Jeffrey Smart often felt betrayed or let down by Australian art museums. A promised survey at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1982 failed to materialise but was rescued by the Art Gallery of NSW. When the Australian National Gallery opened in the same year, he attended the ceremonies but was disappointed by his paltry representation.
To Smart, it was clear that Adelaide, his hometown, would never give his work a chance. And equally clear the curators in Canberra, and elsewhere in Australia, had it in for him. Was it just paranoia? Sour grapes? Smart felt he was paying the penalty for swimming against the tide. He had no interest in the Australiana associated with artists such as Nolan, Boyd, Tucker and Olsen. He had no sympathy for the tides of abstract and conceptual art that dominated the 1960s and ’70s.
NGA director Nick Mitzevich with two works in the Jeffrey Smart exhibition on December 10.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Resolutely figurative, he was a painter of the modern, urban world, not the bush or the mythical past. A typical Smart painting could have been set in Italy (where he lived for more than 40 years) or Australia. His images were cool and oblique, devoid of obvious emotion. The art institutions may have found him old-fashioned and reactionary, but the public has always adored his work.
Jeffrey Smart, which starts this weekend at the National Gallery of Australia, as it is now known, is a show that might have won the artist’s approval. Hung thematically rather than chronologically (which seems to be the case with the entire NGA at present), it’s not a comprehensive retrospective. It is, however, a better, more thoughtful display than the highly successful Smart survey held at the Art Gallery of NSW in 1999. Even allowing for COVID-19 travel restrictions, the NGA should have a hit on its hands.
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Although he may have struggled to impress the curators, Smart has always had dedicated admirers. His work has become part of Australia’s popular culture, partly due to its frequent appearance on book covers. Once seen, his pictures are rarely forgotten, and the chance to view more than 90 of his paintings will provide an excellent reason to visit Canberra over the summer.
The dominant impression one takes away from this show is how amazingly fresh it looks. Eight years after his death, at the age of 93, Smart comes across as an artist who broke free of the relentless succession of schools, fashions and movements that characterise the modern era.
Jeffrey Smart, North Sydney, 1978.Credit:Collection of Will and Jane Vicars
He was, superficially, a realist, but after a few minutes in this exhibition that label seems pitifully inadequate. From the earliest paintings such as The Salvagers (1946) or Robe (1947), Smart was looking for something different, seeking out a classical beauty in piles of junk and debris. It was a self-conscious repudiation of those picturesque vistas of sheep and gum trees that passed for respectable Australian art. It also signalled an emphasis on composition that would only grow more obsessive over the years.
The NGA has a hit on its hands with new Jeffrey Smart exhibition
Source: Philippines Alive
