Tony Tuckson | Energy to the rectangle

It is one of the peculiarities of the art of painting that all the strength and suppleness of movement the painter’s body can bring to the brush is destined to land upon a hard, unyielding rectangle. Imagine the figure of the painter positioned by an easel with brush in hand, a blank canvas perched at chest-height. Raising an arm they make contact, twisting the wrist before drawing away. With a turn of the upper body they bring the brush in with volition, planting a stroke then bending the knees to strike from a lower angle. And so on, all this corporeal ingenuity directed at an inflexible picture plane. 

Tony Tuckson made of this situation a marvel. Few painters working in Australia have achieved such an unbridled deployment of energy within the bounds of the rectangle. For the viewer, the result is an incomparable richness of expression. The inflections of touch in Tuckson’s work seem infinite, its depths palpable and poetic. It would be a mistake to describe his pictorial space as flat, for even the voids are inclined to flex and billow between the forms. 

Notwithstanding the excellent Tuckson exhibitions that have been staged by museums in recent years, the public’s familiarity with his oeuvre is primarily due to the gradual release of works, over five decades, through Sydney’s Watters Gallery. While many dealers would have isolated key works and fostered an impression of rarity, Watters presented all manner of paintings alongside works on paper, giving insight into the private evolution of this most inventive painter. Having introduced Tuckson to the public in the three years prior to his death in 1973, the gallery continued to exhibit him until its closure in 2018, almost as if he were a living artist presenting newly executed bodies of work.

The artist’s estate continues to release works through Rogue Pop-up Gallery, which has operated on Regent Street, Redfern since 2020. A selection of Tuckson paintings and drawings from all phases can be viewed there until the 25^th May. It is remarkable, given that he has been deceased for fifty-two years, and fitting considering the rawness of his painting, that Tuckson can still be encountered in a venue that represents emerging artists and more seasoned adventurers whose work is ever evolving.

In the upstairs gallery, two rooms of figurative works buzz with youthful determination, the artist subjugating the rectangle to patches and bursts of brushwork. This is painting as a clever game of subdivision. In the well-known TP310, c. 1948, a rotund depiction of a head serves as a reminder that while he may have been on the path to abstraction, Tuckson revelled in painting’s illusions of volume. TP335, c. 1952, is its antithesis: all form suppressed, the face virtually a mask. Tuckson’s ability to scribe free-floating lines through implied space, evident in later work, is surely founded on the shifts of attitude practiced between pictures like these. The influence of Picasso and Matisse is strong but the lessons derived were less stylistic, more to do with the sensing of space. A selection of small pencil drawings of figures and domestic subjects, equal parts innocence and knowing, are a delight of the exhibition.

Downstairs, abstract works show the mature Tuckson working with abandon. A group of red, black and white works on paper, some of which were recently brought to light in the Synergy exhibition at Canberra’s Drill Hall Gallery, would blow most contemporary abstract painting off the wall. The total absence of mannerism in the work of the sixties can make a painter feel that they might be able to do something just as real by referring to their soul alone. It’s worth trying, but the cogency of Tuckson’s thinking would be hard to match. TP 60 (Diamonds and Rectangles), 1962-65, a large acrylic on Masonite painting, is perhaps not one of the best of its period but a substantial work that points to the interdependence of painting and drawing in Tuckson’s creative process.

In the final stanza of his career Tuckson approached the picture plane as a launchpad from which to soar, his arm’s long, sure movements guided by unclouded intuition. These developments are represented by some small, distinctive drawings, but the strength of the exhibition lies in the many paintings and works on paper from the fifties and sixties. There is reportedly a considerable amount of unseen work in the Tuckson estate, a fact that would surely tantalise museums, collectors and enthusiasts. But as familiar as some of the exhibits in Rogue Pop-up Gallery may be, a presentation of works as dynamic as these is no cause for quibbling. They are the fabulous products of a lifelong obsession to bring energy to the rectangle without conforming to its strictures. 

Tony Tuckson – Works from the Estate
Rogue Pop-up Gallery, Redfern
30 April – 25 May 2025

Images courtesy of the Estate of Tony Tuckson and Rogue Pop-up Gallery, Redfern