Gordon Walters: Photographs - reviewed

Photographs

Gordon Walters

Curated by Laurence Simmons

Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland

19 June - 28 July, 2018

Reviewed by John Hurrell for EyeContact 9 July, 2018

Gordon Walters, (Archer Shield, Papua New Guinea, upside down here), gelatin silver print.

On at the same time as New Vision—the magnificent touring exhibition of Walters paintings (up from Dunedin) that has just opened—Photographs is a satellite display put together by Laurence Simmons, one of the three curators of the AAG show. When taken these photographs were aids for Walters’ painting construction. They were not intended to be artworks in their own right—photography didn’t have that status here in the mid-forties—but were made to help his thinking in terms of composition: the placement of linear or shapely elements.

There are three types of gelatin silver print image: various twisted trees in desolate landscapes (c. 1943); Papua New Guinean, Aboriginal or Māori designs that he often discovered in museums; and his private documentation of preparatory collages, or completed paintings, that sometimes he later destroyed.

Read more:http://eyecontactsite.com/2018/07/walters-photographs#ixzz67fzNsqhW
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