Prophet Isaiah, Apostle St Peter, Sundar Singh
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Australia
1894 – 1954
Prophet Isaiah, Apostle St Peter, Sundar Singh
1936
glass, lead
- Place made
- Melbourne
- Medium
- glass, lead
- Dimensions
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305.0 x 46.0 cm (left)
345.0 x 46.0 cm (centre)
305.0 x 46.0 cm (right) - Credit line
- Gift of James Ramsay AO and Diana Ramsay AO and the James and Diana Ramsay Fund to commemorate the occasion of the Gallery's Extensions 1996
- Accession number
- 953A21A(a-c)
- Media category
- Glass
- Collection area
- Australian decorative arts and design
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From the early 1980s, Stephen Bowers began to apply an elaborate and sumptuous style of surface decoration to ceramics, a style that makes use of the techniques of fine painting in combination with layers of coloured glazes and lustre. Originating from a wide range of sources, his imagery varies in content from subjects drawn from popular Australian culture and flora and fauna, to that directly referencing European art traditions, especially the porcelain decoration of the eighteenth century. He frequently juxtaposes unlikely combinations of images, and in Antipodean palaceware selects them from two main sources – European historic pattern design and Australian flora and fauna.
This large vase, one of a pair, was made by potter Mark Heidenreich in Sydney in 1989 using especially prepared clays. In 1994 Bowers finished decorating the first vase, now in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney. This second vase, decorated in 1998, features sulphur-crested cockatoos, scrolling vine with banksia seeds and eucalyptus leaves amongst a smorgasbord of cultural references drawn directly from the history of international ceramics.
Rebecca Evans, Curator of Decorative Arts & Design
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Christian Waller began designing and making stained glass windows around 1928, creating over sixty-five in her lifetime. Often regarded as Australia’s finest stained glass artist, Waller also practised as a printmaker, book designer, illustrator and muralist.
These stained-glass windows, titled Prophet Isaiah, Apostle St Peter, Sundar Singh, were made in 1936 for the sanctuary of All Saints’ Anglican Church, Bendigo. The three figures represented in each window span thousands of years of Christian religious history and begin with the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah, followed by the Apostle Peter during the time of Christ, and finally, from the modern era, Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889–c.1929), a Christian missionary who worked in the Indian subcontinent.
Waller’s great skill as a glass artist is especially evident in the windows, with the grand and imposing figures toweringly tall in their elongated spaces. Her use of intense colours imparts both a boldness and richness to the windows and demonstrates her love for the medium of glass. The windows were constructed from two layers of painted and leaded glass, the double layer softening the effect of the bright Australian light.
Rebecca Evans, Curator of Decorative Arts & Design
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Robert Wilson: Moving Portraits
Art Gallery of South Australia, 9 July 2022 – 3 October 2022
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[Book] AGSA 500.