Victor George (Vic) O'Connor (1918-2010)
The Acrobats, 1941 signed and dated lower right: 'VG O'Connor 41'oil on canvas on composition board60.0 x 75.0cm (23 5/8 x 29 1/2in).
注脚
PROVENANCEDavid Jones Gallery, SydneyCollection of the late Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1941EXHIBITEDContemporary Art Society, Third Annual Exhibition, David Jones Gallery, Sydney, 9 September - 4 October 1941; then Hotel Australia, Melbourne, 14 - 31 October 1941, cat. 168LITERATURE'Contemporary Art: Vital Works at Annual Show', The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 9 September 1941, p. 7Richard Haese, Rebels and Precursors, The Revolutionary Years of Australian Art, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1981, p. 87Richard Haese, Modern Australian Art, Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1982, p. 87Bernard Smith, Noel Counihan: Artist and Revolutionary, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993, p. 170Keith Richmond, 'A Painter of Ordinary Life', Oz Arts, issue nine, 1994, p. 59 (illus.)Janine Burke, Australian Gothic: A Life of Albert Tucker, Random House, Sydney, 2002, p. 170 Formed in 1938, the Contemporary Art Society held its first exhibition in 1939. Exhibiting artists included Noel Counihan, Russell Drysdale, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker. Through the encouragement of friend David Strachan, Vic O'Connor joined the Society and entered a landscape into the 1939 exhibition. It was to be a turning point for O'Connor. As described by Keith Richmond in his article in OZ Arts magazine, 'The C.A.S. comprised most of the younger artists of the period - figures like Bell, Arnold Shaw, Frater, Drysdale, Dobell and Gleeson, as well as traditional artists. The C.A.S. was founded in July 1938 to 'unite all artists and laymen who are in favour of encouraging the growth of a living art', in opposition to the then-current idea of the creation of an officially sanctioned 'self-constituted Academy'.For a time the Society flourished, with branches in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, but as the threat of an academy vanished differences arose between the variousgroups who had joined the movement. The Bell group was the first to leave as theywere opposed to the part lay people played in the Society. The quarrel developed between Bell and a group around John and Sunday Reed - an avant garde circle which included Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval. The third group comprised those later termed the Social Realists: Noel Counihan, Vic O'Connor and Yosl Bergner.It was in the early 1940s that Social Realism gained prominence in Australian art,largely due to the Communist Party's stand against fascism and the entry into thewar in 1941 of the USSR. Many of its practitioners had bitter memories of theDepression; they had also found entry to the art world a stony path indeed, andwere sympathetic to socialism and communism. Further, the evolution of Australiansociety had shifted the main emphasis from the life and appearance of ruralAustralia to the city.While Vic says the term Social Realist was usually applied to Counihan, Bergnerand himself, to identify them as a group, 'we were, however, each quite differentfrom the other. Bergner's work reflected Jewish hopes and fears at that time.Counihan had a record of achievement as a political cartoonist, and when he began to paint, his work reflected his close association with working-class leftwing action. I was less sophisticated and had to find my way to