Search Results

(Ross)

(b Dunedin, 1898; d Toronto, 1982).

Canadian teacher, writer and historian of New Zealand birth. He studied architecture in New Zealand, and after service in World War I, he went to the University of Liverpool in 1919 as the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Scholar. He then emigrated to Canada (1923) and began to teach at the University of Toronto, where he spent almost his entire professional life. Arthur was an ardent supporter of the Modern Movement but also promoted an awareness of Canada’s historic colonial buildings, which were derived from the English Georgian style: the simple lines and sparing ornament typical of such buildings dating from the late 18th century, as described in his book The Early Buildings of Ontario (1938), seemed to anticipate the goals of modern architecture. He was the architect for the restoration in 1937 of St Andrew’s Church, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and became a pioneer of the conservation movement in Ontario. His survey of Toronto architecture, ...

From Anatomical studies to landscape painting to the Biomorphism of Surrealism, the biological realm historically provided a significant resource for numerous artists. More recently, Bio Art became a term referring to intersecting domains that comprise advances in the biological sciences and their incorporation into the plastic arts. Of particular importance in works of Bio Art is to summon awareness of the ways in which the accelerating biomedical sciences alter social, ethical and cultural values in society.

Coming to the fore in the early 1990s Bio Art is neither media specific nor locally bounded. It is an international movement with practitioners in such regions as Europe, the US, Russia, Australia and the Americas. Several subgenres of Bio Art exist within this overarching term:

(i) Artists who employ the iconography of the 20th and 21st century sciences, including molecular and cellular genetics, transgenically altered living matter and reproductive technologies as well as the diverse fields of neuroscience. All traditional media such as painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking and drawing are employed to convey novel ways of representing life forms. Images of chromosomes, the double helix, magnetic resonance imaging body scans and neuroanatomy comprise this iconography. The molecular underpinnings of the living world have also become visible through high technological instrumentation when artists incorporate such pictorialisations as part of their practice. Representations span both genotypic variations and phenotypic ones. Artists include Suzanne Anker (...

(b Hawker, Port Augusta, S. Australia, March 11, 1900; d San Francisco, CA, Aug 10, 1983).

American photographer of Australian birth. Bruehl trained as an electrical engineer in Melbourne, but in 1919 he emigrated to the USA. He developed his interest in photography while working for the Western Electric Company, New York. In 1923 he attended an exhibition by students of Clarence H(udson) White, who was then considered America’s most prominent Pictorialist photographer. White agreed to teach him privately, but by 1924 Bruehl had become both a regular student at White’s New York school and a member of his summer faculty in Canaan, CT. White encouraged the individualism shown by his students. Among them, Bruehl, Paul Outerbridge and Ralph Steiner became known for a crisp, graphic style that would distinguish the best commercial photography in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1927 Bruehl opened his own studio, which prospered in New York until 1966. The photograph Untitled (Riverside, U. CA, Mus. Phot., see 1985 exh. cat., no. 20) of an apple, camera and lamp exemplifies his use of high contrast with black background and is an example of the table-top still-lifes that appeared in such magazines as ...

Term applied to an architectural and interior design style prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the USA and Australia, countries formerly colonized by Britain. The style, used mostly for domestic architecture, was based on buildings of early colonial periods and had much in common with the contemporary Neo-Georgian tendency in Britain (e.g. Annie Longfellow Thorp House, 1887); later developments on the west coast of the USA drew on Spanish styles. It became popular in response to a reaction against the ornate eclecticism of late 19th-century architecture and the search for a new aesthetic: Colonial Revival was promoted as a ‘national’ style, rooted in the foundations of the nations and suited to their environment and culture. A similar stimulus produced revivals of colonial styles in other countries, such as South Africa, where the Cape Dutch style was revived in work by Herbert Baker around the end of the 19th century, and Brazil, where features of Portuguese colonial architecture appeared in the work of ...

[Friström, Clas Edvard]

(b Torhamn, nr Karlskrona, Sweden, Jan 23, 1864; d San Anselmo, CA, March 27, 1950).

Sweden-born painter and teacher, active in Australia, New Zealand, and America. In 1884, Fristrom joined his older brother, the painter Oscar Fristrom (1856–1918), in Queensland, married in 1886, and became an Australian citizen in 1888. Employed as a photographic retoucher, Fristrom was a self-taught artist and from 1899 to 1902 he exhibited 53 paintings, including landscapes and figure studies, some featuring Aborigines, at the Queensland Art Society exhibitions. Fristrom’s artistic success is indicated by two commissions from the state government and enthusiastic reviews in the press.

