Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Clifton Pugh’s ‘Aboriginal’ Epiphany and the Transformation of His Landscape Art (1954–65)
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This article focuses on two episodes in the Australian modernist artist Clifton Pugh's (1924–1990) artistic career – his journey across the Nullarbor Plain in 1954 and 1956, and his travels to the Kimberley in 1964 – where his experience of the desert environment and its Indigenous inhabitants resulted in a pictorial engagement with aesthetic and sociological forms of Aboriginalism. Pugh's landscapes contributed significantly to national imagery during the 1950s and 1960s, yet his engagement with Aboriginal art, people, and culture has been overlooked. Drawing on the visual record, critic's reviews, and Pugh's statements and interviews, this article argues that Aboriginalism was a crucial element in shaping his expression of a primal Australian landscape and his own existential search for identity as an artist and as an Australian. It not only transformed his landscape art but also his sense of being and belonging in the Australian environment.' (Publication abstract)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Historical Studies vol. 54 no. 4 2023 27235576 2023 periodical issue 'In this year of the Referendum for the Voice and Australian First Nations contemporary art politics, including ‘decolonisation’, Black Lives Matter and the call for ‘truth-telling’, a review of the nation’s eurocentric art history is necessary and timely. Until relatively recently, the category of Aboriginal art was constructed as ‘primitive’ in relation to the more ‘sophisticated’ European-Australian art, while the category of ‘Australian art’ itself excluded recognition of the lived experience and visual cultures of First Nations Australians. As we demonstrate in this journal issue, dismantling the eurocentric notions of art and history, while being alert to racism and the eliminatory tendencies of Australian settler colonialism, is not a straightforward process.' (Editorial introduction) 2023 pg. 644-667
Last amended 5 Dec 2023 07:32:50
644-667 Clifton Pugh’s ‘Aboriginal’ Epiphany and the Transformation of His Landscape Art (1954–65)small AustLit logo Australian Historical Studies
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