Donkey work

The International Art Centre in Auckland is putting ‘Simpson’s donkey’ on the block later next month. The painting by ‘New Zealand’ artist Horace Moore-Jones (he was born in England, lived in NZ for a few years before training as an artist in Sydney and then going back to Britain, but did live his last five years in NZ) is not actually of Simpson (an English ‘Australian’) or of Simpson’s donkey (most likely Greek) for that matter.  The image is of New Zealand born and bred Richard Henderson who also used a donkey (possibly before Simpson) to rescue Gallipoli soldiers. Moore-Jones's most famous version of the subject was painted in Dunedin from a photograph that he believed to be of Simpson (there is a print in the Turnbull Library) and the IAC one would have been painted later again. In fact there are about six versions of the painting. 

The IAC version last came up for auction six years ago at Webb’s and was knocked down for $110,000. This time round the IAC are expecting to get  $200,000 no doubt helped by the Government’s WWI celebration frenzy. So will this same Government buy the work? Probably not. The last time they were offered work by Horace Moore-Jones was in the 1920s and it was all his Gallipoli watercolours for  £1,500. They said “no thanks” so you have see them at the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra.

Images: top, the Moore-Jones on sale at the International Art Centre. Bottom left, the photograph of Richard Henderson with his donkey and right, a print struck from the original watercolour.

Googling on

So you have a yen to know what art works the public finds most interesting. As is so often the case, try Google. Drifting through some searches the other day a band of images appeared on the top of the screen with the header “Artworks frequently mentioned on the web”. OK, not the most sophisticated way to track public taste but there were some surprises. For instance were they all pictures of cows or cottages by that Kinkaid guy? No, they were not. 

For a start Marcel Duchamp topped the list coming in with three of the 20 selected images (Fountain, Bicycle wheel and Nude descending a staircase). Of the rest over 50 per cent (11) were from the twentieth century though none from the twenty-first. Predictably just one was by a woman (Judy Chicago’s The dinner party) and only one by a non-European (Hokusai’s The great wave off Kanagawa). Painting as usual ruled the roost but Shepard Fairey provided a nice graphic touch. As for the Southern Hemisphere, it didn't feature.

We stumbled on this heuristic by simply putting the word 'art' into the Google search box. Now the trick will be to see if tastes change over time.
Images: Google's top twenty

Follow the money

Can you connect Mitt Romney, contender for the American Presidency, with the Auckland Art Gallery? That was the challenge we gave OTN readers. The response has been overwhelming. 

Some of you pointed out that Mitt is directly related to George Romney the fashionable English portraitist whose painting Lady and child is in the AAG collection. Not bad. Reader C claims the link is that they are both conservative (thanks C). The roundabout award goes to P who made the following chain of links: Mitt Romney is a Mormon, The Book of Mormon is currently the most popular musical on Broadway, the musical was written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker who also write the cartoon series South Park, Elton John once featured on South Park and he collects photographs by Laurence Aberhart, the AAG holds works by Aberhart in its collection. An excellent effort but the winner is reader H who notes that the largest contributor to the Mitt Romney Presidential race war chest is Julian Robertson at $US1 million, the same Robertson who has donated even more generously to the AAG. Nice one.

Images: Top Mitt, George and The Book of Mormon (book version). Middle, The Book of Mormon (musical version), Trey and Matt (writers South Park) and Cartman (resident South Park), Bottom, Elton, Laurence and Julian Robertson.

Googling on

The Wayne Thiebaud counting book. Well, why not? Journey through Google with Wayne: one wedding cake, two ice creams, three gumball machines, four desserts, ok you have to scroll down a bit for the desserts, but you get the idea.

Image: Susan Goldman Rubin’s book Counting with Wayne Thiebaud

Googling on

In September this year it will be 55 years since Colin McCahon exhibited his announcement notice board for the exhibition Object and Image. The hand-painted board is probably his first word painting, a pre-cursor to paintings like I am that were made the following year. In March 1954, a little earlier, at New York’s Sidney Janis Gallery, Magritte’s Word vs. Image was another impressive exhibition that was to prove a huge influence on younger artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Magritte introduced writing into his paintings in the mid-1920s and the 1928 painting Le paysage isolé (The lonely landscape) included words within a voice balloon, an idea to be echoed by McCahon in his 1947 Crucifixion according to St Mark.

1954 was also the birth year of Mike Kelly who was included in the 1990 exhibition Word as Image: American Art 1960-1990 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. If you want to rent an exhibition called Object and Image, you can do it here (you'll need to open the link Man Ray Prospectus NEW.indd). The exhibition will cost you $120,000 and features surrealist photographer Man Ray. Or you could get in touch with the British Arts Council who have an Object and Image show on tour right now.