Angry Penguins & Realist Painting In Melbourne In The 1940s

Berrett Reid writes on Sunday & John Reed; Bernard Smith writes on Realist Art in Wartime Australia; Janine Burke writes on women in the 1940s; Charles Mereweather writes on Modernism from the Lower Depths; Christopher Heathcote provides an illustrated chronology (1937-1848). pp. 176 Colour and b/w illusts #200216’The Angry Penguins’ was a modernist literary and artistic movement that sought to shake up the entrenched art establishment of Australia in the 1940s. The movement was run by a group of passionate and ‘angry’ young men – the rebels of their day. Centred around poet Max Harris, the movement took their name from an art and literary magazine first published by Harris in 1940.The Angry Penguins, to quote Max Harris, expressed ‘a noisy and aggressive revolutionary modernism’ and represented the new language and the new painting of Australia. They were forthright and unapologetic, ‘demanding’ to be heard and seen. Members of the Penguin painting group included Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan and Joy Hester.Like their literary comrades, these painters fought against the dominant conservative styles of the day and were strongly influenced by early European expressionism and surrealism. ART & CRAFT – AUSTRALIAN