ALBERT TUCKER (1914-1999)
Springbrook Mountain / Mt Mumjin (1,020 m - 3,350 ft)
Australia (Queensland)
In Springbrook Landscape, c. 1971, watercolor
The mountain
Springbrook Mountain or Mt Mumjin (1,020 m - 3,350 ft) is the highest point of Springbrook plateau in the Gold Coast hinterland of South East Queensland, Australia. The plateau is covered in subtropical rainforest and crossed by many small creeks. The area has excellent views to the Gold Coast and is known for its cliffs, waterfalls and forest walks, most of which are protected in the Springbrook National Park.
The timbered plateau was settled relatively late with both the area's inaccessibility and timber reserve status acting as deterrents. In 1906, the area ceased to be a timber reserve and was opened for agricultural settlement. In the same year the first group of settlers, including James Hardy, arrived from northern New South Wales and referred to the new settlement as Springwood. Following the request of postal officials to change the name to avoid confusion with another location in New South Wales, the area became known as Springbrook. Dairying was encouraged but the settlers found farming difficult and instead cleared for the land for timber. By the 1930s Springbrook was almost completely cleared of trees. In 1911, a school opened and by 1947 a community hall had been built. Tourism has been the major industry since the 1920s, with many guesthouses opening during this period. A decent road up the mountain was built in the mid 1920s with the first car reaching the settlement in June 1926. The first declaration of a national park on the plateau was Warrie National Park in 1937.[ The post office was closed in 1958. A memorial to the pioneering settlers of the area was built in 1961 to celebrate 50 years since opening of the former Springbrook State School.
Springbrook was originally known as the Numinbah Plateau. Springwood was the first name chosen for the locality, however it was changed to Springbrook to avoid confusion with mail deliveries to another Springwood located in the Blue Mountains.
Road access to this eastern Scenic Rim mountain is via Mudgeeraba along the Springbrook Road and from Numinbah Valley via Pine Creek Road. The plateau is part of a biodiversity hot spot. It is part of the Scenic Rim Important Birdlife Area.
Albert Lee Tucker was an Australian artist, and member of the Heide Circle, a group of modernist artists and writers that centred on the art patrons John and Sunday Reed, whose home, "Heide", located in Bulleen, near Heidelberg (outside Melbourne), was a haven for the group.
Tucker's main inspirations include post-impressionists, expressionists and social realists, as well as personal experience. Tucker's work was strongly influenced by the realistic reflections of two important émigré artists, Josl Bergner and Danila Vassilieff, who arrived in Melbourne in the late 1930s about the same time that Tucker began to explore images of the Great Depression.
Tucker also met Sunday and John Reed, members of the Contemporary Art Society, which was set up in 1938 by George Bell, in opposition to the government Australian Academy of Art, which was believed to promote conservative art and not the modernists.
Tucker's first significant works were produced during his involvement in the army.
Tucker's first significant works were produced during his involvement in the army.
In 1940, Tucker was called up for army service and spent most of his time working in Heidelberg Military Hospital drawing patients suffering from wounds and mental illnesses as a result of war. He produced three important works at this stage, Man at Table, a pen and ink illustration of a man whose nose had been sliced off by a shell fragment, The Waste Land, an image of death sitting on a stool watching and waiting, and Floating Figures, of two figures floating down a hall, a third with a demented smile. All of these images illustrated the horror and madness of war, but in a style reflecting his social realists surrealistic and expressionistic style.
In 1942, Tucker was discharged from the war and returned to Melbourne. An impression of Australian soldiers, clutching young women was the catalyst for his series of works known as the Images of Modern Evil, Victory Girls, depicting Melbourne nightlife. Tucker also took to photography, both of his own paintings, and to record the ideas and scenes he used to compose them, and inadvertently created a document of his time.
In early 1947, Tucker traveled to Japan with the Australian army as an art correspondent. He produced a monochrome pen drawing called Hiroshima; it contains no figures, just the aftermath of the atomic bomb blast, with tents and shelters littering the landscape. In 1954 he met Sidney Nolan in Rome, when he produced Apocalyptic Horse and began painting Australia from memory. He was exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1956 and then spent two years in London painting the Thames Series.
He then moved to New York in 1958 and his subjects switched from the city to outback Australia. Where some works of Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale had reached international level, Tucker rejected them as being nationalistic. He depicted the landscape as being a harsh, barren and sterile wasteland. He distorted stereotypes and icons of the Australian bush, including convicts, Burke and Wills and the Kelly Gang. He was influenced by the sheer barrenness and hopelessness that the outback conveyed, and added these icons as pawns to the outback’s deadly game.
In 1942, Tucker was discharged from the war and returned to Melbourne. An impression of Australian soldiers, clutching young women was the catalyst for his series of works known as the Images of Modern Evil, Victory Girls, depicting Melbourne nightlife. Tucker also took to photography, both of his own paintings, and to record the ideas and scenes he used to compose them, and inadvertently created a document of his time.
In early 1947, Tucker traveled to Japan with the Australian army as an art correspondent. He produced a monochrome pen drawing called Hiroshima; it contains no figures, just the aftermath of the atomic bomb blast, with tents and shelters littering the landscape. In 1954 he met Sidney Nolan in Rome, when he produced Apocalyptic Horse and began painting Australia from memory. He was exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1956 and then spent two years in London painting the Thames Series.
He then moved to New York in 1958 and his subjects switched from the city to outback Australia. Where some works of Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale had reached international level, Tucker rejected them as being nationalistic. He depicted the landscape as being a harsh, barren and sterile wasteland. He distorted stereotypes and icons of the Australian bush, including convicts, Burke and Wills and the Kelly Gang. He was influenced by the sheer barrenness and hopelessness that the outback conveyed, and added these icons as pawns to the outback’s deadly game.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
