THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
FINE ART AUCTION • SYDNEY • 15 MARCH 2017
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THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
FINE ART AUCTION • SYDNEY • 15 MARCH 2017 3
MELBOURNE • VIEWING 105 commercial road, south yarra, victoria 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 • facsimile: 03 9865 6344 info@deutscherandhackett.com
SYDNEY • VIEWING 55 oxford street, surry hills, new south wales 2010 telephone: 02 9287 0600 • facsimile: 02 9287 0611 info@deutscherandhackett.com
SYDNEY • AUCTION cell block theatre, national art school forbes street, darlinghurst, nsw, 2010 telephone: 02 9287 0600
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sydney auction
melbourne viewing sydney viewing
absentee/telephone bids live online bidding
LOTS 1 – 74 WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH 2017 7:00pm cell block theatre, national art school, sydney forbes street darlinghurst, new south wales telephone: 02 9287 0600 THURSDAY 2 – SUNDAY 5 MARCH 105 commercial road south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00am – 6:00pm THURSDAY 9 – TUESDAY 14 MARCH 55 oxford street cnr pelican street surry hills, new south wales, 2010 telephone: 02 9287 0600 11:00am – 6:00pm fax bids to 02 9287 0611 email: info@deutscherandhackett.com telephone: 02 9287 0600 telephone bid form – p. 163 absentee bid form – p. 164 www.deutscherandhackett.com/bidlive
www.deutscherandhackett.com • info@deutscherandhackett.com
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specialists CHRIS DEUTSCHER executive director — melbourne Chris is a graduate of Melbourne University and has over 35 years art dealing, auction and valuation experience as Director of Deutscher Fine Art and more recently, as co–founder and Executive Director of Deutscher~Menzies. He has extensively advised private, corporate and museum art collections and been responsible for numerous Australian art publications and landmark exhibitions. He is also an approved valuer under the Cultural Gifts Program.
DAMIAN HACKETT executive director — sydney Damian has over 25 years experience in public and commercial galleries, and the fine art auction market. He completed a BA (Visual Arts) at the University of New England, was Assistant Director of the Gold Coast City Art Gallery, and in 1993 joined Rex Irwin Art Dealer, a leading commercial gallery in Sydney. In 2001 Damian moved into the fine art auction market as Head of Australian and International art for Phillips de Pury and Luxembourg, and from 2002–2006 was National Director of Deutscher~Menzies.
HENRY MULHOLLAND senior art specialist Henry Mulholland is a graduate of the National Art School in Sydney, and has had a successful career as an exhibiting artist. Since 2000, Henry has also been a regular art critic on ABC Radio 702. He was artistic advisor to the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust Basil Sellers Sculpture Project, and since 2007 a regular feature of Sculpture by the Sea, leading tours for corporate stakeholders and conducting artist talks in Sydney, Tasmania and New Zealand. Prior to joining Deutscher & Hackett, Henry’s fine art consultancy provided a range of services, with a particular focus on collection management and acquiring artworks for clients on the secondary market.
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE head of aboriginal art and senior art specialist Crispin holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts and History) from Monash University. In 1995, he began working for Sotheby’s Australia, where he became the representative for Aboriginal art in Melbourne. In 2006 Crispin joined Joel Fine Art as head of Aboriginal and Contemporary Art and later was appointed head of the Sydney office. He possesses extensive knowledge of Aboriginal art and has over 15 years experience in the Australian fine art auction market.
MARA SISON registrar Mara has a Bachelor of Arts (Humanities) from the University of Asia and the Pacific, Philippines and a Master of Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies from Deakin University. She gained her experience in the private and not-for-profit sectors as a Gallery Manager and Exhibitions Coordinator for MiFA Asian Contemporary Art and Melbourne Fine Art Galleries and as an Administration Officer for Australia China Art Foundation.
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ROGER McILROY head auctioneer Roger was the Chairman, Managing Director and auctioneer for Christie’s Australia and Asia from 1989 to 2006, having joined the firm in London in 1977. He presided over many significant auctions, including Alan Bond’s Dallhold Collection (1992) and The Harold E. Mertz Collection of Australian Art (2000). Since 2006, Roger has built a highly distinguished art consultancy in Australian and International works of art. Roger will continue to independently operate his privately-owned art dealing and consultancy business alongside his role at Deutscher and Hackett.
SCOTT LIVESEY auctioneer Scott Livesey began his career in fine art with Leonard Joel Auctions from 1988 to 1994 before moving to Sotheby’s Australia in 1994, as auctioneer and specialist in Australian Art. Scott founded his eponymous gallery in 2000, which represents both emerging and established contemporary Australian artists, and includes a regular exhibition program of indigenous Art. Along with running his contemporary art gallery, Scott has been an auctioneer for Deutscher and Hackett since 2010.
ALEX CRESWICK head of finance With a Bachelor of Business Accounting at RMIT, Alex has almost 15 years experience within financial management roles. He has spent much of his early years within the corporate sector with companies such as IBM, Macquarie Bank and ANZ. With a strong passion for the arts more recently he was the Financial Controller for Ross Mollison Group, a leading provider of marketing services to the performing arts. Alex is currently completing his CPA.
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH gallery manager – sydney Lucie completed her studies in Belgium, obtaining Masters of Arts in Art History (Modern and Contemporary Art), together with a Bachelors of Art History, Archaeology and Musicology from the Université Catholique de Louvain. Since returning to Australia in 2014, she has gained sound experience in cataloguing, research and arts writing through various roles with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and with private art advisory firms Tutela Capital and LoveArt International.
MELISSA HELLARD client services manager Melissa has a Bachelor of Communication (Media) from RMIT University, and a Master of Art Curatorship from The University of Melbourne. Melissa gained experience in the corporate sector assisting companies such as NAB, AFL and Fiat Chrysler Group in a variety of fields including marketing, events and sponsorship. With an enduring passion for the visual arts, Melissa was more recently the Finance and Administration Assistant for Deutscher and Hackett.
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specialists for this auction
ART SPECIALISTS Chris Deutscher 0411 350 150 Damian Hackett 0422 811 034 Henry Mulholland 0424 487 738 Crispin Gutteridge 0411 883 052 Mara Sison 0451 988 677 AUCTIONEERS Roger McIlroy Scott Livesey ADMINISTRATION AND ACCOUNTS Alex Creswick (Melbourne) 03 9865 6333 Lucie Reeves-Smith (Sydney) 02 9287 0600 ABSENTEE AND TELEPHONE BIDS Lucie Reeves-Smith 02 9287 0600 please complete the absentee bid form (p. 152) or telephone bid form (p. 151) SHIPPING Mara Sison 03 9865 6333 CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Melissa Hellard 03 9865 6333 catalogue $40 at the gallery $45 by mail $55 international (including G.S.T. and postage)
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contents lots 1 — 74
page 14
prospective buyers and sellers guide
page 144
conditions of auction and sale
page 146
catalogue subscription form
page 149
buyer pre-registration form
page 149
electronic funds transfer/direct deposit form
page 150
telephone bid form
page 151
absentee bid form
page 152
index
page 167
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THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART LOTS 1 – 74
INTRODUCTION Comprising works from both Gould Galleries and the personal collection of Rob Gould, the prestigious Gould Collection features iconic works by key modern Australian artists including William Dobell, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, John Perceval, Charles Blackman, John Olsen, Brett Whiteley and Rosalie Gascoigne. Established in 1980 by Rob Gould and his mother Dita (to 1996), Gould Galleries has successfully traded from the same premises in Toorak Road, South Yarra for 36 years. During this time, Rob has developed a reputation as not only one of Australia’s leading commercial gallerists, but as an experienced and knowledgeable advisor to private, institutional and corporate collectors, both locally and internationally. Notably, many major State galleries and museums have consulted Rob for his specialist expertise in the development of specific exhibitions and public programs, and he remains a Founder Benefactor of the National Gallery of Victoria Foundation and Member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation. He has also been a member of the Foundation Board of the Victorian College of the Arts, as well as the Jewish Museum of Australia’s Contemporary Art Committee. Gould Galleries held annual exhibitions in Hong Kong from 1990 up to 1997 and in 1998 established a Sydney gallery which operated for 8 years.
‘I’m fortunate that my journey has been peppered by so many extraordinary, inspiring individuals. It wouldn’t have happened without assistance, originally from my mother and some fabulous staff. Engaging with collectors, artists, museum directors, curators and fellow gallery owners, I realise that the common unifying connection can singularly be described as passion. It is the sustenance of the industry and remains my driving force… Sure, I’ve demonstrated some business acumen and survival skills, but upon reflection its truly the art and people I’ve encountered that have been my greatest reward.’ ROB GOULD
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In particular, Rob has gained recognition as one of the most eminent dealers in Australian ‘Modern Classic’ artists such as Sidney Nolan, William Dobell, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, John Brack, Fred Williams, John Olsen, Jeffrey Smart and Brett Whiteley. Significantly, many of the artists from the Gould Collection have strong associations with Heide, the property of John and Sunday Reed acquired in the 1930s, which was to become an intellectual hub for artists and writers. Accordingly, it was considered pertinent that Kirsty Grant, recent Director of Heide Museum of Modern Art and past Curator of Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria, be invited to contribute informative essays on a number of key works. Especially noteworthy is Nolan’s Ned Kelly – Outlaw, 1955 which featured in Heide’s landmark exhibition Unmasked: Sidney Nolan and Ned Kelly 1950 – 1990, and was the image selected for massive promotional banners flanking the entrance at Flinders Street station during the exhibition period. Embarking upon an exciting future phase, Gould Galleries will re-launch from newlyrenovated warehouse premises in Collingwood with a stronger emphasis on representing and exhibiting contemporary artists. Such a dynamic shift in focus towards contemporary art has led to the decision to part with a substantial component of modern works from both Gould Galleries and Rob’s private collection.
