Australian Gothic

(Paperback)

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The acclaimed biography of one of Australia's pre-eminent artists, Albert Tucker. Australian Gothic is the first biography of Tucker, one of Australia's most significant and influential artists. A member of the 'Angry Penguins' group which included 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 shown before as the site of evil, carnality and darkness. Burke's research also analyses the inlfuence of fellow artisy 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. Author, curator and art historian, Janine Burke, enjoyed a 22-year association with Tucker, and her biography draws on hours of conversations and interviews she conducted with him. 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 account of his life and work. Meticulously researched, vivid and absorbing, Australian

Author Bio

Janine Burke is the award-winning author of fifteen books of art history, biography and fiction. Between 1977 and 1982, she lectured in art history at the Victorian College of the Arts before resigning to write full time. She has degrees in art history from the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and Deakin University. She has written extensively on the Heide Circle, including Joy Hester, Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed and The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs. Australian Gothic, her acclaimed biography of Tucker, was published by Knopf in 2002 and the final book in the Heide quartet, The Heart Garden, a biography of Sunday Reed, was released in in She has lectured extensively on art, curated exhibitions, written for newspapers and journals and acted as a consultant to films and documentaries. Dr Burke has the approval and co-operation of the Freud Museum, London, where the collection is currently housed.