Manuscripts left by the above author at the time of his death have been edited by his daughter to produce this book. It was published in October 2008, and is both an autobiography and a personal statement by Western Australia’s first consistent and systematic abstractionist, artist/author, Ernest Philpot (1906-1985).

 

The book is divided into two parts. The first seven chapters are concerned with the author’s own discovery of his artistic talents and his burgeoning love for Art, his emergence from a British childhood to a West Australian boyhood and later physical and artistic maturity as a young married man. These encompass historical events and personal milestones that shaped his life, which included the Great Depression of the 1930s, the chance to study Art in Melbourne at the National Gallery School in 1937, the intervention of the Second World War and the immediate post-war course his life eventually took. Part one concludes with Philpot’s scheduled exhibitions of his paintings in London in 1960 and 1966.

 

The subsequent twenty four short chapters or essayettes of Part 2 are Ernest Philpot’s observations and innermost convictions regarding Art. Although the biographical thread remains visible from time to time, as an important relief against a background of metaphysical discussion and as a humanising link that continues to relate the reader to the author, the author’s main concern here is with Art itself. The art of the Great painters, and those not so great, come under Philpot’s scrutiny as well as his own paintings and his own almost puritanical devotion to his ideal of true Art.

 

In his Apologia for Abstract Art the artist explains why he forsook representational art and gravitating toward the Abstract in the 1950s, first came to realise the ultimate spiritual and consummate experience of painting in this genre. Full page reproductions of 23 of his paintings are included throughout this book to show the progressive stages of his artistic journey.

 

For more information or copies of the book, please contact Valerie Fitch. P.O. Box 881 Nedlands 6909 W.A. or email valerie.fitch@bigpond.com.

 

[Valerie J. Fitch. (Editor), April 2010]