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JOHN PERCEVAL AND HIS DAUGHTERS CELIA, TESSA AND ALICE WITH THE ACROBAT (1958) photograph by Mary Nolan Courtesy of the Estate of John Perceval, licensed by VISCOPY
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JOHN PERCEVAL 1 (1923 – 2000) ACROBAT ANGEL, c.1958 glazed earthenware 38.0 cm height signed on base: Perceval estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1999 EXHIBITED probably: John Perceval’s Angels, Museum of Modern Art of Australia, Melbourne, 2 – 12 September 1958 RELATED WORK The Acrobat Angel, 1958, glazed earthenware, 28.0 cm height, collection Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
John Perceval’s celebrated series of cherubic yet mischievous angels dazzled audiences and critics alike from the moment of their public unveiling in 1958 at the Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne. Such was the impact that the prominent historian Bernard Smith called it ‘one of the most important one-man shows held in Australia since the war.’1 An augmented exhibition travelled to Terry Clune Galleries in Sydney the following year where the show was opened by William Dobell. Prior to this, the artist was known predominantly for his paintings – particularly those of the boats at Williamstown – and for the range of exuberant, decorated ceramic ware he made for the domestic market with his brother-in-law Arthur Boyd. Perceval, Boyd and the philosopher Peter Hebst had established their pottery studio and business in a former butcher’s shop in Murrumbeena in 1944. Fortunately, Perceval painted numerous views of the pottery workshop in action, such as The Pottery, 1948 (Deutscher and Hackett, 4 May 2016, lot 10), which captured the rambunctious atmosphere of the working conditions and, critically, the active and welcome appearance of children as they played amongst the potters. Indeed, his own children became the perfect models for the Angels, particularly his second oldest daughter Celia (‘Winkie’) who had a distinctively wide grin.
Acrobat Angel, c.1958 is a beautifully crafted testament to Perceval’s extended training in the medium, and is the unclothed, mirror-image companion to The Acrobat, 1958 (Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). A photo of the artist in the process of creating The Acrobat at his Canterbury home-studio reveals his use of chopsticks to hold up the extended arm as it dries, with balls of clay underfoot as extra support. The glaze too is of particular note as it is the result of Perceval’s pursuit of an elusive ancient Chinese recipe known as sang-de-boeuf, a green glaze that turns red and gold as the heat within a kiln is lowered. Using whatever he could find to adjust the temperature (including scraps of lino and other rubbish), Perceval finally chanced on naphthalene as the perfect additive after some forty experimental firings. The deeply mottled red lustre of Acrobat Angel is a wonderful example of this DIY technique and enhances the expressive possibility that this particular angel may also be a bit impish as well. It is also an increasingly rare example with only seven Angels appearing at auction this century. By the time Perceval commenced the figure series, he had four children and due to excessive drinking, cracks were starting to appear within his marriage to Arthur Boyd’s sister, Mary. As a result, the ceramic toddlers take on an inevitable autobiographical tenor 2 and Rob Gould notes from conversations with the artist that Acrobat Angel is in fact a self-portrait showing facial similarities with Perceval’s own ‘artist-as-child’ imagery in such paintings as Boy with Broken Pot, 1943 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne). The late 1950s were also ominous years due to threatened nuclear action in the ongoing Korean War, leading Perceval to later comment that the Angels were ‘more or less … symbols of the world’s survival … war babies, the precious creatures we run the risk of losing.’ 3 Veering from the innocent to the lewd, passive to the active, and happy to the sad, the Angels are a fascinatingly observed template through which the artist expressed his personal joys and global anxieties. Acrobat Angel is one of a small group of ‘Angel’ earthenware sculptures produced in the late 1950s rarely offered for sale. 1. Smith, B., 1958 in: Smith, B., ‘The Antipodean Artists’, The Critic as Advocate: selected essays 1948 – 1988, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p. 146 2. See: Smith, D., Delinquent Angel: John Perceval’s Ceramic Angels, Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria, 2014, p. 10 3. John Perceval quoted in: Hetherington, J., ‘John Perceval. His angels affirm his faith in man’, The Age, Melbounre, 24 March 1962, p. 18
ANDREW GAYNOR
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ALBERT TUCKER WITH A PIECE OF DRIFTWOOD, POINT LONSDALE, CHRISTMAS 1944 photograph by Joy Hester State Library of Victoria, H2010.72/57
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ALBERT TUCKER 2 (1914 – 1999) IMAGE OF MODERN EVIL, 1943 watercolour and ink on paper 20.0 x 25.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Tucker ‘43 estimate :
$20,000 – 30,000
PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher ~ Menzies, Sydney, 10 March 2004, lot 108 Gould collection, Melbourne RELATED WORK Image of Modern Evil I, 1943, oil on canvas on composition board, 30.4 x 35.7 cm, collection National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The modest size of this watercolour belies its importance in Australian art for it is none other than Albert Tucker’s original study for Image of Modern Evil I (collection of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), a startling painting from March 1943 which heralded this country’s most significant artistic response to the effects of wartime on the local psyche. Tucker, by his own admission, had a highly conservative view of sex and hedonism and had only recently returned to Melbourne following an army posting in regional Wangaratta. In the interim, his childhood city had irrevocably changed, becoming ‘a Babylon, a morass of unbridled drunkenness, violence and sexual excess.’1 Rather than express his moral distress with literal and realistic depictions of the population, he developed instead a cast of stylised figures, terrifying in their gaunt intensity, genitals flashing, eyeball heads wobbling on stalks and, above all, a leering grin in a savage crescent mouth.
The Image of Modern Evil, 1943 offered here was painted in Jolimont where Tucker shared a tiny room with his wife, the artist Joy Hester. In it, two nightmare figures are seen lurking at the end of a darkened city passage. With her breasts exposed, the female figure holds the hand of an emaciated child, an awful little figure that had its own genesis in a period Tucker spent at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital drawing the wounded patients, mostly returned soldiers bearing horrifying facial wounds. Tucker remembered one patient in particular, a young soldier whose nose had been sliced off by shrapnel revealing his nasal cavities. His drawing of this victim is graphic in its detail and informed a small group of subsequent paintings with the collective title of Victim. Each shows this ruined face transferred to the body of starving child and this apparition now appears in this first Image of Modern Evil. There were multiple reasons for the unexpected outbreak of licentious behavior in Melbourne, but triggers included the vicious murders of three young women in the dimly lit city by an American GI in May 1942, and the subsequent influx the following month of 30,000 American soldiers. Melbourne simply exploded. Women now undertook wartime employment, and this new independence was ‘equated with sexual license and moral degradation. Women did have more sexual power: they were in demand and they could pick and choose from admiring swains.’ 2 The papers were filled with multiple reports of young couples drunkenly groping in full public view, vomiting in the streets or shouting aggressively at passers by. It was little wonder that the ‘suburban, puritan, Edwardian’ 3 Tucker felt compelled to articulate his distress. With her arm lifted to her head as she searches for a brief companion, this ‘modern, evil’ woman’s mouth is a lascivious slash of wanton desire. Tucker also incorporates the city location as its own character in the scene, one where light is not offered a source of beneficial illumination but instead acts as ‘a moment of unpleasant revelation where frightening personages and shameful acts are exposed.’4 Stark, powerful and historically significant, this Image of Modern Evil retains its magnetic force some 75 years after it was first created. 1. Yule, J., ‘The Paintings of Albert Tucker’, Albert Tucker: the mythologies & images, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 1990, p. 4 2. Burke, J., Australian Gothic: a life of Albert Tucker, Knopf Random House, Sydney, 2002, p. 207 3. Tucker, A., quoted in: Mollison, J. and Minchin, J., Albert Tucker: a retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1990, p. 10 4. Burke, J., op. cit., p. 251
ANDREW GAYNOR
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SIDNEY NOLAN 3 (1917 – 1992) CHARLES HOTHAM, GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA, 1853–1855, 1949 ink and enamel paint on glass 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial and dated lower right: N / 49. signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: SIR CHARLES HOTHAM / GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA / 54 / Sidney Nolan / May 92 estimate :
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$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Christies, Melbourne, 20 March 1978, lot 125 Private collection Christies, Melbourne, 30 July 1990, lot 198 Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 26 April 1992, lot 416 Gould collection, Melbourne
SIDNEY NOLAN 4 (1917 – 1992) PICNIC, 1949 ink and enamel paint on glass 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial and dated lower left: 49. N inscribed with title verso: PICNIC / 33 estimate :
$12,000 – 15,000
PROVENANCE The Estate of David McNicoll, Sydney Goodmans Auctioneers, Sydney, 5 December 2000, lot 370 Gould collection, Melbourne
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JOHN PERCEVAL AND HIS ‘SERIES ON WILLIAMSTOWN’ FOR PARIS EXHIBITION, 1968 Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) National Archives of Australia: A1200, L68239
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JOHN PERCEVAL 5 (1923 – 2000) THE HULL, WILLIAMSTOWN, 1956 oil on composition board 61.0 x 71.0 cm signed lower left: Perceval estimate :
$220,000 – 260,000
PROVENANCE Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney Kevin (Pro) Hart, Broken Hill, NSW, acquired from the above in 1968 Deutscher ~ Menzies, Sydney, 15 March 2006, lot 15 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2007, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 17 February – 30 March 2007, cat. 7 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2010, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 16 May – 5 June 2010, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Allen, T., John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 158 (as ‘Stern of a Cargo Ship, c.1956 – 59’)
