Sandra Leveson Explained

Sandra Leveson
Birth Place:Melbourne, Australia
Education:Caulfield Institute of Technology, National Gallery School
Known For:Abstract painting, printmaking

Sandra Leveson (born 1944), also known as Sandra Leveson-Meares, is an Australian painter, printmaker, and teacher.

Training

From 1959, aged fourteen, to 1963, Leveson studied design at Caulfield Institute of Technology where she and sculptor Ken Leveson met while he was taking fashion illustration.[1] She continued studies at the National Gallery School 1959-63 and they married in 1966 and lived in Sandringham and both taught at Brighton Technical College.[2] In 1971 they were contemplating buying nineteenth-century mill near Castlemaine "for another environment to work in,"[1] but instead converted a warehouse to a studio-cum-townhouse at 4 Tyrone Street, South Yarra.[3] She undertook overseas study in the UK and US in 1974[4] and 1976.[5] [6]

Career and reception

Teacher

While resident at 23 Tennyson Street, Sandringham,[7] where she was photographed in 1970 by Paul Cox (lecturer at Prahran College) with her then husband Ken,[8] Leveson taught printmaking at Brighton Technical College. From 1970 to 1982, she lectured in Fine Art at the Prahran College of Advanced Education[9] where she was Head of printmaking 1972–82.[10] In Sydney, Prahran College graduate Carol Jerrems made a sequence of photographs of her in 1974 for A Book About Australia Women.[11]

Artist

In the late mid-1960s Leveson adopted a geometric Op Art style in her early screen prints.[12] [13] Of these reviewer Patrick McCaughey wrote:

Good design wins out too often. These prints may contain intricacies but never real difficulties for the spectator. They do too much and make life much too easy with their bland matt colors. Pleasant enough and skilful in their decorative organisatiton, it's a pressure free art, demanding little and sustaining little. The exhibition, one suspects, hides a better artist than it reveals. The shaped polyptych upstairs promises a curtness awaiting future delivery.[14]
Later works established her as a colourist when in 1968 they were shown at Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne, in a joint show Recent prints 18 – 29 November with Alan Warren.[15] However, despite their adherence to the high Modernist colour field style and to geometric abstraction then ascendant, as Foster points out, Leveson's work, and Lesley Dumbrell's likewise, was not included amongst the predominantly male artists' in the 1968 The Field survey.[16]

In 1971 Leveson started screen printing on her canvases. Ruth Faerber in 1972 confirmed the lyrical quality of her imagery;

Sandra Leveson uses an optical off-register dot pattern to create moire patterned surfaces in lyrical romantic color. Built up with a minute pointilistic technique, large silkscreen prints in editions, single canvases and double-sided glass images conjure up drifting recangular and diamond forms, structured by strongly contrasting stable and strict borders of flat color. Skill and sensitivity are superbly combined in works of restful elegance.[17]
That emphasis led her American Abstract Expressionist-influenced works of the 1970s, and first seen in Sydney in 1972[18] at The Holdsworth Galleries,[19] which in turn was adapted to her semi-abstract representation of expansive Australian landscape.[20]

However McCaughey continued to regard Leveson's work of this period, shown at Realties at the end of 1972, as lightweight;

They make all the right moves for seriousness. I mean they've got "color spread", "optical displacement" and even some cautious shaped prints. But we've all been dragged round this track too often for the moves to come off. There's not a twitch we can't predict, except one's own aghast grimace.[21]
Daniel Thomas pointed out in her 1974 show at Bonython the link between Leveson's screen printing, through the use of stencils, with her painting, describing the effect in her "Optic Series" as "like looking at a pale Rothko through a flyscreen." Thomas noted that she was then selling works at around $1,000.[22] Leveson in interview said the effect was inspired on her overseas residencies during which she took photographs of mist and fog, "showing images behind a curtain, a natural haze."

