Footnotes

PROVENANCE
David Jones Gallery, Sydney
Collection of the late Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Exhibition of Oils and Drawings by Justin O'Brien, David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, 23 October - 1 November 1947, cat. 32, as kindly lent by Warwick Fairfax, Esq.
National Gallery Society of N.S.W. First Loan Exhibition, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 28 September - 19 October 1955, cat. 78 as The Dressing Shed, lent by Mr and Mrs W.O. Fairfax

Two years after the 1947 exhibition at David Jones Gallery, curator Tatlock Miller prepared the following review of Justin O'Brien's works for the short-lived Ure Smith publication, Art and Design.

'In Greece, and in an old moated fort in Poland, Justin O'Brien, a prisoner of war, found that academic attitude was insufficient means for his expression as a painter. While a white hospital ship slid over oily waters off Port Tewfik, bringing him home, he showed me the paintings which he had done in that prison camp. "In those years,' he told me, "I not only learned a lot, but I had to unlearn a lot." From a battered kit he pulled out bits of cardboard, scraps of paper, pieces of packing-case. On these were those boldly coloured, conceived and fashioned portraits and compositions of a struggling transition period, forerunners of pictures which to-day place him among the truly creative artists of this country. He is now journeying in France, in Italy in England.

Rich with glowing harmonies and dissonances of colour, the massed effect of his paintings might well be likened to an incessant Gregorian chant. Reds, blues, greens glow with a sonorousness, at times almost as stained glass will glow. A sensuous coat of colours, in turn, clothes the figure of Christ, of Madonna, of apostle, and of winged angel or cherubim.

One senses strongly of his inmost inspiration springs from a deeply-felt Christianity. It permeates and complexions much of his work as an artist. This impulse, once so general, is to-day equally rare, and now holds something of a surprise when manifested in contemporary painting. We are immediately conscious of this on seeing his The Dormition of the Virgin, a triptych which tells its gentle narrative in the tradition of a Sienese altar-piece, or on seeing his Christ at Emmaus or The Kiss of Judas.

Because of such implications, it is easily understood that Justin O'Brien should seek among the hieratic forms and colours of Byzantium, that early, purest expression of religious art. But his imagery is warmed and tinged with humanity rather than confined within the rigidity of any awe-inspiring message. Beneath the decoration and the simplification of flat patterning in, say, Greek Burial, - forerunner of so many of his later paintings - is an arabesque of rhythm, a sensitive and fluid linear structure. It is clearly seen in his drawings. Ones feels at timed that depth of thought and credence would perhaps have a stronger image, with a deeper consideration for and use of recessional volume.

Belief in spiritual means will not alone produce viable work, as Rouault says. "To equal Angelico it is not enough to pray before painting. First a strong and lively inclination is necessary." Justin O'Brien holds such inclination, and in his search and journeying for a fair and fitting means of expression for his inner promptings, he will always, as an artist, have much to say.'