MONTEFIORE, JOHN (1936-2011)

"Orpheus & Eurydice In The Underworld" (1972)
oil on board
67 x 53cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Montefiore was an underrated, award-winning Australian Painter, Muralist and Illustrator. He studied art at East Sydney Technical College, later known as the National Art School. In 1964 he won the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship, and was based in London for three years, where he visited the great galleries of Europe, taking copious notes. On returning to Australia he taught at the National Art School in Newcastle and eventually became an art lecturer at the University of Newcastle. Like many art teachers, however, Montefiore was first and foremost an artist himself. Within two decades of his return to Australia he had seven one-man exhibitions, all of them well received. His 18-metre-high, multi-panelled Life Series painting took him more than 20 years to complete - and was worth the wait. It won the Sir John Sulman Prize in 1993, awarded by the Art Gallery of NSW, and is now permanently at Macquarie University. But it was his larger artworks that won the most attention. An epic painting was commissioned for the refurbished Newcastle Town Hall and he provided a chapel altarpiece for that city's Christ Church Cathedral. He also illustrated two books of poetry, including Norman Talbot's The Fishing Boy (1973). His magnum opus, his book "The Making of Paintings", he presented art theories that he had been processing since his visits to the great galleries of Europe 30 or so years earlier.
 
This fascinating mixed media painting depicts the ancient and tragic mythological tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus, heartbroken by the death of his love Eurydice, descends into the Underworld to negotiate with Hades to be reunited with Eurydice.