John Perceval’s paintings of Williamstown from the 1950s are amongst the most sought after in Australian art and key examples now reside in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery and the Tarrawarra Museum of Art. Vibrant, swirling, blustery and above all superbly painted, the series depicts the working port as a source of fascinating contrasts. Although some harbour and dock drawings by the artist have been noted from as early as 1949, it was his purchase of a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle in the mid-1950s that transformed his ability to travel further distances from his family base in the eastern suburbs. With Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd and Hal Hattam as occasional companions, Perceval explored Williamstown describing the experience as ‘like finding Venice.’1 This, of course, was the stuff of pure romance for the artist who had yet to travel overseas; nonetheless, it is an indication of his creative instinct that he could perceive such a poetic similarity amidst the working tugs, gulls, spilled fuel and battered hulks. In The Hull, 1956 an aging vessel is moored at the docks, its stern a patchwork of metal plates of differing heritage and condition. Two wharf workers tug at the lines, smoke pollutes the air and bilge water spills out from near the Plimsoll line. It is a painting that almost begs to have a smell, one of salt, oil, soot and toil. Many contemporaneous critics mistakenly considered Perceval’s style to be one of a mindless joie de vivre, as if he were somehow untutored and the imagery contained no true technical skill or critical analysis. Considering his solid track record and well-known fascination with the art of Rembrandt and other masters, such shallow opinions were not appreciated by Perceval who commented in 1963 that ‘(s)ome critics have wrongly seen my work as action painting; but at all times my work is primarily a response to the subject, to light and trees, air, people etc. Whatever success it may achieve is due to the desire to equate the vitality, the pulse of life in nature and the world around us.’ 2 The Hull clearly demonstrates Perceval’s control with the brush as the pigment is almost alla prima, a situation where the purity of an original paint mark stays ‘true’ within the final work, that is, it is not over-painted at any time during the process. Further evidence is his compositional skill which includes visual cues – ropes, smoke, arcs of water and the spar extending from the stern – which all lead the eye around the scene. In November 1956, Australian Galleries in Melbourne opened to great fanfare and their first exhibition featured John Perceval’s paintings of Williamstown and Gaffney’s Creek. Although painted at the same time, The Hull was not included in this inaugural showing as the artist and the gallery decided to keep to a uniform 3 x 4 foot size. When the artist and prominent collector Pro Hart owned it, he sent Perceval a Polaroid which inspired him to do a rare reinterpretation executed in his then-current style which favoured heightened colour. This new work (The Old Tug Boat, 1995) became the cover catalogue image for the celebrated exhibition John Perceval: Paintings 1990 – 1995 held at Gould Galleries in 1996. 1. Plant, M., John Perceval, Lansdowne Australian, Melbourne, 1971, p. 52 2. John Perceval, quoted in: Reed, J., New Painting 1952 – 1962, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p. 24
ANDREW GAYNOR
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JOHN PERCEVAL 6 (1923 – 2000) FISHERMAN’S SIGHTS, WILLIAMSTOWN, 1956 oil on composition board 91.5 x 121.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Perceval 1956 estimate :
$400,000 – 600,000
PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne British Nylon Spinners, Melbourne, acquired from the above in March 1958 ICI Australia Limited, Melbourne, acquired in 1973 Orica Limited, Melbourne The Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth Sotheby’s, 26 August 2002, lot 519 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Exhibition of Paintings by John Perceval, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, November 1956, cat. 7 Catalogue of Works in the Gallery, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, December 1956, cat. 159 John Perceval Exhibition, David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, 29 May – 7 June 1957, cat. 5 John Perceval: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 10 July – 26 August 1984, cat. 46 The Modern Landscape, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 10 March – 3 May 1988 The Sense We Make: Australian Art from the Orica Collection, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 31 March – 27 May 2001, cat. 20 John Perceval: Survey Exhibition 1943 – 1995, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 31 May – 15 June 2003, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 22 July – 17 August 2003, cat. 1 (illus. cover exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 8 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sydney, 19 November 1958, p. 17 (illus.) Allen, T., John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 157 Eagle, M., and Jones, J., A Story of Australian Painting, MacMillan Australia, Sydney, 1994, pp. 244, 245 (illus.), 287
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Gould Galleries represented John Perceval from 1988 to 2000 and it was due to my association with this remarkable man that my business was transformed – he inspired and elevated me. Our first solo exhibition, opened by Albert Tucker, caused a sensation – it was front page news on both The Age and The Australian, page 3 in The Sun and covered by The Sunday Program on Channel 9 – over 30,000 attended. We held eight further solo and numerous significant mixed exhibitions including The Angry Penguins: Boyd, Nolan, Perceval, Tucker in 1997 and The Antipodeans in 2003, and every Hong Kong show. Gould Galleries was instrumental in the location and loans to Of Dark and Light: The Art of John Perceval, NGV in 1992, John Perceval: Painting Down the Bay, MPRG in 2004, Aspendale Beach: An Artist’s Haven, MPRG in 2008 and virtually any other project involving the artist. ROB GOULD
John Perceval said that the discovery of Williamstown as a subject for his painting was like finding Venice.1 A bayside suburb to the west of the city, Williamstown is Melbourne’s oldest port, a site where the Yarra River meets the sea, and it offered him a rich array of new and everchanging subject matter. It is easy to imagine that Perceval fashioned himself as an antipodean Canaletto as he painted these pictures that vividly describe the oil tankers, tugboats, yachts and other vessels moored in the bay beside jetties and stone harbours, with buoys, marine markers, seagulls and black swans, as well as occasional human activity, punctuating the scene. Perceval first painted at Williamstown in 1956, often in the company of artist friends Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd and Hal Hattam, driving there in a recently acquired car. The port and harbour area continued to be an important subject in his work, featuring in around thirty paintings made over the following three years. Almost a decade later he returned to Williamstown, producing a second series that was subsequently followed by another group of boat-themed pictures painted on excursions to Mordialloc to the south-east of Melbourne. continued page 28...
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The first and arguably the best Williamstown paintings were exhibited in Perceval’s solo exhibition at Australian Galleries in November 1956 – the inaugural exhibition of one of Melbourne’s first commercial galleries founded by Tam and Anne Purves. Commercially astute and with a keen eye and remarkable ability to identify burgeoning artistic talent, the Purves’s quickly established a stable of the most interesting contemporary artists. This group included Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams, John Brack and John Perceval, all of whom would in time be recognised as key figures whose work made a significant and lasting contribution to the development of twentieth century Australian art. The 1956 Australian Galleries exhibition was Perceval’s second solo exhibition and his first in eight years. It heralded a return to painting after an extended period in which ceramics had been the primary focus of his creative endeavours. In 1944 Perceval, Arthur Boyd and Peter Herbst had founded the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery on the Boyd family property in Murrumbeena. Named after Merric Boyd – Australia’s first studio potter and Arthur’s father – they initially produced functional wares in response to war shortages and later, wonderfully original handpainted ceramics. This exhibition also marked a significant break from much of Perceval’s previous paintings in terms of subject matter. The predominantly religious subjects of his first one-man exhibition in 1948 described their biblical narratives in familiar contemporary settings. Flight Into Egypt, 1947 (Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth) for example, depicts the Holy Family against the backdrop of an industrial city complete with trains, arched bridges and factory chimneys billowing smoke that, although a dramatisation, is surely based on 1940s Melbourne. By the mid-1950s however, while Perceval was still looking to his immediate and nearby surroundings for inspiration, this was an end in itself and he celebrated the detail of these landscape views without superimposing a narrative on it. In this group of pictures Perceval also consolidated a distinctive style of bravura painting that imbued his images with energy and life. As he said of his approach,
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‘I do not hold any particular attitude to my work or to art in general. I chose early not to work from any aesthetic theory or concept but prefer the results to be governed by developments that occur while the work is in progress … at all times my work is primarily a response to the subject, to light and trees, air, people etc. Whatever success it may achieve is due to a desire to equate the vitality, the pulse of life in nature and the world around us.’ 2 The exhibition was a confident presentation of thirty paintings – thirteen Williamstown subjects including the present Fisherman’s Sights, Williamstown, 1956 and a further seventeen that depicted views of Gaffney’s Creek, a historical gold mining town located near Mansfield to the north-east of Melbourne. The Williamstown pictures are full of colour, dynamic in composition and Perceval’s delight in his subject and enjoyment of working outdoors is clearly evident. As Margaret Plant, author of the first monograph on Perceval noted, these paintings ‘were a major change in his oeuvre. Pure colour and swinging line place them among the most jubilant landscapes to be painted in Australia, bearing the marks of the post-impressionist, expressionist and fauvist landscapes of Europe.’ 3 Painted in Perceval’s distinctive manner, Fisherman’s Sights, Williamstown depicts a section of the hand-built stone harbour, rambling white-painted timber jetties and small boats moored beside them. Although his style was expressive, his observations were precise, and details such as the small church in the distance are still visible at Williamstown today just as Perceval painted them. Within the confines of the harbour the water is calm, but in the open water of the picture’s foreground the surface is chopped up by the wind and splashing against the rocks, the blue water is edged with white foam and spray. Across the water, beyond the flying seagulls, the lights of the city sparkle in the evening sky – the welcome view of fishermen returning to the harbour with the day’s catch. The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne recognised the significance of these paintings, purchasing Tug Boat in a Boat for the permanent
collection prior to the opening of the exhibition. In 1957, Gannets Diving, also shown in the 1956 exhibition, was awarded The John McCaughey Memorial Prize at the NGV, and the painting subsequently acquired by the Gallery. Yankee Sailing Boat – Dry Dock is in the Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria and other closely related Williamstown paintings from the 1956 – 59 period are represented in major public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, and TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria. Many others are held in important private collections, making this painting a rarity on the market. The Williamstown paintings marked a turning point in Perceval’s career and numerous successes followed: in 1959 he won the Maude VizardWholohan Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and in 1960, the Wynne Prize for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. His work was included in the survey exhibition Australian Painters at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1961 and two years later, following many of his friends and peers, including Boyd, Blackman and Sidney Nolan, Perceval and his family moved to London. His work was represented in Australian Painting at the Tate Gallery, London in 1963 and the following year he exhibited a series of landscapes, as well as a group of ceramic angels, at Zwemmer Gallery, London. In 1965, Perceval returned to Australia to take up the inaugural Creative Fellowship for an Artist at the Australian National University in Canberra, his place in the canon of twentieth century Australian art firmly established.
JOHN PERCEVAL PAINTING A LANDSCAPE, 1967 Photograph by Mark Strizic State Library of Victoria, H2008.11/567, courtesy of the State Library of Victoria
1. Plant. M, John Perceval, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1971, p. 52 2. Perceval, J., quoted in: Reed, J., New Painting 1952–1962, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p. 28 3. Plant, op. cit.
