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== Foundation members ==
== Foundation members ==
The initiators appear in a group photograph taken on the day of the Academy's founding, and by the time of its first exhibition, held 8–29 April 1938 at the Education Department's Art Gallery, Loftus Street, Sydney, the catalogue lists many more, including the Patrons; Rt. Hon. R. G. Menzies, P.C., M.P., Alexander Melrose, LL..B., G. R. Nicholas, J. R. McGregor, Charles Lloyd Jones, Hon. John Lane Mullins, Howard Hinton, O.B.E.; the President Sir John Longstaff (who held the office until 1941); Vice-President Sydney Ure Smith, O.B.E.{{columns-list|colwidth=15em|
{{columns-list|colwidth=15em|
* [[John Longstaff|Sir John Campbell Longstaff]] (first president 1938-41)
* [[John Longstaff|Sir John Campbell Longstaff]] (first president 1938-41)
*Robert Henderson (Bob) Croll (Academy general secretary)<ref>{{Citation |last=Serle |first=Geoffrey |title=Croll, Robert Henderson (Bob) (1869–1947) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/croll-robert-henderson-bob-5824 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-11-01}}</ref>
*Robert Henderson (Bob) Croll (Academy general secretary)<ref>{{Citation |last=Serle |first=Geoffrey |title=Croll, Robert Henderson (Bob) (1869–1947) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/croll-robert-henderson-bob-5824 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-11-01}}</ref>

Revision as of 02:04, 2 November 2022

The Australian Academy of Art was a conservative Australian art organisation which operated for ten years and staged annual exhibitions between 1937 and 1946.

History

Les Dwyer (1937). Foundation members of the Australian Academy of Art, Canberra, 19 Jun 1937. Back row, left to right: McInnes, Heysen, Croll, Harold Herbert, Rowell. Front row, left to right: D. Mayo, Norman Carter, Ure Smith, Menzies, Hoff, Eldershaw. Daphne Mayo Collection, University of Queensland

Efforts to form an art academy in Australia were initially limited to one State: The Academy of Arts, Australia, under the presidentship of P. Fletcher Watson was founded in Sydney in 1891, with its first exhibition held in 1892, but survived only four years. The Society of Artists, founded in Sydney in 1897, and the Australian Artists’ Association, of Melbourne, both had members from various States, but held their regular exhibitions only in their home states.

Aspiring to the principles of the long-established, but independent and privately funded, also then conservative, British Royal Academy of Arts (founded in 1768), conservative Attorney-General Robert Menzies' envisaged an overarching, Federal organisation and subsequently formed the Australian Academy of Art in Canberra in 1937 and was its inaugural chair.[1] Its role was to advise government on art administration and to hold annual salon-style exhibitions.[2] He declared he could "find nothing but absurdity in much so-called "modern" art,'[3] and the Academy continued in an anti-Modernist stance, with one member, Norman St Clair Carter, who described 'contemporary art' as a 'fungoid growth.'[4]

The organisation failed to obtain a royal charter when opposed by the Contemporary Art Society and other modernist groups, so its last annual exhibition was in 1947,[5] though its effect remained influential in national collections, art criticism and art teaching, in particular through members who were instructors or administrators at Melbourne's National Gallery School, who held roles as curators, or who were critics for newspapers and magazines. William Nicholas Rowell, was appointed drawing master at the National Gallery in 1941 and was acting head of its art school briefly in 1946. William Beckwith (Billy) McInnes acting-director at the National Gallery of Victoria (1935) and an instructor in its art school,[6][7] and critic James Stuart (Jimmy) MacDonald who supported Menzies and reviled George Bell.

Foundation members

The initiators appear in a group photograph taken on the day of the Academy's founding, and by the time of its first exhibition, held 8–29 April 1938 at the Education Department's Art Gallery, Loftus Street, Sydney, the catalogue lists many more, including the Patrons; Rt. Hon. R. G. Menzies, P.C., M.P., Alexander Melrose, LL..B., G. R. Nicholas, J. R. McGregor, Charles Lloyd Jones, Hon. John Lane Mullins, Howard Hinton, O.B.E.; the President Sir John Longstaff (who held the office until 1941); Vice-President Sydney Ure Smith, O.B.E.

In addition to the foundation members, others who showed in the annual exhibitions hosted by the Academy were William Wallace Anderson (exhibited in the 1939 and 1943 shows), Archibald Bertram Webb (1938), Frank Charles Medworth (1939),[11] Joshua Smith (1938), Lyndon Raymond Dadswell (1938), Amalie Sara Colquhoun (1938), L. J. Harvey (1938), Isabel Mackenzie (1938) among others. Max Meldrum joined Menzies' organisation but resigned before the Academy held its first exhibition. Frederick William (Fred) Leist was a foundation member but soon resigned. Rayner Hoff had died before the inaugural exhibition, as did Paul Montford.

Opposition

The opposition to the Academy was led by George Bell, a spokesman for 'modern art'. His argument with Menzies was very public, pursued through the newspapers and in The Australian Quarterly.[12] In July 1938 he issued a leaflet, To Art Lovers, which led to the formation of the Contemporary Art Society of which he became founding president,[13] with Adrian Lawler as secretary.[14] Others who declared themselves against a conservative, outmoded 'Academy,' were Isabel May Tweddle and Norman Macgeorge, while Sydney Long and William Lister Lister publicly refused to join Menzies' creation.

References

  1. ^ "Academy of Art Formed at Canberra. Royal Charter Sought". Sydney Morning Herald. 21 June 1937. p. 10.
  2. ^ Berryman, Caitlin Stone and Jim. "Australian Academy of Art - Organisation - The Robert Menzies Collection: A Living Library". www.menziescollection.esrc.unimelb.edu.au. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  3. ^ Ashcroft, Bill (2004-10-01). "Reading Carey Reading Malley". Australian Literary Studies. doi:10.20314/als.d5ed90e35f. ISSN 0004-9697.
  4. ^ Lindsay, Frances, "Carter, Norman St Clair (1875–1963)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  5. ^ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art (Fourth ed.). Fitzroy BC, Vic. ISBN 0-522-85317-X. OCLC 80568976.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Findlay, Elisabeth (1992-01-01). "The Liberal Teaching Philosophies of William Dargie: The National Gallery School from 1946 to 1953". Australian Journal of Art. 10 (1): 66–79. doi:10.1080/03146464.1992.11432810. ISSN 0314-6464.
  7. ^ Haese, Richard, "McInnes, William Beckwith (Billy) (1889–1939)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  8. ^ Serle, Geoffrey, "Croll, Robert Henderson (Bob) (1869–1947)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  9. ^ McGrath, Joyce, "Buckmaster, Ernest (1897–1968)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  10. ^ Mackenzie, Andrew, "Rowell, John Thomas Nightingale (1894–1973)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-02
  11. ^ Sparks, Cameron, "Medworth, Frank Charles (1892–1947)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  12. ^ Bell, George (June 1938). "The Australian Academy: Its Influence on Australian Art". The Australian Quarterly. 10 (2). Australian Institute of Policy and Science: 44–48. doi:10.2307/20629531.
  13. ^ Williams, Fred, "Bell, George Frederick Henry (1878–1966)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
  14. ^ Fry, Gavin, "Lawlor, Adrian (1889–1969)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-11-01
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