Shamelessly Name Dropping 101 – currently being updated Some paint, some appreciate’- the perfect symbiosis for a healthy art world. We can’t have one without the other. Eunice
As an artist I say that with no one to stand back and view a completed artwork- hopefully admiringly – a painting has not nearly
as much satisfaction because a painting is meant for a beholder.
Kallie Blauhorn and her husband Andrew Penn share a passion for art and now have quite a gallery of their own. For Kallie it all began with a collection of art gallery postcards that led to her current involvement in promoting top Australian art. When I learned that it prompted a flood of memories:
There is a simple way to begin your own art gallery and it is something both Kallie Blauhorn and myself each did when we first came to Australia to live – a few decades apart. It is a coincidence. Kallie went on to a life filled with art, my life too has been involved with art, and artists.
Kallie collected postcards of paintings in the art galleries she visited, framed them and so had a miniature art collection of her own at home.
Later, Kellie Blauhorn and her husband, Andy Penn, built a whole house specifically as an Art gallery around their private collection of contemporary Australian works, which they find totally satisfying. A love of art is how they first met.
These days Kallie Blauhorn is totally involved in the Australian Art scene. Learning this triggered off many memories of my own involvement with the ‘Art World’ over the years.
I have always collected postcards.Currently only about 200 remain in a shoe box that I had forgotten about until Kallie mentioned her collection in a magazine article.
My first postcards were collected while growing up in Scotland. Here they are in front of me.
My favourite is of Robert Burns Cottage is where my sister and I used to catch the bus home from school.
I rarely posted my postcards to anyone but used to take them home as souveniers, a better quality photograph than my camera could take.
Talking of postcards
When working in the Inland Revenue tax office I acquired a postcard from Moscow complete with Russian stamp on the back. One of our Tax Officers sent it while on holiday. Looking back one wonders how they managed to get there during the Cold War and what story this postcard can really tell? I remember they were only allowed to visit certain parts of Moscow when they were there and being very well monitored. Those were the days of James Bond,spy, after all! So there is a whole little world or even a movie in one little postcard complete with Russian stamp?
Back to Art
A series of oils I produced as Artist in Residence at the Kent Hotel lies languishing in a storeroom, I assume. Unnoticed because just as I was completing the last composite portrait the new owners knocked down the predestined wall at the start of their renovations. They probably did not know about a collection of time capsules relating to the events of the week in the life of the hotel. I have a connecting series of photographs (pictured) from which I produced the paintings.
However they have a mini art gallery ready to hang whenever they build another wall. I had quite forgotten about that till lately.
I had already moved on.
Back to Art and Postcards
When I was older I collected postcards from art galleries I visited: in Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland; then the National Gallery, Canberra in Australia; the regional gallery in Newcastle and the State art Gallery in Sydney. Oh and the lovely private Von Bertouch gallery with its glass ceiling and dark wood beams. I especially liked the compact Watters Gallery in Sydney that featured lovely, gentle Max Watters’ acclaimed 2-dimensional landscapes. More on.max Watters below.
Finally remembering the very special Inuit Gallery and exhibition in a small town near Toronto, Canada.
Those where pasted to a door as a very nice personal art gallery.
This is a really satisfying way or studying a nice painting (albeit in miniature) close up and seeing what are hopefully the correct colours. It is something anyone can do.
However Kallie Blauhorn did progress on to supporting Australian artists and purchasing their paintings. Both she and her husband, Andrew Penn, share a passion for the Arts and both are involved with ensuring its progress.
Of course postcards are now becoming a thing of the past thanks to wdigital cameras and smartphones. Racks of coloured cards to send home are becoming scarce.
Some of these artists I have known are collected in galleries around the globe.
One such is Dale Frank who I knew when he was first producing huge fantastic paintings one of which won at the Singleton Art Prize. One of his artworks now hangs in the gallery home of Andy Penn and Kallie Blauhorn.
Isabel Pringle and I began began the Singleton Art Prize competition ,which is still going strong. For me the World of Art was just a passing stage for a few years in my life so I was delighted to read about Kallie and her postcards leading to such a fruitful and satisfying lifestyle.
Mee Memoirs -and other stuff 