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Posts Tagged 'Nicolas de Stael'
Blackpaint 568 – Terry and Julie, Little Fascists, Ghost Cities
Photographer's Gallery – Terence Donovan and "Made you Look"
In amongst the hard-faced young James Bond types in belted raincoats and beautiful, tubular, posing women, this captivating shot of Julie Christie, looking groomed but feral; there's that smudge or graze near her elbow – bit more dirt and you could see it as a Don McCullin job. This, and the famous close-up of Terence Stamp are the stand-outs, but it's all good.
This is the other exhibition on at the PG; New York, London, Senegal; especially good, the ones of Senegal dandies in 1904. The man on the poster in the plaid trousers is from New York in the 80s, I think.
Childhood of a Leader (dir. Brady Corbet, 2015)
I expected the Omen after the trailer, with the ominous, crashing, pulsing electro-classical score (Scott Walker of the Walker Brothers – remember?); set in France or Belgium (filmed in Hungary) at the end of WWI, as the Treaty of Versailles was evolving. It starts with footage of the fighting and the Versailles cavalcade – dozens of cars in convoy through the streets. The countryside is dark, distressed, the trees and the chateaux and houses distressed and damaged; the winter landscape, black trees, black clothes, black cars – the lighting in the picture is typical.
The film is constructed in three "Tantrums" and an Epilogue, showing the boy as an adult dictator, reviewing his troops before cheering crowds. There is a Sun emblem with wiggly rays, I think… Who is he supposed to represent? It's based on a combination of a Sartre short story of the same name with a section of John Fowles' "The Magus". I haven't got to the bit in the Magus yet, but the Sartre story has the boy growing up to be a member of a fascist group and taking part in the murder of a Jew. Bit of a stretch to becoming a dictator.
There's nothing here that shows any insight into how a dictator might gain – as opposed to inherit – power. Where are we in the final section: America? Central Europe? The child is close by birth to influence and power, but nothing here really suggests an interest in it, beyond the exercise of his immediate will. The tantrums are not that dramatic; chucking stones at churchgoers, self-starving, refusing to dress, manipulating servants, embarrassing Mother, defying Father… Next thing, he's dictating…
The music and visuals promise much – lots of Metropolis, a circular dome against the sky, black coats, white blouses, distressed walls, Hammershoi, Manet, a desolate winter field with a figure in the distance – but the story is paper-thin. The boy reminded me a little of Mark Lester in "Oliver" – but much more, the little girl in "Outnumbered".
Behemoth (dir. Zhao Liang, 2015)
A nude, prone, rear view of a male torso against the grey/brown, scarred – too weak a word – devastated landscape of open cast mining, fields of green weeds before scores of massive, identical tower blocks. In such shots, triangular, straight-sided layering as of glass panes. Poetry read over shots. Coal mines, steel works, quarries, "ghost cities", truck ballets (nose to tail, as they crawl up slag heaps to vertiginous drops and shed their loads), fire dragons blasting through the air, sparks, puddles of molten metal and clinker in the foundries. The lung patients in hospital and dying at home, the grey/black liquid from their chests filling jars. The empty cities, apartment blocks all the same, no cars on the roads, but the traffic lights operating…
It's a rare thing; an art film and social documentary interwoven perfectly. Nearest thing I can think of would be "Leviathan", the fishing doc.
Nicolas de Stael, Etel Adnan, Wim Oepts
No particular reason for linking these three, except that, at different times, in different places (France, Holland, Israel) they seem to have seen the world similarly
Oepts
Holy Stone and Sand – WIP
Tags:Behemoth, Black Dandies, Childhood of a Leader, Etel Adnan, John Fowles, Julie Christie, Leviathan, Nicolas de Stael, Sartre, Terence Donovan, Wim Oepts
Blackpaint 458 – Braque, Yoko and Johnny at Bilbao
Braque at the Guggenheim, Bilbao
First, a full-size ballet stage set; very rough-cut "curtains and crooked arches, roughly-painted houses, windows of a "working class section" of an Italian town – I didn't record the name of the ballet. Quite strong resemblance to a de Chirico.