Age reviewer Maureen Gilchrist summing up exhibitions of the year 1976 concluded that Leveson's at Realities gallery, with those of Lesley Dumbrell at Powell Street, were "the year's most compelling," her "large canvases, painted and then successively silkscreened with one of the dominant colors, achieves extraordinarily subtle effects of hovering, vibration and translucency. These lyrical works have such titles as Lesbos, evoking a female consiciousnses."[23] In April, Gilchrist reviewed the survey of ten years of the artist's work held at Melbourne University, and remarked on its evolution and the influence of her overseas travel to see Noland,[24] Rothko, Louis, Turner and Monet;[25]

In the earlier screen prints and acrylics Leveson was involved with optics and with creating a simple, clearly defined, geometric regularity. Gradually she began to relinquish this approach and is now attempting a far more complex unity. In the new canvases she begins with a brushy, gestural spread of colors, usually applied centrally, and then successively screens one of the dominant colors over these, employing a silkscreen technique. The effect is a series of semitransparent veils [...] The effect is as fugitive as an apparition, but it is not amorphous. The silk-screened veil of dots acts as a regulating device, a grid, balancing the fluid, spontaneously brushed gestures of the hand.[26]
Paul Taylor of the same retrospective also noted the synthesis of "juxtaposed gestural strokes with the screenprint grid and also...the lyrical palette."[27]

In April 1978 Leveson was invited onto a "Discussion Panel On Painting," at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in conjunction with the exhibition of a paintings there by John Walker, chaired by Patrick McCaughey, with David Aspden, Syd Ball, John Firth-Smith, Alun Leach-Jones and John Peart.[28] Then in June that year joined in the symposium "Views on Recent Changes in Women's Art", with Janine Burke, Lesley Dumbrell, Helen Geier, Memory Holloway, Jenny Watson, Elizabeth Gower at Powell Street Gallery South Yarra.[29] In 1987, Leveson was again invited to the AGNSW as a speaker in "Artists on Art," beside William Delafield Cook, Fred Cress, John Firth-Smith, Robert Jacks, Michael Johnson, Colin Lanceley, Terence Maloon on Hilarie Mais, Susan Norrie and Richard Dunn, Tim Storrier, Ann Thomson and John Wolseley for the Centre for the History of the Decorative Arts.[30]

Also by 1978, Leveson had found a receptive market in Fort Worth, Texas, for Australian landscapes that looked familiar to Texans, exhibiting paintings and prints at Gallery One, later named William Campbell Contemporary Art.[31] [32] [33]

Sasha Grishin, in 1978, reacted with a contrary view of her contributions at Susan Gillespie Galleries, Canberra; "Sandra Leveson's suite of four screenprints, 'Half Moon Bay' Nos | to 4, with its juxtaposition of photographic seascapes and soft pastel-like backgrounds, leads to nowhere and is executed with a professional slickness that leaves one uneasy."[34] Likewise Robert Rooney, reviewing her contributions to a group show at Realities in early 1979 in The Age considered her lyricism as having been taken too far, with "gestures...devoid of energy and her colors favor powder puff flesh and eye shadow. Fresh Water Plain has superimposed dot screens for added strength, but it doesn't come off. Not as good as her early stuff."[35]

McCulloch in 2006 characterised her style as "coolly restrained abstracts, which are often characterised by pastel blues and pinks divided by a horizon-like line."[36]

In 1980 after her second husband Russell Meares accepted a professorship in psychology at the University of Sydney,[37] he and Leveson relocated from Melbourne to Sydney, converting a former chemical warehouse in Balmain for a large studio.[38] However her Harbour-inspired imagery left reviewer Memory Holloway detecting no emotion and "one idea, one image which is flogged into submission: a tough and aggressive triangle," in over-simplified compositions in which "the eye is never enticed into the work, never arrested or caught in any visual tangle, but glides effortlessly over the slick surfaces without interruption."[39] On her own work in 1987 Leveson remarked; *Basically I'm a romantic so I like that thing about the image being not quite there, fugitive, ephemeral."[25]

Exhibitions

Solo

Leveson achieved early recognition and from 1962, then aged 18,[40] she commenced a series of solo shows, first in Melbourne's Pinacotheca, and Realities[41] [42] [43] and later, Greythorn,[44] and at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney.[45] [46] Others include;

