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Details
- Other Title
- Tree Trunks
- Date
- 1964
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil, sandpaper on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 91.3 x 120.8 cm board; 104.5 x 134 x 4.6 cm framed
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r.corner, black synthetic polymer paint "Tucker 64".
- Credit
- Gift of the Albert & Barbara Tucker Foundation 2017
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 201.2017
- Copyright
- © Albert & Barbara Tucker Foundation. Courtesy of Smith & Singer Fine Art
- Artist information
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Albert Tucker
Works in the collection
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About
Albert Tucker, one of Australia’s most important post-war artists, helped reinvigorate and re-mythologise the Australian landscape through his modernist approach. Along with Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, John Perceval and Arthur Boyd, he was part of the group of artists active at Heide, near Melbourne, in the 1940s and enjoyed the patronage of John and Sunday Reed. Tucker left Australia in 1947 and spent the next thirteen years travelling and painitng in Japan, England, Europe and the United States.
As an expatriate artist living in Italy in the 1950s, Albert Tucker began to explore the ideas and imagery of the Australian landscape and mythology. ‘I was having nostalgic memories of Australia. I was remembering the dryness and gum tree trunks… I had that sense of dried out cratered form which were also volcanic landscapes, and they could also be wounds and gashes.’
In Rome Tucker met the acclaimed arte povera artist Alberto Burri, whose use of PVA and mixed media to build up his paint surfaces inspired Tucker to adopt the approach. The built-up surfaces he achieved with PVA, sand and other materials incorporated with paint are a noted characteristic of his work and realistically depict the ‘gashes and wounds’ of the harsh Australian landscape. Sand and sandpaper have been applied to the painting surface in ‘Trees I’ to great effect.
In the 1950s and 60s Tucker was determined to show Australians the forms and shapes of the country through both his paint treatment and subject matter. His handling of the themes of Australia’s people and land brought a fresh approach to painting in this country and contributed to the myth-making of Australia’s folk heroes and its unique and strange wildlife, all powered by his affection for the native landscape.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Albert Tucker (1965), Dominion Galleries, Sydney, 1965–1965
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, United States of America, 10 Mar 1967–24 Apr 1967
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersberg, Florida, St Petersberg, 24 Aug 1967–24 Sep 1967
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, University Art Museum (University of Texas), Austin, 26 Oct 1967–16 Nov 1967
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, State University of New York, New York, 07 Dec 1967–28 Dec 1967
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, University of Alabama, , 01 Feb 1968–07 Mar 1968
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Greenville Power & Light Company, , 25 Apr 1968–16 May 1968
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, 12 Sep 1968–07 Nov 1968
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, West Virginia University, Morgantown, 12 Jan 1969–09 Feb 1969
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, , 14 Sep 1969–12 Oct 1969
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, 02 Nov 1969–30 Nov 1969
The Australian painters 1964 - 1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Watkins Institute, Nashville, 08 Feb 1970–08 Mar 1970
Albert Tucker: promised gifts from the Estate, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 Jan 2007–11 Mar 2007
Albert Tucker landscapes, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 28 Jun 2008–22 Feb 2009
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Bibliography
Referenced in 9 publications
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Edmund Capon AM, OBE, Foundation Newsletter #8, Sydney, Jun 2006. not paginated
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Christie's, Australia Pty. Ltd., Christie's Australia. The Harold E Mertz Collection of Australian Art: Melbourne 28 June 2000, Melbourne, 2000, 131 (colour illus.). lot no. 118
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Dominion Galleries and Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, 1965, Sydney, 1965. cat.no. 12
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Gavin Fry, Albert Tucker, Sydney, 2006, 161 (colour illus.).
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Lesley Harding, Hinterlands: Albert Tucker's landscapes 1960-1975, 'Images and imaginings: Abert Tucker's landscapes', pg. 26-39, Victoria, 2008, 3 (colour illus.), 36, 44 (colour illus.). Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, On loan from Barbara Tucker 2006
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Ross K Luck, The Australian painters 1964-1966: contemporary Australian painting from the Mertz collection, Adelaide, 1967, 53 (illus.). cat.no. 43
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Patrick McCaughey (Editor), Bert & Ned: the correspondence of Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan, Carlton, 2006, 212 (colour illus., detail),213, 235 (colour illus.).
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Barry Pearce, Look, ''Albert Tucker: A chance for Sydney to get to know a Melbourne artist better', pg. 12, Sydney, Mar 2007, 12.
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Christopher Uhl, Albert Tucker, Melbourne, 1969. possibly cat.no. 12.38; dated 1965; private collection
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