Next, his Fauvist pictures. One or two look like the Soutine paintings at the Ashmolean exhibition, but without the Expressionist writhing intensity.
Early Cubist stuff – guitars, mandolins, Sacre-Coueur, a port scene – very familiar and formulaic, they appear to my jaded eyes; the usual greys and browns. Then, the ones that Patrick Heron "borrowed", only done about thirty years earlier – white outlines round black lines, black, brown, blue, green, yellow, flowers, jugs, interiors.
One beautiful, dark salmon-based one with sand mixed into the paint, looking great from a distance. Ditto the pink tablecloth one.
I wasn't keen on the silhouettes of women at card tables, against large lemon-green patches.
Several of the paintings are on black, brown or maybe navy blue backgrounds; the best is the Packing Case.
Then, there is the Billiard Table, with mysterious white lines binding it, or in which it appears suspended.
There is a tiny "Basket of Fruit" that looks just like a Winifred Nicholson. Lots of masks and fishes (black, red, spotted), newsprint, Picasso -like skulls and women – one, greeny yellow with a huge single breast rising from her stomach.
There are some statuesque, brawny women, reminiscent of those Matisse reliefs, with stylised brown breasts and a repeated stomach design like an X ray of the kidneys.
The final room has a series of tiny landscapes, several of which had a touch of Van Gogh – stormy skies, "V" shaped birds. They (the paintings) are narrow and stretched, as if through the viewing slot of a bird hide. Interesting that de Stael apparently loved these; I can only think it was the stripe layers that resemble his own late sea and harbour scapes (see last blog). The last painting is very like Van Gogh's crows over the cornfield, but with a big, black plough lying detached and still in the foreground. Suddenly reminded me of the Lanyon sketches on paper, displayed at Gimpel Fils recently and reviewed elsewhere in this blog.
A brilliant show; I'm looking forward to trying painting on dark backgrounds.
Yoko Ono at Bilbao
Most of the stuff on show here is the same or similar to the Serpentine Gallery show reviewed a while back in this blog – the stepladder and magnifying glass, photos of the clothes cutting happenings around the world, a series of bottles of water, each labelled with a famous person's name; a couple of condoms, half filled with water (I presume) and suspended; a joky room with a huge magnet attached to one wall, pulling kitchen furniture and implements off kilter; a load of furniture sawn in half.
There is, however, a wall of meticulous ink drawings, done with thousands of dots, of intricate abstract geometric shapes, showing real skill. That was a surprise to me (not the skill, but the anomaly of the drawings amongst the conceptual stuff).
At the Le Havre exhibition (see last blog) I got a DVD about the painter which is in French. I can just about understand most of it, but was intrigued that they kept returning to the same picture, the giant one reproduced below. It turns out it was the one he was working on when he killed himself.
Riveting Iranian film, directed by Ashgar Farhadi in 2011; I'm still halfway through, but it concerns the trials of a man and his daughter trying to get help to look after his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, and the crises that arise from this in their lives and that of the pregnant woman they hire. Not a happy film, but compelling, I suppose, is the word I'd go for.
Saddened to read of the death of this blues colossus the other week; the only way to negotiate the Scalextrix – style motorways before Bilbao is to put on Winter's "Scorching Blues" and join in the mayhem to the appropriate sounds.
"…So much shit in Texas,
Bound to step in some"
(Dallas)
Next blog: Pompidou Centre and Martial Reysse.