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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BARBARA AND CHARLES BLACKMAN, c.1950 photograph by Hugh Frankland gelatin silver photograph, 25.2 x 28.6 cm courtesy Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney
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CHARLES BLACKMAN 7 born 1928 THE FRIENDS, 1953 tempera and enamel paint on pulpboard on composition board 57.0 x 75.5 cm signed and dated upper right: BLACKMAN Feb 53 inscribed with title verso: THE FRIENDS / 14 estimate :
$180,000 – 240,000
PROVENANCE Judith Wright McKinney, Queensland Private collection, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 9 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Paintings and Drawings: Charles Blackman, Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, 12 May 1953, cat. 15 Autumn Exhibition 1977: Recent Acquisitions, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 7 – 22 March 1977, cat. 69 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Charles Blackman: The Unknowable Divine Australia Felix, Benalla Easter Arts Festival, Victoria, 1995 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 7 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 4 March – 18 June 2017 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Ern Malley’s Journal, vol. 1, no. 3, October 1953, p. 25 (illus.) Mathew, R., Charles Blackman, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1965, p. 13 (as ‘Two Friends’) City/Art, Heinemann Educational, Melbourne, 1978, p. 17 (illus.) This work is included in the current exhibition Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 4 March – 18 June 2017
Charles Blackman was in his early twenties when he began the paintings and drawings that comprise the Schoolgirls series and while they are in part an expression of youthful anxieties – ‘[they] had a lot to do with fear, I think. A lot to do with my isolation as a person and my quite paranoid fears of loneliness …’1 – these compelling images marked a significant point in his career, bringing his work to the attention of the critics and broader public. At the time Blackman lived in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, and it was here that he observed uniformed girls on their way to and from school, finding a subject without precedent that would form his first major series. The primary impetus for these works however came from his strong emotional response to the recent unsolved murder of Betty Shanks, a university friend of his wife Barbara’s, in Brisbane
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in 1952. Blackman also recalled stories of the notorious murder of a schoolgirl at the Eastern Market in Melbourne some thirty years earlier as having had a profound effect on him and his image of childhood. 2 It is the underlying sense of menace and potential threat from an unseen, unknown source that pervades the series and through which it achieves its timeless psychological power. Blackman knew the poetry of John Shaw Neilson through his wife and her friend, the poet (and first owner of the present work) Judith Wright. It was however Sunday Reed who, after seeing some of the first schoolgirl paintings, introduced him to poems that seemed to Blackman to be ‘full of kinship; the sort of thing I was painting fitted in with it perfectly.’3 Setting the scene, a stanza from Neilson’s evocative Schoolgirls Hastening was reproduced in the list of works that accompanied the first exhibition of the series in 1953. The exhibition at Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, was Blackman’s first solo presentation in a commercial gallery and The Friends, 1953 was one of fifteen paintings shown alongside related drawings and lithographs. With its dramatic contrast of light and dark shadow, limited colour palette, dynamic composition and sparse pictorial detail, The Friends has all the hallmarks of the best paintings in the series. Two schoolgirls are depicted in a tight embrace, the rhythmic pattern of their pleated skirts contrasting with the staccato depiction of their legs. The shadow cast by the two schoolgirls merges into a single united form and leads the eye to the only other detail in the picture, a dark doorway that beckons with a strong sense of foreboding. Reviewing the exhibition Alan McCulloch enthused, ‘In Blackman’s hands … Neilson’s schoolgirl becomes a creature of endless aesthetic possibilities … this young artist has created a series of paintings which are at once exciting and extremely stimulating.’4 While there was no consensus of critical opinion about the exhibition at the time, Blackman’s Schoolgirls are now regarded as one of the most significant groups of modern works produced in Australia during the immediate post-war years. 1. Blackman, C., quoted in Shapcott, T., Charles Blackman, André Deutsch, London, 1989, p. 11 2. See Moore, F. St. John, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, p. 38 3. Blackman, C., quoted in Shapcott, op. cit. 4. McCulloch, A., ‘Quantity – and Quality’, The Herald, Melbourne, 12 May 1953
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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Artists Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd and Barbara Blackman at the opening of the exhibition Recent Australian Painting, Whitechapel Gallery, July 1961 courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery Archive
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CHARLES BLACKMAN 8 born 1928 DIVIDED PAINTING, c.1962 oil and enamel paint on composition board 167.5 x 160.0 cm signed upper left: BLACKMAN estimate :
$180,000 – 240,000
PROVENANCE Barbara Blackman, Canberra Christies, Melbourne, 1 May 2000, lot 179 (as ‘Divided Faces’) Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher ~ Menzies, Sydney, 6 December 2006, lot 32A (as ‘Divided Faces’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Blackman: Paintings, Drawings, The Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 2 – 18 April 1963, cat. 66 The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 8 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) RELATED WORK Figures from a Drama (Dramatis personae), oil on composition board, four paintings, 120.5 x 90.5 cm each, illus. in Moore, F. St. John, Schoolgirls and Angels, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 84
After a long and productive career, Charles Blackman is now one of the last living members of the generation of Melburnian modern artists known as the Antipodeans, defenders of the merits of figurative art and of a poetic and metaphysical foundation to contemporary painting. During the 1960s, Blackman brought a decade-long formal inquiry to culmination, developing his interest in sequential images into more complex compartmentalised systems he called suites. These new largescale canvases were met with considerable critical success, winning him the Helena Rubenstein Travelling Art Scholarship in 1960, funding his travel to London where would work alongside fellow Australian émigré artists. United by a sense of national identity, the Australian artists worked to introduce foreign audiences to contemporary Australian art, particularly through key survey exhibitions such as Recent Australian Painting at Whitechapel Gallery in 1961, which featured over fifty Australian artists including Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley. Divided Painting, c.1962 was created during Blackman’s sojourn in the English capital and bears the fruit of this stylistic revival in his practice, in particular a marked increase in the scale of his paintings. Divided Painting, created shortly after Blackman’s celebrated Suites I – VI held in the collections of the state galleries of New South Wales,
Queensland and Western Australia, captures the same exploration of sequence, the considered grouping of images in a multi-facetted ensemble, using the connections between each frame to create groups of collective expression and clear vectors through which to read the painted surface. Divided Painting shows a detailed investigation into portraiture, featuring Blackman’s recurrent shadows, silhouettes and faces drawn with an almost naïve simplicity and formal economy of detail. Grouped together, they provide a kaleidoscopic view of individual moments of solitude, grief and confusion – while these figures are physically and formally united in a single work, they remain trapped within their respective frames. Felicity St John Moore wrote of Blackman’s sequential works in 1993: ‘compared to Blackman’s first experiments with grouping little pictures in a relatively spontaneous manner, these images of the many faces of women, some with shadowy lovers and seen in different lights are at once more ordered and thematic […] with the black borders as hangovers from the comic strip layout of his early newspaper work, in the context of the late 1950s debate, the borders act as a bridge between figuration and abstraction.’1 A humanist, Blackman’s work is often informed by his own experience and his keen observation of people. Divided Painting distils elements of the artist’s investigation of psychological portraiture into small vignettes, frames through which a murky reality is glimpsed. This painting, along with its related work, Dramatis Personae, was inspired by the scenography of theatre productions the artist saw in London. Drawing on this theatrical use of light, and the psychological intensity of the plays of Samuel Beckett that Charles had been reading from Max Nicholson’s library, the figures of Divided Painting are portrayed in distinctly melodramatic poses. 2 Perhaps they also express the artist’s experience of his wife’s deteriorating eyesight. The formal rigidity of this composition, bisected by thick white borders, displays Blackman’s attempt to order his universe. Paradoxically, this same rigid order imposed on his figures effectively separates and isolates them, heightening the chromatic melancholy of the overall composition. As Ray Mathew wrote in a 1966 issue of Art and Australia: ‘Blackman, in an astonishing double, is imposing order, pattern, sanity on his [world], and – at the same time – picturing the threat of order, pattern, sanity’. 3 1. Moore, F. St J., Charles Blackman Schoolgirls and Angels, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 70 2. ibid., p. 84 3. Mathew, R., ‘London’s Blackman’, Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 3, no. 4, 1966, p. 286 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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CHRISTMAS AT HEIDE: SIDNEY NOLAN, SUNDAY REED, JOHN SINCLAIR AND JOHN REED, c.1946 photograph by Albert Tucker gelatin silver photograph 30.4 x 40.3 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001
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SIDNEY NOLAN 9 (1917 – 1992) NED KELLY – OUTLAW, 1955 oil and enamel paint on composition board 91.0 x 71.0 cm signed with initial lower right: N – signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: 20 / 1 / 55 / Nolan / NED KELLY / OUTLAW / inscribed verso: N.F.S. / To Kym Bonython estimate :
$1,200,000 – 1,800,000
PROVENANCE Kym Bonython, Adelaide, by November 1960, until at least 1967 Peggy Cass, New York Doyle’s, New York, 18 November 1999, lot 118 Gould collection, Melbourne
EXHIBITED possibly: Sidney Nolan, The Redfern Gallery, London, 3 – 28 May 1955, cat. 7 (as ‘Portrait of a Bushranger’) Loan Exhibition of Australian Paintings, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, November 1960, cat. 10 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Exhibition of Australian Painting, Malaya, Ceylon, India, cat. 12 (label attached verso) Sidney Nolan: Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings from 1937 to 1967, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 September – 29 October 1967, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 22 November – 17 December 1967, Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, 9 January – 4 February 1968, cat. 80 (as ‘Portrait of an Outlaw’) Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 8 April 2001, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 15 (illus. in exhibition catalogue and front cover) Unmasked: Sidney Nolan and Ned Kelly 1950 – 1990, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 11 November 2006 – 4 March 2007, cat. 10 LITERATURE Harris, M., ‘Portrait of an Australian art collector’, Hemisphere, Sydney, July 1966, p. 21 (illus. as ‘Portrait of an Outlaw’) Unmasked: Sidney Nolan and Ned Kelly 1950 – 1990, exhibition catalogue, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2006, p. 16 (illus.)
