Discover something new

Now on display on Level 2 at NGV International are a selection of works that celebrate the Art Deco period. Paul-Étienne Saïn was a French painter and lacquer artist who worked alongside Eileen Gray and Jean Dunand as a group of artists focusing on the technique of lacquer work. Looking at Saïn’s Floor screen, we can see how this group was drawn to lacquer’s lustrous, shiny surfaces and sensuous, decorative effects. While we know that Gray and Dunand trained with Japanese lacquer craftsman Sugawara Seizō after he moved to Paris, it is not known from whom Saïn learned the craft. We can, however, see more of an influence from the Vietnamese lacquering technique which often incorporated crushed eggshell into the design, as seen here. The use of eggshell, along with gold, silver and mother of pearl became common materials that allowed Art Deco designers to transform ancient crafts into the epitome of modernity.

Like Noguchi, George Nakashima was another influential American furniture designer and craftsman with Japanese heritage. His 1971 Conoïd bench which is displayed with Noguchi on Level 2, encapsulates his design philosophy which aimed to celebrate the natural beauty of trees – timber flaws and all. Appreciating the beauty of trees was central to his practice. He sourced timbers himself, milled them, and stored them in slabs for years. He loved the fact that his furniture offered trees a second life, allowing the beauty of the grain and natural flaws in the wood to be appreciated in perpetuity. While interned during WWII, Nakashima learnt traditional Japanese cabinetmaking, and after the war, opened his own studio which is still run by his daughter today. He is known for producing one-off and limited-edition timber furniture that celebrates the Japanese reverence for hand manufacture and the imperfect.

Also within the Asian Galleries stands this ten-panel folding screen which reaches nearly three metres in width. Existing from the Korean Joseon dynasty, the late nineteenth to early twentieth-century design highlights the lotus. This flower was seen as a symbol of enlightenment and spiritual harmony and became a favoured subject of the Joseon literati and women of the royal court. As evident in the sensuous forms of entangled stems, leaves and flowers in this screen, lotuses were also associated with romance and love. This amorous atmosphere is complemented by pairs of fish, heron, ducks, turtles, prawn and shell crustaceans depicted at the bottom of each panel of the screen. Flowers and birds were particularly popular motifs on decorative screens during this time due to their association with wealth, honour and conjugal harmony.

On Level 2 of NGV International visitors will also encounter an early eighteenth-century linen Bedcover whose silk threads shimmer gold in the gallery lights. By the early 1700s, hand embroidered textiles were common in European homes and were produced not only by women but also by men, amateurs and professionals. Embroidered caskets, hangings and bedcovers such as this one are a technical and artistic highlight of eighteenth-century needlework: the illustrative motifs embroidered provide insight into the visual culture of the period. This example features flame-filled cornucopias and musical horn-like imagery that resemble the ‘Bizarre Phase’ during the period 1700–12, where patterns combined idiosyncratic shapes with semi-naturalistic motifs.

Joy Hester is an Australian artist best known for her predominant use of ink. This work is a rare sight, being one of the few oils Hester produced during her career. Hester was an incredibly important artist in the Heide art circle (now called the Angry Penguins), based at John and Sunday Reed’s home at Heide in Heidelberg. The Reeds were supporters and benefactors of Hester’s practice throughout her career, until her death in 1960. This painting depicts Pauline McCarthy who owned a Fitzroy bookshop with her husband, Jack. Along with many other Melbourne artists of the 1940s and 1950s, Hester frequented the bookshop and formed strong friendships there with the owners and fellow artists. McCarthy became a confidant and friend to Hester, particularly throughout Hester’s separation from her husband and during her radiation treatment for cancer. This work encapsulates Hester’s expressive and intimate artistic approach.

Artist and Southern Kaantju/Umpila woman Naomi Hobson has always connected colours with places and stories. Based in Coen on the Cape York Peninsula, her photography and paintings depict her connection to Country and her community. Her series of photographs titled January First takes its name from an annual new year’s ceremony called Auwa, where people in Coen apply flour or white clay to the faces of relatives as a way of celebrating the renewal that comes with the new year. Depicted in each image are Hobson’s kin, as the viewer is invited into their homes and lives through these intimate portraits. Hobson pushes the boundaries through the images she captures, mixing ancient traditions with contemporary modes of art. By using the camera to tell the stories of her culture, she reclaims a tool that was historically used to document and catalogue Indigenous people. Hobson’s body of work incorporates her signature use of colour to powerfully depict her community as both playful, proud and committed to culture and customary practice.

Proposed acquisition
Naomi Hobson
The Promised One
from the January first series 2021
pigment print
(37.0 x 56.0 cm)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
© Naomi Hobson