Colin Lanceley (1938–2015) was an Australian artist known for his large three-dimensional paintings and for his drawing and printmaking. His works are held in public collections worldwide including the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, the National Gallery of Australia and the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

. He was the inaugural chair of the advisory board of the National Art School and a board member of the National Gallery of Australia. He died on 30 January 2015 in Sydney.

Early life

Colin Lanceley was born on 6 January 1938 in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, New Zealand. His parents were John Lassegue Lanceley, an Australian engineer of French and English descent, and Mary Anne Agnes Lanceley, née Ayers, of Scottish parentage. In 1939 the family moved to Sydney, Australia, where his father joined the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

for the duration of World War II. Lanceley left school at the age of 16, and was apprenticed as a colour photographic engraver in the printing industry."Colin Lanceley"

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 ...

. Retrieved 26 July 2022. During this time, two nights a week he attended North Sydney Technical College evening art classes taught by

Peter Laverty Peter Laverty (1926–2013) was a painter, print maker, art educator and gallery director. In 1971 to become Head of the National Art School, Sydney, Australia and was Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1971 to 1977.The New McC ...

. He enrolled in the Art Diploma course at

East Sydney Technical College The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in , an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts p ...

and graduated in 1960.

Career

Sydney – early work

In 1961, together with fellow East Sydney graduates Mike Brown and Ross Crothall, Lanceley formed the Annandale Imitation Realists, producing collaborative

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s incorporating found objects. Their work was exhibited at Melbourne's Museum of Modern Art and in Sydney at the Rudy Komon Gallery. Lanceley continued to work independently on mixed media collage paintings. Notable works of this period include ''The Greatest Show on Earth'' (1963), and ''Icarus I'' (1965).

London years

In 1964 Lanceley won the Helena Rubinstein Travelling Scholarship and the following year, together with his future wife Kay Morphett and her two children, he sailed for Europe to see its great works of art. After a brief stay in Tuscany with art critic Robert Hughes they moved to London, where they stayed for the next 16 years. In developing his style of three-dimensional paintings, Lanceley absorbed the influence of the

Modernists Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

in art, and drew inspiration also from the poetry of

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

and the music of

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

and

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

. In 1966 he was signed by British contemporary art gallery,

Marlborough Fine Art Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in ...

, which gave him his first London exhibition, curated by Jasia Reichardt, and also showed him in New York. Notable works of this early London period, described by Robert Hughes as "transitional", included ''Icarus II'' (1966), ''The Miraculous Mandarin'' (1966) and ''Atlas'' (1967). He also worked with printmaker Chris Prater at Kelpra Studios and in 1976 a solo exhibition of his prints was held at the

gallery. From 1967 onwards Lanceley and his family spent their summers in Europe, principally in Spain. A major influence at this time was the artist

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

, who visited his London studio. Notable works of this period included ''The Object of All Travel Is to Arrive at the Shores of the Mediterranean'' (1971–72) and ''The Lark Ascending'' (1978). He twice won the Krakow Biennale prize for prints. His work was increasingly concerned with landscape, a turning point being ''Chablis'' (1980–81). In the UK he taught part-time at the Bath Academy of Art and then at Chelsea College of Arts, where his colleagues included

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British Painting, painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with Abstract art, abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1 ...

Patrick Caulfield Patrick Joseph Caulfield, (29 January 1936 – 29 September 2005), was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are ''Po ...

and other artists. Throughout these years Lanceley continued to visit Australia periodically for exhibitions of his work. In 1981, following another extended visit to Europe during which he received the Europe Prize for Painting in Belgium, he finally decided to return to Australia.

Sydney – later work

Back in Australia Lanceley brought his European experience to bear on his depictions of landscape and the unseen human presence within it. Notable paintings included ''What Images Return'' (1981–82), ''Where Three Dreams Cross Between Blue Rocks (Blue Mountains)'' (1983), ''The Fall of Icarus'' (1985), ''Songs of a Summer Night (Lynne's Garden)'' (1985) and ''Midwinter Spring (James' Garden)'' (1986). In 1987 he was given a solo survey exhibition at the

, and in the same year a book on his work was published with an introduction by Robert Hughes. In 1988

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

produced a documentary, ''Colin Lanceley: Poetry of Place'', directed by Andrew Saw. Awards followed: the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(1990), a Creative Arts Fellowship (a Keating government initiative) (1991), an invitation to deliver the Lloyd Rees Memorial Lecture (1993), and appointment to the council of trustees of the National Gallery of Australia (1994). In 1993 his exhibition at Sherman Galleries was opened by then Prime Minister Paul Keating. Lanceley had returned with the idea of what a great art school could be, a place where students in all disciplines were taught by experienced practising artists. He advised Bob Carr, who became premier of New South Wales in 1995, on the transformation of his alma mater, the East Sydney Technical College, which was made independent of the