Tags:A Separation, Ashgar Farhadi, Braque, Guggenheim Bilbao, Johnny Winter, Nicolas de Stael, Patrick Heron, Soutine, Van Gogh, Yoko Ono
Blackpaint 457 – de Stael at le Havre, Perfect Backs and Zola
Nicolas de Stael at le Havre – Lumieres du Nord, lumieres du Sud
I'm deeply indebted to Jon Hensher for commenting on 453 and letting me know about this stunning exhibition of de Stael's late sea-and landscapes, mostly from 1951 – 55 (the year in which he killed himself by jumping from his studio window in Antibes). Wikipedia gives his place of death as Paris – this must surely be an error, as he jumped from the 11th storey. Why? he was very successful and producing fantastic work. Apparently, he suffered from recurring depression and had had an "unsatisfactory" meeting with an art critic.
Although the exhibition contains only one or two paintings that approach real abstraction, his work throughout is concerned with shape and colour rather than the accurate depiction of reality. Sea and shoreline are represented by bands or stripes of colour, detail of ships or buildings by his familiar dabs or "tiles" of paint. On the whole, the textures lack the thickness and crustiness of his earlier large abstracts, apart from one or two, such as "Landscape, Agrigente", which are scraped or scratched into (these are, to my eye, among the best).
What I hadn't appreciated was his mastery of colour. A few examples below:
Paysage, Sicile 1953
Landscape 1952
Figures by the Sea (I think – my notes are very scrappy)
Calais – this is the exhibition poster; shades of Vanessa Bell's "Studland Beach"?
I could rhapsodise about these pictures for some time, but that would be tedious, so I urge all my readers to drop everything, go to France and see for yourselves. Incidentally, Wikipedia mentions the Bay Area painters as a point of comparison, in that NdS returned to figurative painting after abstraction; there is however a quotation from the artist on the wall of the museum, indicating that he himself made no distinction between abstraction and figuration.
Wim Oepts
Dutch painter, died 1988, who came to mind when I saw the more intense de Staels:
Also Anthony Frost, a bit – those ones he does with sacking.
Tate Britain Archive Room – "The Model and the Life Room"
This is easy to miss, as its down in the basement, at the bottom of the Fred and Ginger stairs. it's a collection of life drawings and sketches by the likes of Gaudier- Brzeska, Hilda Carline, Keith Vaughan, Augustus John, Michael Ayrton and Ithell Colquhoun. There is a drawing by Alfred Stevens called "Seated Woman Gazing at Magog", which is another in my Perfect Backs series:
It goes with the likes of Kitaj's smoking woman
and the back of the real Ginger, dancing with Fred at the end of "Swing Time" (buy the DVD to see what I mean).
Here's my own best effort, not in the same league, I know:
Zola; Rougon – Macquart cycle
Started the 20 novel cycle on my Kindle, having downloaded the complete works for £1.99. What it demonstrates to me is the importance of the translation. I read "Germinal" and "The Debacle" (or The Downfall, as it is called in the Collected Works) in the 60s Penguin Classics versions; I remember a racy,modern, brutal, colourful prose style. The style here is archaic and sentimental – the word "damsel" cropped up early on, used by the narrator, not a character. Not sure I'll be able to last the whole twenty – easier than Proust, though, and more happens.
Next blog: Braque and Yoko at Bilbao, Martial Raysse at the Pompidou.
Sonia "on the beach"
Or maybe she should be on her side?
Tags:Alfred Stevens, Anthony Frost, Augustus John, Emile Zola, Gaudier Brzeska, Ginger Rodgers, Ithell Colquhoun, Keith Vaughan, Nicolas de Stael, RB kitaj, Wim Oepts
Tags:Asger Jorn, de Kooning, Duchamp, Edward Lucie-Smith, Hans Hofmann, Hockney, Nicolas de Stael, Patrick Heron, Peter Blake, Sam Francis, St.Martin's MA show
The Taschen says that Mick's St. Paul statue is a self portrait, citing the "broken nose" (given to Mick by fellow sculptor Torrigiani). Can't see it myself; if the famous portrait of M by Jacopo del Conte is a close resemblance, and it appears to chime with the St. Bartholomew skin self portrait and others, the St.Paul statue looks nothing like him. I reckon my candidate is a better bet (the man in the background of the cartoon in the British Museum). Having said that, it's still a brilliant book.
