Writer and art historian
Art History
‘Writing on art gives the writer an entrée into the unique preoccupations of others—along with their struggles and delights in expressing them. It is an extraordinary luxury to delve deeply into their firmaments and to travel for a time along their particular thought-channels.’
John Perceval:
Art and Life
2nd edition
Melbourne University Press
John Perceval:
Art and Life
2nd edition
Melbourne University Press
John Perceval was a gifted and exuberant artist whose alcoholism eventually destroyed his life and his talent. I knew him well and this book brings an engaging and exasperating personality back to life.
Barry Humphries
This book presents a powerful insight into the art of John Perceval, and reminds us what a strong and fascinating artist he was.
Gerard Vaughan, Director
National Gallery of Australia
This book is a multi-layered account of the people and influences that played major roles in the artist’s life. Poignant and insightful, Allen knowingly takes her time to express the full complexity of Perceval’s work and personality. Rigorous and engaging, the resulting story is both bittersweet and tragic.
Lucy Stranger, Arts Journalist
Artist Profile magazine
Allen’s lavishly illustrated biography paints a detailed portrait of an Angry Penguin who harnessed his demons to further his art.
William Yeoman
West Weekend Magazine
HOMESICKNESS:
NATIONALISM IN AUSTRALIAN
VISUAL CULTURE
Traudi Allen’s detailed and meticulously researched book: Homesickness: investigates how what we see tells us who we are, and who we are, informs what we see, helping us to understand both the blessings, the dangers and the mysteries of national identity.
Joanna Murray-Smith
Playwright and novelist
A most enjoyable read. Her lively style, with touches of slightly mordant humour, comes as a great relief from some other less imaginative approaches.
Professor John Rickard,
Historian.
Traudi Allen sets herself an interesting task, exploring the relationship between visual culture and national myths since 1940. Her broad conclusions are persuasive; her analysis of the art itself demonstrates a deep and wide-ranging knowledge of the field. The result is stimulating, surprising, entertaining, wide-ranging, erudite, eclectic, lively and argumentative.
Richard White
Historian
The boldness of the argument, the range of materials considered and the clear conviction and commitment of this writer are commendable.
Patrick McCaughey
Art critic and former director of the National Gallery of Victoria
HOMESICKNESS:
NATIONALISM IN AUSTRALIAN
VISUAL CULTURE
Macmillan
With an approach that is both scholarly and irreverent, Dr. Traudi Allen explores the way art history has sometimes unwittingly supported the establishment of Australian myths and stereotypes, as well as how it has challenged them. She shows how this art may be an expression of a homesickness for the land of origin; or as a sickness at home: when as an asylum seeker one suffers incarceration or as a permanent resident one is a proxy torturer.
Cover: Land of Phantoms 1992/1993
Peter Ferguson
Craftsman House
ROAR! And quieter moments from a group of Melbourne artists 1980-1993.
Traudi Allen, art historian Dr. Richard Haese, and publisher Neville Drury, launching Roar! at William Mora Gallery, Melbourne, in 1995.
Cross-currents in Contemporary Australian art
Cover ‘A Gay Morning Tea’, 1994
Tina Fiveash
Craftsman House
Patterns of a Lifetime:
A biography of Clifton Pugh
Thomas Nelson
It’s a good book! Recommendation by Gough Whitlam at Realities Gallery, South Yarra, where he launched the book in March 1981.
Patterns of a Lifetime:
A Biography of Clifton Pugh
Former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam (1972-1975) discussing the book with Clifton Pugh.
Reverse cover
Self Portrait 1960, Art Gallery of Western Australia
Other Publications
Book Chapter
‘A land called Newtopia’, in Footnotes of a Verdurous tale: Sebastian Di Mauro 1987-2009, Museum of Modern Art at the Queensland University Technology, Oct. 2009.
CATALOGUE ESSAYS
The Way To Rosafarben: Adriane Strampp, King Street Gallery on William, Sydney April 2016.
Ingo Kleinert: Reconciliations: A way of Life, Boutwell Draper Gallery, August 2007.
Gardenesque, Carole Wilson and Louise Saxton, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 2004-2005.
Reframing Patriarchy, Pandanus and the Postcolonial, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, 2002.
The Sculpture of Mona Ryder, Queensland Art Gallery, 1995.
The Antipodeans, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art; Nolan Gallery and S.H. Ervin 1988-1989.
John Perceval: Painting and Poetry, Heide Park and Art Gallery 1984.
SELECTED ARTICLES
2023 ‘Authenticity and the National Vision: A Reconsideration of the role of the Reeds in the Art of the Angry Penguins’, Australian Historical Studies journal, Sep.
2016 Portrait, Magazine of Australian & International Portraiture, ‘The Family Scene, Portraits by John Perceval,’ National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Winter.
2011 Art Monthly Australia, Sandy Kirby 1948-2011: Extending the Sightlines, vol. 240, June.
2002 Art Asia-Pacific, Buddhism and the art of Tim Johnson, Lindy Lee and Peter Tyndall March.
2000 The Age John Perceval obit.16 Oct.
2000 Australian Book Review, Tim Storrier, Catharine Lumby, Oct.
2000 Australian Book Review, Australian Art Now, Nevill Drury, June.
1998 Australian Book Review, Modern Asian Art, John Clark, Dec.
1996 Art Asia-Pacific, Illuminations: Domenico de Clario Dec.
1996 Australian Book Review, Brett Whiteley an unauthorised Life Hilton & Blundell and A Portrait of Brett Whiteley, Hopkirk, Oct.
