Title

Roland Wakelin: A striking exhibition.

Author

Author not identified

Source

Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 18 April 1831 - ongoing

Details

27 June 1935, p.4, col.4.

Publication date

27 June 1935

Type

Exhibition review

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

ROLAND WAKELIN.
A STRIKING EXHIBITION.

An exhibition by Mr. Roland Wakelin is always an interesting and stimulating event. This artist has advanced through various phases of influence, and has taken from each exactly what suited his needs, so that at present his style, which is mature, though by no means static, shows a singularly strong individuality. One notices, particularly, a grow- the delicacy and mellowness of expression. The Cezanne-like period seems to have passed its zenith, giving place to passages of pure lyric- ism, which point to the ascendancy of other stars. In "Carlingford Pastoral," for example, Van Gogh seems to have given a suggestion in the way of technical approach. No artist who has been strongly impressed by the ideas of a forerunner can succeed in shaking off those ideas entirely. The great thing is that they shall be fully assimilated, so that they become a means to a further end, rather than an end in themselves. This is the case with the influence of Cézanne on Mr. Wakelin. The influence survives not as a mannerism but as an underlying and self-effacing, yet remarkably powerful feeling for three dimensional form.

One says "self-effacing" because in many of the pictures at present on view at the Macquarie Galleries it is the quality of the colour which first arrests attention. The artist does not fear to set himself difficult problems in the way of harmonising hues, which carelessly thrown together would create screaming discord. The still-life, "Crimson and Green, "provides an excellent example. Instead of striking a false note the lemons set out against the curtain give an accent which seems exactly right, and at the same time possesses the piquancy of the unexpected. In the portrait "Roland Wakelin junior" two apparently foreign colour-areas are similarly resolved.

The pictures show a wide range of subject matter and of atmospheric effect. The "Carlingford Pastoral," already referred to, scintillates with the sharp, crisp light which comes often with a rushing breeze across the fields. "Landscape with Red Roofs," all movement and gaiety, has as its antithesis "Towards Greenwich,” a scene of crepuscular gloom and oppression. The colour is always transparent and always applied with an impressive sureness as to the effect that is being sought for. The strength of colour and of form unified as the two elements are establish Mr. Wakelin as a genuinely distinguished artist.

The exhibition was opened yesterday by Mr. Lloyd Rees, who said that Mr. Wakelin, since his exhibition last year, had been recognised as one of the major painters of Australia. His earlier shows were almost unnoticed except by a few people, who had always appreciated his work, and by certain critics who had always singled his work out for unfavorable comment. The change in the general estimation of Mr. Wakelin's painting was not due to a marvelous improvement in his work but to a change in the minds of the onlookers. Slowly but surely a new set of art values was being established
.
[Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June 1935, p.4, col.4.]
 

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