You know when you're flicking through an old catalogue and something just makes you catch your breath and think you'd like to see a gallery full of this person's pictures right now – I've had that experience today with two artists who happen to be on opposite pages of a Christie's catalogue, from 1989. They are
Marie Elena Vieira da Silva b. 1908, "Le Monte Charge", and
Jean-Paul Riopelle b.1932, "Retrecit de L'Ile".
The da Silva is blue-grey and black blocks with buff and white traces, that looks pretty much like a harbour full of grey water from a plane. The Riopelle is wilder, a much more fractured surface made up of what look like dabs of thick paint with a square brush – but it's still got that harbour thing going. Both of them seem to stick – or have stuck – to a similar formula for most of their works; sort of echoes of de Stael again with variations; that was one influential artist.
I've noticed their work before; I would guess that da Silva was Portuguese and Riopelle I came across in the Joan Mitchell book – he was her partner in France for some years. I think the reason I've not mentioned them before is that their names are difficult – pathetic, eh?
Another painter in the same catalogue is Peter Bruning; two more breath-catching pictures, called – wait for it; No.2 and No.49. You can see Damien Hirst's point about these artists who do hundreds of Untitled's or just do numbers and dates – it might be a point of principle but it's really irritating. Give it a proper name! Doesn't have to have anything to do with what it looks like, but it helps punters and bloggers to remember it.
Anyway, I strongly advise the reader to look these painters up on Google and do her/himself a visual favour. Here's one of mine in the meantime –
Listening to Bill Evans Town Hall Concert, Turn Out the Stars.
Tags:Bill Evans, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Joan Mitchell, Marie Elena Vieira da Silva, Michelangelo, Nicolas de Stael
WordPress advises bloggers to start with an eyecatching headline, so here goes:
Artists and cannibalism
Diego Rivera claims in his autobiography that in 1904, he and companions lived off corpses that they bought from a local mortuary and ate. This claim is uncorroborated; I got it from Mary Roach's's book "Stiff" (Penguin 2004). More gratuitous sensationalism as soon as I come across it.
Some more abstract (or near abstract – or just a bit abstract, but good) art to look at
These are all to be seen in the Taschen "Art of the 20th Century", I recommend you buy it and no, I don't have shares in Taschen.
Nicolas de Stael, Portrait of Anne, 1953
Jonathan Borofsky, Canoe Painting, 1978
Jules Olitsky, Strip Heresy, 1964
Larry Rivers, Africa 1, 1962/3
Hans Hoffmann, the Ocean, 1957
In addition, there are "Untitled"s by Walter Stohrer, Albert Oehlen and Per Kirkeby that are all excellent, the last resembling a flame bursting in midnight blue. There is easily enough in this book to send you straight to the canvas ready to chuck the pigment on – and then to give up in despair, several hours later, wondering how they make such beautiful pictures.
Now I'm thoroughly depressed, so signing off for the night, and resorting to the bottle.
Tags:Albert Oehlen, Diego Rivera, Hans Hoffman, Jonathan Borofsky, Jules Olitsky, Larry Rivers, Nicolas de Stael, Per Kirkeby, Walter Stohrer
Blackpaint 75
Yes, it's addictive once you start, the game of making connections (see Bl. 74); yesterday, I was on about Keith Vaughan and Nicolas de Stael – today, I'm thinking of Diebenkorn and the tenuous connection to de Stael.
It's landscape that is the link. De Stael did those highly coloured landscapes made out of colour blocks sculpted onto the canvas with a knife. Diebenkorn did those fantastic "abstract landscapes", tawny like a lion's pelt,and white and blue, crossed with black "roads". When I first saw them in that great, grey and orange-covered book by Jane Livingston, I was struck by their beauty. The later "Ocean Park" series are much cleaner, more geometric, more green and blue – but a logical development.
