Janine Burke
Encyclopedia
Janine Burke, is an author, art historian, biographer and novelist. She has also curated exhibitions of historical and contemporary art. Currently, Dr Burke holds a research fellowship at Monash University
.
She graduated from the University of Melbourne
in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts
(Hons). In 1983, she completed a Master of Arts at LaTrobe University and a PhD
from Deakin University
in 2001. In 1973, Janine Burke began publishing art criticism and, the following year, co-curated "A Room of One's Own: Three Women Artists", one of Australia's first feminist art exhibitions. In 1975, she curated "Australian Women Artists: 1840-1940" which became a bestselling book in 1980. The same year she was a founding member of the Victorian Women's Art Movement. 1976, she was a founding member of the feminist art journal LIP. From 1977-1982, she lectured in art history at the Victorian College of the Arts
. She resigned to become a fulltime writer and independent scholar.
In 1983, after the publication of Joy Hester, she lived in Tuscany
, approximately halfway between Pisa and Florence. The house, named Paretiao, belonged to Australian artist Arthur Boyd
. At that time, it was administered by the Australia Council
. There she completed her first novel, Speaking, and began her next novel, Second Sight which won the 1987 Victorian Premier's Literary Award
for fiction. She then moved to Florence where she studied Italian at the British Institute. In 1984, she lived in Paris, returning to Australia for the publication of Speaking. For a time, Burke lived in Sydney and rural St. Andrews in Victoria, before travelling in France, Italy and Greece.
In 1986, she settled in Robe Street, St Kilda, where Joy Hester
and Albert Tucker
had lived in the 1940s. She continued to write novels and short stories, as well as contributing art criticism and reviews to journals and newspapers.
Albert Tucker, helpful to Burke when she was writing Joy Hester, also lived in St Kilda and the two resumed their friendship. In 1995, Burke published Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Red,the correspondence between Hester and arts patron Sunday Reed
. Sunday, Hester's closest friend, adopted Hester's son, Sweeney. Sunday and John Reed's home at Heide and their art collection became the Heide Museum of Modern Art
. When Burke was a lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, Sweeney, a former gallery director, was a mature age student in the printmaking department. Sweeney assisted Burke with her research on Hester. In 1977, Sweeney committed suicide.
In 1996, Burke was appointed a trustee of Heide MoMA. Burke's biography of Tucker, written with Tucker's approval, ran into strife prior to its publication in 2002. Tucker died in 1999 without reading the manuscript. Australian Gothic, A Life of Albert Tucker was Burke's doctoral dissertation and the first biography of Tucker. Tucker's widow, Barbara, objected to some of Burke's views about Tucker's oeuvre and refused to allow copyright permission to reproduce his paintings. The book was illustrated with Tucker's photographs which are not subject to copyright. In 1998, Burke had curated the first scholarly exhibition of Tucker's photographs, titled The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs which toured nationally.
In a controversial aspect of the book, Burke wrote it was unlikely that Sweeney was the son of Albert Tucker, but rather of well-known Melbourne drummer Billy Hyde (1918–1976). Burke based her comments on conversations with Tucker, Sweeney, Gray Smith (Hester's second husband)and Nadine Amadio, a close friend of Sunday Reed's.
In late 2001, when the row about the book hit the headlines, Ken Fletcher, chairman of the Heide board, asked Burke to resign. It was believed that the Tucker Gift to Heide MoMA, administered by Tucker's widow, was in jeopardy. (1) The gift was worth several million dollars and comprised works by Tucker, Hester, Boyd, Sidney Nolan
and Danila Vassilieff. Burke refused to resign from the board and the Tucker Gift went ahead.
In 2004, Burke published The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide where she wrote that Reed had assisted Nolan in painting the Ned Kelly series
. Burke based her theory on the close collaborative relationship Reed and Nolan enjoyed, evidenced by archival research, and by Nolan's watercolour For the one who paints such beautiful squares (c.1946-1947, Heide MoMA) that is dedicated to Sunday.
Shortlisted 2007 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction
The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection.
Shortlisted 2003 Queensland Premier's Award for Non-Fiction
Australian Gothic: A Life of Albert Tucker.
2001 awarded Australia Council Literature Board New Work Grant.
1993 awarded four-year Category A Fellowship, Australia Council Literature Board.
Shortlisted 1990 The Miles Franklin Award
,Company of Images.
Shortlisted 1990 The Age Book of the Year Award, Company of Images.
Winner 1987 Victorian Premier's Literary Award
, Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
Second Sight.
1986 awarded Category B Fellowship, Australia Council Literature Board.
1984 awarded Australia Council Literature Board grant.
