The Annandale Imitation Realists

The Art of parts: collage and assemblage from the collection,
17 Sep – 13 Nov 2016 AGNSW featured works by two of
the Annandale Imitation Realists. The Beautiful One is Here,
Mike Brown, 1969-70 (above) and The Dry Salvages,
Colin Lancely, 1963-64. (below)

Annandale Imitation Realists

"In 1960 the 22-year-old Mike Brown joined the New Zealand artist, Ross Crothall, in an old terrace house in inner Sydney's Annandale. Over the following two years the artists filled the house with a remarkable body of work. Launched with an equally extraordinary exhibition, the movement they called Imitation Realism introduced collage, assemblage and installation to Australian art for the first time..." - 3.Sailing to Byzantium: Annandale Imitation Realism (1960-62) 2011, English, Book, Illustrated edition: Permanent revolution : Mike Brown and the Australian avant-garde 1953-1997 / Richard Haese. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/158161997

"By 1960, Crothall and Brown were living together in a house Crothall had rented in Annandale and Lanceley was a frequent visitor...The group ended in 1964 when Lanceley departed for Europe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annandale_Imitation_Realists

"Colin Lanceley first came to notice in the early 1960s" - www.abc.net.au (14 March 2011)
"Brown's philosophy was simple: ''We have forgotten that art isn't some special condiment you splash on life to make it taste a little better." - www.theage.com.au (November 12, 2011)

"Crothall’s experience of art in New Zealand meant that he was able to present new possibilities for the work of a group of Sydney art students, some of whom would become the Imitation Realists. Their work was shaped by the awareness of indigenous art forms of the Pacific" - www.doubledialogues.com (Winter 2007)

The Art Gallery of NSW has two catalogues from the group's exhibitions. The catalog (SA709.94/18) for the exhibition at the Rudy Komon Gallery, 124 Jersey Road Wollahra, is entitled the Subterranean Imitation Realists formerly of Annandale, with cover design Title Lettering credited to R Crothall, the Central Drawing to Colin Lancely and the "Motifs above and below" to Mike Brown. 177 works are listed including 5 "Joint Works" and individual "exhibits". The exhibition included Byzantium, which is now in the NGA's Collection. The catalog carries a description (advertisement) of the services provided by the Rudy Komon Gallery and credits the printers, with a comment that their payment was dependent on the sale of artworks.

In the catalog (SA709.94/19) for the exhibition at the "Museum of Modern Art of Australia" under "Words Words Words - William Shakespeare, English Poet, d 1616" Elwyn Lynn wrote, on 3/2/62 at Double Bay, "Junk Culture is the culture of cities and expropriates its environment in Annandale for Crothall and Brown timber off-cuts and waste metal were readily available; Lancely (and later, Brown) found Woolworths handy and cheap."

The handwritten and illustrated catalog also included Joint Works and statements and individual works from "Countdown Lancely", "Poncho Brown" and Crotheral:

 "Byzantium is a collaborative work that encapsulates the freewheeling, experimental spirit of the early 1960s. It was created by Mike Brown, Ross Crothall and Colin Lanceley"...National Gallery of Australia 88.645

National Portrait Gallery

Colin Lanceley
Mike Brown

Further Reading

• Google Search of Annandale Imitation Realist images
• "Gradually their interests began to diversify into other fields such as assemblage, collage, "junk art", and non-Western art, especially Indigenous Australian art and the body ornaments and tribal house decorations of New Guinea" - Wikipedia: Annandale Imitation Realists
• "Crothall delighted in the altered objet trouvé, for example egg cartons unfolded to become the Young Aesthetic Cow" - Oxford Art Online
• Theo Schoon, Ross Crothall and Visual Art in the Pacific
• The Annandale Imitation Realists 1962 [videorecording].
• Google Books: Annandale Imitation Realists
• Colin Lanceley talks to Tony Barrell about his ideas and influences, and why it is that he always tried to include other things besides paint in his pictures to bring the 'real' world into his art...  ABC Verbatim (2011)
• Colin Lanceley (Biographical details the Brittish Museum)
• MIKE BROWN 1938, Sydney – 1997, Melbourne, CHARLES NODRUM
•  MELBOURNE https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/assets/Uploads/BrownM-CV2.pdf
• Looking at Art - March (Charles Darwin University): Mike Brown
• References in Cubism & Australian Art:
• References in  Permanent Revolution: Mike Brown and the Australian Avant-garde 1953 - 1997
• In  Meanjin: Vol. 71, Issue 3
• Junk: Art and the Politics of Trash By Gillian Whiteley 
• Lot at auction from The Estate of the late James O. Fairfax AC  Sydney:  COLIN LANCELEY (1938 – 2015)
• The Innovators: Collectors who shaped Sydney’s avant-garde 1963-1978
• Reference in Sharp: 1942-1979: A Biography Of Martin Sharp By Lowell Tarling
•  Makeshift and the Australian patina https://acuads.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/brooks_mann_sillitoe.pdf
• Colin Lanceley: Pioneering artist was devoted to beauty, SMH February 20, 2015 
• Vale Colin Lanceley: Art Gallery of NSW
• Australian art legend Colin Lanceley dies after long illness Elizabeth Fortescue, Visual arts writer, The Daily Telegraph  January 30, 2015