Anton BRUEHL
Australia 1900 – United States of America 1982
United States from 1919

Hands of the potter 1932
gelatin silver photograph
image 34.3 (h) x 26.6 (w) cm
Gift of American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc., New York, NY, USA, made possible with the generous support of Anton Bruehl Jr, 2006.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2006.55

Not only was America seen by many of its intellectuals as lacking spiritual and communal richness, but as the Great Depression took hold her solid industrial economic wealth, constructed on the mass production of the factory worker, was turning out to have been built on shaky ground. Alternative ways of life were sought outside the urban metropolises with the appeal of greater integrity and authenticity. Simplicity can be seen here in the rough hands of an anonymous potter.

Bruehl himself was very much a maker and inventor, a woodworker and a boat-builder, who loved spending days constructing his sets, making cardboard models and solving construction problems. It was a quality that he prized in others.