HAEFLIGER, PAUL (1914-1982)

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"Cat And Canaries" (1950)

oil on board

25 x 124cm

initialled lower right

*exhibited Macquarie Galleries, 1950

*private collection, Sydney

Haefliger was a prominent Swiss-Australian Abstract Painter, Art Critic, Writer and Printmaker. He was born in Frankfurt, son of an artist and Swiss consul general. They moved to Australia in the 1930s, where he studied at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney. In 1935 he married artist Jean Bellette. From 1936 he travelled to Europe and studied at the Westminster School of Art in London under Bernard Meninsky and Mark Gertler; the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. His study tours of Japan, India, Britain and Europe, gave him an opportunity to study woodcutting and printmaking. He returned to Australia, where he became a leading art critic for Art In Australia, and the Sydney Morning Herald. He was an early champion of Russell Drysdale and defended William Dobell in his groundbreaking Archibald Prize court case in 1944. Haefliger was a foundation member of the "Sydney Group of Artists" in 1945 and coined the name "Charm School"; leading to the establishment of one of Australia's greatest and most influential art and design collectives, featuring the likes of Drysdale, Dobell and Olley to name a few. His works are represented in most major National Galleries and important institutions in Australia.