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

system and transformed into the National Art School. In 1997 Lanceley became the first chair of its advisory board, serving in an honorary capacity, for more than two years. New York dealer

Allan Frumkin Allan Frumkin (1927–2002) was an American art dealer with galleries in Chicago and New York City in the second half of the 20th century. Life and career Frumkin was born in Chicago in 1927. He attended public schools and graduated from the Unive ...

visited Sydney to see him, and held solo exhibitions of his work in New York in 1986 and 1993. In 1991 he was invited to lecture during an exhibition of his work at the

Arts Club of Chicago Arts Club of Chicago is a private club and public exhibition space located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, a block east of the Magnificent Mile, that exhibits international contemporar ...

, and in 2001 at the

New York Studio School The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of ...

. From the early 1990s Lanceley accepted a number of commissions. In collaboration with architect

Philip Cox Philip Sutton Cox (born 1 October 1939) is an Australian architect. Cox is the founding partner of Cox Architecture, one of the largest architectural practices in Australia. He commenced his first practice with Ian McKay in 1962, and ...

he designed mosaics for the

Sydney International Aquatic Centre The Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre (SOPAC) , formerly Sydney International Aquatic Centre (SIAC), is a swimming pool, swimming venue located in the Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Built in 1994, the SOPAC was a majo ...

, Homebush (1994) and painted the ceiling of the later demolished Lyric Theatre, Sydney (1998). In Melbourne he created a large glass work for the

County Court of Victoria The County Court of Victoria is the intermediate court in the Australian state of Victoria. It is equivalent to district courts in the other states. The County Court is the principal trial court in the state, having a broad criminal and civi ...

(2002). In the 2000s he exhibited for several years with Stuart Purves's Australian Galleries. Major works of this period included ''Burning Bright (Big Top)'' (2005), and ''Firebird (Stravinsky)'' (2006). In 2022 the National Art School celebrated his life's work with the exhibition ''Colin Lanceley: Earthly Delights''. Lanceley's papers are held in the Research Library and Archive of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Personal life

Lanceley met Kay Morphett while he was still a student at East Sydney, and they were together throughout the rest of his life, marrying in 1970 while in London. In addition to Kay's two children, the couple had two sons born in London. In London and Sydney, he always maintained a studio in the family home. Writers, poets and journalists as well as fellow artists formed part of his circle, among them his close friends

Shiva Naipaul Shiva Naipaul (; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian, Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist. Life and work Shiva Na ...

and

Al Alvarez Alfred Alvarez (5 August 1929 – 23 September 2019) was an English poet, novelist, essayist and critic who published under the name A. Alvarez and Al Alvarez. Background Alfred Alvarez was born in London, to an Ashkenazic Jewish mother and a ...

and Australian expat journalists

Phillip Knightley Phillip George Knightley (23 January 1929 – 7 December 2016) was an Australian journalist, critic, and non-fiction author. He became a visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln, England, and was a media commentator on the ...

and Alex Mitchell. Artists who became his friends back in Australia included Lloyd Rees, Jan Senbergs and

Lawrence Daws Lawrence Daws (born 1927) is an Australian painter and printmaker, who works in the media of oil, watercolour, drawing, screenprints, etchings and monotypes. In the 1980s he started making computer prints, and was possibly the first establi ...

, whose

Glass House Mountains The Glass House Mountains are a cluster of thirteen hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. The highest hill is Mount Beerwah at 556 metres above sea level, but the most identifiable of al ...

home in Queensland became a holiday destination for the family. In Sydney, Kay Lanceley, who worked at this time as an arts executive and public broadcasting publicist, decorated their house on Moore Park Road and then their studio home at Esther Lane with the couple's collection of art, ceramics and the artist's store of found objects. The family had beach houses successively at Coledale, Wombarra and Gerringong on the South Coast of New South Wales. In his final illness, Lanceley gave interviews to Elizabeth Fortescue in which he spoke about his love of "the layering of human culture". In a further interview with is old friend Alex Mitchell he expressed his belief in the mission of the artist to be "released from the restraints of the culture around him and explore an idea which transcends that" and allow "the transmission of ideas and sensations and feelings from one person to another... to move somebody so that it's changed their view of the world."Alex Mitchell, transcript of interview 7 December 2013, National Art School Archive

References

Sources

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