Herbert McClintock
(Australia 1906–1985)
- Title
- Dawnbreakers
- Year
- 1939
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas on hardboard
- Dimensions
-
50.7 x 74.5cm board; 67.0 x 90.7 x 5.2cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated l.l. corner, beige oil "MAX EBERT 39".
- Credit
- Purchased 1969
- Accession number
- OA3.1969
- Copyright
- © Estate of Herbert McClintock
- Location
- 20th & 21st c Australian art
- Further information
The painting portrays many people awakening in the morning hours of a city’s life; the white surf of their consciousness riding the crest of the vast waves of the mind’s sea as it breaks upon the sands of the morning; and the first objects of the real world – alarm clocks, breakfast trays, trains to be caught – impinge upon dreams and bring an awareness of the passing of time. Something of the illimitable reaches of the mind, and its retention of not only infantile experiences, but also age-old remnants washed up from the ocean-deeps of man’s existence as a social being, are indicated by the strange negroid and Easter Island-like statues that stand beyond the crest of the farthest waves; islanded in the waters of a dream-world, from which men sail back downwards to consciousness and the necessities of a new day.
Bernard Smith, 1945
- Bibliography (2)
-
Bernard Smith (Australia, b.1916, d.2011) (Author), Place, taste and tradition: a study of Australian art since 1788, South Melbourne, 1979, 216 (illus.), 234. plate no. 87
'Acquisitions for 1969', pg. 538., Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly Jul 1970, Jul 1970, 544 (illus.). plate no. 31
- Exhibition history (2)
-
Artists as Social Commentators and Activists 1946-2006, Manly Regional Art Gallery and Museum, 06 Sep 2007–28 Oct 2007.
Artists as Social Commentators and Activists 1946-2006, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, 08 Feb 2008–30 Mar 2008.
