This exhibition honours Australia's most notable Surrealist. It is the first overview by the Art Gallery of New South Wales of Gleeson's drawings and includes some of his earliest, made in the late 1930s, to the most recent. There is also a selection of key paintings relating to these drawings from public and private collections.
Drawings for Paintings
Opens this Saturday 12 April at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
This exhibition honours Australia's most notable Surrealist. It is the
first overview by the Art Gallery of New South Wales of Gleeson's
drawings and includes some of his earliest, made in the late 1930s, to
the most recent. There is also a selection of key paintings relating to
these drawings from public and private collections.
James Gleeson has created an extraordinary visual feast as challenging,
eloquent and surprising as any Surrealist who preceded him. Studying
the drawings with paintings in mind intensifies our experience of them
- their intimacy, scale and the suggestive power of pencil or charcoal
on paper offer a sympathetic and informed insight into his imagination.
Comprising 110 works of art, the exhibition presents a major
reassessment of the inter-relationship between drawing and painting in
Gleeson's oeuvre, and proffers new perspectives on his distinctive
iconography and the themes that have fascinated him throughout his long
career. The selected works are drawn primarily from the Art Gallery of
New South Wales collection, which has been much enriched as a result of
the generous gift of over 400 drawings from the artist and his partner,
Frank O'Keefe.
James Gleeson's gentleness belies the dramatic power and monumentality
of his work. He is not only an acclaimed painter and draughtsman, but
has also distinguished himself as a writer and curator. Now in his 88th
year, Gleeson has produced a formidable corpus of drawings and
paintings that explore the reaches of his unique imagination. They are
often epic in the scale of their vision and always meticulous in
quality and execution.
In the image: italy, 1951.
ON VIEW:
Saturday 12 April to Sunday 15 June 2003
Telephone: (02) 9225 1744 or recorded information (02) 9225 1790
National Toll Free: 1800 679 278
Hours: 10am to 5pm, 7 days a week
Admission: Free of Charge
MEDIA INFORMATION CONTACT
Claire Martin telephone (02) 92251734 or 0414 437 588
Email clairem@ag.nsw.gov.au
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road,
The Domain,
Sydney