Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil series, Art Monthly Australia, September 2011

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Prior to his death in 1999, Albert Tucker and his wife Barbara were involved in negotiations with Heide Museum of Modern Art for the transfer of a major collection of artworks. This incredible benefaction enabled Heide to undertake what they called the 2005 – 2006 Redevelopment Program and it was this government supported scheme that facilitated a new wing; the Albert and Barbara Tucker Gallery and the Tucker Study Centre.
 

After this incredible donation of some 200 paintings, 1000 books and Tucker’s visual archive, there has no doubt been a degree of pressure for Heide to keep public interest in Albert Tucker’s work fresh.
 

An exhibition that took two years to research and develop, Albert Tucker: Images of Modern Evil, is currently on display at Heide until the 26th June 2011. The exhibition boasts to displaying all locatable works from the series. This is made up of thirty-three of the thirty-nine works from the series along with sketches and studies, works on paper and three sculptures cast in bronze.
 

In the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Jason Smith, director and CEO of Heide Museum declares that the show is “the centrepiece in Heide’s thirtieth anniversary exhibition program.”[1] Part of the pride that Heide has in their Albert Tucker: Images of Modern Evil, exhibition comes from the fact that they can claim that this is the first time the Modern Evil series has been exhibited as a whole. A total of twenty-eight paintings from the Modern Evil series were exhibited at the Sweeney Reed Gallery in 1972, in an exhibition titled, Night Images 1943 – 1947, (Images of Modern Evil) and was curated by Sweeney Reed, Tucker’s son. Although the exhibition at Sweeney Reed Gallery was a great opportunity to display the Modern Evil series, the current Heide exhibition has taken this idea one step further with its catalogue that promotes innovative ways of interpreting the series as it attempts to repatriate the series as being a milestone of Australian modernism.
 

It seems baffling that such a large-scale exhibition of the Modern Evil series has not taken place earlier considering that when researching Tucker, the Modern Evil series is always considered as being quintessentially Tucker. Along with Nolan’s famous Ned Kelly suite, the Images of Modern Evil represent a turning point in the development of a home-grown vernacular Australian movement. Heide borrowed most of the Modern Evil works from the National Gallery of Australia, which houses a total of twenty-eight of the paintings. I visited the National Gallery towards the end of 2010 to see the works and was shocked to find that only three pieces from the Modern Evil series were on permanent display whilst the remaining rested in storage. This is in stark contrast to the ‘Kelly room’ now situated front and centre of the National Gallery’s collection hang after its recent upgrade. These facts alone point to the tumultuous history of the series, a history that Heide is keen to display. Essentially shining light on the underdog, Heide’s Albert Tucker: Images of Modern Evil exhibition is repatriating a great milestone of Australian modernism.
 

Part of the reason why Heide’s show triumphs as being the most complete exhibition of the series, rests not only on the fact that they have the highest number of paintings on display, but also because works on paper, preliminary sketches and three works of sculpture are included in the show.
 

The exhibition at Heide is as much an exhibition of the history behind the works as it is a display of the works themselves. This is a series that has been packed into storage more times than it has been dusted off and displayed. Tucker began to create the series in the 1930s and it was his first, and arguably most famous body of works. At the time, he was heavily involved in the Contemporary Art Society as were the majority of the ‘Heide circle’ (Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval among them) and it was in affiliation with this group that Tucker first began to exhibit his Modern Evil series, often showing a handful of works from the series at a time.

In both the Contemporary Art Society exhibitions of 1944 and 1945, Tucker had six works of art from the Modern Evil series on display. None of his works received any mention, positive or negative by The Herald art critic, Clive Turnbull, who reviewed the Contemporary Art Society exhibitions in both years. In fact, one could claim that now that the works are being shown collectively at Heide, they are receiving more critical attention than they ever have before, particularly following Robert Nelson’s disparaging write up in The Age newspaper in April.
 

The stereotypical image of Tucker, it seems is that he was quite commonly in an agitated state, storming the streets painting what he saw, unlike the Australian Impressionists before him, who preferred to passively sigh in meadows. The exhibition catalogue for Heide’s current show pays this element of Tucker’s work a great deal of attention and questions the cliché portrayal of Tucker and the creation of the Modern Evil series.
 

