COUNIHAN, NOEL (1913-1986)

"Reclining Nude" (1963)
charcoal & pastel
45 x 73cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Noel Jack Counihan was a prominent, award-winning Australian Mid Century Social Realist Painter, Printmaker, Cartoonist & Illustrator. His unique social realist printmaking has been likened to that of famous German artist, Kathe Kollwitz, and are graphically intense and dynamic!! An atheist, communist, and art activist, Counihan made art in response to the politics and social hardships of his times. He is regarded as one of Australia's major artists of the 20th Century. He studied part-time under Charles Wheeler at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne during 1930–31, where he met the social realists Herbert McClintock and Roy Dalgarno. He helped found the Workers Art Guild, and began printmaking, producing linocuts and lithographs for Communist magazine covers and pamphlets as well as designing banners. During the Great Depression Counihan participated in the "free speech" fights in Brunswick, organised by the Communist Party in response to a Victorian state government law banning "subversive" gatherings.  From 1934 Counihan worked as a cartoonist for various publications, including The Bulletin and the Communist Party's paper, the Guardian from 1945 to 1949 and again from 1952 to 1958. He developed a personal style based on the social realist approach, producing compassionate images of workers and their working lives. Counihan maintained that the artist had a duty to "gather information from the political developments of the time." His works are represented in all major Australian Galleries.