Title
The brown pot
(1940)
Artist
-
Details
- Place where the work was made
-
Sydney
→
New South Wales
→
Australia
- Date
- (1940)
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 51.0 x 45.8 cm stretcher; 66.7 x 61.5 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed l.l., pencil "Margaret Preston/ (illeg.)". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1942
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 7223
- Copyright
- © Margaret Rose Preston Estate/Copyright Agency
- Artist information
-
Margaret Preston
Works in the collection
- Share
-
About
Without the footnote of its accompanying lid, the homely brown pot would almost appear to be painted as if in a state of suspended animation, an unlikely proposition of weightlessness given its sturdy and unremarkably utilitarian form. This is the first of many curiosities that lie at the heart of the enigmatic appeal of this 1940 work by Margaret Preston. Shadowing cast in opposition to the light emanating from a hidden source to the left of the frame implies a mirror-like surface upon which the pot and lid rest – perhaps of highly polished wood, given the furnishing predilections of the time. Yet it offers a bizarre reflection, or refraction, of reality. Even the 'crazy-paving' glazing on the brown pot is answered by red banding, also at odds with the palimpsest background of cuboid colour.
'The brown pot' contains no delicate bouquet of blushing blooms; these are banksias, the tough native flowers that survive and thrive along the wooded coastal fringes of Australia's eastern coast. Preston lived for a time at Berowra, an idyllic Hawkesbury River community surrounded by bushland some 40km north of Sydney, where banksias proliferate. With spiky-leaved accents and sculpturally arthritic branches, the artfully haphazard floral arrangement appears to embody a wartime patriotic domesticity at its most grassroots level – in the home, and in this instance in the very comfortable middle-class of Sydney's lower North Shore. A domesticity as unpretentious as using a lidded jar for a vase. It could be considered a fine example of artistic propaganda, a kind of painterly call to arms to instil a nationalistic pride in one's homeland. Like a previous generation of passionate Australian pastoral painters, Preston advocates a pervasive appreciation and embracing of Australiana, in this case the use of cut native flowers in the home, or on another level, the introduction of distinctively Australian themes to the sacrosanct artistic canon of the still life.
'The brown pot' stands out amongst Preston's works of the period that reveal her deepening engagement with Aboriginal art, before her viewpoint capsizes under the weight of the Aboriginal spirituality she introduces into her oeuvre. The stylised brushes of the flowers and the decorative patchwork background, overlaid with flecks of colour, are key pieces of the puzzle. The emphasis is not naively realist representation but an attempt to articulate a Euro-Aboriginal visual language, a panoptic 'National Art'. Quite subversively for the time, Preston's agenda was the infiltration of 'native' art into the domestic and fine arts. And, unlike others who followed her, she focused on Australia's unique cultural inheritance rather than employing Indigenous art as one of many world cultures apparently viewed as fair game in the amoral world of modernist appropriation.
Knowing Preston's persistent and well-documented interest in and advocacy for Aboriginal art informed by her travels throughout Australia, this work at first reading suggests the aesthetic influence of the boldly decorated Queensland rainforest shields or the distinctive Tiwi visual schema – dots and dashes offset by blocks of rich, earthy colour. And while it offers a visually harmonious synthesis, to Aboriginal eyes it reads as a scrambled orthography of vaguely familiar words, or a discordant symphony where the notes don't ring quite true. Preston's passionate attempts, while well intentioned, were doomed to fail ultimately because they are meaningless to Aboriginal people – not unlike the contemporaneous government policy of assimilation.
The references, however, were blatant enough for Aboriginal artist Trevor Nickolls to return the compliment almost half a century later with the work 'Homage to Margaret Preston' 1988, also in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This painting is similarly composed of native flowers embellished by abstracted quasi-Aboriginal symbolism. In coinciding with Australia's bicentenary, the execution of this painting perhaps notes the very late maturation of the Australian art world in engaging with Aboriginal cultural expression as art, and quite rightly acknowledges Preston's pioneering role and prescient vision. The riddle Preston posed remains as yet unsolved at the opening of the 21st century.
Hetti Perkins in Deborah Edwards and Rose Peel with Denise Mimmocchi, 'Margaret Preston', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005
-
Places
Where the work was made
Sydney
-
Exhibition history
Shown in 13 exhibitions
Margaret Preston and William Dobell loan exhibition (1942), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 Mar 1942–16 Apr 1942
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Church of England Parish Hall, Grenfell, 16 Mar 1953–30 Mar 1953
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Young Public Library, Young, 14 Apr 1953–28 Apr 1953
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Bega County Council Exhibition Hall, Bega, 19 May 1953–02 Jun 1953
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Wollongong High School Assembly Hall, Fairy Meadow, 03 Aug 1953–15 Aug 1953
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Taree Council Chambers, Taree, 15 Sep 1953–29 Sep 1953
Travelling Art Exhibition 1953. Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists, Dubbo Mechanics' Institute, Dubbo, 13 Oct 1953–27 Oct 1953
Women's achievements in the arts, David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney, Sydney, 31 Aug 1960–09 Sep 1960
Women's achievements in the arts, Tamworth City Gallery, Tamworth, Oct 1961–Jan 1962
Women's achievements in the arts, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Apr 1964 -
Aspects of Australian art: Art Gallery of New South Wales Travelling Art Exhibition 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1976–1977
The art of Margaret Preston, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 23 May 1980–22 Jul 1980
Australian icons: twenty artists from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Aug 2000–03 Dec 2000
Australian Collection Focus: Margaret Preston The brown pot 1940, I lived at Berowra 1941, Grey day in the ranges 1942, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 Sep 2001–03 Feb 2002
Margaret Preston in Mosman, Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman, 07 Sep 2002–13 Oct 2002
Margaret Preston retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 Jul 2005–23 Oct 2005
Margaret Preston retrospective, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, 12 Nov 2005–29 Jan 2006
Margaret Preston retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 18 Feb 2006–07 May 2006
Margaret Preston retrospective, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 May 2006–13 Aug 2006
dOCUMENTA (13), Documenta, Kassel, 09 Jun 2012–16 Sep 2012
Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Jul 2013–07 Oct 2013
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 12 Oct 2016–19 Feb 2017
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 11 Mar 2017–11 Jun 2017
O'Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Jul 2017–02 Oct 2017
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
-
Bibliography
Referenced in 27 publications
-
Ann Elias, Sydney College of the Arts, Useless beauty: Flowers and Australian art, United Kingdom, 2015, 108, 241, plate 37 (colour illus.).
