In 1938, during a low point in his life following divorce and eviction, the English painter Stanley Spencer embarked on his Christ in the Wilderness series, planning to create 40 paintings depicting, “how Christ may have spent each day, the great adventure all by himself with leaves and trees and mud and rabbits and rocks, just as I was having among two chairs, a bed, a fireplace and a table.” He only finished eight paintings, and started a ninth, but created many preparatory sketches, drawing in a gridded pentimento style.
All nine paintings, as well as the drawings and sketches, are showing at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) in Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century. The exhibition focuses on early 20th-century modern British and Australian painters—Spencer, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, and Frank Auerbach among them—drawn from AGWA’s state art collection. But the intention is to reveal the artist’s process. All paintings are shown alongside preparatory sketches and drawings, systematically creating a narrative of how a painting comes to be.
“We narrowed our focus to drawings specifically, and paintings as the finished product, so we could look at the centrality of drawing to artistic practice, historically,” says curator Karl Sagrabb. “We’re hoping to encourage audiences to see how the different artists approach problems of composition, figure studies, and how they progress their visual thinking and creative approach.”
And the approaches vary greatly. While Spencer’s grids appear methodical and regimented, Auerbach’s sketches for Looking towards Mornington Crescent Station, Night, (1972-1973) have an almost feverish quality, conveying more of an idea than a strict composition to follow. “It’s such a fabulous, vibrant work that I’m really excited to show,” says Sagrabb, adding that, “Putting all these works together, putting all the studies together [allows us to] look at the whole picture.”
Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century
Art Gallery of Western Australia
On now—4 May
This article was originally published in the March/April 2025 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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