Interview from May 17, 2017 for the Bert Flugelman 'Wry ARTificer' exhibition, Panizzi Gallery, UOW Library.
Video via University of Wollongong Library
Video via University of Wollongong Library
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00:00You probably know the story, Bertie and I, no my wife and I had dinner with Bert and
00:06Rosemary at what was then Rosemary's house at Fiery Meadow, just out of Wollongong.
00:14It was a good dinner, a good night, and they had a big round table that we were eating
00:21from, and there were a number of people around the table, and inevitably there are always
00:27some people who aren't from the art scene, and they don't always quite know what the
00:32questions are to ask, so they find questions which they hope will be sensible.
00:37And so this woman, obviously searching for a question, leant across the table and said
00:41to Bert and me, have you two ever gone in for the Archibald?
00:46And we made the usual response at the time which was, oh God no, you know, nobody goes
00:50in for that, the trustees wouldn't know a good painting if it fell on them, you know,
00:56nobody takes it seriously, and at that point maybe Bert had had a glass of wine, one glass
01:04more than I did, because he leant across the table and he suddenly said, why don't we?
01:09Why don't we?
01:10He said, tell you what, I'll challenge you, you, we'll both go in, you paint me and I'll
01:14paint you.
01:15And I said, righto Bert, okay, and then I probably forgot all about it, you see.
01:20And then a fortnight later he rang me up and said, well when do we start?
01:24I said, when do we start, what?
01:26He said, you were going to paint me and I was going to paint you, and I said, oh alright.
01:31So we started painting each other, he drew me, I drew him, he started painting me and
01:38I started painting him, pardon me, and for a long time I'd been using an image in my
01:48drawings and my paintings which was a flying figure.
01:53And the flying figure came about, first of all, oddly enough, because in 68 I'd been
02:03in New York for nine months and came back to Australia and I was offered the chance
02:10to use Arthur Boyd's property down at the Shoalhaven.
02:14This was before he'd given it to the nation.
02:17There was nobody down there except me living in this wonderful big old stone house.
02:23And working in Arthur's studio on my own, my wife used to come down at weekends, and
02:28working in the studio a big black crow, carawong, used to come down and batter itself against
02:36the skylights.
02:40I would guess probably the sky was reflected in the skylight, but I thought it was a bit
02:44odd because the studio was very small and totally self-enclosed and it was almost like
02:51being in a prison.
02:52The door didn't even look like a door, it was part of the wall.
02:56And I thought there's something odd about this.
02:58I'm imprisoned in here and here's this creature who's free to go anywhere he or she wants
03:04to go.
03:05And it's trying to batter its way into me.
03:07It's an odd idea, you know, a bit stupid.
03:10But anyway, I started drawing this winged creature.
03:15Then I went back to Jamboree, to our little hut at Jamboree, and found that hang gliders
03:22were leaping off the escarpment above me.
03:25And they too reminded me of, well, winged creatures.
03:30And I thought it was very dangerous.
03:33I thought it was more than just jumping off cliffs, it was about taking risks.
03:39It was risk-taking.
03:42It's about risk-taking.
03:45It's about...
03:48Every culture in the world seems to have, in its iconography, has flying creatures.
04:00So somehow it becomes a universal symbol.
04:04So anyway, my little winged man became about taking risks.
04:09It related to angels, if you wanted to think of that.
04:13It related to birds, if you wanted to think of that.
04:16And because I didn't...
04:18It related to Icarus, the story of Icarus, if you wanted to believe that.
04:22But I didn't want to give it a particular name.
04:25I didn't want to identify it so that other people knew what it was.
04:29So I simply called it winged man, which didn't mean anything.
04:32To me it was just winged man.
04:35So when I started painting Bert for the Hunchaboard,
04:41I thought I would...
04:43For once, I got a great likeness, just a very good likeness,
04:48and it came off, just sailed off my brushes, I don't know how.
04:56And I wanted an image which related to Bert,
05:00and I thought, well, if I put the winged man in, it's about taking risks.
05:04Now, Bertie was about taking risks.
05:06He took risks all his life.
05:08He sometimes fell flat on his face, but he'd pick himself up
05:13and he'd keep going again.
05:16That was about that.
05:18So I thought, I'll do that.
05:20And this is where it gets really weird,
05:22because at that point, when I was just...
05:26I painted the little winged man in fairly small.
05:29Suddenly, for the first time in my life,
05:31it had never occurred to me before that Bert's name, Flugelmann,
05:35is a German translation which means winged man.
05:38Now, that made the hair stand up at the back of the neck.
05:41That really did. That was weird.
05:43So I painted the little one out and I painted them in again quite large
05:46so that the wings come right behind Bert.
05:50So they either could belong to Bert or they could belong to my winged man.
05:54And for once that year,
05:58the judges for the Archibald had a total change of heart
06:02and for once they made an incredibly intelligent, perceptive decision.
06:07And good for them.
06:10It wasn't worth as much as it is now,
06:13but it was a nice thing to win.
06:16I think the best comment made about it
06:20was made by Terence Malone,
06:23who was the art critic on the Herald in those days.
06:26And Terence reviewed the Archibald
06:29and he said it wasn't so much a portrait of a friend,
06:36more it was a portrait of friendship.
06:39It was a painting of friendship.
06:41And I thought that was a nice thing to say,
06:44a very perceptive thing to say.
06:47And how did Bert's portrait of you go?
06:50It didn't get into the Archibald.
06:53I don't know what happened to it.
06:55I think there were drawings from it somewhere.
06:59And Bert was overseas when it was announced.
07:05So he learnt about it, I think, when he was in London.
07:09He did say to me once later
07:11that he thought he got more publicity out of that win than I ever did.
07:15Which delighted me too.