Australian Academy of Art
So much do I realise this truth, which I take to be the basis of Mr. Macgeorge's letter, that at the outset, when mentioning the academy idea to a committee of artists, I stipulated that I would take no steps to further it unless this principle were adhered to.
My only function has been, and is, as an uninstructed lover of fine painting and drawing, to do as much as I can to help obtain for Australia the benefits of an artistic organisation which has been invaluable in England.
"[3][4]Subsequently, at a meeting of ten state delegates in the smokeroom of the Canberra Hotel, Menzies formed the Australian Academy of Art, on 19 June 1937 and was its inaugural chair.
'[10] While tolerating some Australian post-impressionism, its exhibitions showed traditional figurative and realist paintings by Hans Heysen, William Dargie, John Longstaff, Elioth Gruner and Charles Mere as examples of conventional academic values of draughtsmanship and technical prowess; the Modernists' innovation and originality meant they were excluded.
[11] Its first catalogue announced that its nationalist, doctrinaire intent;...marks a definite move towards the co-ordination of the artistic activities in a true Federal spirit.
[7] The initiators appear in a group photograph taken on the day of the Academy's founding, and representing five states of the Commonwealth, but not Western Australia;[1] 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),[20] Joshua Smith (1938), Lyndon Raymond Dadswell (1938), Amalie Sara Colquhoun (1938), L. J. Harvey (1938), Isabel Mackenzie (1938), and Elma Roach (1938) among others.
[31] In contrast to the Academy's venue for its first show, in Sydney's Education Department gallery, the first CAS exhibition was held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1939,[32] where it presented young artists including Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, Russell Drysdale, William Dobell, James Gleeson, Eric Thake, Peter Purves Smith, Noel Counihan and new arrivals from Europe, Yosl Bergner and Danila Vassilieff.
For this first exhibition, a Selection Committee was formed comprising Sir John Longstaff, W. B. McInnes, Harold Herbert, Lionel Lindsay, Sydney Ure Smith, Norman Carter, William Rowell, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston, and Douglas Dundas.
Proctor and Sydney Ure Smith; and Southern, whose officers were Harold Herbert, W. B. McInnes, Hans Heysen, Sir John Longstaff and William Rowell.
[35] The exhibitors, several of whom were not Academy members, were from all states except Western Australia; New South Wales artists represented by 4 works each were; Sydney Ure Smith O.B.E., Lloyd Rees, Adelaide E. Perry.
R. Jackson, Frank Medworth, Enid Cambridge, E. A. Harvey, Ralph D. Shelley, Maud Sherwood, Lionel Lindsay, Thea Proctor, Lyndon R. Dadswell.
And with 1 work: Alexander Colquhoun, Edward Heffernan, William Frater, John Farmer, Norman B. Cathcart, Ethel Wardle, Max Meldrum, Lance J. Sullivan, Charles Hills, W. Prater, Geo.
And with 1 work each: Joseph Connor, Ethel M. Nicholls The Academy's third exhibition was held, again at the Education Department gallery in Sydney, March–April 1940 during World War II.
Arthur Murch, foundation member of Menzies' organisation, in his review in The Home which included an illustration of Roy de Maistre's 1938 quasi-cubist Football Match,[36] reported that the "Exhibition demonstrates the changing face of Australian Art," and that there was evidence of a French influence, and picked out as "names to remember: Eric Wilson, Jean Bellette, Frank Medworth, Muriel Medworth, M. B. Paxton, Desiderius Orban, Alison Rehfisch, George Duncan, Arthur Fleischmann, Nora Heysen, Paul Haefliger, Alice Danciger," and the sculptures of Orlando Dutton and Lyndon Dadswell, asking of the latter "You would not like to live with his "Decorative Head”?
Examples of the “modern” style by Arnold Shore and essays in esoteric expressionism by Grace Cossington Smith, Roi de Maistre and M. B. Paxton demonstrate the Academy's beautiful tolerance.
"[39] Writing in the magazine Pertinent, Frank Rhodes Farmer[40] found the Academy show 'depressed' him, while being 'transported' by photography of the Miniature Camera Group at Blaxland Gallery, in which "appeared that same enthusiasm for life, for the new, fresh angle, as in Giotto, Chaucer, Shakespeare," asking; "Why then does the Australian Academy of Art lack this freshness, this new approach to life, this enthusiasm?
"[41] The Melbourne Athenaeum theatre was the venue for the fourth of the Academy's annual exhibitions, on which The Bulletin commented that of works inducing 'pleasant feelings,' only one belonged to a member of the A.A.A., but that "The true-blue three As.
"[42] From 20–31 July 1943, the fifth annual exhibition of the Academy was held again at the Melbourne Athenaeum, was opened by Menzies, and featured war artists Adams, Dargie, Hele, Herbert, Hodgkinson, Murch and Norton.
Clive Turnbull's article in the Herald was headed 'Art Exhibition Is Not Outstanding,' with praise only for "a blood transfusion from a few non-members," and reacts to the 'remarkable' catalogue statement that; "Recognition by the Federal Government of the Academy as the principal representative art body in Australia has been evidenced by an invitation to advise the Government on the appointment of war artists, on additions and alterations to be made to the War Memorial at Canberra, and on other cultural matters."
"[50] Alan McCulloch welcomed the "smaller—and therefore better hung" eighth annual exhibition of the Australian Academy of Art, on 23 July 1946, and once again at the Athenaeum Gallery, Collins Street, Melbourne.
McCulloch's review in The Argus concluded that; ...the business-like competence of academy members is considerably helped by some of the more modest, perhaps more inspired, invitees.
"[54] The Academy's eighth annual exhibition was not its very last; in November that year a private viewing in Melbourne was arranged during the visit of the then Governor-General Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and the Duchess, herself an artist.
As Sarah Scott argues, even after the collapse of the Academy, Menzies' views continued to impact Australia's modernist artists in his second term as prime minister from 1949.
A consequence of the ensuing critical rejection was that Australia refused an invitation to exhibit at the 1960 biennale and did not show in Venice again until 1978; the country was absent from the world's showcase of international art for twenty years.
