so ted baillieu is the incoming victorian premier. prior to a political career, he was an architect. but that is not how i first became familiar with the baillieu name - a wealthy, well-known family in melbourne. i know of the baillieu name through sunday reed, one of the most influential and fascinating people in australian art in the first half of the 20th century. i have read janine burke's biography of reed, the heart garden, a couple of times now. absolutely worth your reading pleasure.
sunday and john reed [from northern tasmania] are synonymous with the evolution of modernism in australian art circles. they were responsible for mentoring and financially supporting young australian artists and poets during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. it was both sunday's family wealth and the force of her personality that significantly influenced the direction of the melbourne art scene at the time. although sunday had formal training, it has been suggested that she lived her own artistic dreams vicariously through the heide circle.
this period was quite prolific for the likes of sidney nolan [who's desert and drought series - which was conceived after he left heide - brought me to utter stillness when i saw it at the ngv many years ago. he was one of the first artists to document central australia through painting and photography], albert tucker, joy hester [one of my favourites from that era] and john perceval - some members of a group commonly referred to as the 'heide circle'. it was in the kitchen of heide I that nolan painted the majority of his ned kelly series, while conducting an affair with sunday [with john's tacit approval of such a liaison - he was unable to fulfill her sexual desires]. details from the kitchen environment, such as the pattern of the table cloth, can be recognised in some of the ned kelly paintings. the complex professional, personal and often incestuous relationships between the reeds and those supported by them were well known.
self portrait | albert tucker + joy hester [via]
the 1940s also saw the emergence of the angry penguins, a modernist literary and artistic movement that put a cat amongst the pigeons within the australian art establishment. the most famous act the group is associated with was the ern malley affair, perhaps the greatest literary hoax of the 20th century. peter carey's my life as a fake is based on the saga - also a good read. [some day i would love to have a cup of tea with ern.] the penguin painting group included hester, tucker, nolan and arthur boyd. like their literary counterparts, the artists sought to fight against the conservative style of the time.
by the 1950s, a new circle of artists and poets had formed, including robert dickerson, judith wright, charles blackman [another favourite and father of musician bertie blackman], arthur boyd, john brack and barrett reid. sunday was the first to purchase a significant number of blackman works. in the 1960s, the reeds adopted joy hester and albert tucker's son, sweeney.
the reeds left the most thorough collection of australian modernist art ever assembled, which is now in the heide museum of modern art collection. designed by david mcglashan in 1963, heide II is one of my favourite buildings. and i try to get out there when i visit melbourne.
and if i were given the opportunity to live in any period in history, i would have been most happy hanging out with the reeds et al, around the kitchen table. especially if i lived in heide II.
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