2000s

Organic Constructivism I

Cold World

Cool World

Green World I

Garden

Gothic World

After eight years of fluctuating health, during the worst of which it was suggested I might need a lung transplant, I finally started to feel consistently well again, thanks to attention by specialists at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. I decided I needed a clean break and to set about making the best of the rest of my able hours. I had already been asked to contribute to books on notable South Australian artists, first Franz Kempf: Thinking on Paper (2002), then Mervyn Smith Watercolours (2004), so I decided to bite the bullet and do a book to introduce the art of my late father, something I had been working on since 1986. With the completion of that project, I decided to try to produce one book a year on a local modern artist of note, realizing that I was the only person with the right skills who could record their histories. This stemmed from my background in publishing, editing, curating and writing on art; but also on my specialization, which gelled during my thesis, which was [South] Australian modernism. I have now writen, co-written or edited six books in this series.

During the decade I also held one major exhibition in Sydney and two major exhibitions in Adelaide, with my sister Ursula at Light Square Gallery in 2003, just before my mother died; and at RSASA to coincide with my 50th birthday. I also curated an exhibition of my father’s work from the last decade of his life, at RSASA, and then a joint exhibition with his brother Ludwik, who died in 2008, at Nexus Gallery in 2009. I also saw work by my father in the major exhibition Cubism and Australian Art at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne, then selections of work by both brothers in Painthing, at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, early in 2010.

In 2007 I received a fellowship from the Architecture Museum at University of South Australia to research the life and work of local architect Brian Claridge. My report was funded by the Department of Environment and Heritage, Heritage Branch and was followed up with the monograph Brian Claridge: Architect of Light and Space (2008). This book received a national award for its design in 2008.

I continued writing on art in other projects from time to time: most notably for an exhibition of historic paintings of the Adelaide Hills at Hahndorf Academy (2009), and for Dianne Longley’s Fantastic Grotesque exhibition at Broken Hill Regional Gallery then Adelaide Central Gallery (2009/10).