Albert Tucker
Girl
After visiting Japan in 1947, Albert Tucker spent a short period
in Australia before setting out for Europe where he was to remain
for eleven years. Tucker then spent approximately two years
in the United States of America before returning to Australia in
1960.
A strong advocate for modern art, Tucker believed that war had
irretrievably undermined human values and in 1943 to 1948 produced
a series of paintings titled Images of Modern Evil which included
images of 'Victory Girls' or prostitutes with scarlet mouths, stork
necks and truncated bodies. Using the same iconography but a
different painting style, Tucker produced a further series of
figures in Paris and Germany in 1951. Girl is one of these,
having been painted in Neu Isenberg near Frankfurt am Main during
the artist's stay in that region.
The painting, with its strong outlines and intense colour,
attempts to capture the despair of the times. Unlike the
'Victory Girls' of wartime Melbourne, the prostitute portrayed here
is an old woman desperately trying to eke out a living among the
bombed buildings of the former Reich.