1996 Australian Book Review, Brett Whiteley Art & Life, Barry Pearce.
1996 The Sunday Age,Art and Suburbia, Chris McAuliffe, Dec.
1996 The Sunday Age, Modernism and Feminism, Helen Topliss, 16 June.
1995 The Sunday Age, A Child’s Guide to Australian Painting, Margaret Plant, Feb.
1995 Australian Book Review, The Art of Howard Taylor, July
1995 The Sunday Age E., Phillips Fox Ruth Zubans, Oct.
1994 Australian Book Review, Images 2, Nevill Drury, July.
1994 Australian Book Review, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century Andrew Sayers, Dec.
1994 Australian Book Review, Salvatore Zofrea: Ted Snell.
1994 Sunday Age, Heritage, Joan Kerr, Mar.
1994 Australian Book Review, Images 2, Nevill Drury, Nov.
1993 The Sunday Age, Strange Women ed. Jeanette Hoorn, Sept.
1993 The Sunday Age, Aboriginal Art, Wally Caruana, June.
1992 Australian Book Review, ‘Robert Juniper’, Phillipa O’Brien, Dec.
1992 The Sunday Age,’ Sightlines’ Sandy Kirby, May.
1992 Bulletin NGV ‘Goodnight to Days of Yellow and Blue: John Perceval’, May.
1992 Artlink vol. 12 no. 4, ‘Mental Disturbance and Artistic Production’.
1986 Studio International, ‘Just what is it that makes today’s landscapes so different, so appealing?’
1983 Art & Text Interview with Sidney Nolan.
ENTRIES TO DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Grove Dictionary of Art, OUP, entries on Domenico de Clario, Rosalie Gascoigne, Peter Tyndall, Fiona Foley, The Antipodeans, Roar Studios and John Perceval.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, entry on Clifton Pugh.
Encylopedia of Melbourne, MUP, entry on Roar Studios.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, entry on John Perceval.
Booklets: Discussion programmes series for CAE: Monet, Kandinsky, Klee, O’Keeffe, Whiteley, van Gogh, Kahlo, 1984-6.
GUEST LECTURES
2015 Geelong Public Library, John Perceval, 9 Dec.
2015. National Gallery of Victoria, John Perceval, Dec..
2000 Ian Potter, John Perceval.
1999 Japanese Centre, Monash University.
1997 Korean Art, Monash Art & theory, 3 February.
1996, 1997, 1998 Monash University 1st year, Asian art, May, Sept.
1992 NGV, John Perceval, April.
1983 Melbourne University 1st year, Francis Bacon.
1992 National Gallery of Victoria, John Perceval, April.
ACADEMIC
2020-2022 Affiliate School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, Monash University.
2007-2019 Adjunct Fellow, National Centre for Australian Studies & then school of Historical and International Studies, Monash University.
2007 Doctor of Philosophy, Visual Culture, Monash University.
2000-2001 Hon. Research Associate, Art History, La Trobe University.
1999 & 2001, Lecturer, Art and Culture, RMIT.
1997-1998 Lecturer, Monash: established first Contemporary of the Asia-Pacific art analysis course at an Australian University.
1994 & 1999 Hon. Research Associate, Visual Culture, Monash.
1991 Master of Arts, Art History, Monash.
VCE, Art History assessor 1991-1996 & 1999-2002.
1984 Tutor, Renaissance and Modernism & Twentieth Century, Monash. University.
1973 Bachelor of Ars, double major in psychology and in politics, ANU.
MEDIA
Original footage contribution to ‘Framed: Theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman’, episode 3, SBS television, Marc Fennell, Corrin Grant, Ninah Kopel.
INTERVIEWS WITH TRAUDI AS AUTHOR
Smart Arts, 3RRR, Melbourne, Perceval publication, 3 Dec. 2015.
Afternoons with James Valentine, Sydney, Perceval publication, 17 Nov. 2015.
774 ABC radio Victoria, Perceval publication, 22 Oct. 2015.
Saturday Breakfast with Rick Whittle, Queensland, Perceval publication, 23 Oct. 2015, Perceval publication.
Artworks ABC Radio National on Homesickness 15 Jan 2001, Michael Cathcart, Books and Writing, Cross-Currents publication, 11 Sept 2001.
Regular art documentaries for Radio Australia and Radio National 1993-2002.
INTERVIEWS BY TRAUDI
Regular contributions as interviewer for ABC Fm Arts Illustrated, 1982-1986
Producer Radio Australia current affairs, 1977-1981.
Researcher/reporter This Day Tonight ABC TV, Adelaide, 1975-76.
Researcher ABC TV Science Unit and Researcher BBC TV documentary, The Last Tasmanian, 1973-1974.
CD ROM
VIDEOS
Director/Presenter art history video series, distrib. Video Education Australasia.
1996 Understanding the Art of Brett Whiteley.
1995 The Annandale Imitation Realists.
1995 Women’s Art and Feminism.
1995 Understanding the Art of Arthur Boyd.
1993 Roar! Melbourne Expressionism in the 1980s.