Map Ref. 1. The main entrance to the National Gallery of Australia, on the corner of King Edward Terrace and Parkes Place, Canberra. All of these photographs were taken in 1995, in the late afternoon.
"Pear (version No.2)" greets visitors to the front entrance of the National Gallery and for this reason it is the most frequently photographed work in the grounds. Apparently, there is something very inviting about the shape of these pears because many visitors are overwhelmed by a desire to hug the fruit (which look so ripe and juicy) and to interact with the shapes.
However, the title, "Pear", causes some controversy because instead of there being only one pear, there are seven pears. The pears are displayed, as if they were displayed in a fruit bowl or a dish of earth, as the sculptor wished.
The original molds were made of polystyrene foam. The body of each pear was cast in two halves from top to bottom, horizontally. Below the ground, each pear is mounted individually on pipes. The stems are solid steel. (The Gallery also has some of the leaves which were made for the stems but these leaves were not actually attached to any of the works.)
Each pear is made of cor-ten steel which is a modern steel, specially designed to give an even patina of rust before the steel stabilises at a pre determined depth. In this case, the patina gives the rich, russeted colour of a brown skinned pear, such as the Buerre Bosc variety.
During the 1970s, George Baldessin was part of a group of artists trying to resist the Americanisation of Australian art. The subject matter of his prints and sculptures is usually the human figure, but fruit, particularly pears, feature in a series of prints and sculptures at this time. Given the Gallery's interest in this sculpture, the Collection has several Baldessin prints of pears, including a lithograph on foil with exactly same title, "Pear (version No.2) 1973".
In 1978 Baldessin died in a car accident.
© 1995 Jane M Hyden
