Born in Ismailia: Tony Tuckson

Tony Tuckson in January 1972, by Margaret Tuckson © Estate of Margaret Tuckson. Source: Art Gallery of New South Wales Archive

Born at Ismailia in Egypt to British parents and educated at a boarding school in Norfolk, Tuckson studied at the Hornsey School of Art in London from 1937 to 1938, followed by the Kingston School of Art in 1939. During the Second World War he volunteered for the Royal Air Force service and flew Spitfires over northern France before being posted to Darwin in September 1942. Emigrating to Australia after the war, Tuckson resumed his art studies at East Sydney Technical College from 1946 to 1949, completing the three-year diploma course and graduating with honors under a Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme for ex-servicemen. He counted Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson, who taught abstract painting, as his most influential teachers

Considered the most authoritative Australian exponent of abstract expressionism, Tony Tuckson’s career as a painter was somewhat overshadowed by his work as a gallery administrator, whereby he is recognised for establishing the collections of Aboriginal and Melanesian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He studied and collected indigenous art at a time when there was still debate about whether this art had a place in a fine art museum, and greatly assisted its recognition as a unique and highly creative art form.