This issue of the Art Bulletin of Victoria 26 focuses on a variety of Australian works in the collection, ranging from colonial landscapes and realistic portraiture to contemporary sculpture and modernist paintings:
Jeanette Hoorn analyses Joseph Lycett’s pastoral landscapes, highlighting his one-sided depiction of European control over the land without any depiction of the labour required to achieve control; Dr Emma Devapriam investigates the religious iconography in Joseph Wright’s portrait of the Synnot children, including its possible allusions to the holy Trinity and subtle referencing of Maria from Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey; Judith O’Callaghan writes of Charles Brentani, a prominent local silversmith of the mid-1800s, and the Gallery’s acquisition of his Flemington Cup, made for the Flemington Races of 1849; Jan Minchin discusses the violent visions of the 1940s, in particular those of Yosl Bergner, Albert Tucker and Arthur Boyd, and the NGV’s reluctance to purchase those powerful works of art at the time; and Geoffrey Edwards comments on the Gallery’s recent acquisition of contemporary Australian sculptures by artists Clifford Last, Inge King and Lenton Parr (among others).
We are also delighted to receive into the Gallery Evolving forms, the Great Hall tapestry taken from Roger Kemp’s painting Evolving forms and woven by four talented weavers of the Victorian Tapestry Workshop.
We trust you will enjoy the articles and appreciate the breadth and depth of the contributors’ research and scholarship in this edition.