Hinterlands
Albert Tucker's landscapes 1960-1975
28 June - 22 February 2009
Venue: Heide III: Albert & Barbara Tucker Gallery
Curator: Lesley Harding
Trees I 1964
synthetic polymer paint, sand and bark on hardboard
91.3 x 120.8 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Photographer: On loan from Barbara Tucker 2006
© Barbara Tucker
Primarily a painter of urban life, Albert Tucker created his first pictures of the indomitable Australian outback when he was an expatriate, living and working in Rome during the mid-1950s. Time and distance had permitted a fresh appreciation of the Australian environment and temperament.
On his return to Australia in 1960, Tucker quickly consolidated this change in direction in his art. Hinterlands examines this new vision of his homeland, with particular emphasis on works depicting the bush around his property in rural Hurstbridge on Melbourne’s fringes; the distinctive Gippsland landscape off the coast of south-east Victoria; and the spectacular Barmah Forest in the north of the state.
The exhibition also considers the artist’s private and unpublicised interests in environmental conservation. In 1971 Albert and Barbara Tucker purchased a tract of land in Springbrook, Queensland; the acquisition enacted an important conservation project and precipitated a further body of work inspired by the pristine ancient rainforest of the Gold Coast Hinterland.
EXHIBITION PARTNERS
The Heide SMart Project is funded by the
Victorian Government Sustrainablity Fund