Then, I came to the figurative paintings; golden/orange and dark blues, greys and flesh tones, that were equally beautiful. Diebenkorn was unusual, in that he kicked off as an abstract painter in the late 40's and developed in Albuquerque (see Urbana series, for instance) and then switched to figurative between 1955 and 67, returning to abstract thereafter. Guston, of course, also switched from abstract to figurative – but never made the return journey.
Lanyon
And of course, the "abstract landscape" thing brings me back to Peter Lanyon, because that's a good deal of what he did too. Many of his pictures are named after particular places in Cornwall and USA and are sort of total landscapes, giving all possible perspectives and sometimes impossible ones – from within the earth, say. After taking up gliding, his paintings were increasingly "top shots", to borrow a film-making term -and this is another link to Diebenkorn, whose pictures sometimes look like aerial photographs (the opening sequence of aerial shots in "Up in the Air" comes to mind).
I'd had an idea that Lanyon had been killed in a glider accident in 1964; it turns out, though, that he sustained only a minor leg injury in a rough landing – it later developed into thrombosis, which actually led to his death days later. Nevertheless, it is the 4th violent demise of an artist in this blog in three or four days, albeit accidental – the others were Christopher Wood, suicide under a train; Keith Vaughan, suicide by drug overdose (ill with cancer); and de Stael, threw himself from a building.
Listening (as promised) to Lonnie Donegan, "the Grand Coolie Dam"
"Now the world holds seven wonders, that travellers always tell,
Some gardens and some towers, well, I guess you know them well;
But now the greatest wonder is in Uncle Sam's fair land,
It's the big Columbia river, and the big Grand Coolie Dam."
Tags:Abstract art, Lonnie Donegan, Nicolas de Stael, Peter Lanyon, Philip Guston, Richard Diebenkorn
Keith Vaughan and others
Funny how one painter leads on to another – reading about Paul Nash (Bp. 72) I came across that beautiful picture of a curving coastline of ochre sand against a sea wall in light grey and stark black, called "The Shore". This took me on to Nicolas de Stael, the landscapes entitled "Marseille", "Les Martigues", "Sicile" and "Montagne Sainte-Victoire" (didn't someone else do a few of that last one?). However, when I checked, they're not THAT similar – maybe the sweeping distances and vivid colours…
Anyhow, de Stael took me on to Keith Vaughan, because they both use that technique of the small rectangles of colour, almost like square scales. You can see it for instance in de Stael's "Parc des Princes" and "Les Footballeurs", and Vaughan's "Millhouse", "Fire at Night" and many others. de Stael used a palette knife; don't know if Vaughan did too – doesn't look like it to me, but the effect is similar.
Then, I found other British artists had used it too; Peter Kinley, in "Grey Coast" (and according to Norbert Lynton, some earlier ones) and Patrick Heron, in "Square Leaves", after seeing a de Stael show in 1952.
What is the importance of this? None, except that painters influence each other, which is a startling revelation.
While I'm on about Keith Vaughan, I must mention his "The Return of Odysseus", in which the white, upside-down figure of the falling suitor – killed by Odysseus' crossbow – looks like a great white Praying Mantis. Then I found a picture of "Heath", a decade later, with rough blue, angular, elongated legs in a spidery sprawl – and I was reminded of Wyndham – Lewis (a bit)… But this game could go on and on, so I'll stop now.
Listening to Mahler's "Um Mitternacht" by Kathleen Ferrier and the Vienna Philharmonic under Bruno Walter, 1952; unbelievable. Tomorrow, back to Lonnie Donegan.
