A museum scholar's perspective

The Australian artist John Power (1881-1943) was a remarkable person with a distinctive vision. He grew up living nearby the newly opened Art Gallery of New South Wales. He trained as a doctor at Sydney University. He was independently wealthy at an early age due to his father’s inheritance from the Citizen’s Life Assurance Company. He abandoned medicine to become a permanent expatriate artist and art collector. He fell in with European artists exploring new forms of abstraction. He produced a magazine full of discussion on the new cause of abstraction. In 1933 he self-published (in French) a book outlining his own theoretical interests in art. As the Band shows, cubism was central in much of his own work. 

As well as artworks, the Power bequest was left to Sydney University with a grand vision of making the more expansive international art, a far cry from the parochial colonial collections of the state, available as a source of academic study and, through exhibitions and museum spaces, available to the people of Sydney. But over ensuing years, the use or lack of use of the Power bequest, evidenced by academic programs and small on campus exhibitions, became a controversial episode in the history of the university. Then in 1991 a university museum partnership led to the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. Finally, Power’s vision of art for all had expanded beyond the Power Gallery on campus. Most subsequent MCA visitors would be completely unaware of that institution’s historic link to the university and the Power Bequest.  

The Chau Chak Wing Museum has redeemed and expanded Power’s vision of material collections linking the academy and the society of which it is part. 

Andrew Simpson is a Postdoctoral Research Affiliate of the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney and the President of UMAC (ICOM’s International Committee for University Museums). He recently authored The Museums and Collections of Higher Education through Routledge. 

Hear more from Andrew:

The Museums and Collections of Higher Education

Researchgate

LinkedIn

An artist and cartoonist's interpretation 

The melody of Braque and Picasso’s line and brush strokes are apparent in the work of Dr John Joseph’s painting, “The Band”. It highlights the post European artistic cultural interpretations Australians embarked when taking a trip on the “Modern Art” cruise ship tendered by the acquisition of wealth. This Titanic has now run its course and is heading into a digital modern world that requires more than drawing parallels to the ideas awakened by distant artists. 

Also, in Australia, philanthropy is as an abstract thought, as AI (Artificial intelligence) is to be producing sustainable art focused on furthering our understanding of the human condition. 

Our culture is growing tolerant (incrementally) and this is highlighted by inclusivity, from a multicultural perspective and through new gendered language, by listening and identifying diversity. Our Philanthropy should be awakened within this paradigm, where collections should be nurtured to reflect this modernist approach. 

Music of all persuasions can play a part in interpreting new songs which the art reflects. New meaning can be derived through this new awakened cultural lens, therefore the captain of the Titanic will not steer the ship into the doldrums of Australian artistic derivative mediocrity. 

We can use the wealth in this country to incentivise more philanthropy to behave and act for community enhancement allowing collections to shine within the broader context and show tolerance to diversity. 

Eric Löbbecke, born 1966, Sydney based artist and Waverley resident for 43 years. Exhibiting fine art painting, practiced since 2008 alongside his professional cartooning/illustration career drawing for THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper since 1988. Finalist in the waverley art prize and the Dobell Drawing Prize in 2008, 4 times Walkley award recipient, ACA cartoonist of the year 1993, and first prize in the Amnesty international Australian Media awards. In 2019 after completing 2 Masters of fine art degrees at UNSW Art & Design, one in coursework, followed up with a research grant, he attended the Cartooning Global conference in Paris, presenting “WORK IN PROGRESS” a new cartoonist working Model. He also spoke on (Disrupting Traditional Cartooning in the Digital Age) at the 26th AHSN Annual Conference at Griffith University 2020. In 2023 he presented his “Listening Devices” body of work at Sydney University, which preceded “Overwhelming” paintings, a second solo exhibition at Stella Downer Fine Art in April. 

Eric’s art practice continues his research on new technology as an adaptive tool for painters to create paintings utilising the traditional analogue methodologies, to digitally create “Unique 2d artworks” through a process of sculpture, digital painting outputted on canvas, enhanced by a final application of oil painting. 

His subjects are temporal “Random thought” observations of our time in history past and present, to document the creation of new language and the emergence of a more inclusive voice.

He is currently represented by Stella Downer Fine Art. 

See more of Eric’s work:

https://www.ericlobbecke.com