Nudes
Artist
Brack, John
Production date
1982
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Object Detail
Title
Nudes
Production date
1982
Medium
lithography on zinc place on arches satine paper, linen covered cardboard cover, stitched binding and linen covered clamshell box
Measurements
box: 48.3 x 35.4 x 3.6 cm (closed); book: 45.7 x 33.4 x 1.7 cm (closed); 45.7 x 65.5 x 0.9 cm (open)
Object type
Edition
41/200
Publisher
Secondary production details
Printer: Druckma Press (estab. 1977, closed 1982): Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: 1982
Typography: Ern Scamell: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Binder: Ralf Engel: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Typography: Ern Scamell: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Binder: Ralf Engel: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Interpretive text
John Brack is one of Australia’s most celebrated twentieth century artists. He emerged during the 1950s as a realist painter of postwar Australian urban life. His unique, hard-edged but smooth painting style depicting the people, pastimes and places of modern life were informed by his vast readership—especially of the humanist Henry James among other Modernist writers and thinkers. Contrary to conventions in Euro-American art, Brack’s paintings and drawings of women, especially nude sitters, appear sexless and alienated from the viewer. The impersonal nature of Brack’s nudes is heightened by the stylisation of the figure, which reduces individual features to more angular forms. Nonetheless, Brack viewed his subject with sympathy and understanding. The Art Gallery of New South Wales offers this quote from the artist about his nudes:
“When I paint a woman…I am not interested in how she looks sitting in the studio, but in how she looks at all times, in all lights, what she looked like before and what she is going to look like, what she thinks, hopes, believes and dreams.”
This work is arguably the best known print from the private press publisher Tate Adams of Lyre Bird Press, Australia’s first publisher of livres d’artiste. This is the only deluxe art book produced by Brack in his lifetime. The folio also contains a text contribution from senior art historian Margaret Plant.
Artspace Mackay 2020
“When I paint a woman…I am not interested in how she looks sitting in the studio, but in how she looks at all times, in all lights, what she looked like before and what she is going to look like, what she thinks, hopes, believes and dreams.”
This work is arguably the best known print from the private press publisher Tate Adams of Lyre Bird Press, Australia’s first publisher of livres d’artiste. This is the only deluxe art book produced by Brack in his lifetime. The folio also contains a text contribution from senior art historian Margaret Plant.
Artspace Mackay 2020
Credit line
Mackay Regional Council Art Collection, purchased 2020.
Accession number
2020.1