In the foyer of the City of Melbourne Council House One at 200 Little Collins Street, in the City, there is a tapestry by Dean Bowen on view, called "Suburbanology" (1995). It is 2.5 x 5m in dimensions and is rather difficult to photograph as the foyer is rather cramped. It was woven by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop and the weavers are, Merrill Dumbrell, Lisa Stebbing, Rebecca Moulton and Liz Nettleton.
Artist Dean Bowen was commissioned by the City of Melbourne to design this tapestry for the Melbourne Town Hall, celebrating the Workshop as a jewel in Melbourne’s cultural crown. Bowen is known for his evocation of the city-based life of today's Australia. Observations of the everyday experience, childhood memories, books and literature portrayed with gentle humour and irony, are the basis for these urban 'wildlifes’ shown in flattened perspective or cross-section slices. "Suburbanology" is characteristic of Bowen’s witty and playful investigation of urban life, its landscape and symbols.
This post is part of the Monday Murals meme.
Hotel Sofitel Melbourne, located at 25 Collins Street, Melbourne has two stunning tapestries on view in its first floor Foyer, near the auditorium. These popular tapestries depict two of Australia’s best known floral emblems: The golden wattle, Australia’s national emblem, and the pink heath, the emblem of the State of Victoria. During 1980, the Australian Tapestry Workshop took the Pink Heath tapestry to the USA, as the centrepiece of its first American exhibition.
The Wattle tapestry of 1979 by Marie Cook is 3.65 x 6.09m and the weavers were Marie Cook, Gordon Cameron, Ilona Fornalski, Kathy Hope, Jan Nelson, Cheryl Thornton, WendyWebb, Irja West. The Pink Heath tapestry of 1979 is also by Marie Cook and measures 3.65 x 6.09m. The weavers were Marie Cook, Sue Batten, Andrea May, Iain Young.
This post is part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Mellow Yellow meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Monday meme.
"The Games Children Play" is a tapestry by Robert Ingpen commissioned by the Royal ChildRoyal Children's Hospital Foundation as a tribute to Dame Elisabeth Murdoch's 75 year relationship with the hospital. There is a well established understanding of the importance between art and hospital environments, and the tapestry is a playful way to provide those using the Children's Hospital facilities with a colourful and amusing distraction while they may be at the hospital for more serious concerns.
Established in 1989 the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation works tirelessly to raise funds for a number of different projects such as state-of-the-art medical equipment, ongoing paediatric research programs and scholarships for medical and allied health professional staff at the Royal Children's Hospital.
Born in 1936, Robert Ingpen's diverse career has encompassed book illustration, stamp design, public mural commissions and sculptural design as well an active fine art practice.
Ingpen has illustrated and/or written over 100 published books, both fiction and non-fiction including illustrating the iconic Storm Boy written by Colin Thiele, published in 1975, and illustrating a 1982 edition of Clancy of the Overflow, by Banjo Patterson. Ingpen has a long standing relationship with the ATW. He was the designing artist for the Melbourne Cricket Ground tapestry, launched in 2004. Robert also designed the monumental bronze MCG doors.
The inspiration for this tapestry design comes from a painting titled Games Children Play by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, painted in 1590. Robert Ingpen, using the format and flat picture plane of this work as a starting point, has re-set and re-cast this work in the twenty first century.
This post is part of the Monday Murals meme,
Last week I had some business to attend to at the bank, but fortuitously I did not go to my usual branch, visiting instead the National Australia Bank branch at 330 Collins Street, in the city. On view in Foyer at the top of stairs, one can see a splendid tapestry adorning the long wall of the stairwell.
It is "Early Days in the Goldfields" of Albert Tucker (1982), a huge work, 5 metres x 2.4 metres. The weavers are Iain Young, Pamela Joyce, Leonie Bessant and Sue Carstairs.
In this tapestry, distinguished Australian artist Albert Tucker (1914 - 1999) evokes a sense of the hard working cobbers in the Australian gold fields during the gold rush of the 1800s.
Tucker’s interest in German Expressionism is apparent in the design, both in his experimental use of space and form, and in his choice of subject, the work-weary souls toiling away at their fortunes, and. This tapestry, translated from a small oil painting, has charmingly figurative elements, while also capturing Tucker’s vigorous, painterly brush strokes.
This post is part of the Mural Monday meme,
