Tuckson, Fairweather and the crisis of the easel picture

In conjunction with the exhibition Synergy: Tony Tuckson – drawing into painting at Delmar Gallery, art historian and curator Terence Maloon presented a lecture on two major Australian 20th century artists, Ian Fairweather and Tony Tuckson. In particular, he discussed how each artist responded to, and acted out, what the critic Clement Greenberg described in 1948 as the ‘crisis of the easel picture’.

Watch the recorded version below or on our Youtube channel

Synergy: Tony Tuckson – drawing into painting

Tuckson’s art is a classic example of transvaluation, where mess turns into articulate composition, roughness into delicacy, accident into design, clumsiness into grace, chaos into cosmos, matter into ‘mind’. – Terence Maloon

Tony Tuckson’s stature in Australian art has grown exponentially since his death in 1973 at the age of 52. His prolific output over a mere 25 years has been gradually uncovered and continuously re-estimated.

Synergy: Tony Tuckson – drawing into painting reveals Tuckson as a source of inexhaustible creative improvisation. Delving into the Tuckson Estate archives, Maloon and Oates discovered a wealth of never-exhibited works on paper replete with artistic surprises. Over 30 of these works are presented in this exhibition along with key paintings, spanning the remarkable adventure of Tuckson’s life’s work from his diploma painting at the National Art School in 1949 to his sublime abstract expressionist paintings of 1970 – 1973.

Synergy: Tony Tuckson – drawing into painting is an ANU Drill Hall Gallery travelling exhibition, curated by Terence Maloon and Tony Oates. The ANU Drill Hall Gallery presented the exhibition 21 April – 18 June, 2023 before it toured to Delmar Gallery, 22 June – 4 August 2024.

For more information about the exhibition and to view photos from both shows visit:
https://www.trinity.nsw.edu.au/case/synergy-tony-tuckson-drawing-into-painting/
https://dhg.anu.edu.au/event_post/tony-tuckson-drawing-into-painting/

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue which can be purchased here: https://dhg.anu.edu.au/publications/