In 1903 Fristrom travelled to the United States and then to New Zealand, settling in Auckland and joining the Auckland Society of Arts. He exhibited 60 paintings there, almost all landscapes, from 1904 to 1914. Until 1911 Fristrom regularly travelled around New Zealand, from Gisborne to Hokitika, selling his paintings at auctions. He also taught at the Elam School of Art, Auckland from ...

American architects and designers, also active in Australia and India. Marion Mahony Griffin (née Mahony) (b Chicago, 14 Feb 1871; d Chicago, 10 Aug 1961) worked together with her husband Walter Burley Griffin (b Maywood, IL, 24 Nov 1876; d Lucknow, 11 Feb 1937) after their marriage in 1911. She was the second woman to graduate in architecture (1894) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and worked for Dwight Perkins (1867–1941) before joining Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in 1895. There she produced many of the perspective drawings for Wright’s designs, including several of those used for the influential Wasmuth portfolio Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright (Berlin, 1910), which are among the finest architectural drawings of the 20th century. After Wright’s departure from Chicago in 1909, she assisted Hermann von Holst, who took over his practice. In Wright’s studio she also met Walter Burley Griffin, who had studied architecture (...

[Hawai’i]

Group of Polynesian islands and islets in the North Pacific Ocean c. 3500 km west of California. In 1959 it became a state of the USA. Of the eight large islands and c. 50 islets, only Kaua’i, Ni’ihau, O’ahu, Moloka’i, Lana’i, Maui, and Hawai’i are inhabited, although three others, Kaho’olawe, Necker, and Nihoa, were inhabited periodically in the past. Settlement of the Hawaiian islands began c. ad 600 with the arrival by great double canoes of central-east Polynesians. By c. ad 1300 contact between Hawai’i and its homelands appears to have ceased, and the islands were isolated from significant cultural contact until 1778, when Capt. James Cook came on them during his voyage between Tahiti and the north-west coast of America. The artistic, social, and cultural traditions described here have their roots in east Polynesia but have developed into a distinctive Hawaiian style. The Hawaiian language is closely related to south-east Marquesan and to Tahitian but is not mutually intelligible with either....

(b Saint John, NB, Oct 1838; d Sydney, NSW, Dec 27, 1904).

Australian architect of Canadian birth. The son of a carpenter, he trained in Boston, MA, under Edward Clarke Cabot (1818–91). When the American Civil War broke out in 1861 he travelled to India, but on arriving in Sydney in 1863 he decided to stay to work with Edmund Blacket. By 1865 he was Blacket’s chief assistant, but he left in May 1869 for a brief partnership with John Hilly (1810–83), establishing his own practice later that year. For the next 30 years his mastery of a complex and asymmetrical free-Gothic style, combined with an outstanding skill in the use of timber and brickwork, was demonstrated in many significant buildings, for example the cathedrals at Armidale (1871) and Grafton (1880) and churches at Denman (1871), Branxton (1873) and Dapto (1882). The stone-vaulted chapel of the Sacred Heart (...

(Alston)

(b Harrisburg, PA, July 1, 1885; d Santa Barbara, CA, April 28, 1969).

American architect, active in Australia and New Zealand. Lippincott studied architecture (1905–9) at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and on graduation worked for the firms of Von Holst and Fyfe (1909–11) and Spencer and Powers (1912), both in Chicago. In 1913 Lippincott became chief draughtsman to Walter Burley Griffin, becoming a junior partner and moving to Australia with Griffin in 1914, when he also married Griffin’s sister, Genevieve. Lippincott participated in planning the new capital of Canberra and managed the firm’s Melbourne office. It is difficult to distinguish his designs from those of Griffin, and Lippincott’s own house (1917), 21 Glenard Drive, Heidelberg, Victoria, clearly reveals the influence of the Prairie school. In 1920, in partnership with Edward Billson, who also worked in Griffin’s office, he won the competition for the Arts Building (1921–6; for illustration see Auckland), University of Auckland, and in ...

[Huai, Leonard Charles]

(b Christchurch, July 5, 1901; d New York, May 15, 1980).

American film maker, sculptor, and painter of New Zealand birth. He began work in New Zealand, then moved to Australia, Samoa, and England (where he settled in 1926). Tusalava (1929) was the first of his 24 films. He pioneered various methods of ‘direct’ film making, eliminating the camera by painting directly on to clear film (Colour Box, 1935), developing the ‘rayogram’ technique (Colour Cry, 1952) and scratching black film (Free Radicals, 1958). He experimented with colour processing in Rainbow Dance (1936) and Trade Tattoo (1937).

The batiks (e.g. Polynesian Connection, 1928) and oil paintings (e.g. Jam Session, 1936; both New Plymouth, NZ, Govett-Brewster A.G.) that Lye exhibited with the Seven and Five Society (1927–34) and in the International Surrealist Exhibition (1936) were influenced by his profound study of tribal art. In 1944...

