Title
Man, wife and mother-in-law in street
1937
Artist
Danila Vassilieff
Russia, Australia
28 Dec [in the Gregorian calendar] or 16 Dec [in the Julian calendar] 1897 – 22 Mar 1958
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Details
- Date
- 1937
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 47.0 x 52.5 cm sight; 62.5 x 69.1 x 3.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed u.r. corner, black oil "Vassilieff". Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of Adrienne Allen 2019
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 128.2019
- Copyright
- © Heide Museum of Modern Art
- Artist information
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Danila Vassilieff
Works in the collection
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About
When the nomadic Russian-born Danila Vassilieff (1897-1958) arrived in Melbourne in 1937, his work came as a revelation to many of the generation of experimental artists, including Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester and Sidney Nolan, who were exploring new avenues for their art at this time.
Vassilieff had been a professional painter for over a decade when he arrived in Melbourne, but his notion of the importance of an untutored artistic expression, his style of rapid brushwork and sparsely painted surfaces appealed to younger artists as radical. As did his choice of subjects, painted in the streets and laneways of Melbourne’s inner city, by capturing moments of everyday working class life, its movement, poverty and the graffitied, decaying environments in a style that itself appears akin to a form of street art.
'Man, wife and mother-in-law in street' 1937 is a portrait of Vassilieff’s landlord and family in Fitzroy. The figures appear formally posed, slightly awkward, as if waiting to be photographed. But any stiffness to the figures is countered by the dynamics of graffiti on the wall against which they stand, which instils a sense of the pulsating life-forces of the streets. Vassilieff’s loose, sketch-like line work and his bare palette aligns features of the figures’ dress and their outlines to their backdrop, suggesting a connection to their surrounds. Vassilieff believed in painting from the realities of life, but equally in extracting a sense of the vital undercurrents of the city in his works. Equipped with such ideals, he created his own form of visual urban poetry from the poverty-stricken Melbourne streets in which he painted.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 9 exhibitions
Danila Vassilieff: 28th May - 14th June, 1973, Joseph Brown Gallery, Australia, 28 May 1973–14 Jun 1973
Watercolours and Oil Paintings by Danila Vassilieff (1898-1958) (1973), Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 15 Aug 1973–27 Aug 1973
Vassilieff: a retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculptures and watercolours, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 11 Aug 1985–22 Sep 1985
Vassilieff: a retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculptures and watercolours, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 12 Oct 1985–02 Feb 1986
Vassilieff: a retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculptures and watercolours, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Mar 1986–02 Apr 1986
Classical Modernism: The George Bell Circle, National Gallery of Victoria [St Kilda Road], Melbourne, 28 May 1992–03 Aug 1992
A face in the crowd : National Portrait Gallery, National Portrait Gallery [Old Parliament House], Canberra, 24 May 1997–12 Oct 1997
Danila Vassilieff (2012), Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 21 Apr 2012–07 Oct 2012
Vassilieff: Journey to Mildura, Mildura Arts Centre, Mildura, 18 Oct 2013–21 Apr 2014
Archie Plus, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 26 Sep 2020–07 Mar 2021
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 9 publications
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Amanda Finch, City streets and 'real' people, Chippendale, Oct 1985, n.pag (colour illus.).
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Joseph Brown Gallery, Danila Vassilieff, 28th May - 14th June, 1973, Melbourne, 1973, n.pag.. cat. no 19
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Macquarie Galleries, Watercolours and Oil Paintings by Danila Vassilieff (1898-1958), Sydney, 1973, n.pag.. cat. no 33
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Felicity St John Moore, Classical modernism: the George Bell circle, 'The visitors', pg. 24-33, Melbourne, 1992, 31 (colour illus.), 132. fig.no. 64
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John Moses, A Cossack who bestode the Australian art world, Sydney, 18 Oct 1985, n.pag.. Newspaper review of the 1985-86 retrospective touring exhibitions. The article does not cite the work directly, but refers to his time spent in Fitzroy, Victora as he "painted landlords to pay his rent".
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Felicity St John Moore, Vassilieff: a retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculptures and watercolours, 'Catalogue', pg.14-35, Bulleen, 1985, 16. cat. no 16
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Felicity St John Moore, Vassilieff and his art, Melbourne, 1982, 39 (colour illus.).
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Robin Wallace-Crabbe, A face in the crowd : National Portrait Gallery, 'Introducton Essay', pg.2-6, Canberra, 1997, 4, 8.
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Family circle, 'Catching up', North Sydney, 13 Sep 1985, 13 (colour illus.). Vassilieff exhibition
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