Donald Brook was born in what he later described as “an industrial slum” in Leeds, Yorkshire,on 8 January 1927. His father was a traveling salesman, a position that enabled the family to move to “a cultural wasteland of lower-middle class environment”. A series of scholarships enabled him to study electrical engineering but he left the degree before graduating and was conscripted into the British Army. After military service he enrolled in an art degree at the University of Durham, under Lawrence Gowing. His sculpture teacher, JR Murray McCheyne, introduced him to Scandinavian influences,but he was more influenced by the humanist approach of Germaine Richter, Reg Butler and Alberto Giacometti. On graduation he was awarded a scholarship to the British School in Athens, for Crete, but did not attend. Instead he travelled through Greece and Crete, admiring especially Cycladic sculptures. He then spent a year in Paris where he worked for the Societé CIAM. After returning to London he worked for a company making props for the film industry, including the armor for Richard Burton in Alexander The Great. It was at this time that he met his wife, Phyllis, a dancer.
After a number of successful exhibitions, he was appointed to teach sculpture at what was to become the Ahmad’s Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria where he stayed for two years. On his return to London he held a number of successful exhibitions in London, before being approached to join the Digswell Trust in Hertfordshire. Here he worked in a community with Ralph Brown, Hans Coper, and Peter Collingwood. Henry Moore was a close neighbour.
At Phyllis’s suggestion he applied to undertake a PhD in philosophy at the Australian National University, which he completed in 1967. They arrived in Canberra in 1962,where they found a small but lively intellectual community under the leadership of HC (Nugget) Coombs. His supervisor was the philosopher Bruce Benjamin. When Benjamin became ill with cancer the Brooks moved into the granny flat at the rear of the house and Phyllis cared for the children, including the future art historian, Roger Benajamin. It was at this time Brook began writing art criticism for the Canberra Times, under the editorship of John Douglas Pringle. He also designed exhibition spaces for temporary art exhibitions.
While he was exhibiting in Canberra as well as at Gallery A in Melbourne and Sydney, Brook was also grappling with the problem of how art was regarded in relation to fashion. He started to see that many aesthetic judgements were best described as trivial.
He was now looking for a regular source of income, so applied for a position at the Elam art school in Auckland. He did not take up the appointment as he was appointed senior lecturer at the newly formed Power Institute at the University of Sydney, where he commenced teaching in 1968. The same year he was appointed art critic of the Sydney Morning Herald. Although he had a fractious relationship with the professor, Bernard Smith, Brook made a lasting friendship with fellow lecturer David Saunders.
Although he ceased making sculpture when he moved to Sydney University, this was where he made his first significant contribution to contemporary art. Along with Marr Grounds he established the Tin Sheds workshop, a joint venture between Fine Arts and Architecture to enable students to make art. Under their guidance the Tin Sheds becomes an effective nursery for conceptual art. The sculptor Bert Flugelman joined the Tin Sheds as tutor and also became a lifelong friend. These friends were especially valued in the years after 1968 when the Brook’s three year old son, Simon, was murdered – a crime that was to remain unsolved for almost 40 years.
In 1969 Brook delivered the second Power Lecture,Flight From the Object, which became one of the most important contributions to conceptual art in Australia. Brook’s rigorous philosophical approach to art and ideas enabled his next appointment as the inaugural Professor of Fine Arts at Flinders University.
In Adelaide in 1974 Brook initiated the creation of the artist run Experimental Art Foundation (EAF) with Ian North, Clifford Frith, Phil Noyce and Bert Flugelman (who had moved from Sydney at his suggestion).
Brook retired from Flinders University in 1989, but continued to write, talk and mentor successive generations of artists until shortly before his death.
- Writers:
-
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 2018
- Last updated:
- 2018
