Godwin Bradbeer
{{short description|New Zealand artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Godwin Bradbeer
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1950}}
| birth_place = Dunedin, New Zealand
| nationality = Australian
| field = Drawing
| training = {{hlist|Melbourne Teachers College (now University of Melbourne)|Melbourne College of Advanced Education (now University of Melbourne)|RMIT University}}
| works =
| patrons =
| awards = Dobell Drawing Prize (1998)
| website = {{url|godwinbradbeer.com}}
}}
Godwin Bradbeer (born 1950) is a New Zealand-born artist now living and working in Melbourne, Australia.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} Bradbeer is known for large-scale figurative drawing and has been exhibited internationally since the 1970s. He has taught at the University of Melbourne, the Victorian College of the Arts, Monash University, and other art schools in Australia and Asia. From 2005 to 2010, he was head of drawing of the School of Art at RMIT University in Melbourne.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}
Biography
Bradbeer was born in 1950 in Dunedin, New Zealand.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}}{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |last2=Wach |first2=Kenneth |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |publisher=Thames & Hudson Australia |location=Port Melbourne, Victoria |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667 |language=English}} In the same year, his family moved to Glasgow, Scotland, then migrated to Australia in 1955.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |last2=Wach |first2=Kenneth |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |publisher=Thames & Hudson Australia |location=Port Melbourne, Victoria |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667 |language=English}} In 1971, Bradbeer received a Higher Diploma of Secondary Education (Art/Craft) at the Melbourne Teachers College (now part of the University of Melbourne) and taught in Victorian high schools from 1972 to 1982.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}} He returned to study in 1983, completing a Bachelor of Education (Art/Craft) at the Melbourne College of Advanced Education (now also part of the University of Melbourne) in 1984.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}}{{cite book |last1=Bradbeer |first1=Godwin |title=The discrete human figure in the work of Warren Breninger |date=1984 |publisher=Melbourne College of Advanced Education |location=Melbourne, Vic |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/21734204 |language=English}} In 1986, he married Gabrielle Pervesi.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=140 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}} From 1983 to 2010, he lectured in drawing and painting at various institutions, including the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), Monash University, and RMIT University. In 1994, he completed a Master of Art at RMIT.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |last2=Wach |first2=Kenneth |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |publisher=Thames & Hudson Australia |location=Port Melbourne, Victoria |isbn=9780500501283 |page=264 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667 |language=English}}{{cite book |last1=Bradbeer |first1=Godwin |title=Empirical painting : a search for a pictorial symbolism in human appearances |date=1994 |publisher=Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |location=Melbourne, Vic. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/45637777 |language=English}} Since 2010, Bradbeer has guest-lectured at various institutions.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=140 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}}
The artist held his first solo exhibition in 1977 in Melbourne, and his first international exhibition took place in Hong Kong in 1999.{{cite book |last1=McKenzie |first1=Janet |title=Godwin Bradbeer |date=2018 |isbn=9780500501283 |page=140 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667}} He won the Dobell Drawing Prize in 1998 and was a finalist for the prize in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, and 2012.{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 1998 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/1998/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 1999 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/1999/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2000 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2000/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2002 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2002/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2003 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2003/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2004 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2004/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2005 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2005/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2006 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2006/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2007 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2007/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2008 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2008/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Dobell Prize for Drawing (discontinued) finalists 2011 :: Art Gallery NSW |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2011/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}}{{cite web |title=Archibald Prize Dobell 2012 finalist: Imago – point blank by Godwin Bradbeer |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/dobell/2012/29315/ |website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au |accessdate=28 September 2018}} In 2014, he published a book of poetry, Half Truths: In Lyric Verse.{{cite book |last1=Bradbeer |first1=Godwin |title=Half truths : in lyric verse |date=2014 |publisher=Metasenta Publishing |location=Melbourne |isbn=9780987272485 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/210857201 |language=English}}
Artistic style and subject
Between 1968 and 1980 Bradbeer collaborated with fellow artist Warren Breninger in a series of exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide showing photographic work that was highly experimental, progressive and influential. The work presented a fusion of drawn and photographic processes into an imagery that possessed a sombre metaphysical character that was unique in Australian art at the time. In 1976 Bradbeer and Breninger's work together with work by Max Dupain, Rennie Ellis and John Cato (amongst others) was toured extensively in Asia and Africa in the Department of Foreign Affairs exhibition 'Recent Australian Photography'. The two photographers (Bradbeer and Breninger) twice exhibited at Brummels Gallery of Photography (1975 & 1976) with exhibitions that presented as a tour de force of contemporary art practice using photography with unprecedented experimental liberty.
