House backs, Parkville
(c. 1938)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
51.6 × 43.4 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
© Estate of the artist
Gallery location
Gallery 20
Level 3, NGV Australia
About this work
Yosl Bergner spent his childhood in Warsaw and fled Nazi Europe in 1937 for Australia. In Melbourne, Bergner created numerous images that fused memories of Europe with contemporary urban scenes of Melbourne. The dwellings depicted in House backs, Parkville, are reminiscent of tenement houses in the Jewish ghettos of Europe. Bergner identified with urban Aboriginal people living in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, depicting their poverty and dispossession which he associated with Jews during the fall of Warsaw.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.l.: BERGNER.
Accession Number
2004.140
Department
Australian Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Subjects (general)
Cityscapes
Subjects (specific)
buildings (structures) grass (plant material) Melbourne (inhabited place) sky suburbs trees Victoria (state) windows