Joy Hester (1983:revised and republished 2001)
Field of Vision, A Decade of Change: Women's Art in the Seventies (1990)
Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed [Ed.](1995)
The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs (1998)
Australian Gothic: A Life of Albert Tucker (2002)
The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide (2004)
The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection (2006) [ published in the US as The Sphinx on the Table: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection and the Development of Psychoanalysis]
Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing (2009)
Personal View: Photographs 1978 - 1986 (2011)
Second Sight (1986)
Company of Images (1989)
Lullaby (1994)
The Blue Faraway (1996)
The Doll (1997)
Our Lady of Apollo Bay (2001)
Australian Women Artists, One Hundred Years, 1840-1940 (1975) Ewing Gallery and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne; Art Gallery of NSW; Newcastle Region Art Gallery; Art Gallery of South Australia.
Still Lives: Eight Women Realists (1978) Victorian College of the Arts Gallery, Melbourne.
Lost and Found: Objects and Images (1979) Ewing Gallery and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne.
Self-Portrait, Self-Image (1980) Victorian College of the Arts Gallery, Melbourne and tour.
Bea Maddock: Survey Show (1980) National Gallery of Victoria
.
Joy Hester (1981) National Gallery of Victoria.
The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs (1998) Heide Museum of Modern Art and tour.
Sunday Reed and Heide (2004) Heide Museum of Modern Art.
An Archaeology of the Mind: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection (2007–2008)
Monash University Museum of Art; Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
.
She graduated from the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
(Hons). In 1983, she completed a Master of Arts at LaTrobe University and a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from Deakin University
Deakin University
Deakin University is an Australian public university with nearly 40,000 higher education students in 2010. It receives more than A$600 million in operating revenue annually, and controls more than A$1.3 billion in assets. It received more than A$35 million in research income in 2009 and had 835...
in 2001. In 1973, Janine Burke began publishing art criticism and, the following year, co-curated "A Room of One's Own: Three Women Artists", one of Australia's first feminist art exhibitions. In 1975, she curated "Australian Women Artists: 1840-1940" which became a bestselling book in 1980. The same year she was a founding member of the Victorian Women's Art Movement. 1976, she was a founding member of the feminist art journal LIP. From 1977-1982, she lectured in art history at the Victorian College of the Arts
Victorian College of the Arts
The Faculty of the VCA and Music is a faculty of the University of Melbourne, in Victoria . VCAM is located near the Melbourne central business district, on two campuses, one - the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne, and the other - the...
. She resigned to become a fulltime writer and independent scholar.
In 1983, after the publication of Joy Hester, she lived in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, approximately halfway between Pisa and Florence. The house, named Paretiao, belonged to Australian artist Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, AC, OBE was one of the leading Australian painters of the late 20th Century. A member of the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, his relatives included painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. His sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval,...
. At that time, it was administered by the Australia Council
Australia Council
The Australia Council, informally known as the Australia Council for the Arts, is the official arts council or arts funding body of the Government of Australia.-Function:...
. There she completed her first novel, Speaking, and began her next novel, Second Sight which won the 1987 Victorian Premier's Literary Award
Victorian Premier's Literary Award
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Governmentwith the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry....
for fiction. She then moved to Florence where she studied Italian at the British Institute. In 1984, she lived in Paris, returning to Australia for the publication of Speaking. For a time, Burke lived in Sydney and rural St. Andrews in Victoria, before travelling in France, Italy and Greece.
In 1986, she settled in Robe Street, St Kilda, where Joy Hester
Joy Hester
Joy St Clair Hester was an Australian artist who played an important, though sometimes underrated, role in the development of Australian modernism, though her works could also be considered Abstract Expressionism....
and Albert Tucker
Albert Tucker
Albert Tucker may refer to:*Albert Tucker *Albert W. Tucker , mathematician*Al Tucker, Albert Tucker, American basketball player...
had lived in the 1940s. She continued to write novels and short stories, as well as contributing art criticism and reviews to journals and newspapers.
Albert Tucker, helpful to Burke when she was writing Joy Hester, also lived in St Kilda and the two resumed their friendship. In 1995, Burke published Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Red,the correspondence between Hester and arts patron Sunday Reed
Sunday Reed
Sunday Reed was notable for supporting and collecting Australian art with her husband John Reed.-Personal history:...
. Sunday, Hester's closest friend, adopted Hester's son, Sweeney. Sunday and John Reed's home at Heide and their art collection became the Heide Museum of Modern Art
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Heide Museum of Modern Art, more commonly just Heide, is a contemporary art museum located in Bulleen, east of Melbourne, Australia. Established in 1981, the museum comprises several detached buildings and surrounding gardens & parklands of historical importance that are used as gallery spaces to...
. When Burke was a lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, Sweeney, a former gallery director, was a mature age student in the printmaking department. Sweeney assisted Burke with her research on Hester. In 1977, Sweeney committed suicide.
