Ben Apfelbaum

MARGEL HINDER : MODERN IN MOTION @ ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Margel Hinder (1906-1995) was born in Brooklyn and emerged as an artist in her own right when she came to Sydney with her husband Frank Hinder, also a well regarded artist. In fact, they even had joint exhibitions.

For her part Margel Hinder is regarded as one of Australia’s most important sculptors of the twentieth century. She was deeply influenced by movements of modern sculpture and pioneered such artforms in Australia. 

Broadly, in the 1930’s Hinder worked on work carvings of simplified shapes, pairing them down to stress their inner energies. 

By the early 1950’s Hinder shifted to an abstract sculptural language that stressed form, space, light and movement. Her mobiles, in particular, which create beautiful shadows seemed to be influenced by Le Corbusier.

In her public sculptures she used fountains to address her fascination with kinetic energy. The best examples of this is her sculpture and fountain in front of the Newcastle Civic Centre. Another example of her public art is her sculpture at the Reserve Bank in Martin Place. 

This is the first retrospective dedicated to the work of Margel Hinder. It includes an outstanding array of sculptures produced over her career. 

The exhibition at the Art Gallery Of New South Wales runs until 2nd May 2021

   

All photos by Ben Apfelbaum 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.