''Angry Penguins'' was an art and literary journal founded in 1940 by

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

poet Max Harris, at the age of 18. Originally based in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, the journal moved to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

in 1942 once Harris joined the Heide Circle, a group of avant-garde painters and writers who stayed at

Heide Heide (; Holsatian: ''Heid'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Dithmarschen. Population: 21,000. The German word ''Heide'' means "heath". In the 15th century four adjoining villages decided ...

, a property owned by art patrons

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and Sunday Reed. ''Angry Penguins'' subsequently became associated with, and stimulated, an art movement that would later be known by the same name. Key figures of the movement include

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

, Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker.

Origins and ethos

''Angry Penguins'' was a magazine first published in the

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

n capital of

. The title is derived from a phrase in Harris' poem "Mithridatum of Despair": "as drunks, the angry penguins of the night", and its use as a magazine title was suggested to Harris by C. R. Jury. The magazine's main Adelaide rival was the Jindyworobaks, a nationalist and anti-modernist literary movement promoting

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

culture and the Australian

bush ballad The bush ballad, bush song or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one o ...

tradition. According to ''Angry Penguins'' poet Geoffrey Dutton, "we stayed with Yeats, Eliot and Auden, ... and left

Lawson Lawson may refer to: Places Australia * Lawson, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Lawson, New South Wales, a town in the Blue Mountains Canada * Lawson, Saskatchewan * Lawson Island, Nunavut United States * Lawson, Arkansas * ...

and Paterson to the Jindys." In 1942, Harris gained the patronage of

and Sunday Reed in

, and the magazine subsequently moved to the couple's home at

(now the Heide Museum of Modern Art). The Angry Penguins artists were early Australian exponents of

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

and

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it ra ...

, and included John Perceval, Guy Gray Smith, Arthur Boyd,

, Danila Vassilieff, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester.

The Ern Malley hoax

Their interest in Surrealism led James McAuley and

Harold Stewart Harold Frederick Stewart (14 December 19167 August 1995) was an Australian poet and oriental scholar. He is chiefly remembered alongside fellow poet James McAuley as a co-creator of the Ern Malley literary hoax. Stewart's work has been asso ...

during their time at the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs to create the group's most famous event, the

Ern Malley hoax The Ern Malley hoax, also called the Ern Malley affair, is Australia's most famous literary hoax. Its name derives from Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley, a fictitious poet whose biography and body of work were created in one day in 1943 by conservati ...

and the subsequent trial for indecency. James McAuley and Harold Stewart submitted a group of poems that fitted in with the typical submissions featured in the magazine's 1944 autumn number, and attributed them to a recently deceased young poet named Ern Malley, who never actually existed. These poems were constructed as a pastiche of fragments pasted together nonsensically; McAuley and Stewart were critical of Modernism, and wanted to prove that it has no inherent value. The poems were received and published enthusiastically by the creators and patrons of the magazine. When it was revealed to be a hoax, the publication received negative backlash, and the affair tarnished the image of the magazine.

Criticism

The

Communist Party of Australia The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been i ...

publicly criticized ''Angry Penguins.'' In the August 1944 issue of the ''

Communist Review The '' Communist Review '' is a defunct Australian magazine that was published in varying frequencies and formats from 1934 to 1966, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. History The ''Communist Review'' was first published on 13 March 1934, ...

'', to support his assertion that the magazine "has nothing to offer to Australian art, and that its effect will be to destroy, not raise Australian standards"O'Connor, Vic. "A Criticism of Adelaide's 'Angry Penguins.'" The Communist Review. August 1944. https://www.marxists.org/history/australia/comintern/sections/australia/1944/adelaide.htm Vic O'Connor writes that editors of cultural publications are responsible for fostering cultural development as a part of the overall advancement of "standards of social and economic life in Australia", and that the editors of ''Angry Penguins'' are "completely indifferent" to this.

Legacy and influence

The Angry Penguins art movement was surveyed in the 1988 exhibition ''Angry Penguins and Realist Painting in Melbourne in the 1940s'', held at the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

in London. In the exhibition's catalogue, English novelist C. P. Snow is quoted as saying that the Angry Penguins movement "was probably the last flowering of a 'national' modernism that a completely internationalised world of the arts was likely to see".

Cultural references

* ''

My Life as a Fake ''My Life as a Fake'' is a 2003 novel by Australian writer Peter Carey based on the Ern Malley hoax of 1943, in which two poets created a fictitious poet, Ern Malley, and submitted poems in his name to the literary magazine ''Angry Penguins''. ...

'' is a 2003 novel by Peter Carey based on the Ern Malley hoax. It is a

first-person narrative A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-telle ...

from the point of view of a young woman editing a

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and lett ...

who encounters the perpetrator of the hoax (called Bob McCorkle, not Ern Malley, in the story) after many years. Carey is more interested in the idea of "

magical thinking Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea that ...

" than a literal recount; the Ern Malley character is a flesh-and-blood person who haunts his "creator." * In

Richard Flanagan Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, who has also worked as a film director and screenwriter. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North''. Flanagan was described by the ''Washingt ...

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...

-winning novel ''

The Narrow Road to the Deep North ''Oku no Hosomichi'' (, originally ), translated as ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and ''The Narrow Road to the Interior'', is a major work of ''haibun'' by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese li ...

'' (2013), the main character, Dorrigo Evans, meets the love of his life at the launch of ''Angry Penguins''.

References

External links

cultureandrecreation.gov.auThe Angry Penguins
{{italic title 20th-century Australian literature 1940 establishments in Australia 1946 disestablishments in Australia Australian art movements Defunct literary magazines published in Australia Literary collaborations Magazines established in 1940 Magazines disestablished in 1946