Mediums include watercolour, ink, pencil, pastel, charcoal, acrylic and oil paint, and print techniques such as etching, used individually and together.
Benalla Art Gallery Director Eric Nash said the gallery is grateful to the artist’s daughter, Celeste Douglas, for her generous gift of 40 of these works in 2023.
Mitelman holds an important place in the history of abstraction in Australia.
He drew and made prints from the very beginning of his career and has continued to work in these media throughout his life, making him equally accomplished as a painter, draftsman and printmaker.
He had an extraordinary repertoire of techniques and processes that he manipulated to create the subtle, beautifully inflected and resonant surfaces of his works.
Mitelman’s art is one that invites contemplation and the sensual enjoyment of the concrete materiality of the work itself.
His works on paper, in all their inventiveness and rich variety, demand close scrutiny and always repay the viewer with visual pleasure and new insights into the act of looking.
This collection of drawings is a window into his life’s practice, one which has been concerned with reinventing the surface of paper.
The relationship between the artist, the paper and the layers of applied medium are vital in the production of these works.
Mr Nash said all works were untitled, inviting the viewer to respond to them free from constrain and conventions.
“This exhibition both honours the generosity of Celeste Douglas in gifting this beautiful collection of works, and celebrates the artist’s incredible contributions to the Australian art scene, following his sad passing in April of this year,” Mr Nash said.
Allan Mitelman: The Marks We Make is free to enter, and will be exhibited until the end of September, 2025.
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