The game-changing New York segue of the late, great abstract artist Sydney Ball is celebrated in an exciting new exhibition at Sullivan+Strumpf gallery in Zetland.
Sydney Ball 1960/1970: Works from the Estate, opening July 30, takes a look at the Adelaide-born artist's two decades spent in New York City. Exploding onto the scene during the swinging '60s with his memorable series of geometric works, the ‘Cantos’, Ball was taken under the wing of Greek-American abstract expressionist Theodoros Stamos. Stamos introduced Ball to the Irascibles, an artistic collective including likes of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.
Regularly returning to Australia during this period, Ball brought bold new ideas back with him, prompting art historian Christopher Heathcote to describe Ball as, “the artist who managed to swing the momentum of the entire [Australian] art scene”.
This colourful retrospective takes over both floors at Sullivan+Strumpf and showcases rare and significant works, including several that have never been exhibited in Australia before. You can take a peek at early vertical stripe paintings from Ball’s ‘Band’ series, which was heavily influenced by Stamos, who famously turned one of Ball’s more formal landscape paintings on its side, transforming it into the abstract.
Ball’s 1964 painting ‘Blue Vertical’ has never travelled down under before, and you can also check out ‘Khasma’ (1967), one of only three sculptures produced as part of Ball’s ‘Persian’ series. The exhibition is available to view online here from July 30.
This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas
