Reference: see Sydney Morning Herald, 19.8.2020, p12:
'A profound loss’: artist John Nixon dead at 70 - by Linda Morris
The influential Australian abstract artist and leading exponent of radical modernism, John Nixon, has died.
Nixon, who was 70, died at his home in Melbourne yesterday morning after a year-long struggle with leukaemia.
Nicholas Chambers, the Art Gallery of NSW’s senior curator of modern and contemporary international art, said Nixon’s contribution to contemporary art in Australia was immense.
Nixon’s work is held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Australia and other state galleries as well as public collections in Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, New Zealand, Poland and the United States.
‘‘Over the course of more than half a century, he forged a practice marked by its independence, experimentation, passion, and humility,’’ Mr Chambers said. ‘‘John was represented in every major collection in the country, and several in Europe, but he never rested on his laurels.
‘‘He was always exploring, brimming with ideas, and giving platforms to younger artists.
‘‘He was a friend, supporter, and mentor to so many in Australia’s arts community. It is a profound loss.’’
Nixon studied at the Preston Institute of Technology in 1968, then the National Gallery School, and was first exhibited at the legendary Melbourne avantgarde gallery Pinacotheca in 1973. Later that decade Nixon established the gallery Art Projects in Melbourne with thenwife, Jenny Watson, one of a number of exhibition spaces and publishing ventures that he hoped would provide an outlet for the distribution and discussion of art ideas.
These projects were pivotal in offering publishing platforms for Nixon’s own works as well as many of his contemporaries including Tony Clark, Robert Owen, Peter Tyndall, Mike Parr and Imants Tillers.
Gallerist and friend Anna Schwartz said Nixon’s support of artists was one of his great qualities and he was always excited to collaborate with others on projects.
Nixon’s minimalist, abstract aesthetic was influenced by the Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist Kazimir Malevich.
Ms Schwartz said Nixon was prolific in output and his practice ranged across radical modernism, abstraction, minimalism, constructivism, non-objective art, the monochrome and the ‘readymade’. His work, she said, was all-encompassing and included painting, collage, print-making, drawing, photography, film, dance, experimental music, art theatre direction, graphic design, curating and teaching.
‘‘As one of John’s friends said to me last night, John made something out of nothing; he was doing that in his work every day of his life,’’ Ms Schwartz said. ‘‘He would make work from the most unlikely materials, from what was around him and transformed it into art, into a particular language of art.
‘‘It was, in one way, very straightforward, to do with the ordinary, but transformational into something powerful and contemplative. John always resiled from his work being seen in a metaphoric way but one can’t help but do that.’’
Nixon, who was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship Award in 2001, is survived by wife, Sue Cramer, a curator at the Heidi Museum of Modern Art, and daughter Emma Nixon.
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