Ian
FAIRWEATHER
Great Britain
1891
–
Australia
1974
travelled in the Asia-Pacific region from 1928;
based in Australia from 1943
Shalimar
c.1962
tempera and synthetic polymer paint on cardboard on composition board
no inscriptions
124.0 (h)
x 178.0 (w)
cm
Purchased 1962
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 1962.37
- with Macquarie Galleries, Sydney;
- from whom bought by the Commonwealth of Australia Art Advisory Board, 1962
- Ian Fairweather Retrospective
- Queensland Art Gallery 01 Oct 1994 – 27 Nov 1994
- National Gallery of Victoria 17 Dec 1994 – 19 Feb 1995
- Art Gallery of New South Wales 11 Mar 1995 – 07 May 1995
- Spirit and Place: Art in Australia 1861-1996
- Museum of Contemporary Art Limited 21 Nov 1996 – 02 Mar 1997
- Abstract Expressionism: the National Gallery of Australia celebrates the centenaries of Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis
- 14 Jul 2012 – 24 Feb 2013
Born in Scotland in 1891, Ian Fairweather spent his formative years in England and studied at the Slade school. Early in his adult life art was not considered a suitable vocation by his parents, who sent him off to Canada—to the colonies—to earn his keep. What followed was a life lived rough in diverse locations with an ongoing dedication to his art and self-education. Fairweather lived in numerous countries, including China, Bali, Sri Lanka, India and the Philippines.
By the time he painted Shalimar, Fairweather was living on Bribie Island off the Queensland coast. For many years he was a keen student of Mandarin and became a proficient translator. The act of translation from one language to another is a delicate matter, particularly in the case of poetic ideas, where nuances can elude literal interpretation. There is something akin to this act of translation in Fairweather’s Shalimar.
While he apparently was not referring in the title to the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir (which he thought was in China), the work nevertheless suggests aspects of a garden—a garden of mind and imagination. This is evoked and abstracted in nuances of vivid deep pink plants in bloom, in the black-brown ground holding the parts in balance, in touches of bright red, in a world that appears to be continually growing and re-forming.
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
Born in Scotland in 1891, Ian Fairweather spent his formative years in England and studied at the Slade school. Early in his adult life art was not considered a suitable vocation by his parents, who sent him off to Canada—to the colonies—to earn his keep. What followed was a life lived rough in diverse locations with an ongoing dedication to his art and self-education. Fairweather lived in numerous countries, including China, Bali, Sri Lanka, India and the Philippines.
By the time he painted Shalimar, Fairweather was living on Bribie Island off the Queensland coast. For many years he was a keen student of Mandarin and became a proficient translator. The act of translation from one language to another is a delicate matter, particularly in the case of poetic ideas, where nuances can elude literal interpretation. There is something akin to this act of translation in Fairweather’s Shalimar.
While he apparently was not referring in the title to the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir (which he thought was in China), the work nevertheless suggests aspects of a garden—a garden of mind and imagination. This is evoked and abstracted in nuances of vivid deep pink plants in bloom, in the black-brown ground holding the parts in balance, in touches of bright red, in a world that appears to be continually growing and re-forming.
Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010
From: Ron Radford (ed), Collection highlights: National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008
