Here in Byzantium: Ross Crothall's Trans-Tasman Career

Abstract

The New Zealand-born artist Ross Crothall (1934-68?) is one of the enigmas of Australian art history. He was a member of the Annandale Imitation Realists, a short-lived collective credited by Robert Hughes as 'one of the few significant statements made in Australian in art in the early sixties'. He came to public attention in February 1962, along with the group's two other young artists, Mike Brown (1938-97) and Colin Lanceley (1938-), when they first exhibited at Melbourne's Museum of Modern Art of Australia. Three months later they exhibited as the Subterranean Imitation Realists at Sydney's Rudy Komon Gallery, and, soon after, disbanded. The Imitation Realist exhibitions were different to anything their audiences had seen before. They featured over 200 works, including paintings, drawings, collages, and assemblages constructed from anything the artists could lay their hands on: household detritus, plastic toys, newspapers, scraps from a nearby furniture factory, and house paint. Many works were collaborations between two or more of the artists and their friends. The exhibitions were immersive environments, with works displayed on the walls, floors, and ceilings, accompanied by loud pop music. While this trio of young, unknown artists received an unparalleled response, the nature of Crothall's contribution to art in Australia and New Zealand has not yet been fully appreciated.