Robert Mitchell's Works and Exhibitions in the Newspapers
Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum, John McDonald, 2 August 2008: Drawn from the ranks
"There are some historical lessons to be learned from a show at
the National Art School Gallery that celebrates the achievements of
the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme at the end of World
War II. Lines Of Fire: Armed Services To Art School presents
a collection of mostly small, modest works but it brings to life an
important period in Australian art and art education. ... Peter Rushforth, Robert Mitchell and Ron Lambert had been
prisoners of war and must have seen the irony in spending their
postwar years in the old Darlinghurst Gaol, where the school has
its campus.
Lines Of Fire is one of those poignant shows that reveals
another side to well-known artists such as Guy Warren, Tony Tuckson
and Robert Klippel and leaves us wondering whatever happened to
many of their fellow students who were just as prominent in those
days. ...
The students who entered the Commonwealth scheme were hungry for
a formal education and determined to get as much out of their
courses as possible. Tom Bass, who would dominate Australian public
sculpture for more than 20 years, remembers his time at the NAS as
"just a wonderful period", and "one of the best things that ever
happened to Australia". ..."
Sydney Morning Herald - Metro, 25 July 2008: Artists on the Front Line
'...Lines of Fire traces the artistic development of a group of Australian men and women who served during World War II and returned home safe and sound. After the war they took up the Government's education offer, ... to study art... This ambitious exhibition includes sketches made during the war, artworks made while studying and some later pieces by artists such as John Coburn, Guy Warren, Tony Tuckson and Robert Klippel..."
Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2008: Soldiering on - Lines of Fire: Armed Forces to Art School
"A post-World War II vocational training scheme that launched the careers of many of Australia's top modern artists is being commemorated in an exhibition at the National Art School. Under the CRTS, 300,000 Australian returned servicemen and women received a free education. More than 100 went to the National Art School, then known as East Sydney Technical College ...."
Good Weekend, 12 July 2008: View: Lines of Fire: Armed Forces to Art School
"This exhibition focuses on the ex-servicemen and women - including Joh Coburn, Robert Klippel and Tony Tuckson - who trained at the National Art School after World War II as part of the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme...."
SBS, World News, 9 July 2008:
Exhibition highlights Soldier Artists
In the aftermath of the Second World War a group of diggers began training at the National Arts School as part of a government scheme to reintegrate soldiers. Many of the students went on to make significant contributions to Australian art. The 'Lines of Fire' exhibition opens at the National Art School tonight and brings together the work of some of the artists during and after the war. Art and war appear to be worlds apart. But for some veterans, drawing helped them through the experience.
GUY WARREN, ARTIST: It keeps you sane. Army life is full of hard work and busy work, and sometimes you're frantic and sometimes you've got nothing to do. There are awful periods of boredom. Most guys played cards. Well, cards always bored the hell out of me, but I drew them playing cards. These Australian diggers weren't just soldiers, they were budding artists. The government's post-war training scheme offered them the chance to attend art school. Many went on to become prominent artists.
DEBORAH BECK, LECTURER, NATIONAL ART SCHOOL: They have become household names in the Australian art world, a lot of them. There's Robert Klippel, John Coburn, Bert Flugelman, Guy Warren, Tony Tuckson - a whole stack of artists who have really made their names in the Australian art world since they studied at the National Art School. Norman Hetherington - later to achieve fame as Mr Squiggle - was part of a unit that entertained the troops. Images of war are usually of big, heroic battle scenes but the journals, photos and sketches in this exhibition give a personal insight into the daily lives of the servicemen and women during the Second World War. Some of the men had harrowing experiences. The late Bob Mitchell was a prisoner of war for three years.
BOB MITCHELL, ARTIST: We didn't have any pencils or pens or paper to use so we used clay from where the shells and bombs had made craters.
He later began a series of drawings recording life in the POW camps. In order to keep the sketches, he'd remove the piece of cardboard in the base of his army pack and hide them under it.
But serving overseas wasn't a negative experience for everyone.
GUY WARREN, ARTIST: It's influenced my work, my painting, because I was so absorbed with New Guinea and the rainforest and the jungle that it's subsumed, consumed me all my life.
World War II changed the lives of most. But it offered some opportunities they may never have received if they had not served.
Emma Hannigan, World News Australia.
Mosman Daily, 5 February 2004: Unknown artist unveiled
"...The undiscovered talent of a Neutral Bay artist is being unveiled by Mosman Art Gallery. The artist, Bob Mitchell, who died in 2002, has been described as an artist of 'exceptional talent'. An exhibition of 60 of his paintings, seen mostly only by close friends and family, will open at the gallery.... It is largely thanks to his niece, Mosman artist Suzanne Alexander, and his close friend Renee Free (a former curator at the Art Gallery of NSW), that the exhibition has come together. ..."
Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2004:
Art with Elizabeht Fortescue - Abstraction and Obsession: The Collage Paintings of Bob Mitchell
"This fantastic exhibition belatedly introduces a Sydney artist who toiled away in self-imposed isolation and obscurity, but whose extraordinarily wild and beautiful works prove him to have been a major talent. Bob Mitchell lived alone in Neutral Bay until his death in 2002, aged 82. Eccentrically, he declined to exhibit... The exhibition concentrates on Mitchell's last 20 years. He lived much of his life overseas and his influences included Warhol, Pollock, Matisse and Picasso."
Mosman Daily, 12 February 2004
Sun Herald, 15 February 2004
Art and Australia, Volume 27, Number 2, 1989
Shown with Robert Mitchell's own alterations.
Copyright Estate of Robert Boyed Mitchell Created by Banziger Hulme Fine Art 2007