Tags:Abstract painting, Kathleen Ferrier, Keith Vaughan, Mahler, Nicolas de Stael, Patrick Heron, Paul Nash, Peter Kinley, Wyndham-Lewis


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Home / Community struggles in South Africa, 1994-2004
The ANC and the legacy of the liberation struggle
"What [the ANC] have done to put the economy on a right footing, is, I think, almost miraculous," Pamela Cox, former head of the South Africa Division at the World Bank.1At every turn the ANC government has embraced neo-liberal policies, and followed or gone beyond the advice of the IMF and the World Bank.2
There was huge hope and faith placed in the promised land of 'democracy' and 'black rule' during the struggle against apartheid. Now ex-activist officials complain about a prevailing 'culture of non-payment' as a redundant legacy from the anti-apartheid struggle, calling critics 'counterrevolutionaries', 'agitators' or 'radicals' – even as they cut off water and slip eviction notices under doors. But "there [is] simply no income in these areas. What had taken root was an economics of non-payment". Much of South Africa's liberation struggle had a near-religious faith in a small group of leaders, but now there is widespread disillusionment with party politics and the whole parliamentary system. In April 2002, hundreds of people from Soweto burned their ANC membership cards at a protest over those arrested at an action against water cut-offs.
Those politicians who try to use or influence the new community struggles are faced with laughter and derision. In Chatsworth, Durban, where Desai focuses his book, the election turn-out in the year 2000 was 20 per cent. (It was 15 per cent during the hated tricameral system.)3 "People came to see that lobbying and due process was a futile fob-off when live ammunition was fired at them while they were begging for just thirty minutes more to obtain a court order preventing their eviction. Although tragedy constantly haunts those who operate in Chatsworth, the heavy handed response of the authorities has been a blessing. It has founded a politics that is unrepentant and unusually clear."
These very people who every Saturday attended three or four funerals of comrades who died in struggle, those whose families and friends lie in the huge, stretching landscape that is the Soweto graveyard, the people who were convinced that "the blood of the martyrs waters the tree of freedom", now pick themselves up and fight again.
1. Alistair Sparks, Beyond the Miracle (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2002), page 16.
2. Under UN law, a democratic government that takes over from a dictatorship is not responsible for paying any international debts incurred by that government. The ANC, however, chose to pay the apartheid government's international debts voluntarily. The ANC voluntarily imposed its own Structural Adjustment Programme on South Africa. Taxes on the rich were cut, exchange controls dropped, and tariffs protecting unionised South African workers from imports were dropped. Water, electricity, housing and healthcare were taken from those who couldn't pay. Or another example; when the WTO gave the South African government twelve years to phase out protections for its national garment industry, the ANC chose to complete the project in eight years. In the first six months of 1999 alone, 10,000 jobs were axed in and around Durban.
3. In 1984, a new constitution was enacted which provided for a tricameral parliament. The new parliament included the House of Representatives, comprised of coloureds; the House of Delegates, comprised of indians; and the House of Assembly, comprised of whites. This system left the whites with more seats in the Parliament than the indians and coloureds combined. Blacks violently protested at being shut out of the system, and the ANC, which had traditionally used nonviolent means to protest inequality, began to advocate more extreme measures as well.
‹ Introduction up Some background facts ›
Community struggles in South Africa, 1994-2004
Some background facts
Anti-eviction actions in Chatsworth, South Africa
Water struggles in South Africa
Water struggles in Mpumalanga
Electricity struggles - Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
The South African Landless People's Movement
Workplace strikes
Volkswagen South Africa strike, 2000
South Africa Exxon strike, 2001
The Durban Social Forum
Phiri water struggles, 2004
South African public service strike - September 2004
South African platinum industry halted by two major strikes, 2004

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Shinola lays off employees, plans to outsource some operations
By Randy Wimbley
DETROIT (FOX 2) - Detroit-based Shinola has always prided itself for hiring Detroiters and for the high-end watches they create. Now though, they've laid off nine employees and plans to outsources some of their operations.
The luxury goods retailer confirmed to FOX 2 that it is laying off nine employees and outsourcing leather design and product development in an effort to remain competitive in a fast-changing retail landscape.