Group

Awards and commissions

Collections

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: 3 June 1971 . They've no time for getting bored . 22 . The Age.
  2. News: 28 February 1981 . Real Estate : Sandringham : There's even a lookout for a glimpse of the sea . 45 . The Age.
  3. News: 25 October 1985 . Real Estate : The Best, Weekend : Street of the Week . 116–117 . The Age.
  4. News: 3 February 1974 . The picture parade . 102 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  5. Book: Drury, Nevill . Images 2: contemporary Australian painting . 1994 . Craftsman House . 978-976-8097-69-9 . East Roseville . English . 932313824.
  6. Book: Germaine, Max . A dictionary of women artists of Australia . 1991 . Craftsman House ; STBS Ltd. (distributor) . 978-976-8097-13-2 . Roseville East, NSW, Australia; New York, NY . English . 26591029.
  7. Book: De_Groen . Geoffrey . Conversations with australian artists . Mackinnon . Leah . 1978 . Quartet Melbourne . 978-0-908128-00-6 . Melbourne . English . 963500747.
  8. Web site: Sandringham (Tony Ward, Ingrid, Sandra Leveson, Ken Leveson, Jan Hurrell) . 2022-04-03 . www.mga.org.au . en.
  9. News: 7 November 1975 . Art at College . 23 . The Australian Jewish News.
  10. Book: Buckrich, Judith Raphael . Design for living: a history of 'Prahran Tech' . 2007 . Prahran Mechanics' Institute Press . 978-0-9756000-8-5 . Windsor, Vic. . English . 225572527.
  11. Book: Fraser . Virginia . A Book about Australian women . Jerrems . Carol . 1974 . Outback Press . 978-0-86888-007-5 . North Fitzroy, Vic. . English . 1365981.
  12. Web site: Leveson . Sandra . 1970 . Optic series D 1972 . 2022-04-03 . Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art.
  13. Book: Burke, Janine . Field of vision: a decade of change : women's art in the seventies . 1990 . Viking . Ringwood, Vic., Australia . 9780670835867 . English . 1035485995.
  14. News: McCaughey . Patrick . 27 November 1968 . Art . 6 . The Age.
  15. The Sun, 20 November 1968, p23
  16. Foster . Julie Rosewarne . 1995 . Advocating a gender inclusive curriculum in the visual arts: politics, pedagogy, postmodernism . Australian Art Education . English . 18 . 2 . 17–27 . 1032-1942 . 7128716299.
  17. News: Faerber . Ruth . 2 March 1972 . Entertainment and the Arts —Looking In-Looking Out . 6 . The Australian Jewish Times .
  18. Lynn . Elwyn . 4 March 1972 . Posters as art... . The Bulletin . 094 . 4796 . 36.
  19. 2 February 1974 . Listings : Art . The Bulletin . 096 . 4891 . 42.
  20. Book: Ivory . Helen . Sandra Leveson . Leveson . Sandra . 1993 . Craftsman House ; STBS Ltd. [distributor |location=East Roseville, NSW, Australia; New York, NY |isbn=9789768097439 |language=English |oclc=1202224003].
  21. News: McCaughey . Patrick . 13 December 1972 . Bauble and bon bon ring out the year . 2 . The Age.
  22. News: Thomas . Daniel . 7 February 1974 . Art swing to the extremes . 7 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  23. News: Gilchrist . Maureen . 1 January 1977 . Women painters shine . 14 . The Age.
  24. Makin . Jeff . 1976 . Noland was here . Quadrant . 20 . 1 . 53–57.
  25. News: Watson . Bronwyn . 14 August 1987 . Galleries . 14 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  26. News: Gilchrist . Maureen . 27 April 1977 . Artist draws veil from 10 years' work . 2 . The Age.
  27. Book: Taylor, Paul . Anything goes: Australian art and art criticism 1970-1980 . Art & Text : Distributed by Kingfisher Books . 1984 . 978-0-9591042-0-2 . Melbourne . 72 . English . 28991135.
  28. News: Advertising . 8 April 1978 . Art Gallery of New South Wales . 40 . The Sydney Morning.
  29. News: 2 June 1978 . Weekender : Hear This . 32 . The Age.
  30. News: 19 May 1987 . Advertising . 45 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  31. News: Cochrane . Peter . 16 July 1991 . An artist who can fool the Texans . 5 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  32. News: Robertson . Laura . 12 November 1978 . Art Notes . 103 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  33. News: Wilson . Wade . 25 December 1994 . In the Galleries : Australian artist has landscape love affair . 106 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  34. News: Grishin . Sasha . 20 December 1978 . Varied quality from five women artists . 26 . The Canberra Times.
