Artists' colonies in the world / The world in artists' colonies
28–30 November 2022
A conference for imagining the artists' colony as an alternate model for writing art history
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About
Models for writing art history range between globalised studies, national, regional or local histories, and the enduring individual monograph. None of these fully accommodate the artists' colony. Colonies historically attract artists from elsewhere, of differing nationalities, brought together in a single geo-spatial frame, they may cohere owing to the appeal of a particular ‘master’, or location renowned for natural beauty, they may arise from the invitation of a wealthy patron, or established on a lineage within creative villages.
This 3-day conference gathers over 30 papers from academics working in Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, the UK and USA. The Keynote lecture will be presented by Dr Nina Lübbren (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge), whose paper considers how artist colonies based on place, space, and mobility provide a new perspective for analysing world art histories.
Dr Nina Lübbren's keynote, "Rural artists' colonies and the geographies of art history" is supported by the Macgeorge Bequest.
Conference program
Please note, all times given in AEST (Australia Eastern Standard Time). The conference will be presented both in-person at the University of Melbourne, and online via Zoom webinar.
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28 November 2022
Day One | Monday, 28 November 2022
09:30 – 10:00
Ian McLean, Welcome and Acknowledgment of Country
10:00 – 11:30 | Session 1
Chair: Rex Butler
Emily C. Burns University of Oklahoma Whose Grainstacks? The Mobile Transnational Colony at Giverny, 1890-1900 Catherine Speck University of Adelaide The turn-of-the century French artists’ colony as a vector for rewriting art history Jasmin Grande Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf The Kalltalgemeinschaft, Germany
11:30 – 1:00 | Session 2Chair: Jane Eckett
Rex Butler & Andrew Donaldson Monash University, Melbourne, & the National Art School, Sydney Australian artists in the colonies, or, The artist colony as a model for art history Mary Kisler Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Brief Encounters — The Peripatetic Life of Artist Frances Hodgkins Rebecca Edwards National Gallery of Australia, Canberra From Moly-Sabata to the maître: Anne Dangar, Albert Gleizes and an artist colony 2:00 – 3:30 | Session 3
Chair: Victoria Perin
Jane Clark MONA, Hobart ‘Charterisville’ in the 1890s: camps, colonies, schools and Schools Harriet Parsons & Matt Coller Currency House & Temporal Earth, Melbourne Reconstructing the creative community who documented Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage Miguel Angel Gaete University of York Carl Alexander Simon and the German Colony in Southern Chile 3:30 – 5:00 | Session 4
Chair: Ian McLean
Frances Fowle University of Edinburgh and the National Galleries of Scotland James Guthrie and the Glasgow Boys at Cockburnspath Ellen Oredsson The National Archives (UK) Beyond Brøndums: The social organisation of the Skagen artists’ colony Jan D. Cox University of Oxford ContEd The Gaihede Family at Skagen – A Case Study -
Macgeorge Visiting Speaker
Macgeorge Visiting Speaker | Monday, 28 November 2022
5:30 – 6:30 | Keynote supported by the Macgeorge Bequest
Introduction: Rex Butler
Nina Lübbren Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK Rural artists’ colonies and the geographies of art history -
29 November 2022
Day Two | Tuesday, 29 November 2022
10:00 – 11:30 | Session 5
Chair: Ian McLean
Terry Smith University of Pittsburgh Colonies of Colonials Inside the Centres? New York 1960s and 1970s Gloria Sutton Northeastern University, Boston & MIT Gate Hill Coop and the Afterlives of Black Mountain College Iñaki Estella Noriega Universidad Complutense, Madrid Maciunas, Fluxus Tourism and the Impossible Artist
Colony11:30 – 1:00 | Session 6
Chair: Simon Pierse
Anna Dempsey University of Massachusetts Dartmouth The Provincetown Art Colony: A Queer “Idyllic” Place and the Provincetown Printers David L. Witt Seton Legacy Project, Santa Fe, New Mexico A story of the improbable: the Taos artists’ colony Carl Schmitz Independent American Artists’ Colonies in the Era of Abstract Expressionism: Mapping an Archipelago of Modernism 2:00 – 3:30 | Session 7
Chair: Jane Eckett
Mengfei Pan Kokugakuin University, Tokyo The Birth of “Mura” (Villages) of Artists in Modern Japan: Towards a Socio-Geographic Theorizing of Art Shatavisha Mustafi UPES, Dehradun A Comparative Approach to Studio Produced Crafts: Exploring the Cholamandal and Andretta Artists’ Villages in India Adrian Tan Peng Chai Nanyang Technological University, Singapore The Artists Village: An ‘Experimental Colony’ that ‘Performed’ the Museum 3:30 – 5:00 | Session 8
Chair: Rex Butler
Roger Benjamin University of Sydney Tangier as artists’ colony? Darren Jorgensen University of Western Australia, Perth Diaspora, Exile and the Artist Colonists of the Great Sandy Desert Pfunzo Sidogi Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria Black artists’ colonies in South Africa pre-1994 -
30 November 2022
Day Three, 30 November 2022
10:00 – 11:30 | Session 9
Chair: Victoria Perin
Wylie Schwartz State University of New York, Cortland Radical Subjectivity in the Scandinavian Situationist Bauhaus Kiko del Rosario Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México La talleridad: Splintering Philippine and Mexican muralismo Rachel Weinberg University of Melbourne Reconsidering the end of modernism: 1965–74 11:30 – 1:00 |Session 10
Chair: Jane Eckett
Gillian Forwood Independent Darebin Bridge House as a model for an artists’ colony Andrew Montana Australian National University, Canberra Merioola and its artists, Sydney, 1945–1949 Debbie Robinson University of Melbourne Clifton Pugh at Dunmoochin: An Expression of Embedded Nativism 2:00 – 3:30 | Session 11
Chair: Simon Pierse
Sheridan Palmer University of Melbourne The Abbey Art Centre, postwar utopianism and postnational modernism Maria C. Tornatore-Loong University of Sydney The ‘Australia Felix’ at Chez Haefliger: The ‘Unwritten’ Chapter of the Australian Expatriate Artist Colony in Majorca, Spain, 1958–1966 Angela Connor Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne Robert Owen, the dynamics of Hydra Greece and artistic collaboration between 1963–1966 3:30 – 5:00 | Session 12
Chair: Rex Butler
Jean-Claude Lesage Independent Australian and American painters at Pas-de-Calais: the colony of Étaples Closing Panel discussion
Roger Benjamin University of Sydney Jane Clark MONA, Hobart Rebecca Edwards National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Carl Schmitz Independent Pfunzo Sidogi Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria Cathy Speck University of Adelaide
Travel Options
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Getting into the city from the airport
Skybus
From Melbourne Airport, take SkyBus to the Melbourne city terminal situated at Southern Cross Station (in Spencer Street). This normally costs approximately $18.00 each way, and does not need to be booked in advance. For information about the public transport services which run to and from Melbourne Airport, including SkyBus and bus routes 478, 479, 500 and 901, please see the Public Transport Victoria Airport buses web page.
