{{Short description|Australian artist (1915–2008)}} {{About|the artist|the archbishop of Adelaide|James Gleeson (bishop)|people with a similar name|James Gleason (disambiguation)}} {{Use British English|date=May 2015}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = James Gleeson | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100|AO}} | image = <!-- just the pagename, without the File:/Image: prefix or brackets --> | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = James Timothy Gleeson | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1915|11|21}} | birth_place = Hornsby, New South Wales, Australia | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2008|10|20|1915|11|21}} | death_place = Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality = | education = East Sydney Technical College, Sydney Teachers College | alma_mater = | known_for = Painting, Poetry, Writing | notable_works = | style = | movement = Surrealism | spouse = | awards = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = | module = }}
'''James Timothy Gleeson''' {{post-nominals|country=AUS|AO}} (21 November 1915 – 20 October 2008) was an Australian artist.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/gleeson-james/|title=James Gleeson|website=AGNSW collection record|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|access-date=7 April 2016}}</ref> He served on the board of the National Gallery of Australia.
==Early life== Gleeson was born in the Hornsby in 1915 and attended East Sydney Technical College from 1934 to 1936.<ref name=":0" />
Gleeson's family owned the hotel at the Central Coast NSW town of Gosford and the cool room was sometimes used as a makeshift morgue. During his teacher education, Gleeson was exposed to the works of Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Masson, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung who were to become major influences in Gleeson's phantasmogoric work. One of his teachers was May Marsden who persuaded him to switch from poetry to art to explore his hatred of fascism as the war came to Australia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SALVAGE FROM RANDOM’S EFFIGY, 1939 – 41 {{!}} Deutscher and Hackett |url=https://www.deutscherandhackett.com/auction/lot/salvage-random%E2%80%99s-effigy-1939-%E2%80%93-41 |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=www.deutscherandhackett.com}}</ref>
==Work== Gleeson worked with Robert Klippel in his early years. In 1944 Gleeson created Millet-influenced work ''The sower''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/OA13.1966/|title=The sower|last=Gleeson|first=James|date=1944|website=AGNSW collection record|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|access-date=12 April 2016}}</ref> referencing Jean-François Millet's 1850 painting of the same title. Rather than showing a landscape with a conglomerate main figure, Gleeson presents an daliesque mindscape. Gleeson's later work featured the male nude, as a gay artist he was a rarity in the middle of the twentieth century. His work had homoerotic suggestions and was not as sexualised as his contemporary, the gay artist, Tom of Finland.
Since the 1970s Gleeson generally made large scale paintings in that have been described as inscape genre. The works outwardly resemble rocky seascapes turning into strange biomorphic forms. Gleeson's phantasmagoria referred to the artists mindscape and sometimes a self-portrait would pop out from the morass of muscular male nudes and weird forms under a stormy sky.
In the late 1970s, Gleeson interviewed 98 Australian artists in their studios, about their work being acquired by the National Gallery. Gleeson was considered 'softer' than most Australian newspaper art critics, although his dossiers of significant Australian artist proved to be more discriminating.
In 2008, the James Gleeson Oral History Collection's significance was recognised by it being inscribed into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.amw.org.au/register/listings/james-gleeson-oral-history-collection|title=James Gleeson Oral History Collection {{!}} Australian Memory of the World|website=www.amw.org.au|access-date=2020-04-16}}</ref> The inscription was announced at the program's conference, Communities and Memories: A Global Perspective in Canberra.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Coombes|first=Jennifer|date=August 2008|title=Painted in words: the James Gleeson oral history collection|journal=Artonview|issue=54|pages=14–19|issn=1323-4552}}</ref>
His retrospective in 2004–2005, ''Beyond the Screen of Sight'', included 120 paintings and was exhibited in Melbourne and Canberra. The Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibited Gleeson's drawings for paintings<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?exhibition_id=3525|title=Works shown in the exhibition "James Gleeson: drawings for paintings"|last=Gleeson|first=James|website=AGNSW collection record|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|access-date=7 April 2016}}</ref> in 2003 and ''The Ubu diptych'' in 2005 to celebrate Gleeson's 90th birthday.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/ubu-diptych/|title=The Ubu Diptych|date=2005|website=AGNSW exhibition record|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|access-date=7 April 2016}}</ref> ''The Ubu diptych'' is regarded as one of his greatest.<ref name=":1" />
In September 2007, the largest collection of Australian surrealism ever collected was donated to the National Gallery of Australia by Ray Wilson. The collection included various works by James Gleeson.<ref>"Gallery gift promises a surreal experience", ''The Age'', 28 September 2007, p.3</ref>
== Death == Gleeson died in Sydney on 20 October 2008, aged 92.<ref>{{cite news|title=Surrealist James Gleeson dies |work=The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) |date=20 October 2008 |url=http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24528079-5013438,00.html | first=Craig | last=Dunning }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=Surrealist painter James Gleeson dies | url =http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/20/2396333.htm | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20081021023432/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/20/2396333.htm | url-status =dead | archive-date =21 October 2008 | work =ABC News | access-date = 2008-10-20 }}</ref><ref name=australianobit>{{cite news |first=Christopher |last=Allen |title=James Gleeeson: surrealist, critic and charming pessimist |date=21 October 2008 |url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24526553-5013571,00.html |work=The Australian |access-date=2008-10-24 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120913213024/http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24526553-5013571,00.html |archive-date=13 September 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> His life partner Frank O'Keefe died in 2007.<ref name=australianobit />
==See also== *Art of Australia
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.nicolarandone.com/arte/gleeson.htm Grandi Artisi - James Gleeson - collection of his paintings] *[https://archive.today/20121230211000/http://www.evabreuerartdealer.com.au/gleeson.html Eva Breuer Art Dealer - more of his paintings] *[https://archive.today/20121231065015/http://www.art.net.au/art-results.asp?idArtist=169 James Gleeson artworks (for sale) on art.net.au] *[http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/gleeson-james/ James Gleeson] at the Art Gallery of New South Wales *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070701130140/http://www.australianart.com.au/artists.php?ID=68 James Timothy Gleeson at Australian Art] *[http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24528079-5013438,00.html ''James Gleeson passes away,'' 20 October 2008, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, Australia] *[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/james-gleeson-surrealist-painter-art-critic-and-curator-who-drew-dark-inspiration-from-contemporary-events-976806.html ''James Gleeson: Surrealist painter, art critic and curator who drew dark inspiration from contemporary events (Obituary)''], Kathy Marks, The Independent, 29 October 2008
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gleeson, James}} Category:1915 births Category:2008 deaths Category:Australian art critics Category:Australian gay artists Category:Artists from Sydney Category:National Art School alumni Category:Australian LGBTQ poets Category:20th-century Australian male artists Category:20th-century Australian poets Category:Australian male poets Category:20th-century Australian male writers Category:Members of the Order of Australia Category:Officers of the Order of Australia Category:Australian male painters Category:20th-century Australian LGBTQ people Category:Australian gay writers Category:20th-century Australian painters Category:Australian modern painters