Art

The Art of Frank Hinder by Renee Free and John Henshaw, with Frank Hinder

Item: The Art of Frank Hinder
Author: Ann Stephen

by Ann Stephen •

November 2011, no. 336

Phillip Mathews, $75 hb, 180 pp

Art

The Art of Frank Hinder by Renee Free and John Henshaw, with Frank Hinder

by Ann Stephen •

November 2011, no. 336

Frank Hinder’s abstractions, light works, and kinetic art have appeared in several recent survey exhibitions and publications, arousing renewed interest in the Sydney modernist (1906–92). It is thus timely for the first Hinder monograph, written by the curator Renee Free, with a chapter by the artist and teacher John Henshaw. No revisionary account, it began decades ago as a collaboration between the authors and the artist following the retrospective on Hinder and his wife, Margel, that Free curated at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1980. After Frank Hinder’s death, Free continued working with his family. This self-published book – accompanied by an online catalogue of works of art, compiled by Adam Free, her son – is a labour of love by both families.

Ann Stephen

Ann Stephen is Senior Curator at the University Art Gallery and University Art Collection, The University of Sydney. She has worked for three decades as a curator and art writer within state museums and as a freelance curator. Stephen has written widely on the visual arts, and edited and coordinating many exhibition catalogues and essays on contemporary and Indigenous art. Her recent books include: On Looking at Looking: The Art and Politics of Ian Burn (2006); Modernism & Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917–1967 (2006), and Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia (2008), both co-edited with Andrew McNamara and Philip Goad.