On occasion of Available to Everyone curator Peter Anderson will be joined by academic and art historian Patrick McCaughey in a conversation on the life and legacy of Australian painter and book artist Robert Jacks. As a close friend of Jacks, McCaughey knew Robert during his formative time in New York in the 70’s and is familiar with many aspects of his work. As the author of JACKS: The Artists’ Books of Robert Jacks, Anderson will offer an analytical and historical take in contrast to McCaughey’s anecdotal perspective.

The exhibition will present two connected bodies of material: a survey of artists’ books by Australian painter, sculptor and bookmaker Robert Jacks (1942-2014), and an extensive selection of publications drawn from Jacks’ own collection, many of which were purchased from Printed Matter in the early years of the organization.

Peter Anderson is an independent writer and curator. He has been actively involved in writing and visual arts practice since the late 1970s, and has published poetry and fiction, arts journalism and criticism, academic papers and numerous exhibition catalogue essays. Current projects include a PhD in creative writing at Swinburne University exploring relationships between writing and visual art, and the exhibition ephemeral traces: Brisbane’s artist-run scene in the 1980s for the University of Queensland Art Museum.

Patrick McCaughey, born 1942 in Dublin, Ireland, is an art historian and academic primarily concerned with Australian art. He became an Art Critic for the MElbourne Age in 1966 and was well known for his advocacy of abstract expressionism and of Australian artists. In 1988 he left Australia for the United States, where he was the Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum (1988–96) as well as the Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, and the director of the Yale Center for British Art.