Erwin Fabian

1915 – 2020

sculptures & works on paper

15 April – 6 May 2023

and launch of Sasha Grishin’s monograph
Erwin Fabian SCULPTOR

Erwin Fabian

Self portrait c. 1940s
38×30cm charcoal on tinted paper

Featured in "Erwin Fabian Sculptor"

$2500

By the time he was ten, Erwin Fabian had lost his father, by the time he turned twenty-two, he had lost his homeland, and by the time he was twenty-five, he had lost his freedom. Despite being a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi Germany, he was deported by Britain to Australia on the infamous Dunera as an undesirable enemy alien and languished in our internal prison camps in Hay, Orange and Tatura.

When Fabian died in 2020, aged 104, he had become one of Australia’s most significant sculptors and a distinguished graphic artist whose works are held in major public art collections throughout Australia and Europe.

Erwin Fabian

This gem of an exhibition brings together some of Fabian’s most significant artworks selected from the artist’s estate. They range from such bold and heroic pieces as Coron I, 1994, and the powerful and ironic Endgame, 1987, through to the majestic power of Anacreon, 2015, and the stark monumentality of Pledge, 2010. Although defiantly nonfigurative, Fabian never lost the link with the humanist tradition of art. We respond to his work on a very personal and human level, and often identify especially with his musings on themes of loss, bereavement and the struggle to survive.

Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA

Emeritus Professor, Australian National University