  35. News: Rooney . Robert . 21 March 1979 . Art . 2 . The Age.
  36. Book: McCulloch . Alan . The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art . McCulloch . Susan . McCulloch Childs . Emily . 2006 . 978-0-522-85317-9 . English . 80568976.
  37. Web site: Staff Profile : Russell Meares . 2022-04-06 . The University of Sydney . en-AU.
  38. News: McIntyre . Arthur . 24 Sep 1982 . Melbourne's loss is Sydney's gain : Interview . 14 . The Age.
  39. News: Holloway . Memory . 10 November 1982 . Flogging the image into submission . 14 . The Age.
  40. News: 8 Oct 1976 . Around the Galleries . 13 . The Australian Jewish News .
  41. News: 15 December 1972 . Around the Galleries . 23 . The Australian Jewish News .
  42. News: McCulloch . Susan . 1 June 1982 . Realities has new style . 20 . The Age.
  43. News: Sutton . Pollyanna . 26 August 1990 . State of the Art : A who's who guide to Melbourne's commercial galleries . 23 . The Age.
  44. News: 16 June 1995 . Advertising . 26 . The Australian Jewish News .
  45. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Sandra Leveson . Macquarie Galleries . 1989 . Macquarie Galleries . 978-1-875365-00-5 . Sydney . English . 220431481.
  46. Book: Bottrell . Fay . The artist craftsman in Australia . Stacey . Wesley . 1977 . Murray . 978-0-909950-64-4 . Ultimo, N.S.W. . English . 29005292.
  47. News: 22 November 1968 . Age guide to entertainment & arts . 17 . The Age.
  48. Book: Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne . Strines Gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 25 August 2018 – 24 February 2019 . Babington . Brooke . Njoo . Celeste . Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne . 2018 . 978-1-921330-63-6 . 37, 47, 51 . en.
  49. 16 February 1974 . Bulletin Briefing : Art . The Bulletin . 096 . 4893 . 56.
  50. News: Faerber . Ruth . 21 February 1974 . Art : Moon Goddess . 16 . The Australian Jewish Times .
  51. News: Thomas . Daniel . 31 January 1974 . New Exhibitions . 7 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  52. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Sandra Leveson: 1967-77. . University of Melbourne . University Gallery . 1977 . University Gallery, University of Melbourne . Melbourne . English . 272523444.
  53. News: 4 August 1978 . Paper Works . 37 . The Australian Jewish News .
  54. News: 25 March 1980 . Talk of the Town . 22 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  55. News: 12 December 1980 . Galleries . 40 . The Age.
  56. News: 5 November 1982 . Galleries . 46 . The Age.
  57. News: 6 May 1983 . Museums . 40 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  58. News: Lowe . Ron . 8 May 1983 . Art Notes . 87 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  59. News: 8 February 1985 . Galleries . 39 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  60. News: Short . Susanna . 15 February 1985 . The Galleries : From the sublime to the ridiculous . 12 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  61. News: 22 October 1985 . Community Calendar : Art . 26 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  62. News: 31 July 1987 . Galleries . 46 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  63. News: 1 March 1989 . Galleries . 98 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  64. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Artists in Kakadu, 1990. . Van Nunen . David . Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory . 1991 . Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory . Darwin . English . 951486757.
  65. News: 11 October 1991 . Art Galleries . 116 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  66. News: 17 October 1991 . Click : Sandra Leveson Reception . 56 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  67. News: Tyson . Janet . 18 October 1991 . Art Review : Inside the outback : Paintings from deep in the deserts of Australia . 84 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  68. News: 7 December 1994 . Art : Fort Worth Dealers Association . 88 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  69. News: 20 January 1995 . Galleries . 55 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  70. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Sandra Leveson: decade of Sandra Leveson, 1986-1996 . BMGArt (Gallery) . 1996 . BMG Art . Adelaide . English . 222171367.
