-
Details
- Date
- 1975
- Media categories
- Rubbing , Drawing
- Materials used
- black wax crayon rubbing on three sheets of paper, two black and white photographs
- Dimensions
-
wax rubbing 274.0 x 361.0 cm (irreg.) overall; photographs 99.0 x 116.7 cm each sheet
:
89 x 370.5 cm, The dimensions for parts a & c may need to be swapped.
89 x 371 cm
89 x 373.5 cm, The dimensions for parts a & c may need to be swapped.
99 x 116.7 cm
99 x 116.7 cm
- Credit
- Gift of the NSW Government Art Scholarship Committee 1977
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 229.1977.a-e
- Copyright
- © Ian Howard
- Artist information
-
Ian Howard
Works in the collection
- Share
-
-
About
Ian Howard studied art at a time when the only challenge to the dominance of figurative painting was the formalist doctrines of abstraction. When he graduated in 1968 these concerns seemed trivial with Australia’s unfolding involvement in the Vietnam War. In response, Howard began making life-sized impressions of military hardware by taping large rolls of paper directly over these machines and making crayon rubbings of the structures beneath.
The 'Enola Gay' was the B-29 Super Fortress US bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Howard presents an ominous ‘shadow’ of the machine that carried the most destructive bomb in world history.
-
Exhibition history
Shown in 5 exhibitions
Off the Wall / In the Air: A seventies' selection, Monash University Gallery, Clayton, 28 Jun 1991–10 Aug 1991
The Bomb, Monash University Gallery, Clayton, 13 Jul 1993–21 Aug 1993
Follow the Flag: Australian artists at war 1914-1945, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, 24 Apr 2015–16 Aug 2015
Black mist burnt county: testing the bomb, Maralinga and Australian art, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks, 24 Sep 2016–30 Oct 2016
(Ian Howard June 1977), Watters Gallery, East Sydney
-
Bibliography
Referenced in 4 publications
-
Jenepher Duncan (Editor), Off the Wall / In the Air: A seventies selection, Unknown, 1991. cat. no. 64
-
Rod James, Nuclear (r)age: the bomb in Australian art, 'Nuclear (R)Age: the bomb in Australian art', pg. 4-16, Clayton, Jun 1993, 6, 13 (illus.), 29. cat.no. 29
-
JD Mittmann, Black mist burnt county: testing the bomb, Maralinga and Australian art, 'Atomic testing in Australian art', pg. 36-65, Upwey, 2016, 62 (colour illus.), 63, 64, 94.
-
Michael Wardell, Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 'Ideas and actions', pg.60-107, Sydney, 2006, 76, 77 (illus.).
-