The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 53 No 1 April 2014

Marea Gazzard, Torso I , c.1967, part of a collection of work displayed in The Mind's Eye, 2013 at the Art Galle.y of
South Australia; photo: courtesy Damon Moon
Mind's Eye , Paintings by Tony Tuckson, Fred Williams and John Olsen rubbed shoulders with more
contemporary work, and there were some ceramics as well - bowls by Harry Marchant and Lucy Beck, a
Tom Sanders jug and a big Alex Leckie vase from the late 1950s.
Marea Gazzard was represented by her 1967 ceramic sculpture Torso I , a fairly typical piece and
instantly recognisable as belonging to a series of works she made in the 1960s which were often known
by the collective title Dials. I have a very similar piece in my own collection and its simple, slightly
anthropomorphic form sits with quiet assurance on a little table near a window, where the light just
catches the soft edge of unglazed clay. While the piece is typically Gazzard it also brings to mind Nolan's
ground-breaking icon of Australian modernism, Boy and the Moon (Moonboy) c.1939--40, as well as
any number of Hans Coper vessels, both in form and in their dry, modelled texture, It is recognisable in
any of these guises as a head and a neck, abstracted but nonetheless evocative.
The curatorial premise given for this grouping of work asserted that "The artists .. . have each
developed a unique visual language influenced by aspects of International Abstract Expressionism (the
curator's term, not mine) Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and Australian Aboriginal Art", but I don't
equate Gazzard 's work with any of these movements; nor, I think, did she.
When Marea Gazzard left Australia for Europe in 1955 with her husband Don Gazzard, a leading
young modernist architect, she was already well-schooled in international modernist trends in art, design
and architecture. The Gazzards moved with a pretty sophisticated set in Sydney, forming friendships
6 THE 10URNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2014