A People’s Press—Noel Counihan

Melbourne-born artist Noel Counihan (1913–1986) maintained a personal and artistic commitment to political and social justice throughout a lifetime punctuated by some of the most challenging and defining events of the twentieth century including the Great Depression, World War II and the Vietnam War. A prolific painter and draughtsman, Counihan also sustained a lifelong printmaking practice, which included works produced for collaborative print portfolios and for political and cultural journals and posters. He understood the potential of printmaking to take art and ideas to audiences beyond the cultural elite. This exhibition looks at Counihan’s collective approach to printmaking, an aspect of his practice that was informed by his personal politics and involvement with several cultural cooperatives including the Melbourne Popular Art Group, which produced the print portfolio Eureka 1854–1954, to commemorate the centenary of the miners’ revolt at the Eureka Stockade. This left-wing Melbourne collective was sympathetic to the unionist sentiments of the Ballarat miners, whose uprising 170 years ago will be commemorated this year.