Matthew Roling is the interim chair of the accounting department at Wayne State Mike Ilitich School of Business. He says Shinola is discovering how expensive it is to create their high-end watches.
"It all comes down to whether or not the perception to the consumers will survive the maturation of the company as they try to right size the cost structure," Roling said. "There's a reason that most of our retail goods are made in the developing world: labor is a lot less expensive. I think they've found it very difficult to make those products here in the U.S. and make a profit."
Shinola says the move to outsource leather design and product development will help put the company on a path to profitable growth while still making high-quality leather goods.
"I think they've really tried to position themselves as a luxury brand, it just might feel kind of foreign to your average person in the Midwest or someone who does come from a vulnerable economic background," said Roling.
Last sumer, Shinola rolled out a more profitable and colorful collection of watches but many of its products are fairly pricey with bags and watches costing more than $1,000.
Shinola says production of its watch straps will remain in-house and the cost-cutting efforts will not impact the watch strap factory.
This round of layoffs is separate from the restructuring plan announced in July in which 30 employees were let go.
Shinola says it's donating the machinery it no longer needs to Pingree, an organization that employs veterans in Detroit.
The company also says it's helping those laid off workers get back on their feet with outplacement initiatives.
Shinola released this statement regarding the layoffs:
"In an effort to remain competitive in the current retail landscape-specifically the massive leathergoods market-Shinola will begin outsourcing our leather design & product development to partners with extensive experience in the field of leathergoods. This will allow us to continue streamline & strengthen the organization on our path to profitable growth-and produce leathergoods of the highest quality at scale. As a result, our internal leather team has been reduced. Our watch strap factory will continue producing watch straps in-house.
Shinola has already begun working with affected individuals on outplacement initiatives-including partnering with Jen Guarino, who is now President & CEO of ISAIC, an organization dedicated to career development in the apparel manufacturing sector. Shinola will also be donating machinery to Pingree, an organization that employs veterans in Detroit, which we hope will significantly impact their business growth.
We want to acknowledge all of the incredible work and contributions these employees have had over the years as we developed our comprehensive leather business, and we will continue to support them in any way we can. This decision was not made without extensive discussion, and we will continue to remain transparent to our consumers on the state of the company."
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 23: A display of watches inside the Shinola company pavilion as part of the Clerkenwell Design Week in London, United Kingdom on May 23, 2017. (Photo by Ray Tang/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)


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lewisblayse.net
Commentary on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Australia) and associated matters
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St. Augustine's Orphanage, Newtown: (Or: Justice Delayed)
Posted on June 4, 2013 by lewisblayse
Image: St. Augustine's – now a Christian Brothers college
The Christian Brothers in the Geelong area have been exposed as a hot bed of abusers in the recent Victorian Parliamentary enquiry. They ran the St. Augustine's Orphanage, which is now the location of their private school. It is heritage listed. The site was granted by the government originally. Government also donated a third of the building costs. The valuable site should be sold and given to victims in compensation.
It had all of the usual problems associated with the old children's homes. In 2011, it formed the basis of a claim for dereliction of duty against the State government, by several former residents, represented by barrister Dr Vivian Waller. Much of the claim involved Christian Brother, William Houston. Related claims involved Brother Best, who is usually described as a close associate of Cardinal "Georgie" Pell.
Justice for Brother Houston's victims appears to be seriously delayed.
In June 1997, he appeared in the Geelong Magistrates Court, charged with committing 14 sexual offences against a boy at St Augustine's. Houston was remanded on bail pending a County Court hearing. The magistrate's order was reported in the Melbourne Herald Sun, 18 June 1997, page 10, with a photo of William Houston. However, the County Court trial has not yet been held as the Director of Prosecutions did not wish to fund a single-victim trial in 1997.
