Yesterday Callum, Louise, Chris and l visited the Yarra Valley winery region (about a 1 hour drive from our home) to view the Jeffrey Smart exhibition at the Tarrawarra winery and gallery. Before the gallery we had a delicious lunch at the Mandala Winery.
Jeffrey Smart "is an expatriate Australian painter, who is known for his Precisionist depictions of urban landscapes. Precisionism was an artistic movement that emerged in the United States after World War 1 and was at its height during the inter-War period. The term itself was first coined in the early 1920s. Influenced strongly by Cubism and Futurism, its main themes included industrialisation and the modernization of the American landscape, which were depicted in precise, sharply defined, geometrical forms."*
After the exhibition and over coffee on the lawns at Tarrawarra, we shared our various views about his work. I found his work clinical, technically outstanding, but, apart from several of the pieces in the exhibition, devoid of emotional content. A lovely day; good company, excellent food and stimulating art.
Go here for several photos.
*Wikipedia