In 1996, Burke was appointed a trustee of Heide MoMA. Burke's biography of Tucker, written with Tucker's approval, ran into strife prior to its publication in 2002. Tucker died in 1999 without reading the manuscript. Australian Gothic, A Life of Albert Tucker was Burke's doctoral dissertation and the first biography of Tucker. Tucker's widow, Barbara, objected to some of Burke's views about Tucker's oeuvre and refused to allow copyright permission to reproduce his paintings. The book was illustrated with Tucker's photographs which are not subject to copyright. In 1998, Burke had curated the first scholarly exhibition of Tucker's photographs, titled The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs which toured nationally.
In a controversial aspect of the book, Burke wrote it was unlikely that Sweeney was the son of Albert Tucker, but rather of well-known Melbourne drummer Billy Hyde (1918–1976). Burke based her comments on conversations with Tucker, Sweeney, Gray Smith (Hester's second husband)and Nadine Amadio, a close friend of Sunday Reed's.
In late 2001, when the row about the book hit the headlines, Ken Fletcher, chairman of the Heide board, asked Burke to resign. It was believed that the Tucker Gift to Heide MoMA, administered by Tucker's widow, was in jeopardy. (1) The gift was worth several million dollars and comprised works by Tucker, Hester, Boyd, Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
and Danila Vassilieff. Burke refused to resign from the board and the Tucker Gift went ahead.
In 2004, Burke published The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide where she wrote that Reed had assisted Nolan in painting the Ned Kelly series
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...
. Burke based her theory on the close collaborative relationship Reed and Nolan enjoyed, evidenced by archival research, and by Nolan's watercolour For the one who paints such beautiful squares (c.1946-1947, Heide MoMA) that is dedicated to Sunday.
Awards
Monash Research Fellowship, Monash University, 2008-2012.Shortlisted 2007 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction
The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection.
Shortlisted 2003 Queensland Premier's Award for Non-Fiction
Australian Gothic: A Life of Albert Tucker.
2001 awarded Australia Council Literature Board New Work Grant.
1993 awarded four-year Category A Fellowship, Australia Council Literature Board.
Shortlisted 1990 The Miles Franklin Award
Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...
,Company of Images.
Shortlisted 1990 The Age Book of the Year Award, Company of Images.
Winner 1987 Victorian Premier's Literary Award
Victorian Premier's Literary Award
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Governmentwith the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry....
, Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction is a component of the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award and is valued at A$30,000. Most Australian state premiers present annual Australian literary awards to promote Australian writing in all its forms. The award is named after Vance Palmer...
Second Sight.
1986 awarded Category B Fellowship, Australia Council Literature Board.
1984 awarded Australia Council Literature Board grant.
Non-Fiction
Australian Women Artists: 1840-1940 (1980)Joy Hester (1983:revised and republished 2001)
Field of Vision, A Decade of Change: Women's Art in the Seventies (1990)
Dear Sun: The Letters of Joy Hester and Sunday Reed [Ed.](1995)
The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs (1998)
Australian Gothic: A Life of Albert Tucker (2002)
The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide (2004)
The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection (2006) [ published in the US as The Sphinx on the Table: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection and the Development of Psychoanalysis]
Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing (2009)
Personal View: Photographs 1978 - 1986 (2011)
Fiction (Adult)
Speaking (1984)Second Sight (1986)
Company of Images (1989)
Lullaby (1994)
Fiction (Young Adult)
Journey to Bright Water (1994)The Blue Faraway (1996)
The Doll (1997)
Our Lady of Apollo Bay (2001)
Exhibitions Curated
A Room of One's Own (1974: co-curated with Kiffy Rubbo and Lynne Cook) Ewing Gallery, University of Melbourne.Australian Women Artists, One Hundred Years, 1840-1940 (1975) Ewing Gallery and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne; Art Gallery of NSW; Newcastle Region Art Gallery; Art Gallery of South Australia.
Still Lives: Eight Women Realists (1978) Victorian College of the Arts Gallery, Melbourne.
Lost and Found: Objects and Images (1979) Ewing Gallery and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne.
Self-Portrait, Self-Image (1980) Victorian College of the Arts Gallery, Melbourne and tour.
Bea Maddock: Survey Show (1980) National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
.
Joy Hester (1981) National Gallery of Victoria.
The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker's Photographs (1998) Heide Museum of Modern Art and tour.
Sunday Reed and Heide (2004) Heide Museum of Modern Art.
An Archaeology of the Mind: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection (2007–2008)
Monash University Museum of Art; Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.
Exhibitions
Personal View: Photographs 1978-1986, Margaret Lawrence VCA Gallery, Melbourne, 20 May–June 11, 2011.See also
- Australian Feminist Art TimelineAustralian Feminist Art TimelineAustralian Feminist Art Timeline lists exhibitions, artists, artworks and milestones that have contributed to discussion and development of feminist art in Australia. The timeline focuses on the impact of feminism on Australian contemporary art...