The most prevalent questioning of Tucker’s manner of working centre’s around the artistic license employed by the artist at the time of the Modern Evil series’ formation. Juliette Peers in particular, discusses the embellished notion of evil present in Tucker’s Modern Evil series. Specifically, Peers’s catalogue essay, ‘Which Evil? Which War?’ claims that that Tucker’s Modern Evil series “should not be read as direct reportage.”[2] Rather, Peers reminds us that Tucker was quite heavily influenced by the likes of Picasso, Grosz and Rouault, and it is likely that Tucker appropriated the “often acidic vision of women” that comes through in the works of these artists, into his own local setting.[3] 
 

Whatever the underlying meaning is behind the works, the impact of both Melbourne’s city-scape and Tucker’s unceasing political personality on the Modern Evil series is communicated throughout the Heide exhibition. An example of Tucker’s unrelenting standpoints is Image of Modern Evil, 2.
 

Image of Modern Evil, 2 was created in 1943 and depicts an image of a ‘victory girl’, a female form that is wearing a skirt of red, blue and white stripes. The image is shrouded in shadows however Tucker’s application of paint and colour lends the painting a glowing quality: the female figure in the works foreground is strangely luminous given the amount of darkness surrounding her. The bright red crescent shape, an emblem of the Modern Evil series, is used in this painting to depict the woman’s mouth, emphasizing the already sexualized nature of the figure - her arms are raised above her head, her eyes are closed as if in ecstasy and she is flaunting her breasts.
 

As the Heide exhibition has been hung in a chronological manner, Image of Modern Evil, 2 is in the first room given that it is one of the series earliest works. It is this segment of the exhibition in particular that encourages visitors to gain a deeper understanding of Tucker’s penchant for modifying and rethinking his works and his consciousness of their significance. Image of Modern Evil, 2 is no exception, as the victory girl-style skirt was in fact, added after the paintings original completion date. The display cabinets in this section of the exhibition show images of a number of the works in their previous states, acting as a great resource for visitors to learn about Tucker’s process and the history of the series. Meticulous in its detail, the catalogue also includes the previous states of certain works as a way of detailing the importance Tucker bestowed on his Images of Modern Evil series.
 

A second painting that details the reworking done by Tucker is Image of Modern Evil, 9. This painting is a scene inside a cinema theatre with two celestial figures in the foreground, both of which are glowing white and stand out amidst the darkness of the theatre. As common as the crescent mouth, the celestial ‘protoplasmic’ figures are so prevalent in the series that it is almost as if they are Tucker’s minions, sent to deliver the message of evil among the human race. For No. 9, small amendments have been made that change the overall feeling of the piece. In the original painting there is an exit door and a clock on the wall, however in the finished painting displayed at Heide both of these elements have been subtracted.
 

By ensuring that previous states and studies are included in the exhibition, Lesley Harding has assisted visitors to understand the history of the Modern Evil series, as this is an integral part of understanding the works and the importance of their current display.
 

Another endearing part of the exhibition is the incorporation of sculptural works. The celestial figures, (as mentioned earlier, these are a central motif to the series as a whole and are depicted in most of Tucker’s oil paintings) come to life when cast in bronze. By displaying such an eclectic array of the series’ facets, the exhibition portrays Tucker’s fascination with the series’ political commentary and artistic breakthroughs as much as the conception of modern evil.

With such an extensive exhibition of the Modern Evil series, Heide is indeed keeping public interest in Tucker’s work fresh. The current display of the Modern Evil series marks the most substantial exhibit of the works to date, and so it is reasonable to assume that because of Heide’s efforts and desire to keep Tucker current, academic discussion of Tucker’s initial series of work will be forever changed.

 

[1] Smith, J. Images of Modern Evil, Albert Tucker, exhibition catalogue, 19th March – 26th June, 2011, The Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Victoria. p. 7

[2] Peers, J. ‘Which Evil? Which War?’, Images of Modern Evil, Albert Tucker, exhibition catalogue, 19th March – 26th June, 2011, The Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Victoria. p. 60

[3] ibid. 

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