Carl Olaf Plate (19 December 1909[1] – 15 May 1977) was a prominent Australian modernist painter and collage artist.
Biography
Born in Perth, Western Australia, Plate was the son of German born artist and writer Adolph Gustav Plate and the younger brother of artist Margo Lewers.[1]
Returning from France in 1940, he re-established the Notanda Gallery in Rowe Street Sydney, as a contemporary art gallery[6] and later book and print shop focussing on Modernism. Between 1940 and 1943 Plate curated many exhibitions at the Notanda Gallery including England Today: Exhibition of Modern British Art featuring 64 works by 34 artists including Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, and Ben Nicholson; a Balinese art show, 20th Century Masters, a show of prints including Braque, Klee, Kokoschka, Odilon Redon, Dalí and Modern French Art which included works by Braque, Joan Miró and Picasso. Notanda Gallery also presented solo exhibitions by Plate and Desiderius Orban.[7][8][9]
Plate had 28 solo exhibitions in his lifetime.[7] and was the first Australian non-figurative artist to have solo exhibitions in London and New York, at the Leicester Galleries, 1959[4] and Knapik Gallery, 1962 which included his large scale painting Graph Segments No. 1.[4][11] He exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including Contemporary Australian Painting which toured the Pacific in 1956, Recent Australian Painting at the Whitechapel Gallery, Australian Contemporary Art at the São Paulo Biennial in 1961[12] and Australian PaintingTate Gallery London, 1962. Plate was a member of the group calling themselves Sydney 9, which included Robert Hughes, Robert Klippel, Clement Meadmore, John Olsen and Stanislav Rapotec, holding exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne to show that as well as the Antipodeans, the Sydney abstractionists were an important part of the Australian art scene.[12]: 11 He was represented by the Hungry Horse Gallery and Bonython Gallery, Sydney and Galerie de France in Paris. In Paris he collaborated with Alekos Fassianos on a lithography series.[13] In 1967 he won the Aubusson tapestry-Australian Wool Board Prize (dual), travelling to France to complete the tapestry design.[7]
Plate lived and worked most of his life in the Sydney suburb of Woronora and lived and worked in France for extended periods. In 1945 he married painter Jocelyn Zander, daughter of curator Clarice Zander. He was a close friend of celebrated Greek writer Costas Taktsis.[14] Taktsis's novel The Third Wedding Wreath (Το τρίτο στεφάνι) is dedicated to Carl and Jocelyn Plate. Plate died at Woronora in 1977.
^Interview by Richard Haese, Woronora, 29/6/74, State Library of Victoria
^ abcdMcCulloch, Alan. Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Hutchinson, 1968
^Plate, Cassi. 'Carl Plate: Within and Without', in Carl Plate Collage 1938 – 1976, Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery & Arts Centre, 2009, p.12 ISBN9781921437090
^Lesley., Harding (2009). Cubism and Australian art. Cramer, Sue. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Publishing. ISBN9780522856736. OCLC428974492.
^ abcdPlate, Cassi (ed). Carl Plate Collage 1938 – 1976, Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery & Arts Centre, 2009 ISBN9781921437090
^England Today: Exhibition of Modern British Art, Notanda Gallery catalogue, Sydney 1940
^ abHarding, Lesley; Kramer, Sue. Cubism & Australian Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2009
^Donaldson A. D. S. 'The Visible Coming to the aid of the Non-Visible: the Collage of Carl Plate', in Cassi Plate (ed). Carl Plate Collage 1938 – 1976, Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery & Arts Centre, 2009 ISBN9781921437090
^Rawlins, Adrian. Overland No. 23, April 1962, Melbourne p.51
^ abHorton, Mervyn (ed). Present Day Australian Art, Ure Smith, Sydney (1969)