  71. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Sandra Leveson: painting of poise and passion. . TarraWarra Museum of Art . 2011 . TarraWarra Museum of Art . Healesville, Vic. . English . 773612209.
  72. Book: Leveson . Sandra . Sandra Leveson: paintings of poise and passion : 17 June-31 July 2015 . Hargraves . Kate . Janiszewski . Leonard . Pinson . Peter . Macquarie University . Art Gallery . 2015 . 978-1-74138-433-8 . English . 918906104.
  73. News: Advertisement . 22 November 1975 . Artists for Labor and Democracy . 19 . The Age.
  74. News: 28 January 1977 . Living Out : Happenings . 18 . The Age.
  75. News: Eagle . Mary . 25 May 1978 . Art . 2 . The Age.
  76. News: Eyrich . Claire . 9 September 1979 . Gallery Night : New works on display at six simultaneous openings . 81 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  77. News: 7 September 1982 . Exhibitions . 14 . The Age.
  78. News: Wilson . Wade . 24 April 1986 . One Fort Worth gallery included in Art Walk '86 . 36 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  79. News: 18 September 1987 . Gallery Shows . 131 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  80. News: 8 January 1988 . Galleries . 42 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  81. News: 24 June 1988 . Galleries . 55 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  82. Book: Eisenberg, Joseph . Contemporary views of New England: Cressida Campbell, Sandra Leveson, Max Miller, Angus Nivison, Ann Thomson, Guy Warren. . 1988 . New England Regional Art Museum . 978-0-9592749-9-8 . Armidale . English . 222028410.
  83. News: Tyson . Janet . 29 August 1991 . Art Review . 114 . Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  84. News: 22 April 1994 . Galleries . 45 . The Age.
  85. News: 11 November 1994 . Exhibitions . 48 . The Age.
  86. News: James . Bruce . 12 July 1995 . Medium that carries a vital message . 18 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  87. News: 14 July 1995 . Galleries . 44 . The Age.
  88. News: Burke . Kelly . 16 January 1996 . No strings attached in bush bash bounty . 13 . The Sydney Morning Herald, Tue • Page 13.
  89. News: 5 April 1996 . The Age EG . 48 . The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) 05 Apr 1996, Fri Page 48.
  90. News: 10 January 1998 . Advertising . 128 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  91. News: 2 October 1998 . The Age Entertainment Guide : Exhibitions . 79 . The Age.
  92. News: 10 November 2000 . Entertainment Guide : Exhibitions . 56 . The Age.
  93. News: 16 Dec 2000 . Advertising . 87 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  94. News: Gotting . Peter . 8 March 2001 . Spotlight : Opening . 14 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  95. News: 31 March 2001 . Advertising . 107 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  96. News: 3 November 2001 . Advertising . 102 . The Sydney Morning Herald.
  97. Book: Dingle . Max . Less is More - More or Less: from the M G Dingle & G B Hughes Collection. . Shoalhaven City Arts Centre (Nowra . N.S.W.) . 2012 . Shoalhaven City Arts Centre . 978-0-646-57149-2 . Nowra, N.S.W. . English . 785984364.
  98. Taylor . A. . 2013-05-01 . Aerial (2013) and Preparations (2013) . English.
  99. News: Erlich . Rita . 28 December 1981 . Galleries : Prosperity, neglect at Geelong . 6 . The Age.
  100. News: 13 October 1972 . In Brief . 3 . The Canberra Times.
  101. Veitch . Carol . 30 August 1978 . Melbourne's paintings on wheels : When the decorated trams take to the tracks more than a few heads will turn . The Australian Women's Weekly . 31.
  102. Web site: Leveson . Sandra . 1970 . No. 1 Print, screen print . 2022-04-03 . National Gallery of Australia . en.
  103. Web site: Dionysus, 1975-1976 by Sandra Leveson . 2022-04-03 . www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au . en.
  104. Web site: corporateName=Commonwealth Parliament; address=Parliament House . Canberra . About the Parliament House art collection . 2022-04-03 . www.aph.gov.au . en-AU.
  105. Web site: A Lasting Impression . 2022-04-03 . ICCSydney . en.
  106. 16 March 1974 . Bulletin Briefing : Art . The Bulletin . 096 . 4897 . 49.
  107. Web site: Newcastle Art Gallery . 2022-04-03 . newcastle-collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au.