Australian Art
to 1975
1 NORmANA WIGhT
Normana Wight was one of just three women
artists to be included in ‘The Field’, an important
exhibition of contemporary Australian art held
at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,
in 1968.
Untitled Yellow-Green
is the only major
surviving piece of Wight’s from this period, and it
was acquired with the generous support of donor
James C Sourris,
AM
. A large and commanding
piece, over five metres long and comprised
of six canvases, the work reveals radiating
curved bands of colour that move from a cool
green to a warm yellow and back again. In its
uncompromising geometry and eccentric shape,
the work is typical of the formal experimentation
in painting of this period.
Normana Wight
| Australia b.1936 |
Untitled Yellow-Green
1970 |
Screenprint on canvas | Six panels: 76.7 x 91.5cm (irreg., each); 76.7 x
550cm (overall) | The James C Sourris,
AM
, Collection. Purchased 2012
with funds from James C Sourris,
AM
, through the Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation
2 VIDA lAhEy
Vida Lahey is one of Queensland’s best-loved
artists, recognised as much for her work in
promoting art and art education in Queensland
as for her artistic output. The Gallery’s exhibition
‘Vida Lahey: Colour and Modernism’, held in
2011, revealed the strength and vibrancy of
the artist’s floral studies in watercolour, her
accomplishments in landscape painting and her
particular skill in depicting light on water. The
latter is a feature of
Morning light, Brisbane River
.
As with
Beach umbrellas
1933, another of the
Gallery’s holdings, Lahey’s handling of oil paint
has a strong impressionist touch, in both colour
and execution.
Vida lahey
| Australia 1882–1968 |
Morning light, Brisbane River
c.1925–30 | Oil on three-ply board | 19 x 19cm | Purchased 2012.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
3 IAN FAIRWEAThER
This subject, a bus stop on Bribie Island, is
unique in Ian Fairweather’s oeuvre and was first
exhibited at the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, in
the Easter exhibition of 1966. Murray Bail — the
author of several books on Fairweather and his
work — describes the work as ‘an exploration
of relationships and a comment on an everyday
but ritualised event’. In a note of 15 March 1965,
Fairweather commented: ‘the bus stop is part
of the landscape as seen from the beach outside
the grocery — over my daily bottle of milk’.
Bus stop
, a gift of the Josephine Ulrick and
Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, is an
important addition to the Gallery’s holdings of Ian
Fairweather’s work, unparalleled in Australia.
Ian Fairweather
| Scotland/Australia 1891–1974 |
Bus stop
1965 |
Gouache on cardboard on board | 72.5 x 97.5cm | Gift of the
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012. Donated through the
Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Ian Fairweather
1965/DACS. Licensed by VISCOPY, Sydney, 2013
4 RAh FIZEllE
Rah Fizelle was a pioneer of abstract art in
Sydney during the 1930s and 1940s, and this oil
painting, acquired with the generous assistance
of Philip Bacon,
AM
, is an important addition to
the Gallery’s Australian modernist holdings.
Fizelle’s embrace of cubist methods is evident in
Construction II
, with its systematic arrangement
of warm and cool tones across geometric planes,
and its exploration of the general scheme of
the figure of a seated woman; Fizelle’s most
important paintings of the period are cubist-
inspired half-figures of women.
This sophisticated and dynamic work is the first
major oil painting by this important Australian
modernist to be acquired by the Gallery.
Rah Fizelle
| Australia 1891–1964 |
Construction II
c.1939 | Oil on
board | 91 x 65cm | Purchased 2012 with funds from Philip Bacon,
AM
,
through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation © Rah Fizelle Estate
Queensland
heritage
5 EDmUND ROSENSTENGEl
Edmund Rosenstengel was born in
Toowoomba, where he was apprenticed in
1902 to Rosenstengel & Kleimeyer, his father’s
cabinetmaking business. In 1922, he settled in
Brisbane and established a business of his own
in Fortitude Valley, where he remained until his
retirement in 1958. Rosenstengel’s work was
distinguished by the use of Queensland timbers,
particularly Queensland maple and silky oak,
together with elaborate carving and marquetry
inlay. This chest of drawers, which Rosenstengel
made for his own home in Harcourt Street, New
Farm, reveals the exceptional quality of his
work. This work was acquired with the generous
support of Valmai Pidgeon.
Edmund Rosenstengel
| Australia 1887–1962 |
Chest of drawers
c.1934 | Queensland maple (
Flindersia brayleyana
) with shaped
drawer-fronts, metal wreath handles, Wedgwood plaque, and ‘cats-
eyes’ to carved pull handles. Finely carved with reeded frieze and
bound fasces to corners and black-shaped vitrolite glass top. Original
finish | 116 x 103 x 50cm | Purchased 2012 with funds from Miss
Valmai Pidgeon through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
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// REVEAl
/ REVIEW 2012
THECOLLECTION
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