Out of the West

Out of the West is the first survey exhibition outside Western Australia to present a large sample of Western Australian art from pre-settlement until today.

It includes well known images and new discoveries. Works by established early artists, Robert Dale, Thomas Turner, James W R Linton, A B Webb and Kathleen O’Connor, as well as those by more recent artists such as Herbert McClintock, Harald Vike, Elise Blumann, Guy Grey-Smith, Robert Juniper, Howard Taylor, Brian Blanchflower, James Angus and Rodney Glick, will be shown, alongside significant works by many less familiar names.

When settlers started arriving in Western Australia nearly two centuries ago, they were mesmerised by the light, heat, long horizons, and vast expanses. By the twentieth century art societies had formed and local traditions had developed. Out of the West presents a starting point for visitors to the National Gallery of Australia to explore the art made from these responses to Western Australia, through a diverse range of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, print-making, photography, video installation, jewellery, furniture, decorative arts and design.

Vital to the exhibition are important historical works from the National Gallery’s recently acquired The Wordsworth Collection. This collection has been lovingly assembled over more than 40 years by Marie Louise Wordsworth, one of Western Australia’s most passionate and respected collectors.

Based on Marie Louise’s deep knowledge of Western Australian history and her family heritage, the collection covers the period from Western Australia’s beginning as a free-settlement colony in the early mid-nineteenth century, through the importation of convict labour in the 1850s, and the discovery of gold in the 1890s.

It includes rare views of Albany, Augusta, Bunbury, Esperance, Gingin, Rottnest and Toodyay. Her passion for Western Australian colonial furniture was pursued with a singular intensity, with the best aims in mind. These items are highly important for their rarity.

The exhibition is a curatorial selection of work drawn from the National Gallery’s collection, rather than a full survey. Some works by Western Australian artists remain on display in the Gallery’s collection displays of Australian art as well as the newly opened Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander galleries.

The National Gallery of Australia has a responsibility to show the full gamut of Australian art—from all states, over all periods. The exhibition showcases the major group of works that the Gallery has recently purchased alongside works the Gallery has owned for some time. It also complements the rich public and private holdings of Western Australian art held in Perth.

The exhibition follows the National Gallery’s 2010–2011 display Tasmanian Colonial Art 1830–1850, in which recently purchased early Tasmanian works were exhibited alongside works that the Gallery has held for many years.

Out of the West is supported by the National Gallery of Australia Council Exhibitions Fund.

Settlement: 1827–50

Following the settlement of the Swan River Colony original voices developed, expressing their pride in the development of the land and their response to the characteristic sparkling light, unique vegetation and broad expanses of water in the West. These artists were talented amateurs, painting in watercolour a relatively easily transportable medium. Practical necessity meant that furniture was produced in the colony from the early days, either by the settlers themselves, or by professional cabinet makers.

Convict period: 1850–68

The need for convict labour and British capital to assist with public works and the construction of buildings and roads gradually became evident to the struggling colonists. But the first convict ship didn’t arrive until 1850, 21 years after the Swan River Colony had been established and also the same year transportation ended in New South Wales and three years before it ceased in Van Diemen’s Land. In 1850, the population in the West was approximately 500; over the next 16 years, nearly 10,000 male convicts were transported. But, unlike the convicts sent to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, none were professionally trained artists. While Swan River convicts became cabinetmakers and jewellers, there are only two documented painters among the Western Australian convicts, both of whom were transported for forgery, James Walsh and Thomas Browne.

Mining Exploration: 1850–1890s

Prospectors began to flock to the West with the discovery of gold at Halls Creek in 1885, at Southern Cross in 1887 and at Cue in 1891. In the goldfields era goldfields jewellery began to be produced.

Several professional artists were among the goldfields immigrants, including former National Gallery of Victoria students FM Williams, Clewin Harcourt and George Pitt Morison.as well as the British artist  James WR Linton.

Art Community: 1890s–1930s 

In around the 1890s professional artists, portrait painters, art teaching and exhibitions began to flourish in Perth, when the population increased following the mining of gold. Printmaking had a low profile in Perth until the etcher Henri van Raalte arrived in 1910, where he remained for 11 years, until 1921. From the 1890s to the 1920s, many of the painters had an interest in the applied arts, and also produced jewellery, metalwork, furniture and decorations for ceramics.

Visitors

Other professionally trained artists came to Western Australia as visitors and created important works there. These include the Victorian-born artist James Peele who visited Perth in 1898. James Ashton visited Perth in 1904 to hold an exhibition of his work, and while there painted images of the city. Sam Fullbrook visited in 1957 and painted a portrait of an Aboriginal Elder. Fred Williams made powerful images in response to the evocative Pilbara landscape, which he visited in 1979; and he commented in his diary entry of 7 June 1979 that ‘anyone who could not paint this particular country is in the wrong profession’.

Pre 1970

The 1940s to 1950s was a dynamic and creative period for Western Australian art with artists exploring the new languages of Surrealism, Expressionism and Social Realism and reductive abstraction. Younger painters began to express themselves with a new force. Herbert McClintock and Ernest Philpot created surrealist images; Elise Blumann painted works with an expressive energy influenced by German Expressionism; and Harald Vike created social realist works, expressing his solidarity with the working classes. Guy Grey-Smith painted abstracted landscapes inspired by the strong colours of French Fauvism. And Robert Juniper developed a highly personal visual language in response to the distinctive qualities of the Western Australian landscape.

Large-scale abstract painting became a dominant force in Australia from the 1950s and remains a strong approach in contemporary Western Australian art. Howard Taylor’s highly individual works in which he sought to create ‘equivalents’ for his experience of the landscape, illuminated by a radiant light, have had a powerful influence on many artists

1970 to Today

The abstract imagery of artists such as Brian Blanchflower and Jeremy Kirwan-Ward is based on a response to the Western Australian landscape, with Blanchflower’s painterly images conveying his consciousness of the energy of the universe and the spiritual resonance of objects. Karl Wiebke, on the other hand, investigated the very materials of paint in his abstract compositions. And Miriam Stannage, inspired by Minimalism and Conceptual art, developed a body of word paintings and photographs.

Other artists work in a range of media. Carol Rudyard creates video installations in which she expresses her fascination with art history, theories of seeing and music, and Rodney Glick conveys his distinctive, offbeat sense of humour in his sculptures.

Print revival

The 1960s and 1970s saw a revival of printmaking throughout Australia, including Western Australia. A talented generation of printmakers included Brian McKay, Miriam Stannage, Tom Gibbons, Ray Beattie, Theo Koning and Mary Moore. Their innovative prints have a boldness and energy, and often also a sense of humour.

Craft revival

Studio craft practice was revived in Western Australia from the mid-1960s, with artists developing innovative approaches to design and object making in a range of media, many of them interpreting aspects of the state’s natural environment and resources. Joan Campbell, for instance, received a national and international reputation for her raku work, pioneering new firing and glazing techniques. Form 1973 shows her devotion to the mystery of raku, earth and fore, as well as her interest in texture landscape and natural forms.