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Eric Prentice Anchor Thake (8 June 1904 – 3 November 1982) was an Australian artist, designer, painter, printmaker and war artist.
His 1972 Christmas card An Opera House in Every Home, a humorous take on Jørn Utzon's World Heritage-listed building is a well-known work.[1]
Thake was born in Auburn, Melbourne, on 8 June 1904, the only child of Emily Lockwood (née Doran) and Henry Thake, dairyman.[2] Educated at Auburn Primary School, at age fourteen at the end of WW1 he was apprenticed to a process engraving[3] firm Patterson Shugg.[4] He enrolled in 1921 at the Drawing School of the National Gallery of Victoria under traditionalist painter W. B. McInnes, then went on to study painting and drawing part-time with the modernist Melbourne artist George Bell from 1925 to 1928.[5] In 1935 he married 1935 Grace Bessie Doris Godfrey.
From June 1930 Thake showed with 'The Embryos,'[6] a group that included Raymond Lindsay, a son of Norman Lindsay, Constance Parkin then the holder of the National Gallery Travelling Scholarship), Margaret Crombie, Shiela Hawkins, James Flett, Herbert McClintock, and Nutter Buzzacott; and in the Contemporary Group, Melbourne with George Bell, Daryl Lindsay, Isabel May Tweddle, Evelyn Syme, Ada May Plante, Arnold Shore, William Frater and Adrian Lawlor from 1932–38,[7] and with the Contemporary Art Society from 1926–56 and concurrently, he worked in commercial art as art director for the advertising firm Paton until 1956, producing work for clients including Pelaco shirts. Independently he produced linocuts which conveyed his laconic wit in clever visual puns; including bookplates and many Christmas cards he produced for friends; numbers of which are held now in national collections.
He was a war artist enlisted as a Flying officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (Service Number 145552) between 24 Nov 1943 and 28 Mar 1946, the second such R.A.A.F combatant artist commissioned during World War II and his two tours of duty covered Port Moresby, Noemfoor Island, Morotai, Alice Springs, Darwin and Koepang. During that time he produced Surrealist works as one of the first working in that style in Australia,[8] alongside James Gleeson with whom he shared 1931 the Contemporary Art Society prize.[1] His 1942 oil painting Brownout sold in 2010 for $228,000.[9]
His first solo exhibition was held after the war at Georges Gallery, Melbourne in 1947.
After the War Thake returned to Paton and was featured in advertising by one a major client as No. 5 in Shell's "Australian Artists" Series, with a depiction of their refinery in Clyde.[10] By 1960 his work included illustrations for the Australian quarterly Manuscripts,[11][12][13][14] design works included the Australian Pavilion at the Wellington Centennial Exhibition in New Zealand that opened on 8 November 1939 at the outset of the Second World War[15] covers for the literary journal Meanjin,[16] designs for stamps, and concise medical diagrams he produced in the course of his employment from 1956 in the University of Melbourne’s Visual Aids Department where he remained until his retirement.
Thake's work started being reviewed from June 1930 when he was twenty-six and had started exhibiting with the group calling themselves 'The Embryos.' Reviewing their show at The Little Gallery in Melbourne The Age notes that "Eric Thake follows up the new wood engraving movement, and... also shows a clever two-block lino print, Reurned Empty and a decorative lunette design in color." While The Australasian merely noted that his fan design was "very clever,"[17] reviewer for The Herald, Blamire Young, singled Thake out for particular attention for his "power of design";
It is surprising that Eric Thake, whose power of design has been so universally recognised has not secured more patrons. Probably the reason is that his point of view is more difficult to grasp than that of his comrades. One feels that his artistic horizon is wider, his mentality more complex, and his sense of color and arrangement more exotic than we are accustomed to find in Australian artists.[18]
The Bulletin described his Across the Paddocks shown in the Victorian Arts and Crafts the Melbourne Town Hall in October 1930 as "a color cut of mushrooms that look as solid as tree stumps," [19] while Arthur Streeton in The Argus, in associating Thake's with Margaret Preston's prints, wrote deprecatingly that "they strike a different note, and ,,, may have their admirers."[20]
McCulloch notes that "his sensitivity towards the dispossession of Aboriginal people in his works in particular has been brought to light since his death, and there has been a growing interest in his wonderful Christmas card linocuts, produced from 1941 to 1975.[21]
The National Gallery of Victoria held a retrospective of his work 15 May–4 July 1970.[22]