Bertram Mackennal

(1863-1931)

Truth 1894 62cm (24 7/16in.) high

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
19th and 20th Century Australian & International Paintings, Sculpture and Works on Paper, Deutscher-Menzies, Melbourne, 21 April 1998, lot 46
The Reg Grundy AC OBE and Joy Chambers-Grundy Collection, acquired in 1998

EXHIBITED
Australian Art: 1790s-1970s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 24 November – 9 December 1988, cat. no. 25
Australian Art, Colonial to Contemporary, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, May – June 1995, cat. no. 31

LITERATURE
Australian Art: 1790s-1970s, exh. cat., Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 1988, cat. no. 25 (illus. and back cover)
Australian Art, Colonial to Contemporary, exh. cat., Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 1995, p. 32 (illus.)


"Truth holds her mirror outwards on her breast for the entire world to see what may be reflected there. ... The little statuette is very finely finished and has been rightly and abundantly admired." 1

Truth 1894 belongs with Circe, Daphne, Victory, Salome and the young Queen Victoria to the group of statuettes at the highpoint of Mackennal's oeuvre. They demonstrate his quintessential understanding of and fluency with the visual style of the late nineteenth century British "New Sculpture". In terms of subject matter Truth exemplifies the characteristic poetic and allegorical female imagery that is associated with turn of the century art generally in Britain and Europe, and within an Australian art historical narrative closely with Mackennal.

Truth also documents a significant phase of Mackennal's rise to the foremost ranks of early twentieth century sculptors. The work was conceived and first editioned as a token of appreciation for the wealthy Melbournians who had started a trust fund to enable Mackennal and his family to live and work in Paris from 1892 onwards, and sent out from London as gifts. The subject of "Truth" could be read as a justification both of the rightness of Mackennal's art and of those far-sighted patrons. Mackennal's elaborate sculptural group in the French Beaux Arts style, The Triumph of Truth 1891, entered into a competition for a work to be placed outside the National Gallery of Victoria, was its direct precursor. However although clearly being the best work amongst the submitted designs, the Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria did not commission Mackennal to complete his work, nor did they accept any of the proffered designs. Many people including Sarah Bernhardt, who was in Melbourne at the time, considered the verdict an insult to Mackennal and an indication of how his art was not understood in Australia, encouraging him to look for acceptance in a more international and cosmopolitan art market.

Three years later Mackennal's vision had matured from the rhetorical, showy attempt to follow French sculptural taste to the more concentrated, abstract yet richly decorated vision of the extreme avant garde of British sculpture that during the 1880s and 1890s outpaced European sculptural innovation. Narrative and moral teaching is far less emphasised in this later image of Truth conquering falsehood, now reduced to a bald crouching figure at her feet, in favour of the bravura modelling of swirling art nouveau lines, referencing Alfred Gilbert's anthropomorphic modelling in the Shaftesbury Fountain. As with Gilbert, Mackennal distorts natural forms into whiplash curves and interlacings. This decorative modelling also is designed to be read as elaborate patterns of light and shadows. The smooth body of the female subject is contrasted with the richly decorative base and the wings, which particularly become a framing device for the figure. The detail of the figure's hair blending with the wings as abstract cartouches around the face is a highly original gesture for sculpture, although a staple of late nineteenth century graphic designs.

When Mr Frank Stewart displayed Truth in the window of Allen's music shop in Collins Street, Melbourne, in October 1897, it was the first mature example of Mackennal's sculpture to be seen by ordinary Melbournians who could not travel to Britain and the continent. Art critics were unanimously ecstatic about the clear demonstration of the sculptor's ability and the charisma of the presence and finish of the statuette itself. The work was celebrated as a touchstone to the exceptional career unfolding half a world away -
"The expression on the face is frank, fearless and earnest, and the pose carries out the same idea, heightened perhaps by an indefinable suggestion of sternness, even defiance. That the modelling is faultless need scarcely be said ... around the base are mythological heads, beautifully executed, and every detail is worked out perfectly." 2

Mackennal seemed to have a fondness for Truth, and included casts in a number of important exhibitions at all stages of his career. These included his solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1901, the important 'First Exhibition of statuettes by sculptors of Today, English and French sculpture for the home', at the Fine Art Society, London, 1902, in the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition, Edinburgh, 1925 and the sell-out Macquarie Galleries exhibition in Sydney in 1926. Most poignantly Truth featured in the two memorial exhibitions for Mackennal – a commercial show at the London Fine Arts Society Gallery and the loan exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Juliette Peers

1 The Sun, Melbourne, October 29th 1897, p. 13
2 Table Talk, Melbourne, 29th October 1897, p. 4