BANNERS FLINDERS STREET STATION, PROMOTING HEIDE’S ‘UNMASKED: SIDNEY NOLAN AND NED KELLY 1950-1990’ Featuring ‘Ned Kelly – Outlaw’, November 2006 – March 2007
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SIDNEY NOLAN 9 (1917 – 1992) NED KELLY – OUTLAW, 1955
Sidney Nolan was fascinated by the story of Ned Kelly, the infamous nineteenth-century bushranger, and over the course of his career that spanned six decades it was a major theme to which he returned repeatedly. Nolan’s depiction of Kelly’s armoured mask as a black square, typically seen against a vivid blue sky, is immediately recognisable even by those who don’t know the artist’s name. Indeed, this representation has become so iconic that, in the words of one commentator, ‘Ned Kelly has … become Sidney Nolan’s image of him.’1 As a child Nolan heard stories from his grandfather who was a policeman in north-eastern Victoria and involved in tracking Kelly and his gang. Nolan was also familiar with the landscape of ‘Kelly Country’ from visiting relatives who lived in the area and having grown up in Melbourne, he had no doubt seen an example of the startling hand-forged armour fashioned from pieces of farm machinery which was on public display. The first studies depicting Ned Kelly date to early 1945 and later that year Nolan and Max Harris, a poet and co-editor of the Angry Penguins journal, travelled together to the site of the Kelly Gang’s last stand at Glenrowan, as well as to other key places in the story. This trip was part of Nolan’s research – a characteristic aspect of his working process when embarking on a new series – in which he immersed himself in the history, reading everything he could on the subject and even sought out Kelly’s younger surviving brother. The resulting first Kelly series was famously painted on the dining table at Heide, 2 the home of John and Sunday Reed, between March 1946 and July 1947. Nolan had met the Reeds in 1938 and in them found informed supporters of modern art who would encourage and actively sustain his practice. In Nolan the Reeds found a young protégé, believing strongly in the quality and potential of his work. Deep emotional connections developed and by the early 1940s Nolan was engaged in an intimate and thoroughly modern relationship with the married couple. 3 The series was exhibited in 1948 at the Velasquez Gallery, Melbourne, and although Nolan had left Melbourne following the breakdown of his relationship with the Reeds, John organised the exhibition on his behalf. Reed also contributed a statement to the catalogue outlining his firm belief in the significance of Nolan’s work, which he wrote was ‘of quite outstanding importance … its value in the history of Australian painting … already assured.’4 He continued, ‘we have waited many years for a mature statement to cover both the landscape and man in relation to the landscape [and] in my opinion this has now been achieved … and it is a remarkable achievement indeed, necessitating as it has the most sensitive and profound harmony between symbol, legend and visual impact. That this has been accomplished in language of the utmost simplicity is in itself an indication of the strength of the artist’s vision and discipline.’ 5 Despite John Reed’s emphatic enthusiasm for the first Kelly series – which was as it turned out prophetic – it received virtually no positive public recognition at the time. The fact that its creation was so closely intertwined with his relationship with the Reeds, and that this ended abruptly soon after it was painted, never to be revisited, might have prompted Nolan to leave
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the subject behind. In the mid-1950s however, by which time he had remarried and moved to England with his new family, Nolan returned to the theme in a powerful series of paintings that showed him, ten years on, to be a mature and accomplished artist. While there are strong pictorial links to the first Kelly paintings, Nolan’s reprise of the subject represents an extension of the ideas contained in the earlier series and innovations in his expression of them. The story-telling and sometimes comic detail of the 1940s pictures is replaced by what Patrick McCaughey has described as ‘tragic grandeur’. The figure of Ned Kelly looms large in these paintings, still heroic but also more human. While the iconic armoured mask remains a consistent feature, it is sometimes fragmented and opened up to reveal the bushranger’s strained face. Exposed in this way, Kelly is presented in all his humanity, just a man, flesh and blood. Nolan said that he used Kelly as a symbol of his own emotional state and in this context the comments of his friend and artist Elwyn Lynn are pertinent. ‘The Kelly saga as told in the paintings has oblique references to Nolan’s own life at the time. As his life changed he painted different Kellys: from being heroic, unassailable and defiant, Kelly became dejected, forlorn and rather frightening in later paintings.’ 6 Paintings from the second Kelly series were exhibited at London’s Redfern Gallery in May 1955 and the critics unanimously praised their originality and inventiveness. The Museum of Modern Art, New York purchased After Glenrowan Siege 1955 from the Redfern exhibition and two years later, Glenrowan 1956-57 was acquired by the Tate, London, from Nolan’s first large-scale survey exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain this exhibition subsequently toured the country attracting huge crowds and in conjunction with the Tate acquisition, consolidated Nolan’s reputation in England as well as adding to his increasing international reputation.7 Paintings from the second series are represented in numerous important public and private collections in Australia including: Kelly Crossing the Bridge, 1955 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), Ned Kelly, 1955 and Kelly, 1956 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), Kelly with Horse, 1955 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) and After Glenrowan Siege no. 2, 1956 (TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection, Victoria). Ned Kelly – Outlaw, 1955 was probably included in the Redfern exhibition under the title Portrait of a Bushranger. Centrally placed in
the foreground of the picture, the defiant bushranger dominates the composition and while his black mask rises like an ominous sentinel, the strange bulbous eyes are cast down in an attitude of self-reflection. Strangely Nolan has depicted the rifle – a surreal extension of Kelly’s arm – with both the sight and trigger on the same side, something that would have rendered it impossible to use. Possibly nothing more than artistic licence, this detail might also reflect Nolan’s identification with the heroic outsider and his tendency to romanticise the story. The primary focus of the painting however is Kelly in the landscape. Nolan has lined up the figure’s shoulders with the horizon and the torso is painted in the same muted colours and soft brushstrokes as the flat and featureless country beyond so that Kelly becomes the landscape. As an image of a man at ease in his environment, this is a concise depiction of Kelly and also perhaps of Nolan at the time. Ned Kelly was one of the most enduring subjects within Nolan’s oeuvre and continued to feature in his work, most notably in the monumental polyptychs, Riverbend I, 1964-65 (Australian National University, Canberra) and Riverbend II, 1965-66 (The News Corporation Collection) where he is dwarfed by the densely treed landscape that threatens to engulf him. Speaking to Elwyn Lynn about the significance of the Kelly theme within his work, Nolan imagined that it would continue until the end of his life, stating ‘I paint Kelly as part of Australia’s culture and mine … I’d like to think that the day before I died I’d paint a good Ned Kelly painting.’ 8 1. Rosenthal, T. G. Sidney Nolan, Thames and Hudson, London, 2002, p. 59 2. Of the 27 paintings that comprise the first Kelly series, the exception to this is First-class Marksman, 1946 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) that was painted at Stonygrad, the Warrandyte home of Danila Vassilieff. See Pearce, B., ‘Nolan’s Parallel Universe’ in Pearce, B. (ed.), Sidney Nolan, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2008, p. 35. Sunday Reed gifted the paintings made at Heide to the Australian National Gallery in 1977 and they are now on permanent display at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 3. See Harding, L. and Morgan, K., Modern Love: The Lives of John & Sunday Reed, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2015 4. Reed, J., ‘Statement’, The “Kelly” Paintings of Sidney Nolan 1946-47, exhibition catalogue, Velasquez Gallery, Melbourne, 1948 reproduced in Reeder, W. (ed.), The Ned Kelly Paintings: Nolan at Heide 1946-47, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 1997, p. 16 5. ibid. 6. Elwyn Lynn quoted in Rosenthal, T.G., op. cit., p. 98 7. ‘Biographical Notes’ in Pearce, B., op. cit., p. 245 8. Lynn, E. and Semler, B., Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1985, p. 11 KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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SIDNEY NOLAN 10 (1917 – 1992) BURKE LAY DYING, 1950 oil and enamel paint on composition board 91.5 x 122.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Nolan / July 50 estimate :
$400,000 – 600,000
PROVENANCE Lord McAlpine of West Green, United Kingdom Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, a gift from the above in 1995 (label attached verso) Sotheby’s, Sydney, 26 November 2007, lot 82 Gould collection, Melbourne
The experience of Sidney Nolan’s extended visit to Central and North-west Australia in 1949 paved the way for an extraordinarily productive period in which he painted some of his most distinctively Australian pictures. During the trip, Nolan read about the Burke and Wills expedition, later writing ‘I doubt that I will ever forget my emotions when first flying over Central Australia and realising how much we painters and poets owe to our predecessors the explorers, with their frail bodies and superb willpower.’1
EXHIBITED Burke and Wills: from Melbourne to myth, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 27 March – 2 June 2002, cat. 86 The Director’s Choice 2009, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 May – 13 June 2009, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 7 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
Between 1860 and 1861, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills led a team of men on an epic journey during which they aimed to cross the Australian continent, travelling 5000 kilometres between Melbourne in the south and the Gulf of Carpentaria on the far north coast, discovering and documenting the unknown and unmapped centre of the country for the first time. While several members of the expedition reached the Gulf, only one of them survived to return to Melbourne and both Burke and Wills died on the journey. Like so many nineteenth century expeditions of discovery, theirs was a heroic tale of ambition and remarkable endurance ultimately marked by tragedy.
LITERATURE Bonyhady, T., Burke and Wills: from Melbourne to myth, exhibition catalogue, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2002, p. 46 (illus.)
Nolan had found subjects for his work in stories of Australia’s history before, the best known being that of the infamous bushranger Ned Kelly who was the focus of a series painted in the mid-1940s (and again in the 1950s). As he had done with the Kelly theme, Nolan researched the story of Burke and Wills, reading widely in public libraries, studying historical photographs and newspaper illustrations, as well as experiencing the harshness and isolation of the desert landscape firsthand. Although he was interested in the details of the story, Nolan did not aim to illustrate it but sought instead to say something about the present by interpreting and re-presenting aspects of the past. The Burke and Wills works were painted at the same time as the Central Australian series, the first pictures completed within two months of Nolan’s return from his inland travels. Finished in July 1950, Burke Lay Dying, 1950 was the second depiction of the ill-fated explorer 2 who, realising that death was imminent, is reported to have asked a fellow member of the expedition to ‘place the pistol in my right hand and … leave me unburied as I lie.’ In the first painting Burke is dead and his body is beginning to merge with the landscape, but in this work Nolan forces the viewer to confront the humanity of his subject in an image of a man defeated. The extraordinary pathos of this image is emphasised by the delicacy of its depiction – the paint so lightly handled and burnished back to expose the white ground underneath that it appears almost translucent – and tiny yellow wildflowers shown growing in the ground around Burke, an optimistic symbol of life and regeneration. 1. Nolan, S. to Dutton, G., quoted in Dutton, G., ‘Sidney Nolan’s Burke and Wills Series’, Art and Australia, Sydney, Nolan Issue, 1967, p. 459 2. Perished, 1949, oil and enamel paint on composition board, 91.0 x 122.0 cm, The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Perth
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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SIDNEY NOLAN AND JOY HESTER IN HIS STUDIO, 1945 photograph by Albert Tucker gelatin silver photograph 30.4 x 40.4 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001
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SIDNEY NOLAN 11 (1917 – 1992) HARTZ RANGE, 1950 oil and enamel paint on composition board 78.0 x 121.5 cm signed and dated lower right: 11-1-50 / Nolan estimate :
$120,000 – 160,000
PROVENANCE David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney Mr R.A.G. Henderson, Sydney Lawsons, Sydney, 16 July 1991, lot 310 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Exhibition of Central Australian Landscapes, David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, 31 March – 14 April 1950, cat. 5 Sidney Nolan: Desert and Drought, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, cat. 23 LITERATURE Smith, G., Sidney Nolan: Desert and Drought, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 45 (illus.)