[tribal art]

The market for ‘tribal art’ emerged in the first decades of the 20th century. By way of avant-garde artists and pioneering dealers, African and Oceanic art slowly became accepted as ‘art’—with its inclusion in the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 2000 as a decisive endorsement. Initially, it was referred to as ‘primitive art’—alluding to an early ‘primitive’ stage in human development; later replaced by the equally biased ‘tribal art’. While still used widely among dealers and collectors (for want of a better word and being conveniently short), the term ‘tribe’, or its derivative ‘tribal’, is frowned upon by the scholarly community.

The foundations of the tribal art market were laid at the turn of the 20th century. European powers colonized large overseas territories in both Africa and Oceania and, along with other commodities, there arrived ethnographic artefacts. Europeans had conducted coastal trade with many African regions over centuries, but systematic explorations of the continental hinterland did sometimes not take place until the first decades of the 20th century. These resulted in the discovery of previously unknown cultures whose ritual objects, such as masks, were displayed during world’s fairs and colonial exhibitions. Many of these objects ended up in newly established museums, such as the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, outside Brussels. Vigorous competitors in the collection of ethnographic objects in both Africa and Oceania, these museums became the leading players in the early phases of the tribal art market’s development. Next to these large-scale official collecting activities, colonial, military, or missionary personnel also brought home exotic objects....

(b Melbourne, Feb 9, 1929; d New York, April 19, 2005).

Australian sculptor and designer, active in the USA. He studied aeronautical engineering and later industrial design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, but left without finishing the course. From 1949 to 1953 he worked as an industrial designer, specializing in furniture. Marketed widely in Australia during these years, his furniture was distinguished by its simplicity. It was constructed with plain, undisguised materials such as steel rods, timber laminates, and cord; his tables, chairs, and shelving systems exercised a delight in linear and open structure that conveyed an impression of virtual weightlessness.

In his free time Meadmore began to produce sculptures, carving wooden shapes whose forms were similar to those of tensioned strings, and from 1950 to 1953 experimenting with mobiles. After extensive travel in 1953 in Europe, where he was particularly impressed by modern sculptures that he saw in Belgium, he produced his first large abstract sculptures in welded steel. Some of these, for example ...

Term for the return of lost or looted cultural objects to their country of origin, former owners, or their heirs. The loss of the object may happen in a variety of contexts (armed conflicts, war, colonialism, imperialism, or genocide), and the nature of the looted cultural objects may also vary, ranging from artworks, such as paintings and sculptures, to human remains, books, manuscripts, and religious artefacts. An essential part of the process of restitution is the seemingly unavoidable conflict around the transfer of the objects in question from the current to the former owners. Ownership disputes of this nature raise legal, ethical, and diplomatic issues. The heightened tensions in the process arise because the looting of cultural objects challenges, if not breaks down, relationships between peoples, territories, cultures, and heritages.

The history of plundering and art imperialism may be traced back to ancient times. Looting has been documented in many instances from the sack by the Romans of the Etruscan city of Veii in ...

The final decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century witnessed an increasing propensity for artists to incorporate aspects of science in their own art. In many fields of scientific research—including the cloning of mammals, the genetic modification of crops, the creation of bioengineered organs and tissues, advances in nanotechnology and robotics, experimental research in how the human mind works and the study of artificial intelligence—the frontiers of knowledge pushed outward at an accelerated pace. In the spirit of creative inquiry, or in order to critique the goals and outcomes of scientific experimentation and application, artists regularly borrowed subjects, tools and approaches from science as a means to the production of art ( see fig. ).

In documenting and assessing the achievements of visual artists engaged with science, there was no broad consensus on the categorisation of artists’ work across the full range of activities, methods, motivations and use of materials. Assessments of artistic practice focused on artists’ work categorised by the traditional fields of science (e.g. artists who explore biology, artists who explore physical sciences). Other analyses of artistic practice focused on categories of art media (e.g. artists who use traditional means such as carving and casting to represent scientific discoveries, artists who explore and employ biological materials and scientific instruments)....

(b San Remo, Victoria, 1974).

Australian conceptual artist, active also in the USA. Swallow came to prominence only a few years after completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, by winning the prestigious Contempora 5 art prize in 1999. Swallow could be said to have ushered in a wholly new style in Australian art after the appropriation art of the 1980s and 1990s. His first mature work was a hammerhead shark made out of plaid, later followed by such objects as bicycles and telescopes made out of plastic. These were not hyperreal simulacra in the manner of Pop artist George Segal or sculptor Ron Mueck . Rather, in remaking these objects in altered materials, Swallow wanted to open up a whole series of associations around memory and obsolescence. In one of the works for Contempora 5, Model for a Sunken Monument (1999), Swallow made a vastly scaled-up version of the mask Darth Vader wore in the ...