Dimensions
133 x 196 x 41mm
'Australian Gothic' is the first biography of Albert Tucker - one of Australia's most significant and influential artists. Written with a friend's respect and affection, and a scholar's deep appreciation of the forces that shaped Tucker's career, it provides a comprehensive and compelling account of the life and work of this fascinating and brilliant man.
Acclaimed author, curator and art historian, Janine Burke, enjoyed a twenty-two year association with Albert Tucker, and 'Australian Gothic' draws on hours of conversations and interviews she conducted with him. Burke's intimate understanding of her subject is consolidated by original research and her acute critique of Tucker's oeuvre.
Albert Tucker painted the heart of darkness. A member of the 'Angry Penguins' group which include Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Joy Hester, Tucker is best remembered for his paintings of wartime Melbourne: 'Images Of Modern Evil'. He showed the city streets as they had never been painted before or since - as the site of evil, carnality and darkness.
Following the Second World War, Tucker travelled abroad and applied the same uncompromising vision to the devastated cities of postwar Europe. Later, Tucker turned to the Australian landscape for inspiration.
Burke's research also analyses the influence of fellow artist Joy Hester on Tucker's career. Passionate, earthy and gifted, Hester was Tucker's great love and muse. Controversially, Burke argues that following Hester's abandonment of Tucker, his art changed irrevocably.
Meticulously researched, vivid and absorbing, 'Australian Gothic' brilliant captures the intensity and passion of Albert Tucker's remarkable life. Janine Burke has written what will surely become the definitive biography of a complex and captivating man.
