Scrutinized Figures

Bettina Rheims
Martine
1989
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Irving Penn
Gypsy Rose Lee
1948
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

John O'Neal
Torsos from the Bonham Project
1992
gelatin silver prints
Princeton University Art Museum

Joan Moss
Mother and Child
Carol Blatcher and her mother Faye, Skokie, Illinois
1981
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Lee Miller
Pablo Picasso, Cannes
1958
gelatin silver print
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Tilo Rausch
Untitled
1992
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Harold Cazneaux
Life Class, Sydney Art School
1931
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Keast Burke
Labour
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

William Carrick
Abacus Seller, Saint Petersburg
ca. 1860
albumen print
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Julia Margaret Cameron
Deathbed Study of Adeline Grace Dogstoun
1872
albumen print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer (circle of Thomas Eakins)
Three Models supporting a Fourth
1886
albumen print
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Eikoh Hosoe
Embrace no. 59
ca. 1969-71
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

Lyndal Walker
Carl-Henrik and I with Painter's Trolley and Teal Drapery
2015
pigment print mounted on framed mirror
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Eva Vermandel
Brothers Heath
2006
inkjet print
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Nadav Kander
Portrait of cyclist David Millar
2011
pigment print on aluminum
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Julien Vallou de Villeneuve
Standing Model in Tragic Pose
ca. 1853
salted paper print
Princeton University Art Museum

from History 

It is the unregarded congruence:

The boy who cries 'Bull'
Because he is leading one
Past the antique cart
Which the winter's advent
Will convert to firewood.
He does not mark it
Nor will he mark its absence –
Himself, the guardian
Of a continuity he cannot see
And – grant him means –

Would injure readily . . .

– Charles Tomlinson (1963)

Made in 1961

George Herms
Untitled
1961
oil paint, gouache and ink on paper
Menil Collection, Houston

Wallace Berman
George Herms Exhibition
at Batman Gallery, San Francisco
1961
screenprint (poster)
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Sid Avery
Jayne Mansfield, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles
1961
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Gjon Mili
Jane Fonda
1961
gelatin silver print
San Diego Museum of Art

Esther Bubley
Mrs Mary Coit in Subway
1961
gelatin silver print
San Diego Museum of Art

Lewis Morley
Jean Shrimpton
1961
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Jacques Schnier
Pierced Relief
1961
bronze
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Arthur Lismer
Tree in Blue
1961
oil on panel
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Larry Bell
Untitled
1961
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Larry Bell
Untitled
1961
oil on paper, mounted on board
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

John Fox
A Glance in the Mirror
1961
oil on canvas
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Minor White
La Rue, Cape Meares, Oregon
1961
gelatin silver print
San Diego Museum of Art

Frederick Hammersley
On In
1961
oil on linen
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Claude Picard
Lady Beaverbrook
1961
oil on board
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Halston for Bergdorf Goodman
Hat
1961
velvet
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Peter Saul
Super Crime Team
1961
oil on canvas
Hall Collection, Schloss Derneburg, Germany

Our Bias  

 

The hour-glass whispers to the lion's roar,

The clock-towers tell the gardens day and night

How many errors Time has patience for,

How wrong they are in being always right.

Yet Time, however loud its chimes or deep,

However fast its falling torrent flows,

Has never put one lion off his leap

Nor shaken the assurance of a rose.

For they, it seems care only for success:
While we choose words according to their sound

And judge a problem by its awkwardness;

And Time with us was always popular.

When have we not preferred some going round

To going straight to where we are?

– W.H. Auden (1939)

Academic Figures

Anonymous French Artist
Académie
ca. 1775
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Anonymous Italian Artist 
Académie
17th century
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

attributed to Jacques-Louis David
Académie
ca. 1780
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Académie
ca. 1720
drawing
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Guillaume-Marie Borione
Académie
ca. 1850
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Matteo Rosselli
Académie
ca. 1610
drawing
Fondation Custodia, Paris

Gabriel Ferrier
Académie
1866
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Andrea Sacchi
Académie
before 1661
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Louis Boullogne the Younger
Study for Endymion
ca. 1710
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Baldassare Franceschini
Académie
ca. 1640
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Louis-Roland Trinquesse
Académie
ca. 1765
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Bernard Hall
Académie
1881
drawing
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Bernard Hall
Académie
ca. 1890
drawing
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Pietro Montana
Académie
ca. 1910
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Carle Vanloo
Académie
before 1765
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Noël Hallé
Académie
ca. 1737-44
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

from Return to Hinton

               Written on the author's return to Hinton Blewett from the United States

Ten years

        and will you be

                a footnote, merely,

England

        of the Bible

                open at Genesis

on the parlour table? 
        'God
                saw the light
that it was good.'
        It falls
                athwart the book
through the window-lace
        whose shadow
                decorates the sheets
of 'The Bridal March' –
        a square of white
                above the keyboard
and below
        a text which is a prayer.
                The television box
is one,
        the mullions and flagged floor
                of the kitchen
through the open door
        witness a second
                world in which
beside the hob
        the enormous kettles'

                blackened bellies ride –
as much the tokens of an order as
        the burnished brass.

         *              *             *

Death's
        not the enemy
                of you nor of your kind:
a surer death
        creeps after me
                out of that generous
rich and nervous land
        where, buried by
                the soft oppression of prosperity
locality's mere grist
        to build
                the even bed
of roads that will not rest
        until they lead
                into a common future
rational 
        and secure
                that we must speed
by means that are not either.
                    

– Charles Tomlinson (1963)

Mackinolty - Maar - McDiarmid - Marrinon

Chips Mackinolty
Australian Union of Students
Friendship Tour of Vietnam
1977
screenprint (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Chips Mackinolty
Eroding the Eye
1979
screenprint (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Chips Mackinolty
Hiroshima Day Anti-Uranium Rally
1977
screenprint (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Chips Mackinolty
Second Triennial May Day
Palace Revolution Ball
1977
screenprint (poster)-
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dora Maar
Money and Morals
1934
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dora Maar
Marionette dangling from Wall
ca. 1934
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dora Maar
L'Homme Sandwich
ca. 1934
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dora Maar
29 rue d'Astorg
(series, Surrealist Postcards)
1936-37
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

David McDiarmid
Only The Shallow Know Themselves
1994
digital laser print on board
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Australia

David McDiarmid
The Family Tree Stops Here Darling
1994
digital laser print on board
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Australia

David McDiarmid
Men as a Class are the Fetish
1978
printed paper collage
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

David McDiarmid
Sleaze Ball
1988
screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Linda Marrinon
Turned Down Harvard
1988
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Linda Marrinon
Guitar with Yellow Wristband
1988
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Linda Marrinon
Twins with Skipping-Rope, New York, 1973
2013
painted plaster, cord and muslin
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Linda Marrinon
Golden Woman
2018
painted plaster
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

from Anthem for St. Cecilia's Day

 

                (for Benjamin Britten)

  

In a garden shady this holy lady

With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,

Like a black swan as death came on

Poured forth her song in perfect calm;

And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin

Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,

And notes tremulous from her great engine

Thundered out on the Roman air.

Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,

Moved to delight by the melody,

White as an orchid she rode quite naked

In an oyster shell on top of the sea;

At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing

Came out of their trance into time again,

And around the wicked in Hell's abysses

The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

– W.H. Auden (1940)