Peter Booth

(Australia 1940– )

Title

Painting

Year

(1981)

Media category

Painting

Materials used

oil on canvas

Dimensions

197.5 x 304.5cm stretcher

Signature & date

Signed and dated verso, black paint "PETER BOOTH 1981".

Credit

Purchased with assistance from the Visual Arts Board Australia Council 1981

Accession number

203.1981

Copyright

Location

Not on display

Further information

Along with a handful of other repellent images unleashed by him, Peter Booth's 'Painting' stands out as one of the indisputable benchmarks of its era. Born and educated in Sheffield, the young Booth arrived in Australia in 1958, continuing his studies in Melbourne, the city which remains his home. His early creation of hard-edged abstract paintings led to his inclusion in The Field exhibition in 1968, a turning-point for him as much as for modern Australian art. By the late 1970s, fearing he had reached an impasse with a body of completely monochrome works, and pre-empting an international revival of figuration in painting, Booth plunged into a fevered period of grimly morbid invention. Humanity was portrayed as a race of victim-idiots tormented by the bloodied and bloodthirsty monsters of its own imagining. Bosch and Goya are Booth's antecedents, though not his prototypes, for there is something utterly of the twentieth century in these ghoulish spectres of modernity.

Art Gallery Handbook, 1999

Bibliography (15)

'Peter Booth', pg. 48-49., Art-iculate: art for VCE units 1-4 2009, 2009, 48 (colour illus.), 49.

Anthony Bond (England; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 2006, 118, 119 (colour illus.).

Jason Smith (Australia, b.1966) (Author), Peter Booth: human nature, Melbourne, 2003, 22 (colour illus.), 67 (colout illus.), 146-147. cat.no. 28

Bernard Smith (Australia, b.1916, d.2011) (Author), Terry Smith (Author), Christopher Heathcote (Australia, b.1959) (Author), Australian painting 1788-2000, South Melbourne, 2001, 525 (illus.).

Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, Domain, 1999, 169 (colour illus.).

Art is ... making, creating and appreciating 2 1999, 1999, 234 (colour illus.).

Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, Sydney, 1994, 268 (colour illus.).

Deborah Edwards (Australia) (Author), Two centuries of Australian painting: a selection from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, New South Wales, 1986, 49 (illus.). cat.no. 59

Diane Waldman (Author), Australian visions: 1984 Exxon international exhibition, New York, 1984, 24 (illus.).

'Another Skeleton' by Tim Hilton., Observer Review 21 Mar 1982, 21 Mar 1982, (illus.).

'Perspecta 81: The 'been-there-done-that' of the new' by Graeme Sturgeon, pg. 335-339., Art and Australia (Vol. 19, No. 3) Autumn 1982, Autumn 1982, 336, 337 (illus.).

'Australian Perspecta 1981, A biennale survey of contemporary Australian art' Reviewed by Nick Waterlow p84-86, Australian Art Review 1982, 1982, 85 (colour illus.).

Australia 'Peter Booth' by Jennifer Phipps, pg. 60, Flash Art Dec 1981-Jan 1982, Dec 1981-Jan 1982, 60 (illus.).

'Meanjin' by Janine Burke., Art for the end of the World Oct 1981, Oct 1981, 379 (illus.), 380.

Bernice Murphy (Australia) (Author), Australian Perspecta 1981, Sydney, 1981, 52, 53 (illus.), 20 (colour illus.). cat. no. 23

Exhibition history (7)

Australian Perspecta 1981, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 29 May 1981–21 Jun 1981.

(Peter Booth), Pinacotheca Gallery, Nov 1981–Dec 1982.

Eureka! Artists from Australia, Serpentine Gallery, 13 Mar 1982–25 Apr 1982.

Australia: Venice Biennale 1982: Works by Peter Booth and Rosalie Gascoigne, Australian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 01 Jun 1982–30 Sep 1982.

Project 40 - Australian Artists at Venice and Kassel (1983), Art Gallery of New South Wales, 05 Feb 1983–13 Mar 1983.

Two centuries of Australian painting, a selection from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Orange Regional Gallery, 19 Apr 1986–15 Jun 1986.

Peter Booth: Human nature, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, 29 Nov 2003–29 Feb 2004.