Despite substantial experience as a photographer and as a painter, Bradbeer's most definitive practice is most frequently in various modes of drawing. His work is typified by large scale, moody images of the human subject, frequently indicating a refined rendering of human anatomy and an accompanying aspect of meditation on the human psycho-spiritual state. Bradbeer's figurative art draws upon the primitive, the classical and the contemporary aesthetics of many cultures and disciplines. Speaking on his practice, the artist states that "the drawings seek the credible portrayal of the miracle of existence over pictorial descriptions of character, narrative or ideology."
In 2006 – 2008 an extensive retrospective 'Godwin Bradbeer – The Metaphysical Body' toured seven regional galleries in several Australian states, this exhibition was curated by Kirsten Lacy. A major survey of his work titled; ‘Godwin Bradbeer: Stigma and Enigma’ and curated by James Lynch was presented at Deakin University in Melbourne in 2017. His large scale drawings of the human form have been described by one writer as 'drawing for the temple, not the cafe'.
Bradbeer's first solo exhibition was with Stuart Gerstman Gallery, Melbourne. In 1977, his first international solo exhibition was with Gerstman – Abdallah International in Cologne (then West Germany) in 1986. Most of Bradbeer's subsequent international exhibitions have been in Asia, primarily in South Korea.
In 2018 Bradbeer showed at La Capitale Galerie in Paris in the exhibition 'When Continents Collide #2' and in 2019 Bradbeer exhibited at that gallery again with artist/curator Nicol Rodriguez in an exhibition titled 'Jour et Nuit'. Selections from that exhibition were subsequently presented at Galerie Hoge Bomen in Veurne, Belgium.
Awards, prizes and residencies
Amongst many other awards Bradbeer won Australia's premier award for drawing the Dobell Prize (from Art Gallery of N.S.W.) in 1998 and was a finalist for the prize in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012.
He was artist in residence at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1995 and again in 1998.
Collections
Bradbeer's work is included within the collections of the Australian National Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Gallery of N.S.W., the Art Gallery of South Australia, Parliament House, Canberra, the Archive of Humanist Art, Commonwealth Art Bank, Lim lip Museum, Korea, Korean Art Institute, the University of Western Carolina, U.S.A. and other institutional collections nationally and internationally. His work is held in many private collections.
Further reading
= Works by Bradbeer =
- Bradbeer, Godwin (1984). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/21734204 The discrete human figure in the work of Warren Breninger]. Thesis (B.Ed. (Arts and Crafts))--Melbourne CAE.
- Bradbeer, Godwin (1994). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/45637777 Empirical painting : a search for a pictorial symbolism in human appearances]. Thesis (M.A.) -- Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
- Bradbeer, Godwin (2014). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/210857201 Half truths : in lyric verse]. Melbourne: Metasenta Publishing
= Exhibition catalogues =
- Pennings, Mark (1999). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/7395380 Godwin Bradbeer]. Bulle Galleries ; Hong Kong : John Batten Gallery, Melbourne, Vic
- Lacy, Kirsten (2006). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/33143354 The metaphysical body : a survey exhibition 1970-2005]. Shepparton Art Gallery, Shepparton, Vic
- Stone, Rose (2008). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/41222912 Godwin Bradbeer : soliloquy : 17 April to 10 May 2008]. James Makin Gallery, Armadale, Vic
- Brown, Marguerite (2010). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/50151979 Godwin Bradbeer : gravitas : 3-26 June 2010]. James Makin Gallery, Collingwood, Vic
- Lynch, James, (curator) (2017). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/243926956 Godwin Bradbeer : stigma and enigma]. Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood, [Victoria]
= Books =
- McKenzie, Janet & Wach, Kenneth, (writer of foreword.) (2018). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/257388667 Godwin Bradbeer]. Thames & Hudson Australia, Port Melbourne, Victoria
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.godwinbradbeer.com/ www.godwinbradbeer.com – Official website]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20060721224105/http://www.johnbattengallery.com/artists/gb/index.htm John Batten Gallery]
- Video: [https://vimeo.com/108045540 Godwin Bradbeer part one take two]
- Video: [https://vimeo.com/108531675 Godwin Bradbeer part 2]
- Video: [https://vimeo.com/71236935 Pentimenti at JMG with Bradbeer]
- Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n_HOeDysQM Godwin Bradbeer 2013]
- Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKvdgZuWf0U Godwin Bradbeer- Men of Paper - BMGArt Exhibition, 2012]
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