Reassessing art history’s Light & Shade

WORKS by Australian painter and art teacher Max Meldrum, and many of his students, are now being presented by the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Light & Shade: Max Meldrum and his followers includes 49 landscape, still life, and portrait paintings from the tonalist movement which were produced in the era between World War One and World War Two in a muted, misty style.

Forty-five of the pieces are from the Gallery’s own collection, some of which have been in their care for about 100 years, and others being new acquisitions.

Art Gallery of Ballarat director Louise Tegart said the Meldrum and ‘Meldrumite’ theme means works can be showcased that have not often been seen by the public.

“Visitors may know the work of Clarice Beckett, who is Max Meldrum’s best-known student, and went to high school in Ballarat… but this is an opportunity to take another look at some of the other artists associated with Max and his teaching,” she said.

“Light & Shade is a reassessment of art history. Meldrum and these students have been relegated to the past, and his influence and work has been stifled, partly because of his fiery personally which inspired hate and love in equal measure, but also because his art theory upset the art establishment.

“He believed he could teach anyone to be an artist, which is contrary to the idea of artistic genius, he did away with drawing as a foundation to painting, telling students to just paint immediately onto the canvas, and took a whole lot of students from the National Gallery School.”

Paintings by Colin Colahan, Alma Figuerola, Jock Frater, Harry Harrison, Percy Leason, Ballarat artists Jessie Merritt and John Robertson, Meldrum, and Beckett, alongside other Meldrumites are presented.

On display is Meldrum’s portrait of Professor Mica Smith, an historic Ballarat School of Mines chemistry and metallurgy educator.

“On his retirement, the School commissioned Meldrum to do this portrait of Smith, which was rejected for being too modern,” Ms Tegart said.

“The people of Ballarat gave money for this work to come into the Gallery’s collection.”

Meldrum delivered lectures to art groups and the public in Ballarat, and painted the city, although none of these works are in the Gallery collection.