Art collections prove insightful
COLLECTING is associated with memory and curiosity. It has educational benefits and enormous appeal.
Our city’s public art collections offer a wealth of historical detail and also fascinating insights into the hobby, and sometimes the compulsion, of collecting.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery has several enviable permanent collections and bequests to draw upon when creating their fascinating ‘in house’ exhibitions.
The large Lindsay Gallery at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is displaying “Dreams of Fine Publishing: Lionel and Norman Lindsay’s Books.”
Both brothers aspired to illustrate rare and beautiful books, and both had, to some degree, success in fulfilling this dream.
Each brought their individual responses to a variety of the topics. Lionel was a superb draughtsman, conservative, and with a sense of propriety while Norman was more the languid sensualist with an eye for ironic humour.
Within the area of illustration both artists created bookplates for clients, friends, and family. The presence of a bookplate can provide useful evidence in the provenance of books and personal libraries. Bookplates are highly collectable items.
The use of a bookplate or ex libris dates back to the time of Amenhotep III, the grandfather of Tutankhamen, but the actual term was first recorded was in 1791 by John Ireland in his “Hogarth Illustrated” trilogy.
The styles in bookplates reflect the art and decoration of their eras and this is true for those by the Lindsays. Each label includes the owner’s name as well as some feature or motif pertinent to them.
The small Lindsay Gallery is presenting “Sergeant James Wieneke’s War” an exhibition that documents life in camp as well as battle action in World War II played out in the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
Wieneke’s quick pencil sketches and those completed with pen and wash have an eye witness immediacy that has remained over time. Wieneke was the artist who designed and painted the impressive mural in St Joseph’s Church at Kangaroo Point.
He owned the prestigious Moreton Galleries in Brisbane, supported Bill Bolten’s drive for the establishment of the Lionel Lindsay Art Gallery and Library in Toowoomba, and from 1967 until 1974 he was the director of the Queensland Art Gallery.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is also featuring the exhibition “Likeness: Portraits from the Collections.” In true portraiture style the works show appearance, personality, mood, and something of the inner person.
From the formal ‘personages’ of Robert Cay and his wife, the tattooed bunny by Rona Green, and Alasdair Macintyre’s colourful artist in a line up of grey people to the delightful “Jackdaw of Rheims,” the internal turmoil of Mike Parr, and Daphne Mayo’s plaster baby’s head we have a telling and informative microcosm of the genre.