Henry Moore. Reclining Figure: Angles

Henry Moore (England, b.1898, d.1986) Reclining figure: Angles

The Art Gallery of NSW - outside

The equestrian sculpture, above is The Offerings of Peace, by Gilbery Bayes. Cast in London in 1923, and put in place in 1926. The inscription beneath reads 'The real and lasting victories / are those of peace and not of war.' Peace offers the Arts and Plenty. These are represented by Greek comic and tragic masks, a lyre and some fruits.


"The façade and old wing of the Gallery were built between 1896 and 1909. Architecturally, Sydney's Art Gallery reflects nineteenth century ideas about the cultural role of a gallery as a temple to art and civilizing values." http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/history/building

The inscription beneath The Offerings of War reads 'That our house may stand forever / and that justice and mercy grow.' War holds a staff topped by a figure of Winged Victory. He also holds a bundle of swords and broken spear shafts.

To find out about the bronze reliefs in the facade, and why there are only 4 of them, click here.

Art Express

The reason i called in to the Art Gallery of NSW the other day was for a look at the Art Express exhibition. This is a selection of some of the major art works submitted by NSW Higher School Certificate (the final school credential) students the year before. There's some amazingly talented young people in our community. I didn't pay $8 to look at the Archibalds - the images available on the web (link in yesterday's post) didn't inspire.

At the time the Archibald winner was announced I quietly thought it was a bit like an HSC major work, but I've revised that view. Some of the HSC major works are much better in my humble opinion. I enjoyed some of the video/anime, ceramics, photography and other media.

The young boys above were entranced by some of the video installations.

Below: Can You See Us by Courtney Maron Sexton from Lucas Heights Community School, and museum attendant

Check out some of the other works by great young Australians: Art Express

I also loved Treason of Words by Matilda Moylan-Blaikie; she represents visually how words and space appear to her as a person with a form of dyslexia/perception dysfunction. Beautiful. The web image doesn't convey it fully of course (maybe an argument against my Archibald statement above!) As well, I particularly liked Joe Toutai Alone's work , Harriet Ester Gordon-Anderson's Mother about her mother with chronic fatigue syndrome, Sothearoth Loeu's Untold Stories of tortured faces, Constantin Rongas's George's Cafe, Courtney Maron Sexton's Can You See Us, Emily Diana Sijibat's Untitled (the full work is so much more astounding than here).

Behind The Archibald

Every year the Art Gallery of NSW has 3 art competitions – the Archibald Prize for portraiture, the Wynne Prize for landscape painting and the Sulman Prize for best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

This store room was open as paintings were being moved from here to elsewhere. As the exhibitions were underway, I assume these were unsuccessful entrants.

Archibald entrants and winner; Wynne Prize; Sulman Prize

Free Art

Fig tree in The domain, behind the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Now, here's something interesting I read in the paper yesterday. Apparently, the Art Gallery of NSW, with 1.3 million visitors last year, was more often visited than the Guggenheim in New York, Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. More here. (But wasn't the Guggenheim closed part of last year? And the Getty's visitors are self-restricting because it's hard to get to by public transport and you have to book a parking space ahead. Surely this can't be Australian cultural cringe/hype?)

Best of all, the AGNSW is free for permanent exhibitions. Every year the AGNSW has a coompetition for portraiture called the Archibald prize

Are art museums free where you are? For me, the greatest free museums in the world are the British Museum and the National Gallery in London. The Metropolitan in New York suggests a donation, but it is not compulsory.

I'm one of those people who believe that culture, education and knowledge should be free for all - paid for by a progressive tax system - public libraries, art museums, museums.

[And apropos of none of that - today is the last day of summer; our seasons here change officially on 1 March, 1 June, 1 Sep and 1 Dec. And in Sydney, autumn is my favourite].