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August 23, 2007
I see that the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is have an exhibition of portraits by John Brack. I'll definitely go when I'm next in Canberra in early September, as Brack was a painter of modern life - he represented the starkness, shadows and i brooding self-reflection of Australian modernity:
John Brack, The Bar, 1954
This refers to a time long ago, when wowsers ruled the country and the pubs closed at 6pm. It is the world of my father and they knocked down the booze so fast after work that they drove home to the family meal drunk.
Brack has such a strong sense of form and colour even when doing portraits:
John Brack, Barry Humphries in the character of Mrs Everage, 1969, oil on canvas
His works are graphic, animated scenes of banal existence that allow for a larger, more complex critique.
John Brack, Collins St., 5p.m. 1955, oil on canvas
My favourites are the Shop Paintings from the 1960s, which represent the relationship between the observers looking in on a shop front; the dynamics of sealed-off, glassed-in occupants in the shop and the barricade that separates the observer from the occupants of the space.
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