FRIENDS OF
THE GALLERY RESEARCH PROJECT
MARGEL INA HINDER
(1906-1995) Born USA
Margel Hinder was born Margel Ina Harris in Brooklyn, New York, USA, to parents interested in the arts. From an early age she wanted to be a sculptor and studied sculpture for three years before meeting Australian artist Frank Hinder in 1929. They married in 1930. This was the beginning of an artistic partnership which lasted more than sixty years.
Prior to her migration to Australia in 1934, Margel and Frank spent time in Taos, New Mexico, where she was interested in the solid shapes of the Pueblo women. In Boston Margel had seen an exhibition of animal wood carvings by a woman, whose name has been lost from history books, and decided to try this method herself. Influenced by the simplified shapes and smooth polished surfaces of sculptures such as Bird in Space, Mlle. Pogany and The New Born by Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) and the heavy, rounded forms of Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) in works such as Blanqui Torso and Night which she had enjoyed in exhibitions in the USA, Margel in Australia utilised family members and the birds in her suburban backyard as subjects - mostly in wood up to 1952, with some works in metal. After meeting and working with Gerald Lewers and having mastered the carving of form, she became interested in movement - a feeling of getting away from a solid shape, a central axis. Towards this end she sought movements of off-balance, asymmetry. She developed bird forms expressing movement and became more adventurous, trying various metals as well as wood.
CURRAWONGS 1946 Black shale 25 x 27 x 11 cm
Currawongs
expresses a momentary state of becoming rather than being, portraying a
particular moment of the process of life. When Margel said that she discovered
the "wonderful" shape of the two currawongs together, Gerald Lewers told her
that she had caught them in their nuptial dance. The beautiful dark sheen on
the superbly smooth, rounded forms of the two birds is designed to be reflected
on the polished aluminium oval base on which they rest. Minimal incised lines
define the right eye and each leg of the bird on top.
SIX DAY WAR 1 1967 Lyten steel 216 cm high x 152 cm
Born and
educated in the USA, Margel Ina Harris met and married Australian artist, Frank
Hinder, there before emigrating to Australia in 1934. Her early sculpture
consisted of small carvings of birds, native animals and portraits, carved
mostly from wood. Examples are Doves and Enid. Portrait Head. After 1952
Margel abandoned wood for metal which offered her much more scope for the
expression of her developing concept of movement. For the next decade she
produced wire abstract sculptures exploring how to capture the dynamism of
movement. Margel was strongly influenced by the 1920 Realist Manifesto by Naum
Gabo (1890-1977) which proclaimed the necessity of an integration into sculpture
of the notion of space, signified by transparency, and the notion of time,
expressed by kinetic rhythm. In works such as Revolving Construction, Margel's
complex relationships of spaces and inner and outer forms are dynamic and
random. They change as the work rotates or as the viewer moves around the work.
Compiled by Lynda Henderson, former student of Frank Hinder and participant in the Friends of Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Research Project.
