Russell Drysdale
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Sir George Russell Drysdale (7 February 1912 – 29 June 1981), also known as Tass Drysdale, was an Australian
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
. He won the prestigious
Wynne Prize The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize ...
for ''
Sofala Sofala, at present known as Nova Sofala, used to be the chief seaport of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom, whose capital was at Mount Fura. It is located on the Sofala Bank in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It was founded by Somali merchants. This name wa ...
'' in 1947, and represented Australia at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1954. He was influenced by abstract and surrealist art, and "created a new vision of the Australian scene as revolutionary and influential as that of
Tom Roberts Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism. After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...
".


Early life and career

George Russell Drysdale was born in
Bognor Regis Bognor Regis (), sometimes simply known as Bognor (), is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns ...
,
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, England, to an Anglo-Australian pastoralist family, which settled in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia in 1923. Drysdale was educated at
Geelong Grammar School , motto_translation = 1 Corinthians 1:30: "For us, Christ was made wisdom"(1 Corinthians 1:30: Christ, who has been made for us in wisdom) , city = Corio, Victoria , country = Australia , coordinates = , ty ...
. He had poor eyesight all his life, and was virtually blind in his left eye from age 17 due to a
detached retina Retinal detachment is a disorder of the eye in which the retina peels away from its underlying layer of support tissue. Initial detachment may be localized, but without rapid treatment the entire retina may detach, leading to vision loss and blin ...
(which later caused his application for military service to be rejected). Drysdale worked on his uncle's estate in
Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...
, and as a jackaroo in Victoria. A chance encounter in 1932 with artist and critic
Daryl Lindsay Sir Ernest Daryl Lindsay (31 December 1889, in Creswick, Victoria – 25 December 1976, in Mornington), known as Dan Lindsay, was an Australian artist. Early life He was the youngest son in a large family born to Anglo-Irish surgeon Robert Ch ...
awakened him to the possibility of a career as an artist. Supported by a fellow artist, Drysdale studied with the modernist artist and teacher
George Bell George Bell may refer to: Law and politics * George Joseph Bell (1770–1843), Scottish jurist and legal author * George Alexander Bell (1856–1927), Canadian pioneer and Saskatchewan politician * George Bell (Canadian politician) (1869–1940) ...
in Melbourne from 1935 to 1938. He also made several trips to Europe; during 1938–39, he attended the
Grosvenor School The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a private British art school and, in its shortened form ("Grosvenor School"), the name of a brief British-Australian art movement. It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish wood engraver Iain Macnab in his h ...
in London and the Grande Chaumière in Paris. By the time of his return from the third of these trips in June 1939 Drysdale was recognised within Australia as an important emerging talent, but had yet to find a personal vision. His decision to leave Melbourne for Albury and then Sydney in 1940 was instrumental in his discovery of his lifelong subject matter, the Australian outback and its inhabitants. Equally important was the influence of fellow artist Peter Purves Smith in guiding him towards his characteristic mature style with its use of desolate landscapes inhabited by sparse figures under ominous skies.


Sydney

Drysdale's 1942 solo exhibition in Sydney (his second in point of time; his first had been in Melbourne in 1938) was a critical success, and established him as one of the leading Sydney modernists of the time, together with
William Dobell Sir William Dobell (24 September 189913 May 1970) was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named ...
, Elaine Haxton, and
Donald Friend Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (6 February 1915 – 16 August 1989) was an Australian artist and diarist who lived much of his life overseas. He has been the subject of controversy since the posthumous publication of diaries in which he wrote of sex ...
. In 1944, ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' sent him into far western New South Wales "to illustrate the effects of the then-devastating drought". With his series of paintings of drought-ravaged western New South Wales and, later, a series based on the derelict gold-mining town of Hill End, his reputation continued to grow during the 1940s. ''
Sofala Sofala, at present known as Nova Sofala, used to be the chief seaport of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom, whose capital was at Mount Fura. It is located on the Sofala Bank in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It was founded by Somali merchants. This name wa ...
'', a painting of the nearby town of
Sofala Sofala, at present known as Nova Sofala, used to be the chief seaport of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom, whose capital was at Mount Fura. It is located on the Sofala Bank in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It was founded by Somali merchants. This name wa ...
, won the Wynne Prize for landscape in 1947. His 1948 work, '' The cricketers'' has been described by the
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 ...
as "one of the most original and haunting images in all Australian art."


London 1950

His 1950 exhibition at London's
Leicester Galleries Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...
, at the invitation of Sir
Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
, was a significant milestone in the history of Australian art. Until this time, Australian art had been regarded as a provincial sub-species of British art; Drysdale's works convinced British critics that Australian artists had a distinctive vision of their own, exploring a physical and psychological landscape at once mysterious, poetic, and starkly beautiful. The exhibition initiated the international recognition of Australian art that quickly came to include Dobell,
Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...
,
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, ...
,
Clifton Pugh Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, (17 December 1924 – 14 October 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize. One of Australia's most renowned and successful painters, Pugh was strongly influenced by German Expr ...
, and others who came to national and international prominence in the 1950s.


