John Dallwitz enjoys recognition for his and father David's abstract art after 50 years, at 'Adelaide Cool' in 2020
John Dallwitz with his Positive yellow and (inset) Oblique Blue. At right: A model wearing dress seign by John Dallwitz.
Image courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia
John Dallwitz enjoyed the hard-edge pop abstract art by himself and his father David being enjoyed at the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Adelaide Cool exhibition in 2020 – even though it took 50 years to happen.
Adelaide Cool took its lead from David’s milestone solo exhibition at Sydney’s Central Street Gallery in 1969. The exhibition featured the bold and brave switch by David Dallwitz – a renaissance music and art man whose home at Adelaide’s beach suburb Seacliff become a creative centre – to abstract art. The switch to pop, hard-edge and colour field was inspired by his son John, born in 1941 and an Adelaide University and South Australian School of Art graduate.
David Dallwitz explored abstract pop art with a 1966 trip to Europe. Blue Flash was the most famous of his abstract works exhibited at Sydney’s prestigious Central Street Gallery in 1969 but met a total lack of interest – even from the art gallery – back in Adelaide. Fifteen years later, the Art Gallery of South Australia was eager to accept his gift of Blue Flash.
John Dallwitz had the same experience with his change to abstract art. As he told The Adelaide Review, “I had my first exhibition at the age of 20 at Bonython Art Gallery, which was a landscape exhibition.
“Then in 1965 I had my second exhibition that was much more abstract. I had such stupid comments. People would say: ‘What happened to your emus?’ Somebody actually came up to me and said: ‘In 1961, I bought a painting from you: a red landscape. Well, look, I’ve changed the colours of my kitchen, could I swap it over for a green one?’ I thought: I don’t like this business much. I never exhibited again in Adelaide.”
A painter and teacher, John Dallwitz did exhibit elsewhere throughout Australia. With his wife Anne, he also gained notice as a designer of fabric and dresses.
Featuring paintings, sculpture, moving images, photographs, textiles and jewellery, including works that have not been publicly seen since 1969, the Adelaide Cool exhibition offered a rare glimpse into the local art scene that occurred in tandem with an international art movement. John Dallitz reflected that “the fact that it’s taken them 50 years to be interested in my work, that doesn’t really worry me. There’s other things I did that they’re not ready for either!”