Lloyd Rees Education Brochure

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ART CONSULTANTS ART REVIEWS MUSIC COMPOSITION WEB CONSTRUCTION

LLOYD REES EDUCATION KIT

www.grafico-qld.com

Written by Sue Smith for the Rockhampton Art Gallery. (The images on this page are intentionally low resolution to assist faster browsing times). For schools unable to view the touring exhibition, the book in conjunction with the tour is available through the Gallery. This page has sponsored by Grafico Arts as a community service for schools.

LLOYD REES: COMING HOME

A ROCKHAMPTON ART GALLERY TRAVELLING EXHIBITION
From Rockhampton, Central Queensland, Australia

Secondary school students and teachers are invited to use this brochure as part of their visit to the exhibition Lloyd Rees: coming home. It explores some themes and artworks from the exhibition to stimulate thinking and discussion about the artist’s intentions and some of the techniques he has used. Students may also want to try out in their own art some of the ideas explored in the brochure. Some activities have been suggested, but please feel free to devise your own.

THE SELF PORTRAIT
LOOKING AT YOURSELF

Activities

In this unfinished work, Lloyd Rees has painted himself. He was proud of being an artist in the Western painting tradition, and extremely interested in architecture. Explain how you would know this from looking at Rees’s painting. Look at the expression on his face, his pose, the details of costume and background, his use of light and shade and colour, and how he has organised the whole picture (composition). How do all these things give clues to Rees’s character and his interests and aspirations?

Using a mirror or a photograph, produce a self-portrait that shows a particular mood or emotion. Think about the kind of line and colours that would help show your mood. Would you use the same ones to show sadness as you would for happiness?

1 Self-portrait (with building) c.1950
oil on canvas 79.5 x 65.5 cm

THE SELF PORTRAIT: LOOKING AT YOURSELF

Making images of people is part of human nature; we are all interested in who we are and how we look. Artists often make self-portraits as a way of coming to know and represent their inner feelings and character. This self-revelation can be overplayed, but often a self-portrait reveals the individual more intensely than a painting of a sitter.

Activities
In these paintings, the artist invites us into two of his favourite places. We feel we could almost step into the scenes and walk around. Explain how Rees has created this illusion of deep space. Look at other pictures in the exhibition and find four others where the space is very deep. Look again and find others where the space is shallow.

Go outside and make drawings or paintings of your own special place. It might be your backyard, open countryside, a park or the beach. Choose a view where you look into the distance. Think about space, and notice how things in the foreground (the area closest to you) seem larger and more detailed. Notice how things in the background (the area furthest away from you) look paler -- sometimes even blue -- and how difficult it is to see details of things far away. Try depicting the same landscape at different times of the day, under different weather conditions, or to suggest particular moods or feelings.

PAINTING NATURE: SPECIAL PLACES

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2 Headland, Lane Cover River 1939
oil on canvas 33.5 x 40.5 cm

``The first glimpse -- opal-blue water, a band of golden sand ... in that first long look Sydney cast her spell and it has remained with me ever since,’’ Lloyd Rees once said. During his long career, Rees never tired of painting the dynamic play between light, water and ferries crossing Sydney Harbour. From his house at Northwood, he loved to set off in the morning to work outdoors, catching a ferry or tram to favourite harbour spots, or setting up an easel before the nearby Lane Cove River.

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3 The window at Werri 1958
oil on canvas 40 x 53 cm

In summer, the Rees family often stayed at Werri Beach, NSW. There, Rees would go out early, carrying different canvases that showed the rocky shoreline, hills, lagoon and sea at different times of day, and with different light and atmospheric effects. In wet or windy weather at Werri, he painted indoors, looking out through a large picture window.

Activities

What do you think Rees is saying about Chartres Cathedral in this picture? What are your reasons for thinking this? Look at how he uses scale, line, light and shade and colour to communicate his feelings.

Try making a drawing of people inside a big building -- perhaps a church, your school assembly hall, a shopping mall or a sports stadium. Are the people happy, sad, contemplative or bored? Use line, colour, light and shade to show how the people in your drawing are feeling.

Create your own stained-glass window using coloured cellophane and black paper.

STUDYING ARCHITECTURE: CATHEDRAL PICTURES

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4 Cathedral interior (Chartres interior: afternoon light) 1973
pen and ink and watercolour on paper 16 x 10 cm

Lloyd Rees drew and painted cathedrals all his life. In 1973, Rees spent an exciting five days sketching inside the great French cathedral at Chartres. He recalled: ``I felt I was part of (the cathedral’s) life. I felt the pulse of it, the constant movement of people, the rhythm of the services and the marvellous occasions when the grand organ would make the whole building tremble in unison with its mighty chords ...’’

Activities

Look at these two cathedral paintings by Lloyd Rees, which were painted sixty years apart. Make a list of all the similarities and differences between the two paintings. Look at Rees’s brushwork, his use of colour and line and composition. In what ways have the artist’s interests and his style changed (or remained the same) over time?

Imagine that you are an art critic writing for a newspaper. As you walk around the exhibition, take notes about the works that you find similar, different, striking or uninteresting. Notice the style and subject matter of each work and when it was created.

Then look again at the exhibition over all, and choose three or four works that you think are the best -- and the weakest -- in the exhibition and write down why you have chosen them.

At school, write a short review of the exhibition. Talk about how Lloyd Rees’s art has changed from the earliest work (1915) to the latest (1988), and say what you think are the strengths and weaknesses of his work. Give your own opinions, and try to give convincing reasons for your judgments.

TIME AND THE INDIVIDUAL

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5 Interior St Paul’s Cathedral 1924
oil on canvas 46 x 28.5 cm

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6 Interior, Notre Dame, Versailles 1988
oil on canvas 76.9 x 60.9 cm

Over time, most people change their ideas and ways of doing things. Artists are no exception to this rule, and are constantly changing and developing their ideas and ways of working, or style.



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