Title

Before Addled Art: The graphic art of Lionel Lindsay.

Venues

Adam Art Gallery, Te Pataka Toi (25 October 2003 – 1 February 2004)

Date

(2003 – 2004)

Summary

single-artist exhibition. Located: Aotearoa New Zealand. Prints.

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

Before Addled Art: The Graphic Art of Lionel Lindsay is the latest in a series of curatorial projects undertaken by Victoria University Art History Honours students in collaboration with the Gallery.

Gallery Director, Sophie McIntyre, says the exhibition brings together 59 prints from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa’s extensive collection of works by Lionel Lindsay (1874 - 1961). Significantly, it is the first time these prints have been displayed as a collection.

An Australian artist, writer and critic, Lindsay is chiefly remembered and judged for his book Addled Art, a vociferous attack on modern art published at the height of World War II in 1942. That Lindsay was one of Australia’s most important early twentieth century printmakers is a fact now often overlooked.

"By 1942 Lindsay had established himself as a prominent Australian artist," says Ms McIntyre. "This exhibition demonstrates the finest of Lindsay's work - spanning the media of drypoint, aquatint, etching and wood engraving

"At the same time, Lindsay’s key themes emerge, including the swagman in the outback, the modernisation of old Sydney, the lure of Spain and the 'exoticism' of India."

The technical brilliance and beauty of the works presented in Before Addled Art deserve recognition in their own right, beyond the shadows cast by Lindsay’s notorious rejection of the modernist avant-garde. [Press release]