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Canberra Today 15°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Remembering Russell: Celebrating a centenary of Drysdale

“RUSSELL Drysdale was like Titian compared to some of our other painters,” says biographer Lou Klepac.

On February 7, it will be 100 years since the great Australian painter Drysdale was born.

Happily, two of Canberra’s leading cultural institutions, the Australian War Memorial and the National Library of Australia, plan to mark Drysdale’s contribution to our nation’s art.

As well, Albury Art Gallery, in the town where Drysdale spent his most formative years, will stage a Drysdale exhibition in March, while the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney has joined Carrick Hill in SA to hold an exhibition of the artist’s drawings, curated by Klepac, which will tour to Sydney, Adelaide and the Mornington Peninsula.

There is immense serendipity in this regional focus, since Drysdale had his roots in the land. Like Sidney Nolan, his sensitivity to the Australian interior captured the imagination of ordinary Australians, who instantly recognised the indomitable figures in an arid landscape.

“So ironically Australian” is how the head of art at the War Memorial, Lola Wilkins, puts it.

Forty years ago, countless lounge rooms in Australia boasted a print of his 1948 Wynne prize-winner, “Sofala”, but Drysdale is half-forgotten these days.

“It’s a pity the major State galleries didn’t do anything,” his daughter Lynne Clarke notes, “but it’s terrific that he is being recognised.”

A giant in the art world, Drysdale was held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1941 even before the State galleries in Australia bought his paintings.

The Queen, The Queen Mother, Sir Kenneth Clark, Sir Laurence Olivier and Evelyn de Rothschild bought Drysdales and Rupert Murdoch is mad about them.

Wilkins says the War Memorial was lucky to acquire “A Soldier”, which “shows something about the experience of all those young soldiers”.

Ironical, because Drysdale, plagued by a detached retina in one eye, was unable to enlist. Returning from Europe at the outbreak of World War II, he was persuaded to do his bit by painting our soldiers, many moving through Albury railway station. In the 1970s, the artist gave the memorial many such illustrations.

By the time the Memorial belatedly tried to make him a war artist, he had moved on to become one of the giants of Australian art. Perhaps 2012 will be the year of his re-discovery.

“Russell Drysdale at War”, curated by Sally Cunningham, at the Australian War Memorial from February 7. “Russell Drysdale Drawings” is at the S.H. Ervin Gallery on Observatory Hill, Sydney February 17-March 25. Lou Klepac’s new book “Russell Drysdale the Drawings” will be launched by NSW Governor Marie Bashir at the National Library of Australia on March 14.
Images reproduced with permission of the artist’s estate.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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