References – Carl Plate – in relation to paintings c. 1968

These references were specifically made to the following paintings:


Blue Monument No. 16 1965
PVA on canvas on masonite
127 x 96cm


Blue Monument No. 8 1968
PVA on canvas
183 x 122.5cm


Blacks & Whites 3 1968
PVA on masonite
94.5 x 126cm
  
8/7/67 Sun Herald, Our Town by Leslie Walford.
(Exhibition: Bonython Hungry Horse Gallery, Paddington, Wool Tapestry design competition.)
" The winners of the exhibition were, jointly, Carl Plate and Rollin Schlicht.
The competition, first of its kind ever staged for Australian artists, marks an important cultural link between France and our country. Thirty artists were invited to submit works. Winning entries will be used as tapestry designs for weaving by Aubusson and the winning artists have received scholarships to France, from the French Government and Kym Bonython and will be the guests of Aubusson.
The resultant tapestries will be exhibited in Australia, in Paris and in America."
 
25/10/67 Sydney Sun, 'Lightness and Space', Art Shows by James Gleeson.
(Margot Lewers (recently opened) Lewers Gallery in the grounds of her home, 86 New River Road, Emu Plains, exhibiting paintings by Carl Plate)
"Plate has always been a rather austere painter, but in these recent works he has intensified the process of renunciation until only the barest essentials remain.
Colour has been narrowed down until, in the newest work of all, it is no more than a black silhouette on a monchrome background – or, at most, a restricted but very subtle organisation of black, white and tinted greys."
"Far from impoverishing his art, these eliminations have left a residue which is all the more powerful and effective because of its starkness.
Plate's work is difficult to define, for although the paintings are conceived in terms of abstract art they are haunted by a disquieting sense of their physical reality.
The idea of stone, water and air lurk among the shapes, giving the compositions a quasi-symbolic character."
"… no one interested in the aspirations of the modern movement can afford to miss this exhibition…"
 
October 1968 Sydney Sun,'A Full Catalogue of Local Artwork', Art review by James Gleeson.
(Exhibition: Carl Plate showing 34 recent paintings, Bonython Gallery.)
"Carl Plate, at the Bonython Gallery, is showing 34 recent paintings – most of them painted in Paris where he is now working. Plate's unique pictorial style has been polished and refined over the years…"
"His is an art of understatement. The brush which creates the patterns of blues, black and grey on plain white grounds is wielded by a hand which has become the skilled and obedient servant of a subtle poetic vision."


October 1968 Newspaper unknown. Taste and promise.
(Exhibition: Bonython Galleries.)
" At The Bonython Gallery an especially fine show opened this week."
"There are also some very fine paintings by CP who returns to Sydney from Paris in a couple of days."
"Last year he won the Aubusson Tapestry Design Competition. As a result he has spent the last five months in France. He was the first Australian painter to be given the use of the studio set up in Paris by the Power Bequest."
"A very well-known gallery in Paris has taken him into his stable of regular artists."
 
[In 1968, Gallerie de France took three paintings from the 'Blue Monument' series, and one from the 'Whites and Blacks' series, as well as several copies of his series of lithographs]
 
1/9/79 SMH. Forgotten Pillar, Nancy Borlase reviews art.
(Exh: David Jones' Gallery)
Refers to The Project show, "…accorded him by the Art Gallery of NSW shortly after his death in 1977".
"In the proliferation of abstract styles which erupted in Sydney from the mid-50s onwards Plate pursued an independent vision which looked more to Paris than New York. Early bird, fish, insect and plant studies, with hints of surrealism, also revealed an affinity to the English painters Sutherland and Nash."
References to works: Third Edge 1961: "This key painting symbolises the destructive paradox between being and non-being"; regal Segments on Red; earthy paintings from his Graph Segment Series "which recall … the Woronora bush where he lived", "…the more open forms of his Blue Monument painting.
"In the last works (Graph Segments Towards Pink and X Plus), new elements intervene as loosely interconnected zones of energy replace the dry, archeological look of the early sixties. One detects a change of pace, a lessening of drive. But what emerges in this knockout show, is an artist of stature, within or beyond the Australian context."