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John Brack (1920–99) was one of the most significant Australian realists of the post-war period. In a career spanning four decades, his distinctive voice – characterised by a meticulously controlled drawing and painting style – set him apart from his contemporaries.
Brack’s art was underpinned by intellectual rigour and visual discipline. Although a relatively private and solitary person, his influence was considerable. He lectured and wrote widely on modern art, and taught for a number of years in Melbourne, before retiring in 1968 to concentrate on his practice. The Gallery has collected Brack’s paintings, drawings and prints since the late 1950s.
Brack valued the art of the past from European and other cultures, incorporating their lessons into his own work.
Artistic influences included George Seurat’s classically structured images of the passing world, and the work of his French contemporary Bernard Buffet. Widely read, he was informed by writers including TS Eliot, WH Auden, Jean-Paul Sartre and Henry James, each of whom addressed the anxieties and alienation of modern life.
Brack strove towards a visual language that could express the continuity of human behaviours over millennia – exposing our motivations, desires and need to fit within social structures. From beginning to end, he remained a painter of the human condition.
Brack felt the artist’s role was to engage directly with the public, leaving interpretation to the viewer. Each element of a painting was infused with meaning through the use of visual analogy, metaphor and symbols. His rendering of tight compositional space and use of sharp, acid colours drew viewers into his subjects, encouraging them to be close and active observers.