Taxis
A taxi from the airport will take around 40 minutes and will cost approximately $50.00. Taxi ranks are located on the ground floor outside Terminals 1 and between Terminals 2 and 3.
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Public transport to the University
Please note: Please be aware there are road closures and major works in Grattan Street.
The best way to get to the University is by public transport. Trams run along Royal Parade and Swanston Street.
The University is located outside of the Tram Free Zone in the CBD. You will need a myki card when travelling on public transport in Melbourne. You can buy and top up a myki:
- At all 7-Eleven stores, plus other retailers displaying the myki sign
- At myki machines (full fare only) at all metropolitan train stations
- Online
- By calling 1800 800 007 (6am - midnight daily, all night Friday and Saturday)
- At Melbourne Airport, myki machines have been installed in Terminals 2, 3 and 4; concession myki cards can be purchased from the SkyBus Terminal.
Public Transport Victoria (PTV) has useful resources; a Journey Planner and Tram Tracker.
How to travel to Melbourne University Parkville campus
Bicycle routes
The University has plenty of bicycle parking across the campus. For more information please see the Sustainable Campus Cycling/Walking web page.
Bicycles can be hired through the Melbourne Bike Share system at the University and at several locations around the city. Helmets are required by law, and can be purchased for $5 from 7-Eleven stores, vending machines and the Nona Lee Sports Centre (Building 103), Tin Alley at the University. Helmet locations are listed on the FAQs for Bike Rental Options in Melbourne web page.
Car Parking
On-street parking is very limited. There are multi-storey car parks within walking distance of the University. For more information please see the University's Parking on campus web page.
Taxis
There is a taxi rank outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Grattan Street. Major Melbourne taxi companies include:
- 13 Cabs - 13 2227
- Arrow - 13 2211
- Black Cabs Combined - 13 2227
- Yellow Cabs - 13 1924
- Maxi Taxi - 13 6294
- Wheelchair accessible taxis - 9277 3877
Contact
For further information please contact the conference conveners:
About the Australian Research Council Discovery Project:
The Abbey Art Centre: Reassessing postwar Australian art, 1946–1956
This conference stems from a 2020–2023 Australian Research Council Discovery Project examining the post-World War Two activity at the Abbey Art Centre, in New Barnet, England.
The project is a collaborative venture between the University of Melbourne; Monash University; The National Art School, Sydney; and Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. It is funded by the Australian Research Council, 2020–2023 (DP 200102794).
In fully documenting Australian artists who worked at the Abbey Arts Centre, London, 1946–56, and the British and European avant-garde in which they mixed, the project throws light on a historically neglected art colony and recasts conventional understandings of post-WW2 Australian artists’ role in the European postwar period. At a time when this period is being extensively revised within a postcolonial frame, this is a timely contribution to current art historiography that adds significance to Australian art within global institutional contexts.
One outcome, currently being developed, is The Abbey Art Centre Digital Repository, which documents artworks made at the Abbey, 1946–56, or shortly before or after an artist's residency there, as well as archival photographs, letters, catalogues, and items of ephemera. Some items in the digital repository are currently open access. For further information or to request full access, please contact Jane Eckett.
Our research team
Lead Chief Investigator:
Professor Ian McLean
Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History
School of Culture & Communication
University of Melbourne
Chief Investigator:
Professor Rex Butler
Professor of Art History & Theory
Monash University, Melbourne
Partner Investigator:
Dr A.D.S. Donaldson
Lecturer
National Art School, Sydney
International Partner Investigator:
Dr Simon Pierse
Emeritus Senior Lecturer
School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Senior Research Associate:
Dr Sheridan Palmer
School of Culture & Communication
University of Melbourne
Postdoctoral Research Associate:
Dr Jane Eckett
Melbourne Research Fellow
School of Culture & Communication
University of Melbourne
Banner image: Bili and Alan Davie working in the studio at the Abbey Art Centre, c. 1950, photographer unknown, courtesy private collection, UK.