NGV Australia, Federation Square
27 Apr 18 – 26 Aug 18
The National Gallery of Victoria’s inaugural exhibition at its new premises on St Kilda Road in 1968 was The Field, the first comprehensive display of colour field painting and abstract sculpture in Australia. Regarded as a landmark exhibition in Australian art history, The Field was a radical presentation of 74 works by 40 artists who practised hard-edge, geometric, colour and flat abstraction, many of which were influenced by American stylistic tendencies of the time. With its silver foil–covered walls and geometric light fittings, The Field opened to much controversy and helped launch the careers of a generation of Australian artists, including Sydney Ball, Peter Booth, Janet Dawson and Robert Jacks. Eighteen of the exhibiting artists were under the age of thirty, with Robert Hunter the youngest at twenty-one years of age.
Ian Burn Four glass/Mirror piece, 1968
Ian Burn’s two works from The Field, Two glass/Mirror piece and Four glass/Mirror piece, are completed with an accompanying book of notes and diagrams exhibited next to their respective mirror. The notes describe the mirror’s physical, perceptual and conceptual properties. In keeping with John Stringer’s curatorial decision not to include these in The Field, here the books are also absent. Burn requested that the books be duplicated and ‘placed with the catalogue on a desk, or some such place’. Stringer reproduced the notes, and made them available on request. To honour Burn’s wishes in 1968, we have made available a facsimile of the Four piece/Mirror piece notes.
The Unpublished Essay
The Field curators John Stringer and Brian Finemore initially approached art critics Patrick McCaughey, Elwyn Lynn and Ross Lansell to write for the 1968 catalogue. An essay by Lansell was submitted to the NGV for editing, however, it was not published and instead replaced with an essay by Royston Harpur. Click below to read Ross Lansell’s unpublished essay.
Modern Paint - A Timeline
The Field Revisited recreates The Field exhibition for its fifty-year anniversary. By reassembling as many of the original 74 paintings and sculptures as possible, this restaging re-examines the exhibition’s impact and significance for Australian art history and allow a new generation to experience it for themselves. Because some works included in The Field are known to have been destroyed, the NGV has commissioned a number of artists, including Normana Wight and Col Jordan, to recreate their original works for The Field Revisited.
Video
Missing works
Prior to the opening of The Field Revisited, the fate of sixty-two of the seventy-four works included in The Field was determined. The search for the six lost sculptures and six lost paintings has not ceased. If you have any information on the whereabouts of these works illustrated below, please contact the National Gallery of Victoria via [email protected]
Women and The Field
A notable omission from The Field was women artists – only Janet Dawson, Wendy Paramor and Normana Wight were included. Five decades later, we are acutely aware of this imbalance when recreating a facsimile of the original exhibition. During The Field Revisited, there will be a display of colour field and abstract works by Australian female artists featured on Level Two at NGV Australia (Opening June 2018).