This prompted an extraordinary speech in the Victorian Parliament by Peter McLellan (a Catholic), in 1999, in which he said that the delay in holding a County Court trial was an injustice to the victims.
Eventually, in 2008, another two accusers came forward and the original alleged victim signed a fresh police statement. Brother Houston was committed to face a County Court trial in May 2010 on 12 fresh charges. As of January this year, it appears that the County Court process (indictment number Y.03305021) has not yet been completed.
It is worth postings some of the readers' comments to the Geelong Advertiser's article on St, Augustine's Orphanage:
John of Cairns – I was brought up with St Augustine boys and they were TRAUMATISED regardless of whether sick men hiding behind sanctimonious privileges got to them or not.. God bless them but i doubt any of them give a spit for god now.. and likewise..
Edwina – The Catholic Church needs investigating world wide. Someone should have broken up these pedophile rings not moved the offenders. My heart goes out to all those who were abused. Help through Broken Rites is the way to go, speak out, find your voice.
Julia of Geelong – I am so disgusted by this unjust, My uncle and father both attended St A's my uncle who has recently passed from a massive heat attack never got his justice for the appalling things he suffered while at 17 orphanages including St A's, he was wacked so hard across the ear that he went deaf and his ear bleed. The brother's that did these horrible and unforgiving things should be made to suffer, and as for the state government you didn't protect children then and you don't protect children now, you should be ashamed of yourself and you need to make those boys who were so badly treated then feel something now I am ashamed to know that our own government knew this was happening but did nothing these men deserve to have a life that, they did not have when they were boy's. And has for the Christian's they are supposed to believe in god since when in the bible did it say it was ok to abuse children sick to my stomach.
Judy – These brave victims are to be commended for speaking up and taking action to expose the truth about being abused at Newtown's St Augustine's Orphanage. This is not an easy thing to do. But keep in mind your silence only hurts, and by speaking up there is a chance for healing, exposing the truth, and therefore protecting others.
[Postscript: The Victorian Adult Parole Board operations were recently the subject of a review. It has resulted in undisclosed changes, and the appointment of a new chairperson, Judge Elizabeth Curtain. It will shortly hear an application on behalf of Fr. Gerard Ridsdale, who once shared a house with "Prince Pell". The report was produced by Ian Callinan, who has done much consultancy work for the Catholic Church (see previous postings).]
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2011/07/27/270031_news.html
http://www.clan.org.au/homes_details.php?homesID=164
http://geelong.starcommunity.com.au/indy/2010-06-10/dark-years-of-orphanage-life/
http://zades.com.au/gandd/index.php/geelong/people/gdaugust
http://catholicschoolsguide.com.au/victorian-featured-catholic-secondary-schools/st-josephs-college-geelong-vic/
http://www.cathnews.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=27399
http://fatherkevinlee.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/but-wait-theres-more-black-collar-crime.html
TOMORROW: St. Vincent's Orphanage, Melbourne
That's all I can say
Lewis Blayse (né Lewin Blazevich)
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5 Responses to St. Augustine's Orphanage, Newtown: (Or: Justice Delayed)
Carl jeffrey lowe says:
I spent time their and as their beatings and physical punishment went uninterrupted i ran away 4 times before being transferred out to a youth training centre.
pauline lesley mcinnes says:
you reply to me
I need to talk to some who understand
lewisblayse says:
Hi Pauline.
If you would like to be put in touch with a variety of groups who may be able to assist you in connecting with others who were in this institution, please contact me through the Contact page on this website, and I will do what I can to assist.
Aletha
Aletha Blayse
http://www.lewisblayse.net
http://www.whiteshieldappeal.org
Twitter: @alethabe
I was there at st augustance I was 3
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To get a mullet or not? First ask yourself, am I potty trained?
My friend has stood up in defense of mullets. She just gave one to her adorable little one-year old. That girl can pull off a mullet. I also rocked a mullet until I was two. If you're a toddler, go for it.