Following his first experience of flying in 1947 Sidney Nolan wrote excitedly, ‘it seems to me one of the best possible means for seeing and understanding the landscape! Only one aspect it is true but what an aspect.’1 Two years later he visited Central Australia with his new wife Cynthia and her daughter Jinx, travelling extensively for two and a half months and viewing the desert landscape from the air. Three days after their arrival in Alice Springs, Nolan recorded in his diary: ‘Today went on a mail flight for four hundred miles over the Hartz Range & to the eastern extremity of the MacDonnell Ranges … In the morning the light on the hills was like gauze as Cynthia so accurately described it. Transparent & at the same time impenetrable’. 2 Returning to the studio Nolan struggled to capture the essence of the ancient landscape but by the start of October, he had completed the first picture in the series that would in effect launch his international career.
An exhibition of forty-seven Central Australian landscapes opened at David Jones’ Art Gallery, Sydney at the end of March 1950. It was a commercial and popular success with nine paintings selling at the opening, including Dry Jungle, 1949 to the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and Hartz Range, 1950 purchased by Rupert Henderson, Managing Director of John Fairfax Limited. By the end of the exhibition a total of seventeen paintings had been sold. 3 The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne purchased Central Australia, 1949 before the exhibition and in a remarkable vote of confidence, bought another painting from the series when it was shown in Melbourne later that year. By applying layers of oil paint and enamel and then burnishing them back, Nolan was able to capture the luminosity of the desert and there is a delicacy in these paintings that belies the monumental nature of their subject. In Hartz Range, the striated surface of the landscape appears like a vast skin pulled taut in the foreground that ripples and wrinkles as the mountains rise out of the ground and recede into the distance. The success of these pictures continued when Inland Australia, 1950 won first prize in the inaugural Dunlop Australian Art Contest. The series also achieved significant international recognition with a painting being purchased by the Tate, London in 1951 and another by the esteemed British art historian, Sir Kenneth Clark. James Gleeson recognised the significance of this celebrated series of paintings in a review that described the exhibition as ‘one of the most important events in the history of Australian painting … future art historians will date the birth of a predominantly Australian idiom from this exhibition … Nolan has been able to bring the vision of the poet and a respect for the objective facts of Nature into a single focus.’4 1. Nolan, S., to Tucker, A., Brisbane, 16 July 1947, Albert Tucker Papers, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, quoted in Smith, G., Sidney Nolan: Desert and Drought, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 12 2. Nolan, S., diary notes, Alice Springs, 28 June 1949, Jinx Nolan Papers, quoted in Smith, ibid., p. 16 3. See Smith, ibid., p. 25 4. Gleeson, J., ‘Landscapes triumph for Aust. Artist’, Sun, Sydney, 31 March 1950, p. 19
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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SIDNEY NOLAN 12 (1917 – 1992) LEDA AND SWAN, 1960 synthetic polymer paint on composition board 91.5 x 122.0 cm signed with initial lower right: N inscribed with title and date verso: LEDA + SWAN / 1960 / No … 59 / To NEWCASTLE 59 / FOLKSTONE estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, United Kingdom Thence by descent Lady Mary Nolan, United Kingdom Agnew’s, London, (label attached verso) Bonhams, Melbourne, 13 October 2014, lot 10 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED possibly: Sidney Nolan: Leda and the Swan and other recent work, Matthiesen Gallery, London, 16 June – 16 July 1960, cat. 27 – 29 Nolan, Hatton Gallery, University of Durham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then touring to: Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; Temple Newsam House, Leeds; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; City Art Gallery, Bristol; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Scottish Royal Academy, Edinburgh; City Art Gallery, Wakefield, 13 May – 28 November 1961, cat. 59 Sidney Nolan: 1937 to 1979, Arts Centre, Folkstone, United Kingdom, 5 May – 3 June 1979, cat. 40 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) possibly: Sidney Nolan, Waddington Galleries, London, 1 – 25 February 1989 (label attached verso) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 13 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Nolan, exhibition catalogue, Kings College, University of Durham, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1961, cat. 59 (illus.)
1960 was a vibrant year for Australian artists in Britain with acclaimed exhibitions by Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan. Such was their presence that one critic advised ‘when in London ‘do as Melbourne does’ looks like becoming the keynote of the British art world this summer.’1 With the London opening in June of his extensive series based on the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan at Matthiesen Gallery, Nolan can truly be said to have arrived on the international scene. What made this even more remarkable was that it was the first time he had presented works based on a universal story rather than a purely Australian one. Financially, the show was an outstanding success and purchasers included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Sir Kenneth Clark (then Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain), the Earl of Drogheda (Chairman of both the Financial Times and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Agatha Christie, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. To have experienced the original Leda and Swan exhibition would have no doubt been akin to walking into a chapel filled with stained glass. Viewed as if through a watery veil, the chaste maiden Leda is in constant animation as she first rebuffs the swan’s advances (being the Greek god Zeus in disguise), then participates in a dangerous courtship dance before succumbing to his feathered charms. Sometimes the mood is calm, in others it is fierce, a battle of the wills; and the Leda and Swan on offer here 2 depicts the transformative conclusion in an image redolent with poetic synthesis. In a later interview Nolan observed that ‘in a way, Leda (is) the idea of a nude figure being overcome by some force or other … of Leda being overwhelmed by God.’ 3 In this Leda and Swan, Zeus is triumphant yet gentle, hovering over Leda with his outstretched neck curving to embrace his relaxed, expectant companion. Nolan had been experimenting for the previous eighteen months with the recently-developed polyvinyl acetate applied with squeegees, fingers and brush. His fluid handling of this cutting-edge material in the Leda paintings enhanced the perception that his figures were swimming within the paint, sometimes above, often through, the viscid surface, flowing in and out of visibility. In a famed quote from one of her books, Cynthia Nolan recorded the process: ‘During the day he painted on the floor, first placing areas of colour on prepared board, next sweeping on polyvinyl acetate until the whole 4 x 5 feet area was thick with paint, then seizing a short-handled squeegee and slashing and wiping, cornering and circling like a skater, until another painting was completed … Now over and over again, he was painting Leda and the Swan.’4 In this current painting, Nolan’s painterly technique is on full show with drips seeping through the swan’s neck and scraped areas giving the wings a sensation of blurred flight. Even when separated from its companions, this Leda and Swan remains an image of complete harmony and unification, and its own unique statement. 1. Stephen May, 2000, quoted in: Burke, J., Australian Gothic: a life of Albert Tucker, Knopf, Sydney, 2002, p. 361 2. All paintings in the series bear the same title. 3. Nolan, S., quoted in: Souter, G., ‘An artist who stood in the acid’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 7 October 1967 4. Nolan, C., Open Negative: an American memoir, Macmillan, London, 1967, p. 224
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ARTHUR BOYD AND SIDNEY NOLAN, ARTHUR BOYD’S STUDIO, HAMPTON LANE, LONDON c. 1960 photograph by Albert Tucker gelatin silver photograph National Library of Australia, PIC/3161/19 © The Estate of Barbara Tucker. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia
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ARTHUR BOYD 13 (1920 – 1999) WIMMERA LANDSCAPE WITH COCKATOOS, c.1965 tempera and oil on composition board 86.0 x 122.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd bears inscription verso: CHAIRMAN’S / ROOM estimate :
$160,000 – 200,000
PROVENANCE possibly: Bonython Galleries, Adelaide Energy Australia, Sydney Sotheby’s, Sydney, 22 April 2008, lot 23 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED possibly: Recent Paintings from London by Arthur Boyd, Bonython Galleries, Adelaide, 28 August – 15 September 1966, cat. 2 (as ‘Landscape with Grey Lake’) The Director’s Choice 2009, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 May – 13 June 2009, cat. 1 (illus. on cover exhibition catalogue, as ‘Wimmera Landscape’) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 12 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Wimmera Landscape’) LITERATURE possibly: Philipp, F., Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967, cat. 17:40, p. 277 (as ‘Landscape with Grey Lake’, collection of the artist) The last time I caught up with Arthur Boyd was at Max Harris’ funeral in Melbourne in 1995. He sat in the back seat of my car with his ex-brotherin-law John Perceval. As fellow painters their history dated over fifty years, yet they had not communicated in nearly half that time. Neither knew where to start, so they didn’t, they embraced, then sat in total silence holding hands for what seemed an eternity recalling memories of the good times and what was lost. ROB GOULD
Even today the wheat fields of the Wimmera shimmer under a crystalline Australian sky. At midday in summer, there is an overwhelming sense of somnambulism as sheep cluster around scrappy patches of shade, distant tractors trundle past, and cockatoos wheel through the air, their harsh cries shredding the silence. In Arthur Boyd’s meticulously recorded Wimmera Landscape with Cockatoos, c.1965 the artist captures the very essence of the scene and reminds us of his absolute mastery of landscape painting. By the mid-1960s, when this image was painted, Boyd was firmly established in London as an artist of note. Since arriving with his family in late 1959, he had held an acclaimed solo exhibition at the prestigious Zwemmer Gallery and been the subject of an extensive
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retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery. Every Australian state gallery held examples of his work, private collectors included royalty and celebrities, and he had also successfully extended his talents into theatre and ballet. Whilst the works that initially established him in Britain were the powerful images of his celebrated ‘Bride’ series, Boyd was also recognised as one of the most astute and sustained chroniclers of the Australian landscape, in particular the far western corner of Victoria, a vast region known as the Wimmera centred around the towns of Horsham, Ararat and Nhill. Boyd first visited during the summer of 1948–49, painting landscapes at the border of the Wimmera River and returned several times over next few years. It was these haunting yet intensely observed visions which secured his position as co-exhibitor (with the late Arthur Streeton) at the Venice Biennale of 1958. In his depictions of the Wimmera, Boyd was acknowledging the path of previous non-indigenous painters who had recorded the harsher inland regions of this country, including his old friend Sidney Nolan.1 The difference with Boyd’s depictions was that whilst the Wimmera is relatively distant, it was then still an area with familial connections to many urban-based Australians. City families often had land-based cousins so that even though they may never have actually visited their relations, people still felt a visceral connection to the region. That association continued for Boyd even after he established himself in London, noting that he invariably felt ‘nostalgic for prickly grass.’ 2 Utilising the translucent tempera and glaze technique he had mastered in the original Wimmera series, Wimmera Landscape with Cockatoos has its surface punctuated further by expressive marks of low impasto as if Boyd is emphasising particular points in the landscape, re-animating his memory of place. Note the fidelity of the spiky grasses and thistles in the foreground, the whitened trunks of ring-barked trees and beyond, the low rise of the Grampian hills. It is a truly palpable rendition of the artist’s beloved homeland. As if to accentuate its force of personal connection, Energy Australia, who previously owned the painting, clearly determined its destination for display, namely their Chairman’s own office where it would have marked a clear statement of intent as to that company’s respect for rural Australia. 3 Wimmera Landscape with Cockatoos is a fascinating, stilled point in time, a mesmerising image by an Australian icon at the height of his painterly powers. 1. Nolan also painted scenes of the Wimmera whilst based there with the army between 1942 and 1944. 2. Nial, B., The Boyds, Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2007 (revised edition), p. 336 3. The text ‘Chairman’s Office’ is inscribed in chalk verso.
