Deutscher and Hackett

Betraying a myriad of artistic influences from Turner, Picasso, Klee and Pollock to fellow Australian painter Ian Fairweather, Tuckson's oeuvre is rich in its diversity, encompassing many different painterly approaches and phases. With its bold palette and dramatic gestural brushwork, the present work Big Red W, c.1964, belongs to the period generically known as the 'Red, Black and White' paintings. Revealing a keen awareness of American abstract expressionism and pop art, this chapter of Tuckson's production (broadly dated from 1961 to 1965) opened with elaborately worked imagery employing collage elements and obvious narrative, gradually progressing to bold minimalist compositions. Interestingly, Daniel Thomas parallels this shift in Tuckson's style from the elegant, painterly works of the fifties which employed poetic graffiti marks and a more subdued palette, to the change in emphasis of collecting practices at the Art Gallery of New South Wales where the artist was Deputy Director and Curator - the progression from Aboriginal to Melanesian art signaling 'a change from fine delicate art to art which can be coarse and bold.'1

With the 'Red, Black and White' paintings acclaimed amongst his finest (and toughest) works, Big Red W thus encapsulates well Tuckson's highly personal and expressive language of signs and symbols articulated through the written mark and textural layering of paint. More broadly, the work attests to the artist's lifelong preoccupation with the very act of painting itself; as James Gleeson reflects,

'...His pictures are about what it feels like to paint a picture - and as Tuckson feels it, a large part of it is agony. Making a picture or indeed any kind of art is a kind of birth. There is labour involved... Tuckson isn't interested in the art that conceals effort. He shows the making of a painting with all the travail fully exposed, without prettification or pretence that it hasn't hurt... In the end he triumphs because he does communicate his urgency through the painting. The pictures become a point of contact. The viewer who takes the risk of opening himself to these works will be rewarded by a rare glimpse of the emotional and physical costs of creativity.'2

1. Thomas, D. et al., Tony Tuckson, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1989, pp.34-35.
2. Gleeson, J., 'The Travail of Painting', Sun-Herald, 22 April 1973

VERONICA ANGELATOS

‘...The red, black and white paintings... abandon the beauty of elaborately worked surface in hand-crafted objects, they abandon the pleasant associations we have with the colours of nature. Instead, they offer direct contact with the artist himself. They hide nothing. Each stage of the making can be seen and appreciated. The artist invites the spectator to watch the raw creative process; it is a generous, confident invitation and the paintings have great freshness...’1

Hailed by Daniel Thomas as ‘an Abstract Expressionist of world quality’ and ‘one of Australia’s best painters’2, Tony Tuckson remains revered for his rich, endlessly diverse legacy that encompassed a myriad of different painterly approaches and artistic influences from Turner, Picasso, Klee and Pollock, to the tribal design of Melanesian art and the calligraphic aesthetic of peripatetic Australian painter, Ian Fairweather. A modest, self-proclaimed ‘Sunday’ painter, Tuckson was a reclusive artist for both personal and ethical reasons and yet, he produced some of the most groundbreaking expressionist art to emerge on these shores – all the while juggling his full-time role as a committed senior arts administrator for over two decades. With its bold palette and dramatic gestural brushwork, Big Red W, c. 1964, offers an impressive example of the period of Tuckson’s oeuvre universally acclaimed as his finest – namely, the ‘Red, Black and White’ paintings, collectively so titled for their restricted chromatic palette. Revealing a keen awareness of American abstract expressionism and pop art, this chapter (broadly dated from 1961 to 1965) opened with elaborately worked imagery employing collage elements and obvious narrative before gradually progressing to more energetic, minimalist abstractions exemplified by the present which, as Sandra McGrath elucidates, typically reveal ‘…a sense of inner tension that is checked and restrained. They are turgid and moody and represent some of the toughest, most difficult work of his career. Much too complete to be called transitional – they nevertheless exude a sense of unexploded energy and passion.’3

Not surprisingly perhaps, such evolution in Tuckson’s style from his elegant, painterly works of the fifties (which had featured poetic graffiti marks and a more subdued palette) was paralleled by a similar shift in emphasis in the collecting practices of the Art Gallery of New South Wales where he was then employed as Deputy Director – the subtle progression from Australian Aboriginal art to Melanesian art signalling ‘a change from fine delicate art to that which can be coarse and bold.’4 With its vast surface animated by a cacophony of self-assured expressive marks – broad blocks of colour, loose linear forms and dots of paints all of which reverberate against one another – indeed Big Red W encapsulates well the artist’s unapologetically bold approach – his ‘rare and wild energy without parallel in Australian Art.’5 More broadly, the work attests the intuitive immediacy of Tuckson’s vision, his belief that ‘when you start worrying about the position of a mark, you cease to paint’6, and his lifelong preoccupation with the very act of painting itself. As reflected by art critic James Gleeson upon the opening of Tuckson’s exhibition in 1973, ‘...What he is on about is the act of painting. His pictures are about what it feels like to paint a picture,’7 – and echoed more recently by contemporary abstractionist, Aida Tomescu, in her essay for the catalogue accompanying the Tuckson retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2018: ‘Tuckson’s paintings transcend being pinned down to one meaning, one subject. What is being expressed here is painting itself; its capacity to be about everything at once, its subjects and meanings always multiple.’8

1. Thomas, D. et al., Tony Tuckson, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1989, pp. 35 – 36
2. Thomas, D., ‘Tony Tuckson – An appreciation’, Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 11, no. 3, 1974, p. 236
3. McGrath, S., ‘Tony Tuckson’, Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 12, no. 2, 1974, p. 165
4. Thomas, 1989, op. cit., pp. 34 – 35