Mary Eagle
Mary Eagle is the author of a number of books about Australian art. Born in 1944, her BA degree was in History as well as Fine Arts and her PhD thesis was a history based on situations represented visually both by Indigenous Australians and European-Australians. Greg Dening’s ethnographic teaching at the University of Melbourne was the key for her approach to art criticism, art history and curatorship. After eighteen years as a curator at the National Gallery of Australia, seven as the Head of Australian Art, the same influence led her to join The Australian National University’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and Humanities Research Centre.
Dick Watkins »
Reshaping Art and Life
Authored by: Mary Eagle
Publication date: 2024
Dick Watkins belongs to the generation of artists whose careers were launched at the high-flying end of American-based Abstraction. Almost immediately he faced up to the abrupt end of the Modern era. Culture was no longer to be framed by ‘progress’. In 1970, taking stock of the situation, he announced that he was a copyist, there being no such thing as a new creation in art, shaped as it was by visual languages. Nor did he intend to limit his curiosity about the relation of art to life by restricting himself to a ‘personal’ style. There followed a long and passionately adventurous exploration into many subjects and styles, during which Watkins was often the first to signal changes taking place in Western culture. The result is that for half a century he has been a major, if controversial figure in Australian art.
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Three Creative Fellows »
Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Narritjin Maymuru
Authored by: Mary Eagle
Publication date: September 2007
This catalogue presents works by three prominent Australian artists – Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Narritjin Maymuru – featured in the exhibition Three Creative Fellows, at the Drill Hall Gallery from 9 August – 16 September 2007.
All three artists were recipients of ANU Creative Arts Fellowships, and the authors of the essays presented in this volume are prominent ANU scholars. Dr Mary Eagle writes about Sidney Nolan’s and Arthur Boyd’s reflections on creativity, while Professor Howard Morphy contributes a moving essay about the creation stories painted by Narritjin Maymuru.