Graphic period:
His early linocuts were bold in execution, figurative and
expressionistic, e.g.
TheSearch, 1950 (ill. 29), which owes much to Munch.
Soon his calm disposition allowed him to shed the use of learned
263 Uemvil( enciklopedija. Vol.
36, p. 497expressionistic gestures and his linocuts, although still figurative, display larger and calmer planes, e.g.
Three Women 1953
(ill.30).
Following his early exhibitions, he began to experiment in abstraction, at first alluding strongly to images and symbols. Probably the best example of this experimentation isHarvest, 1959
(ill.31),
in which he renders in semi-abstract manner the spirituality of ritual harvest festivities. Combining the symbols of the sun and wreath of rye and placing the combined symbol centrally within a large, solid square, the artist honours the holiness of the sun and the spirit of the rye.265 At the periphery, with quick rhythmic strokes, he represents the opulence of the harvest.Mythological themes and Lithuanians' reverence of Nature and its forces again appear in his three-coloured linocut,
Behind is Always the Sun, 1962
(ill.32).
Here the filigree-like projection of the horizontal axis and the joyously scattered sparks of fragmented rays reinforcing the pulsating, energy-loaded atmosphere are counter-balanced by the static and majestic yellow sun. In spite of this complexity, the formal linearism of the !inocut prevails. For this work Salkauskas won an award at the Third International Print Biennale in Tokyo in1962.
"
Salkauskas, it seems, felt that the freer, abstract style required media more pliable and easy to handle. From the early sixties, he began to experiment with serigraph (silkscreen) and watercolour and achieved a variety of results. In silkscreen his lines became bolder and more decisive, prompting art historian Catherine Burke to comment, 'He uses line as force and as mass.'266 Such forceful, massive lines are powerfully evident in
Serigraph,
1963
(ill.33)
which won the Grand Prize in the Mirror-Waratah Festival Art Competition.During the transitional period between graphic art and watercolour painting Salkauskas executed monoprints, e.g.
Messenger Arriving, 1%1 (ill.
34). Here, the soft edges of the mythological image hint of his coming freer
mode of expression although the linear composition remains. Salkauskas said in1962: 'My work from about 1955 ... is going in two parallel directions. One
direction ... is on Nature. The second ... non-objective, free created forms. Now ... those two parallels are somehow combined together.'Watercolour Period: Salkauskas found the medium of watercolour in Australia neglected and uninspiring, most watercolourists being concerned only with small, tinted drawings. In
1963,
when he joined the Australian Watercolour Institute, he asked, 'Why can't you approach the medium in 265 A wreath of rye is the central object in Lithuanian harvest rituals. It is a symbol of thespirit of the rye and the thankfulness for the opulence of the harvest.
266 Catherine Burke, 'Australian Art in the Twentieth Century', B.A. thesis, University of Sydney, 1971, p. 3
today's terms?'267 Salkauskas's question echoed the sentiments of art critic Adrian Lawlor who earlier had described Australian watercolourists as 'lymphatic'.2c;8
Salkauskas's vision was of watercolour being used majestically, daringly and in grand fashion; he began to create huge, dark paintings. He gained a reputation as a 'monumental watercolourist',269 and considered Sydney's watercolourists to be 'far too cautious in their approach to the medium, too concerned with the production of neat washes of colour and failing, almost entirely, to explore the liquescent possibilities of this subtle and luminous medium.'270 In his huge paintings, many as large as one metre by two metres, he used mainly black with its shadings and translucency, often juxtaposing this with white. He was influenced by the American 'action painters' of the fifties and sixties such as Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and Franz Kline. They, however, all used oil as their medium and their work does not show the transparent quality that watercolour alone can endow. Art critic Alan McCulloch writes, 'The work of Henry Salkauskas means to Australia what the work of Soulages means to France, or that of Kline means to USA.'271
In his watercolours Salkauskas fused a grand, gestural technique with emotional subtlety. His subject matter continued to be the same. The painter explained, ' ... [the paintings] represent creativity ruminating over or being in ecstasy about water, earth, sky and cities; but it is the rumination and ecstasy that I want to put down.'272 The ecstasy, sometimes expressed in basic black with complementary grey nuances, is introverted, solemn and contemplative, as in
Painting, 1968
(ill.35)
andEdge of Spring, 1969
(ill.36)
and sometimes in colour as inGod of Spring, 1964
(ill.37)
andMonument, 1967
(ill.38).
Art critic James Gleeson comments, 'Each painting is an act performed in a dignified though mysterious celebration ... the slowness and deliberation gives his work the quality of a ritual.'273The emotional force of Salkauskas's work comes sometimes from solid black columns or abstract configurations, as in the
Edge of Spring,
but more often from the grey, shadowy folds of overlapping veils as inPainting, 1970
(ill.39),
where strong black forms ensure permanence and durability. Elwyn Lynn says, 'Henry Salkauskas' huge watercolours of vast, uneasy, and almost threatening areas of opaque and transparent blacks, greys and "used" or "aged"267 And.rew Sayers, 'Watercolour in Contemporary Australian Art', in Art and Australia, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1991, p. 360
268 ibid
269 This was the phrase often used in the local press to describe his work. 270 Docking in Art and Australia, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1982, p. 320 271 McCulloch in Herald, Melbourne, !0 Mar. 1971.
272 Smith, Australian
Paiming,
1971, p. 360browns and blues were commanding, thunderous and aimed at the sublime as did much of N.Y.'s Abstract Expressionism a decade before.'274
Towards the end of his life Salkauskas returned to a more ideographic representation of Nature in almost pure monochrome of blue or green. This increased the emotional element yet retained the same solemnity and mystery: an example is
Untitled, 1969
(ill.40).
In contrast to the previously prevailing impersonal sublimity, there is now a preponderance of personal lyricism. The large fields of colour evoke hope, trust and reconciliation, as inPainting, 1979.
As well as being more intimate, his last colour monochromes are smaller in scale and somewhat closer to reality, containing more recognisable images of horizon, mountains and meadows.
In the fifties Salkauskas helped to make graphic art a recognised and significant art form in Australia. His impact on Australian watercolour painting is largely due to his huge, monumental works. Art historian Gil Docking says of him: 'Henry Salkauskas pioneered, in Australia, a new respect for watercolour painting as a medium capable of being used powerfully, expressively and beautifully.'275
Salkauskas died suddenly from a heart attack in
1979.
Regarded by many as a happy-go-lucky and gregarious person, be was in reality a lonely man who Jived, alone and unmanied, in the same house at Kirribilli from the time of his ani val in Sydney, working at the same job -- as a house painter - and never travelling. His loneliness and private contemplation are reflected in his art work.In
1980
his mother Ona Salkauskas donated$30,000
to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to establish the Henry Salkauskas Purchase Award for Contemporary Art.276Graphic artist and painter