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October 12, 2012
Jeffrey Smart, the Australian painter has an retrospective exhibition of paintings of his industrial wastelands and concrete urban streetscapes at the University of South Australia's Samstag Art Museum. They are full of bright colour, sold structure and strong sunlight.There is a precise attention to clean lines and geometric composition indicating carefully composed compositions.
Jeffrey Smart, Rushcutters Bay Baths, Sydney, 1961, oil on canvas
In many of the pictures form and structure dominate. In the manmade structures such as roadways and apartment blocks or public buildings, there is the occasional figure, which often looks as a mere compositional ploy. There is often a fence, a building or a poster stretches across the whole width of the frame that helps to evoke a sense of separation, even isolation.
Jeffrey Smart, Practice, Sydney, 1961, oil on canvas
I found the Sydney paintings of the 1960s intriguing. These were made before he left for Italy.
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