Jude Rae SL 264 2010 oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Jude Rae SL 266 2010 oil on linen Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney |
Jude Rae SL 349 2015 oil on linen National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Jude Rae SL 359 2016 oil on linen Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney |
Brassaï Kiki with Accompanist ca. 1932 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Brassaï Dancer at the Opéra, Paris ca. 1935-36 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Brassaï Giacometti in his Studio, Paris ca. 1948 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Brassaï Jean Genet, Paris 1950 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Willem De Kooning Woman V 1952-53 oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Willem De Kooning July 4th 1957 oil on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Willem De Kooning Two Figures in a Landscape 1968 oil on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Willem De Kooning Figures in a Landscape 1974 pastel and charcoal on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Léon Bakst Costume Design for Pavlova in Swan Lake ca. 1904 watercolor and graphite on paper McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas |
Léon Bakst Costume de Scène ca. 1909 lithograph Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York |
Léon Bakst Costume Design for Shah Zeman 1910 watercolor and gouache on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Léon Bakst Costume Design for Odalisque 1910 watercolor and gouache on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
from Pleasure Island
What there is as a surround to our figures
Is very old, very big,
Very formidable indeed; the ocean
Stares right past us as though
No one here was worth drowning, and the eye, true
Blue all summer, of the sky,
Would not miss a huddle of huts related
By planks, a dock, a state
Of undress and improvised abandon
Upon unshadowed sand.
To send a cry of protest or a call for
Protection up into all
Those dazzling miles, to add, however sincerely,
One's occasional tear
To that volume, would be rather silly,
Nor is there one small hill
For the hopeful to climb, one tree for the hopeless
To sit under and mope;
The coast is a blur and without meaning
The churches and routines
Which stopped there and never cared or dared to
Cross over to interfere
With this outpost where nothing is wicked
But to be sorry or sick,
But one thing unneighbourly, work. Sometimes
A visitor may come
With notebooks intending to make its quiet
Emptiness his ally
In accomplishing immortal chapters,
But the hasty tap-tap-tap
Of his first day becomes by the second
A sharp spasmodic peck
And by the third is extinct; we find him
Is very old, very big,
Very formidable indeed; the ocean
Stares right past us as though
No one here was worth drowning, and the eye, true
Blue all summer, of the sky,
Would not miss a huddle of huts related
By planks, a dock, a state
Of undress and improvised abandon
Upon unshadowed sand.
To send a cry of protest or a call for
Protection up into all
Those dazzling miles, to add, however sincerely,
One's occasional tear
To that volume, would be rather silly,
Nor is there one small hill
For the hopeful to climb, one tree for the hopeless
To sit under and mope;
The coast is a blur and without meaning
The churches and routines
Which stopped there and never cared or dared to
Cross over to interfere
With this outpost where nothing is wicked
But to be sorry or sick,
But one thing unneighbourly, work. Sometimes
A visitor may come
With notebooks intending to make its quiet
Emptiness his ally
In accomplishing immortal chapters,
But the hasty tap-tap-tap
Of his first day becomes by the second
A sharp spasmodic peck
And by the third is extinct; we find him
Next improving his mind
On the beach with a book, but the dozing
Afternoon is opposed
To rhyme and reason and chamber music,
The plain sun has no use
For the printing press, the wheel, the electric
Light, and the waves reject
Sympathy: soon he gives in, stops stopping
To think, lets his book drop
And lies, like us, on his stomach watching
As bosom, backside, crotch
Or other sacred trophy is borne in triumph
Past his adoring by
Souls he does not try to like; then, getting
On the beach with a book, but the dozing
Afternoon is opposed
To rhyme and reason and chamber music,
The plain sun has no use
For the printing press, the wheel, the electric
Light, and the waves reject
Sympathy: soon he gives in, stops stopping
To think, lets his book drop
And lies, like us, on his stomach watching
As bosom, backside, crotch
Or other sacred trophy is borne in triumph
Past his adoring by
Souls he does not try to like; then, getting
Up, gives all to the wet
Clasps of the sea or surrenders his scruples
To some great gross braying group
That will be drunk till Fall. The tide rises
And falls, our household ice
Drips to death in the dark and our friendships
Prepare for a weekend
They will probably not survive: for our
Clasps of the sea or surrenders his scruples
To some great gross braying group
That will be drunk till Fall. The tide rises
And falls, our household ice
Drips to death in the dark and our friendships
Prepare for a weekend
They will probably not survive: for our
Lenient amusing shore
Knows in fact about all the dyings, is in
Fact our place, namely this
Place of the skull, a place where the rose of
Self-punishment will grow.
Knows in fact about all the dyings, is in
Fact our place, namely this
Place of the skull, a place where the rose of
Self-punishment will grow.
– W.H. Auden (1948)