Stan
de Teliga was an artist, teacher and administrator influential in the Sydney
arts scene throughout the 1960's, 70's and 80's. Born in Poland in 1924 de
Teliga arrived in Australia in 1926. After serving in the R.A.A.F. during World
War II, he studied art under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme at
the East Sydney Technical College. Fellow students included John Coburn, Jon
Molvig and Robert Mitchell.
De Teliga's first professional appointment as an artist was that of tutor in
art at the University of Sydney from 1951 until 1954. He then had a stint in
Tasmania where he served as Keeper at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in
Hobart from 1954 until 1960. He returned to Sydney in 1960 to take up the role
as Director of the Blaxland Gallery in Pitt Street. During this tenure he was
responsible for mounting Roger Kemp's seminal
one
man exhibition. De Teliga's role with the Blaxland Gallery was pivotal in the
maintenance of the reputation of the gallery as being encouraging of experimental
styles
and favouring non-figurative art. The Blaxland Gallery was an iconic Sydney
gallery which ran continuously from 1929 until 1995. It was used as the venue
for the Contemporary Art Society exhibitions and also the Blake Prize
competition.
From 1966-1974 de Teliga taught painting at the National Art School, Sydney;
and from 1974-75 he was Head of the Art School. Concurrent with all of his
professional appointments de Teliga still found time to hold twelve one-man
exhibitions between 1958 and 1972. Throughout his whole career he was to hold
more than twenty five exhibitions.
De Teliga was a champion of "Modernism", particularly
post-Impressionism and cubism. As a painter he employed the manifestations of
the cubist's and the post-impressionist's into his non-objective depictions of
the landscape that he loved so much. He saw the landscape in terms of patches
of colour - where colour created form and kept air in between.* As a painter he created patterns that
described and deconstructed the landscape.
Throughout his career de Teliga won more than a dozen art awards.
Included amongst these were the Australian Fashion Fabric Design award,1963;
Manilla Art Prize, 1967; Flotta Lauro Travelling Scholarship, 1968; Myer
Foundation Travel Grant,1969; Southern Cross, 1969, and Rockdale award, 1972. De Teliga's works are held by many
public institutions including the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; the
Art Gallery of New South Wales; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; South
Australian Art Gallery, and regional galleries in Launceston and Newcastle. He was honoured with a Retrospective
exhibition at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney College of Arts in 1984.
Throughout
a long career de Teliga was to be an important player in all facets of the
Sydney art world. He was an influential teacher, a savvy administrator and a
committed and highly talented "Modernist" painter. Stan de Teliga
died in 1998.
*A tribute to Stan de Teliga - You Tube
Clip made by Patrick and Sam de Teliga
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