Gear Tackle & Trim
Artist
Paul Jackson
Date1985
Object number00039802
NamePainting
MediumOil, painting, canvas, wood
Dimensions1900 x 2030 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Maersk Australia Pty Ltd
DescriptionAn oil painting titled 'Gear Tackle & Trim' by New Zealand artist Paul Jackson. Here Jackson celebrates the variety and diversity of tools and kits and equipment of the maritime industry.
This work by Peter Jackson won the 1985 inaugural ACTA Maritime Art Award and was part of the Maersk Australia Pty Ltd colection.
HistoryPaul Jackson is a Sydney based artist specialising predominantly in paintings of people. This work however focuses on the industry of Sydney's waterfront and was Jacksons winning entry into the ACXTA Maritime Art Awards in 1985.
The title of the work, 'Gear Tackle & Trim' may refer to the sonnet ‘Pied Beauty' by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889). It was written in 1877, but not published until 1918,
"Glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-fire coal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; a dazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him."
The reference here to 'gear and tackle and trim' acknowledges the work of men with the diversity of equipment they use. This diversity is seen as interesting and important to the world as nature itself.
Significance"Our ports and harbours are no longer a part of our teeming inner city industrial scene. With the establishment of container terminals outside city limits we have lost a certain romantic aspect of sea-going life. It is this changing scene we want to help record for all times. We would like Australian artists to revive what was once a major subject for their art, the Australian ports, harbours, ships and people."
Mr Christopher Cullen
Managing Director, ACTA Shipping
1985 ACTA Maritime Art Award