-
Aboriginal art', Look, 'Preston's Aboriginal inspiration: how Margaret Preston was influenced, pg. 16-17, Melbourne, Sep 2001, 16 (colour illus.), 17.
-
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales Annual Report 2002, 'Year in review', pg. 8-25, Sydney, 2002, 15.
-
Elizabeth Butel, Margaret Preston: the art of constant rearrangement, Ringwood, 1985, 57 (colour illus.), 86. cat.no. O.14
-
Katrina Cashman, Margaret Preston in Mosman, Mosman, 2002. not paginated
-
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Curator), dOCUMENTA (13): the book of books, 'Participants, biographies, and exhibited objects and works', pg. 674-725, Ostfildern, 2012, 712 (colour illus.).
-
Our Art Critic, The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Picture for Art Gallery', pg. 7, Sydney, 31 Mar 1942, 7.
-
Judith Davis, Older Australians: A Positive View of Aging, Sydney, 1994, cover (illus.).
-
Deborah Edwards and Rose Peel, Margaret Preston: Catalogue raisonné of paintings, monotypes and ceramics, Sydney, 2005, (colour illus.). Artworks: paintings 1940.
-
Deborah Edwards, Art Monthly Australia, 'Margaret Preston: reviewing the landscape', pg. 19-23, Canberra, Dec 2002-Feb 2003, 20.
-
Deborah Edwards, Art and Australia (Vol. 43, No. 1), 'Margaret Preston', pg. 103-107, Sydney, Sep 2005-Nov 2005, 106 (illus.), 107.
-
Deborah Edwards, Australian Collection Focus: Margaret Preston The brown pot 1940, I lived at Berowra 1941, Grey day in the ranges 1942, 'An art for Australia, from Australians', pg. 3-9, Sydney, 2002, 2 (colour illus.), 4, 7-9, 13, 15.
-
William Kelly, Heritage of Australian art: reflections on the history of Australian painters and paintings, Melbourne, 1984, 34 (colour illus.).
-
William Kelly, The art of Margaret Preston, 'Introduction', pg. 4-7, South Australia, 1980, 27 (colour illus.), 49 (illus.). cat.no. O.31
-
Robert Lindsay., Aspects of Australian Art: Art Gallery of New South Wales travelling art exhibition 1976, 'Margaret Preston', Sydney, 1976, (illus.). cat.no. 30; not paginated
-
Terence Maloon and Ursula Prunster, Art & the West, 'A new frontier: the Avant-Garde', Sydney, 1987, (colour illus.). AUS 5 card.
-
Humphrey McQueen., Hemisphere [vol. 20, no. 8], 'An enemy of the dull', Australian Capital Territory, 1976, 37 (illus.).
-
Humphrey McQueen, The black swan of trespass: the emergence of Modernist painting in Australia to 1944, Sydney, 1979, 154 (illus.).
-
Denise Mimmocchi, Sydney moderns: art for a new world, 'Still-life as laboratory table', pg. 198-213, Sydney, 2013, 208 (colour illus.), 315, 323.
-
Hal Missingham., Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly [vol. 5, no. 2], 'Margaret Preston', Sydney, Jan 1964, 179 (illus.).
-
Hal Missingham, Still life and flower paintings by Australian artists: Travelling Art Exhibition 1953, Sydney, 1953, 6. cat.no. 15
-
National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Margaret Preston and William Dobell loan exhibition, Sydney, 1942, 10. cat.no. 51
-
National Council of Women, An exhibition of women's achievements in the arts, New South Wales, 1960. cat.no. 30; Kindly lent by the AGNSW
-
Hetti Perkins, Margaret Preston, 'The Brown Pot', pg. 212, Sydney, 2005, 207, 210, 212, 213 (colour illus.).
-
Daniel Thomas., Art and Australia [vol. 13, no. 3], 'Aboriginal art as art', Sydney, Jan 1976-Mar 1976, 282-282 (illus.).
-
Nicholas Thomas, Possessions: indigenous art / colonial culture, 'Artworks: indigenous signs in colonial art', pg. 126-163, London, 1999, 126 (illus.), 137, 139, 295. illus.no. 74
-
Angela Woollacott, To try her fortune in London: Australian women, colonialism, and modernity, New York, 2001, 179 (illus.).
-