Founded by Bruce Pollard and operating out of St Kilda Richmond from 1967 – 2002, the Pinacotheca gallery was renowned for showing experimental and avant-garde contemporary art. Pinacotheca foregrounded the works of significant Australian artists, including those featured in The Concentric Influences of Sol LeWitt such as Robert Hunter and Irene Barberis, with Barberis being one of the first woman artists to exhibit at the Richmond gallery.
You are invited to a panel discussion with Dr Irene Barberis (chair) with Australian historian Dr Christopher Heathcote, Pinacotheca archivist and friend Trevor Fuller and artist Simon Klose, for a conversation on the early- to mid-70s Richmond era. The discussion will centre around the artists’ personal viewpoints, perceptions and reflections on this important historical gallery and community. Bringing lived memory into dialogue with archive and critique, the panel asks how ideas travelled, how they were translated into practice and what Pinacotheca’s history still offers to the development of art in Australia.
Christopher Heathcote, Trevor Fuller & Simon Klose. Chair: Irene Barberis
Image: Bruce Pollard and artists at Pinacotheca’s closure November 1999. Photograph by Graham Baring, November 1999. Collection of Trevor Fuller.
Christopher Heathcote needs little introduction. After studying Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, he began writing art criticism for Art Monthly Australia, becoming the Melbourne editor. From there he was head hunted for its senior art critic by The Age, his reviews attracting national attention. He shifted into art history upon publishing his first book A Quiet Revolution: The Rise of Australian Art 1946-1968 which follows the transition from the minuscule inert art scene of the war years, shaken by the Angry Penguins avant-garde, to the progressive internationally-aware visual establishment of the sixties, supporting new generation Colour Field artists. More books have followed, notably Inside the Art Market: Australia’s Galleries, A History which closely charts the evolution over the twentieth century of rented exhibition spaces into sophisticated, commercially-savvy private galleries; and reveals the transformative roles of key figures who have owned them. And he co-authored with Professors Bernard Smith and Terry Smith of Australian Painting 1788-2000 (published by Oxford University Press) hailed as the ‘classic’ account of Australian art. A contributor to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Dr Heathcote has authored major studies on artists including Roger Kemp, Yvonne Audette, Russell Drysdale and William Dobell. He currently reviews shows around local galleries on the weekly blog Art Beat—Melbourne.
Trevor Fuller arrived in Melbourne with his wife Michele in mid-1976. After encountering the Ewing and George Paton Galleries’ avant-garde journal, Arts Melbourne, the pair visited Bruce Pollard’s Pinacotheca at 10 Waltham Place, Richmond. The visits continued thereafter and broadened to an enduring friendship with Bruce and the artists. Since the 1990s, Trevor and Michele have been compiling Pinacotheca’s exhibition archive as well as the histories of Bruce’s operation of the gallery and engagement with artists, collectors, critics, curators and peer gallerists.
Simon Klose was born in Adelaide and grew up in Melbourne. He attended four art schools with varying success, graduating finally with a Post Graduate Diploma majoring in Printmaking. Following a brief career in lecturing at art schools he took up consecutive positions in university and public galleries as well as some consulting to local government. He was also involved in the organisation and representation of public galleries to state government in Victoria and Queensland. Klose has travelled in Western Europe, America, U.K. and some of Asia, looking at galleries, sculpture parks and matters related to culture. Since leaving the gallery sector he has returned to the studio on a continuing basis. Klose has an exhibition history spanning many decades, including solo and group shows at NGV, many regional galleries, Pinacotheca, Powell Street Gallery, Niagara Gallery, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Stephen McLaughlan Gallery and Five Walls Gallery amongst others. His work is held in public and private collections.
Australia/UK based artist Irene Barberis has been exhibiting since the mid-seventies and internationally since 1980. Inventing, making, curating and initiating projects and platforms around the globe, Barberis’ projects span countries and borders and include major international exhibitions and projects in Europe, UK, USA the Middle East and the Far East, often incorporating smaller, more intimate intercultural dialogues and exchanges within the international university system. Concentric Influences of Sol Le Witt: Foundations Pivots and Place. Ten Countries, 2022 – 2028 was conceived by Barberis in 2019. It is an internationally recognised research project investigating the breadth and depth of influence LeWitt had and has on international artists across ten countries. She has been awarded an Honorary Research Fellowship at DJCAD, University of Dundee to work on the LeWitt Project, UK, and is currently working across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Australia. Her recent projects include The Tapestry of Light (2016/17), a 36 x 3.2mt jacquard tapestry of the Apocalypse; the only known full cycle of the Apocalypse in tapestry form by a female artist.
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