Last years

Drysdale's reputation continued to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s as he explored remote Australia and its inhabitants. In 1954, together with Nolan and Dobell, he was chosen to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, and in 1960, at Bouddi near Gosford, New South Wales. Also in 1960, he was the first Australian artist to be given a retrospective by 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 ...
.John McDonald, "The past master", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', 11 April 1998, Spectrum, p. 12s In 1962 he co-wrote a travel book, ''Journey Among Men'', with Jock Marshall. They dedicated it to their wives, "who were good enough to stay at home". In 1963 the
Reserve Bank of Australia The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is Australia's central bank and banknote issuing authority. It has had this role since 14 January 1960, when the ''Reserve Bank Act 1959'' removed the central banking functions from the Commonwealth Bank. T ...
, then led by H. C. Coombs, appointed him to a small committee supervising the note designs for the new Australian decimal currency (which finally came into fruition in 1966). In 1969, Drysdale was
knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
ed for his services to art, and in 1980, he was appointed a
Companion of 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 ...
. His later years saw a marked falling off in the quantity of his output, which had never been large. Drysdale died in Sydney on 29 June 1981 of cancer. At his request, Sir Russell's cremated remains were placed in the shade of a tree by the church in the burial ground beside historic St Paul's Anglican Church, Kincumber.


Personal life

He was married twice, and had a son, Tim, and a daughter, Lynne. As an 11 year-old, Tim co-starred in the film ''Wherever She Goes'', on the life of
Eileen Joyce Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (died 25 March 1991) was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years. Her recordings made her popular in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War I ...
, the Tasmanian born pianist, playing the part of Eileen's brother. Tim took his own life in 1962, aged twenty one, and the following year, Drysdale's wife Bon also committed suicide. In 1964 Drysdale married Maisie Purves Smith, an old friend. Soon after Tim's suicide, Drysdale made the acquaintance of the composer
Peter Sculthorpe Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighboring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigin ...
, who had recently lost his father. The two spent a working holiday together in a house on the Tamar River in Tasmania, and became lifelong friends. Sculthorpe came to regard Drysdale as a role model, admiring the way he reworked familiar material in new ways. He said: "In later years he was often accused of painting the same picture over and over again. But his answer was that he was no different to a Renaissance artist, striving again and again to paint the perfect Madonna-and-Child. Since then, I've never had a problem about the idea of reusing and reworking my material. Like Tass, I've come to look on my whole output as one slowly emerging work". He dedicated works to Russell Drysdale and to the memory of Bonnie Drysdale.Graeme Skinner, "Pete and Tass; Sculthorpe and Drysdale", ''
ABC Radio 24 Hours ''Limelight'', formerly ''ABC Radio 24 Hours'', or simply ''24 Hours'', is an Australian digital and print magazine focusing on music, arts and culture. It is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Originally published by the Australian Broadcasting ...
'', August 1997, p. 34
Drysdale's second wife Maisie was the sister-in-law of the Canadian novelist
Robertson Davies William Robertson Davies (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished " men of letters" ...
, with whom Peter Sculthorpe discussed collaborating on an opera based on the Australian adventures of the Irish actor
Gustavus Vaughan Brooke Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (25 April 1818 – 11 January 1866), commonly referred to as G. V. Brooke, was an Irish stage actor who enjoyed success in Ireland, England and Australia. Early life Brooke was born in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest son of ...
.


Style and themes

Australian art scholar and gallery director
Ron Radford Ronald Warwick Radford (born 3 December 1949) is an Australian curator, who was the Director of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) from 2004 until 2014. He was previously the Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. H ...
argues that, towards the end of World War II, Drysdale triggered "'a general reddening' of Australian landscape art". Radford describes Drysdale's work as follows: "His dried up earth suggested that man had lost control of the land - nature had fought back and taken back". Drysdale's Australia was "hot, red, isolated, desolate and subtly threatening". His ''The Drover's Wife'' "cohabits in Australians' minds with
Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...
's ''Carcass'' paintings" as conveying a sense of desolation. Drysdale's red presents "a landscape deeply, intrinsically inhospitable" and conveys the "utter alienation" of the figures he paints in the landscape. Drysdale's use of colour photography as an aide-mémoire was the subject of an exhibition in 1987 at the NGV and publication which reveals in previously unknown photographic imagery this method of working and his stylisation in interpretation of subject matter and specific locations. Christine Wallace suggests that Drysdale "was the visual poet of that passive, all-encompassing despair that endless heat and drought induces", but that it was Sidney Nolan who, with a similar view, "most powerfully projected this take on Australia to the outside world". Lou Klepac, summing up in his 1983 work on Drysdale, says: "He found in the common elements of the landscape permanent and moving images which have become part of the visual lingua franca of modern Australia...Those who see in Drysdale's paintings a world remote from the comforts and pleasures they depend on, feel that he depicts loneliness and isolation. To him it was the opposite, a liberation from the anguish of the civilised world." In June 2017 one of Drysdale's last works, ''Grandma's Sunday Walk'' (1972), sold for $2.97 million, "the fifth-highest price for any Australian artwork at auction".Russell Drysdale's outback painting Grandma's Sunday Walk sells for $3m at auction
''ABC News'', 25 June 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.


See also

*
Australian art Australian art is any art made in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, from prehistoric times to the present. This includes Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, early-twentieth-century painters, print makers, photographers, and ...


References


Further reading

*. Republished as ''Russell Drysdale'' in 1996 by Murdoch Books () * * * * * * *


External links


Russell Drysdale
at 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 ...

NGV/ABC Drysdale exhibition
(also available a

. Contains biography and images of many of Drysdale's works.
''A football game'' 1943
-
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery The Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat, both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian H ...

Russell Drysdale on Artabase. ''The Bath'' 1941
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drysdale, Russell 1912 births 1981 deaths People from Bognor Regis British emigrants to Australia Companions of the Order of Australia Australian Knights Bachelor People educated at Geelong Grammar School Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière Wynne Prize winners 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists Australian contemporary artists Australian male painters