairs, a bed, a fireplace and a table.”
Quoted in Mary Kisler and Justin Paton, Everyday Miracles: The Art of Stanley Spencer (Dunedin: Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2003).
Artist focus: Stanley Spencer
Sketches:
Having studied at the Slade School of Art, London, under Professor Henry Tonks – whose teaching was based on the draughtsmanship of Ingres – Spencer was a brilliant student and draughtsman.
Meticulous drawing was central to Spencer’s practice, working from his imagination rather than life, and he often made first sketches on strips of toilet paper, which he used for its low cost and length. The sketches that pleased him he copied onto larger sheets of a sketchbook.
Spencer hoarded his drawings. Comparing himself to an old lady purling by a fireplace, he referred to them as his “knitting” – a reassuring pleasure that provided a creative outlet. Spencer adheres closely to his sketches, often lamenting his inability to recreate the feeling of his sketches on canvas.
Spencer made several initial drawings of each subject before completing a squared-up study. Once the canvas was prepared, he would draw a grid in pencil and meticulously transfer the image to the canvas. The grid lines can be seen in the light areas of the finished paintings; a technique called pentimento. The series was never finished, with Spencer only completing 8 paintings and a 9th begun. Four paintings were completed in the London flat in 1938-39, one each in 1940, 1942, and 1943, and the last in 1954.