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WILLIAM DOBELL 14 (1899 – 1970) HELEN BLAXLAND AND TONIA, 1941 oil on wood panel 44.5 x 53.5 cm signed lower right: WILLIAM DOBELL dated and inscribed verso: Mr Gregory Blaxland / 11 Wallaroy Road / Woollahra/ Painted / 1941 estimate :
$100,000 – 140,000
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Gregory and Helen Blaxland, Sydney Christies, Sydney, 3 March 1972, lot 99 (as ‘Conversation Piece’) Private collection, Sydney Geoff K. Gray, Sydney, 12 November 1984, lot 45 (as ‘Conversation Piece’) Mr and Mrs René Rivkin, Sydney Sotheby’s, Sydney, 3 June, 2001, lot 18 (as ‘Conversation Piece’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Annual Exhibition, Society of Artists, Education Department’s Gallery, Sydney, 6 – 26 September 1941, cat. 162 Margaret Preston and William Dobell Loan Exhibition, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 March – 16 April 1942, cat. 10 (label attached verso) William Dobell, David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, 1 – 26 August 1944, cat. 50 (as ‘Mrs. Blaxland and Tonia, 1942’) William Dobell: Paintings from 1926 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 July – 30 August 1964, cat. 83, (as ‘Mrs Blaxland and Toni’) (label attached verso) 100 Years of Great Australian Art, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 28 March 2004, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 6 April – 9 May 2004, cat. 13 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Best in Show: Dogs in Australian Art, Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 9 April – 3 July 2016, cat. 14 LITERATURE Penton, B., The Art of William Dobell, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, pp. 8, 122 (illus. as ‘Mrs Blaxland and Toni’) Gleeson, J., William Dobell, Thames and Hudson, London, 1964, cat. 98, p. 193
Helen Blaxland and Tonia, 1941 belongs to a small suite of celebrated and beautifully realised portraits painted by William Dobell in Sydney in the early 1940s, a halcyon period before the destructive traumas inflicted on him by the notorious Archibald Prize court case of 1944. Technically, this stylised double portrait shares many of the classic Dobell traits evident in such contemporaneous works as The Tattooed Lady, 1941 (private collection), Elaine Haxton, 1941 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney) and particularly, another society commission Jacqueline Crookston, 1940 (private collection), where the ‘poses and groupings have the artificial feel of the studio about them … touched with such breath-taking lightness and with such an exquisite sense of rhythm … Dobell is attracted by the possibilities of this highly finished artificial elegance.’1 When Dobell returned to Australia from London in 1939, he had already developed a unique and penetrative talent for depicting people from all walks of life. He had spent the previous decade experiencing ‘exile, study, want and adventure’ 2 whilst attending the Slade School as a result of winning the Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship. On arrival back in Sydney, Dobell quickly found himself a two-bedroom apartment above a bank in Kings Cross, with one room used as a living space, the other as a studio. 3 At that time, Kings Cross was Australia’s most densely populated area and a vibrantly tolerant melting pot of artists, émigrés, street life and homosexuality. Many of Dobell’s friends in London were Australian artists and a number of these were now living nearby, including Eric Wilson, Paul Haefliger and Donald Friend. Through these contacts, he soon met other significant characters such as Russell Drysdale, Nora Heysen and the young Joshua Smith. Additionally he renewed his acquaintance with the influential publisher Sydney Ure Smith who had previously been instrumental in Dobell being awarded the Travelling Scholarship through his (then) position as President of the Society of Artists. Ure Smith actively promoted Dobell and soon the artist was painting a range of notable society and Government figures. Donald Friend records dinner parties in his diaries which included Ure Smith, Dobell and ‘Mrs Greg Blaxland’4 so it seems apparent that the publisher also introduced the artist to this potential sitter. continued page 58...
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‘(E)legant and lovely’, 5 Helen Blaxland (nee Anderson, 1907 – 1989) previously studied at the Julian Ashton School of Art and when the second world war started, she worked as a fundraiser with the Australian Red Cross Society (NSW Division). Following the war in 1946, she collaborated with the photographer Max Dupain and artist Elaine Haxton on a book on flower arranging. In 1959, Helen joined the nascent National Trust and, as a result of her important and extended contribution to the conservation group, was awarded a DBE in 1975. An honorary member (1970) of the Society of Interior Designers of Australia, she was also a foundation trustee (1970 – 89) of the National Parks and Wildlife Foundation (New South Wales); and in 1978 she became foundation chairman of the Australiana Fund, set up to acquire Australian furnishings for the four official Commonwealth residences.6 Tonia Blaxland became a noted photographer in her own right following an apprenticeship with Dupain.
PHOTOGRAPH OF PAINTER WILLIAM DOBELL, 1942 photograph by Max Dupain National Library of Australia, PIC/ P1093
Helen’s husband Greg traced his ancestry to an earlier Gregory Blaxland, the Blue Mountains pioneer, and the couple lived in a prominent location on Sydney’s Bellevue Hill. Noted art collectors and patrons, they owned significant pieces by Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend, Dupain and Haxton. Another whose paintings they purchased was the famed modern designer Loudon Sainthill who, in turn, was responsible for the decor of the sumptuous lounge room where Helen and her daughter Antonia are seen sitting. With glimpses of the harbour and lush gardens beyond the curtains and crested by a Sainthill-designed wall sconce, Dobell presents a mother and daughter comfortable within their own stylish environment. The family’s white terrier seems very content too. 1. Gleeson, J., William Dobell, Thames and Hudson, London, 1964 (revised edition 1969), p. 80 2. ‘William Dobell: an Australian genius’, People, Sydney, 21 June 1950, p. 43 3. Corner of Darlinghurst Road and Roslyn St, the building is now a backpackers’ hostel 4. See: Hetherington, P. (ed.), The Diaries of Donald Friend (Volume 2), National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2003, pp. 68, 88. 5. Hetherington, P., op. cit., p. 88. 6. Details of Helen’s life sourced from: Simpson, C., ‘Blaxland, ‘Dame Helen Frances (1907 – 1989),’ Australian Dictionary of Biography online (accessed 07.01.17).
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WILLIAM DOBELL WORKING ON HIS PAINTING OF DAVID CHAMBERS, 1946 photographer unknown National Library of Australia, PIC/14144/17, courtesy of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation
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WILLIAM DOBELL 15 (1899 – 1970) DAVID CHAMBERS, 1946 oil on composition board 48.0 x 43.5 cm signed and dated lower left: William DOBELL 46 estimate :
$90,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Mrs John Ferguson Chambers, the sitter’s mother remarried as Mrs Douglas McKaen Tooth, New South Wales (inscribed D.M. Tooth on AGNSW label verso) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Ted Lustig Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1978 Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 21 November 2006, lot 6 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED William Dobell Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 July – 30 August 1964, cat. 103 (label attached verso) Spring Exhibition 1978, Recent Acquisitions, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 25 September – 9 October 1978, cat. 108 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Director’s Choice 2007, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 17 February – 30 March 2007, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Penton, B., The Art of William Dobell, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, p. 114 (illus., dated as 1944) Gleeson, J., William Dobell, Thames and Hudson, London, 1964, cat. 139, p. 195 (illus.)
