Allan Mitelman (6 August 1946,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) is an Australian painter, printmaker and art teacher who arrived in Australia in 1953.

Biography

Allan Mitelman was brought to Australia from Poland as a child in 1953. He and photographer Jacqueline Mitelman (née MacGreggor) were briefly married.

Training and career

He received his early training from his art teacher, the Austrian-born sculptor

Karl Duldig Karl (Karol) Duldig (29 December 1902 – 11 August 1986) was a Jewish modernist sculptor.

, before studying architecture for a year. He then studied at the Prahran College of Advanced Education 1965–68. He consolidate his interest in printmaking with further studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) soon after which, in 1972, Mitelman was included with

Martin Sharp Martin Ritchie Sharp (21 January 1942 – 1 December 2013) was an Australian artist, cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Career Sharp was born in Bellevue Hill, New South Wales in 1942, and educated at Cranbrook private school, where one ...

Arthur Boyd Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the middle to late 20th century. Boyd's work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, ...

and Fred Williams in the exhibition ''Australian Prints'' at the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London and an etching and lithograph by Mitelman was acquired by the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York.

Teaching

Mitelman contributed to the arts through his teaching. He lectured at the National Gallery of Victoria School in 1972 and the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne where he was head of a separate department of printmaking, but in the merger of Prahran College with the VCA in 1992, he was replaced by John Scurry, Head of Printmaking at Prahran in a new and expanded department. Both had been students at Prahran together and they enjoyed an amicable friendship. He has been the subject of portraits by former students for the

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

, most notably Lewis Miller whose portrait of the artist won the Prize in 1998.

Style and reception

Mitelman's paintings are non-figurative and minimalist, inspired by children's early mark-making and musical scores, with an interest rhythms and harmonies of hue and texture through layering and manipulation of paint with a

palette knife A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for applying paint to the canvas, mixing paint colors, adding texture to the painted surface, paste, etc., or for marbling, decora ...

. Alan Krell and Suzanne Davis compare his work to that of the American artist

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced you ...

and the English artist

Roger Hilton Roger Hilton CBE (1911–1975) was a pioneer of abstract art in post-Second World War Britain. Often associated with the 'middle generation' of St Ives painters – Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon & Bryan Wynter – he spent much o ...

respectively.

McCulloch McCulloch is a Scottish surname. It's a variation of the Northern Irish surname McCullough. It's commonly found in Galloway. Notable people with the surname include: *Alan McCulloch (politician), New Zealand politician *Alan McLeod McCulloch ( ...

describes his paintings as like the prints in having "a sensuous refinement of surface enlivened with accents, their quality often being complemented by evocative titles."

Awards

* 1970 Geelong Print Prize * 1972 Henri Worland Print Prize, Warrnambool Art Gallery * 1973 VAB grant * 1974 Corio Art Prize * 1976 Wollongong Art Purchase Prize * 1976 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Prize * 1977 Bathurst Art Award * 1989 Fellowship from the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council * 2004 Sulman Prize, AGNSW

Collections

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, Canberra *

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Gallery ...

, Brisbane *

Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...

* Baillieu Library Print Collection, The

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, Victoria * Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Melbourne * Christchurch City Art Gallery, Christchurch * Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland * Museum of Modern Art, New York

Exhibitions

Solo

Mitelman held annual solo exhibitions from 1969 including in Melbourne at Crossley St, Powell St,

Pinacotheca A pinacotheca (Latin borrowing from grc, πινακοθήκη, pinakothēkē = grc, πίναξ, pinax, (painted) board, tablet, label=none + grc, θήκη, thēkē, box, chest, label=none) was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or anc ...

, 312 Lennox St, Deutscher Brunswick St.; in Sydney at

Macquarie Macquarie may refer to: People * Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of the British colony of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. * Elizabeth Macquarie Campbell, Lachlan Macquarie's second wife Locations * Division of Macquarie, an electoral district in th ...

, Garry Anderson, Ray Hughes; and in Perth at Galerie Düsseldorf. In 2004 the National Gallery of Victoria held a major survey of Mitelman's works on paper, curated by Elizabeth Cross, which also toured to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Group and survey

Mitelman's work was included in many print surveys and graphic art exhibitions. * 1974: ''Ninth International Print Biennale.'' Tokyo * 1975 ''Twelve Australian Lithographers.'' National Gallery of Victoria * 1976 ''East Coast Drawings''. IMA, Brisbane * 1989 ''Prints and Australia: Pre-settlement to Present'', National Gallery of Australia * 1992 ''Reference Points: A New Perspective'', Queensland Art Gallery * 1994 ''Silent Objects: Non-Objective Art from Melbourne.'' Centre for Contemporary Art, Hamilton, New Zealand * 1998 ''Southern Reflections, 10 Australian Artists.'' Stockholm, Sweden

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitelman, Allan Australian printmakers 1946 births Living people Art educators 20th-century Australian artists