Tony
TUCKSON
Egypt
1921
–
Australia
1973
Australia from 1946;
Europe, United States of America 1967-68
Watery
c.1960
oil on composition board
122.2 (h)
x 183.0 (w)
cm
Gift of Margaret Tuckson 2002
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2002.148
© Tony Tuckson. Licensed by Viscopy
- the artist;
- by inheritance to Margaret Tuckson, the artist’s widow;
- by whom given to the National Gallery of Australia, June 2002
- Tony Tuckson: Painting Forever
- Art Gallery of South Australia 28 Mar 2001 – 11 Jun 2001
- Brisbane City Gallery 29 Jun 2001 – 19 Aug 2001
- Art Gallery of Ballarat 14 Sep 2001 – 28 Oct 2001
- Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre 15 Dec 2001 – 10 Feb 2002
- Heide Museum of Modern Art 02 Mar 2002 – 05 May 2002
- Abstract Expressionism: the National Gallery of Australia celebrates the centenaries of Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis
- 14 Jul 2012 – 24 Feb 2013
Although Tony Tuckson is now recognised as a major painter of the postwar era in Australia, during his lifetime he rarely exhibited his work and only a close circle of family and friends knew of his painting activities.
Tuckson’s art underwent significant changes from his early figurative works of the 1940s and 1950s, through to his breakthrough in the late 1950s into his mature style of gestural abstraction. Watery is a quiet, atmospheric painting that belongs to a group of works known as Tuckson’s ‘graffiti’ paintings, completed around 1960.
It has been suggested that Watery was influenced by Tuckson’s excitement at viewing an exhibition of the nineteenth-century English artist J M W Turner in Sydney in 1960. Employing a loose and inquisitive line, Tuckson has allowed the paint to gently dribble and run down the canvas. The sparse and unstructured marks set against the muted blues, greys and pinks of the background evoke a sense of infinite space or watery depths.
Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010
From: Ron Radford (ed), Collection highlights: National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008
Discussion of the work
Although Tony Tuckson is now recognised as a major painter of the postwar era in Australia, during his lifetime he rarely exhibited his work and only a close circle of family and friends knew of his painting activities.
Tuckson’s art underwent significant changes from his early figurative works of the 1940s and 1950s, through to his breakthrough in the late 1950s into his mature style of gestural abstraction. Watery is a quiet, atmospheric painting that belongs to a group of works known as Tuckson’s ‘graffiti’ paintings, completed around 1960.
It has been suggested that Watery was influenced by Tuckson’s excitement at viewing an exhibition of the nineteenth-century English artist J M W Turner in Sydney in 1960. Employing a loose and inquisitive line, Tuckson has allowed the paint to gently dribble and run down the canvas. The sparse and unstructured marks set against the muted blues, greys and pinks of the background evoke a sense of infinite space or watery depths.
Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010
From: Ron Radford (ed), Collection highlights: National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008
