Image:
Allan MITELMAN
Born: Poland 1946; Arrived: Australia 1953; Died Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2025
Untitled 2017
watercolour on paper
15.25 x 18.5 cm [sheet]
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Celeste Douglas, 2023
2023.080
Benalla Art Gallery Collection.
18th Jul – Sep 2025
Simpson Gallery
Allan Mitelman was one of Australia’s foremost abstract artists and holds an important place in the history of abstraction in this country. Mitelman was equally accomplished as a painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He had an extraordinary repertoire of techniques and processes that he manipulated to create the subtle, beautifully inflected and resonant surfaces of his works. Mitelman’s art is one that invites contemplation and the sensual enjoyment of the concrete materiality of the work itself. His works on paper, in all their inventiveness and rich variety, demand close scrutiny and always repay the viewer with visual pleasure and new insights into the act of looking.
This exhibition showcases the unique works by the artist spanning not only different media — watercolour, ink, pencil, charcoal, acrylic and oil paint — but also more than 40 years of his practice. The Gallery is grateful to the artist’s daughter, Celeste Douglas for her generous gift of 40 of these works in 2023.
About the Artist:
Allan Mitelman (1946-2025) was born in Poland to Jewish parents who had fled to Russia during the Second World War. The family moved to Israel and then, in 1953 as refugees, to Australia. Allan studied at the Prahran College of Advanced Education (1965-68) and taught at the Victorian College of the Arts from 1973.
From 1969 Mitelman exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in Australia and internationally. In 2004 the National Gallery of Victoria held a major survey of his works on paper, curated by Elizabeth Cross, which also toured to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Mitelman’s works are held in numerous important public collections nationally and internationally in collections such as the British Museum; Christchurch City Art Gallery; Auckland City Art Gallery; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