This masterly portrait by William Dobell dates from the immediate aftermath of one of the most famous incidents in Australian art history, when the artist was forced to defend his portrait of colleague Joshua Smith after it won the 1943 Archibald Prize. Dobell had spent many months sharing a tent with Smith, allowing for close scrutiny of his future subject whilst the two had worked together in the wartime Civil Construction Corps. His friend was an extraordinarily skinny and sharp edged man, facts which Dobell heightened in the final painting. Vitriolic opponents claimed it was a caricature and even though Dobell won the subsequent court case in 1944, the hostile publicity surrounding it caused a physical and physiological breakdown for the artist. In poor health, Dobell retreated from public scrutiny but even so, winning the Archibald assured Dobell’s career and his work was featured in a number of noted exhibitions in late 1944 and 1945. Dobell spent months recovering but by 1946, his prowess as one of the country’s
most skilled and penetrative portrait painters returned. David Chambers dates from this year and is as revealing and humanist as any of the artist’s portraits from the 1940s. Indeed, it seems to glow with some incandescent inner light, a restorative force not unlike that which Dobell himself must have felt. David Chambers, 1946 was a private commission by the sitter’s family, noting that such a display of support at this time was highly significant for the struggling artist, for his public reputation and for the acceptance of modernism in general. At the time of the Archibald controversy, Dobell had commented that ‘(p)eople … expect a portrait to be simply a coloured photograph, and they would restrict the artist to painting things just as they expect them to appear. … You might say that I am trying to create something instead of copying something when I set out to paint a portrait. … The real artist is striving to depict his subject’s character and to stress the essentials of gesture and features, (that is, an) art which is alive.’1 As if painted directly to this formula, David Chambers bristles with the sensuous masculinity of its 21 year-old sitter, a handsome young man wearing a nautical vest, indicative of his great love of sailing on Sydney’s expansive harbour. He was also racing car enthusiast as reported in the Sun newspaper: ‘Eligible David Chambers is really off to revive family fortunes as an Australian independent cardriver in speed trials all over France.’ 2 Prior to his premature death at the age of 28, the wealthy bachelor ordered a Cooper-Bristol Mark II RedeX Special from England. When Chambers never took delivery, the car was subsequently purchased from his estate by Jack Brabham, and after modification, raced in the 1954 New Zealand Grand Prix. Dobell’s painterly treatment of the background in this portrait gives Chambers a marked intensity, even an inner radiance, with its scumbled then glazed blue-black brush marks presenting the appearance of a swirling halo in deep space, its ambiguity contrasting with the sitter’s finely delineated blonde hair, grey-blue eyes, dimpled chin, and fleshy nose. No doubt Dobell was equally happy with the result and allowed himself to be photographed as he worked on the painting’s finer details. It also marked a return in his confidence as an artist and led indirectly to his next major triumph when Dobell won his second Archibald Prize in 1948 with his now-famous portrait of the young Margaret Olley. 1. ‘Portrait Prize Defended: Mr. Dobell replies to critics’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 31 January 1944, p. 2 2. ‘An ‘eligible’ is off to France’, The Sun, Sydney, 24 February 1949
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JUSTIN O’BRIEN 16 (1917 – 1996) THE NET MENDERS, 1965 oil on canvas 70.0 x 49.5 cm signed upper right: O’BRIEN bears inscription verso: NATIONAL GALLERY MELBOURNE estimate :
$60,000 – 80,000
PROVENANCE Bradshaw Collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 4 May 2004, lot 69 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Justin O’Brien, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1965 Justin O’Brien Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987 The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 14 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE France, C., Justin O’Brien: Image and Icon, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, pp. 26, 110 (illus.), 142
Fixed in striking classical poses, the lithe, idealised fishermen who inhabit Justin O’Brien’s painting were inspired by the artist’s quotidian experience in Greece. Yet they remain linked to the apostolic fishermen, the harbingers of spiritual completeness who populate many of O’Brien’s works. Painting spiritual subject matter provided the Australian artist with the possibility of uninhibited artistic expression, unconfined by the physical limitations of visual perception, a freedom that he would later extend to his more prosaic scenes. The figure of a fisherman first appears in O’Brien’s watercolours of the 1940s, such as Mending the Nets, c.1947, then later within the larger framework of polyptychs of the 1950s including Miraculous Draught of Fishes, then again in works from the 1960s after the artist’s return to his house on the island of Skyros in the Aegean. While The Net Menders, 1965 is a prosaic scene, it is one whose origins are steeped in ancient Christian iconography. These men are set firmly within the stylised and anonymous topography that came to represent O’Brien’s work – rocky
outcrops, dusty ground and golden hued skies. The Net Menders is a good example of O’Brien’s distinctive pictorial style, which included a refusal of linear perspective, non-representational primary colour, and a geometric flattening of the pictorial plane. It has been suggested that these devices were strongly influenced by the artist’s discovery of Renaissance art in Europe, particularly the modern day appearance of frescoes from the Quattrocento.1 The Greek island of Skyros was a recurring source of aesthetic attraction for the artist – he lived on the island throughout the summers of 1964, 1967 and 1971, exhibiting the dozens of paintings the location inspired at Sydney’s Macquarie Galleries in the year following each trip. The island was also source of a stylistic shift in the artist’s work, leading to a stronger definition of line and more subtle naturalistic colour, as well as a greater proportion of landscapes and still lives. 2 With a mysterious serenity and sparseness that would characterise many of O’Brien’s paintings, The Net Menders has an eerie power reminiscent of Surrealism. For O’Brien, who had suffered through multiple crises of faith, there was certain symmetry in his search for the spiritual in prosaic scenes and the intensity of his narrative paintings. He explained this to the art critic Sasha Grishin in 1982: ‘the religious experience should not be confused with the spiritual experience, for the latter can be expressed through many subjects, like a vase of flowers’. 3 The languorous figures of Net Menders, 1965, are simply presented as performing an age-old artisanal activity that would have supported their livelihood on the island, as they were in the artist’s watercolour sketch of the 1940s. Mending their nets in early evening light, the naked fishermen are avatars of a timeless era, untied to geographical or temporal specificity. 1. France, C., Justin O’Brien. Image and Icon, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, pp. 15 – 17 2. Wilson, N., ‘Justin O’Brien & The Art of Transfiguration’, Justin O’Brien, The Sacred Music of Colour, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2010, pp. 110 – 111 3. O’Brien to Sasha Grishin, 18 January 1982, quoted in Grishin, S., ‘Justin O’Brien, in retrospect’, Justin O’Brien: A Survey Exhibition 1938 – 95, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 2006, p. 15
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BRETT WHITELEY 17 (1939 – 1992) GALAH, 1988 oil, collage and wire on canvas 121.0 x 121.0 cm signed lower right with artist’s studio stamp inscribed lower right: [Chinese character, translation in English:] / 1 strange, uncanny, occult, / rare / 2 wonderful / 3 to feel strange about; to wonder signed and inscribed with title verso: Brett Whiteley / ‘Galah’ / oil on canvas + chicken wire estimate :
$600,000 – 800,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, London, acquired directly from the artist in 1988 Deutscher ~ Menzies, Melbourne, 21 September 2005, lot 17 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Brett Whiteley, Birds 1988: recent paintings, drawings, sculpture, and one screen print, The Artist’s Studio, Sydney, 5 – 19 July 1988, cat. 4 (as ‘Gullah’) The Director’s Choice 2010, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 6 May – 5 June 2010, cat. 1 (illus. cover of exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 20 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
‘People ask me ‘why paint birds?’ and I look at them dumbfounded! I’ve got no answer, except that they are the most beautiful creatures…’ 1 Throughout his rich and varied oeuvre, birds have always held special appeal for Whiteley – both in the aesthetics of their formal appearance and metaphorically, as symbols of peace, freedom and salvation. Diametrically opposed to his darker, more tortured musings in their absence of angst, his depictions of birds – whether as individual studies or components of a larger composition – offered rather the promise of tranquility and happiness, ‘…an art based on the idea of extraordinary escapism, a world external from the quagmire…’ 2 It is perhaps not surprising therefore, that Whiteley would embrace the sublime beauty and serenity of the animal kingdom for respwite during the most psychologically grueling challenges of his art and life – for example, the spirited London Zoo paintings painted at the same time as his unflinching confrontation of depraved evil in the Christie series (‘beast’ astutely juxtaposed alongside ‘bestial’). Or the idyllic paradise of Fiji, resplendent with sensuous fruit doves and hummingbirds, in which Whiteley delighted following the turmoil and violence of New York, epitomised by his magnum opus The American Dream, 1969. Indeed, as Sandra McGrath elucidates, Whiteley’s enduring spiritual connection with the natural world may be considered an integral part of the complex Rimbaudian duality punctuating his practice; ‘…in truth he was living out one of his constant themes – good and evil, optimism and pessimism, New York and Fiji, Christie and the London Zoo series… all meshed into one overall psychological and pictorial design, one lifelong attempt to reconcile extremes, one eternal battle to identify the truth that E.M. Forster recognised as being accessible only by experiencing opposites.’ 3 continued page 66...
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That Whiteley chose to dedicate an entire solo exhibition to the subject of birds eloquently attests to the privileged role accorded these feathered creatures in his art. Held at his studio in Surry Hills, Sydney in July 1988, the landmark show featured major works encompassing all media, from his highly acclaimed bronze ‘Bird Sculptures’ of 1983 – 88 and unforgettable Boot Owl, 1985 (imaginatively created from an old boot, ping pong balls, steel and paint), to monumental canvases such as the celebrated Frangipani and Hummingbird, 1988; The Sunrise: Japanese Good Morning!, 1988; and present Galah, 1988 – all executed during the same year. Never one to be constrained by the physicality of a canvas or board, Whiteley often added collaged elements or objets trouves to extend the composition – and certainly Galah is no exception, with its overlay of chicken wire extending to the edge of the canvas, creating a tension between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ that is only heightened by the ambiguity of the subject here. Betraying strong affinities with both Whiteley’s own earlier London Zoo paintings of 1965 and the ‘caged figures’ of his artistic mentor Francis Bacon, Galah is similarly imbued with an unmistakable feeling of disquiet. Multiple beaks, gestural lines and Whiteley’s iconic arrows all serve to imply and exaggerate the bird’s motion, yet its piercing gaze remains fixed and resolute, posing the enigmatic question – who is actually caged, the animal or the viewer?
Quite poignantly perhaps, curator and art historian Barry Pearce has hailed Whiteley ‘Australia’s most sublime painter of birds’, noting that ‘…they have appeared, often larger than life, in many of his most important paintings’ and even suggesting that ‘it is not too fanciful to think of Whiteley’s bird paintings as self-portraits.’4 Similarly, art critic Alan McCulloch considered Whiteley’s paintings of the bird and animal kingdoms among his best, ‘perhaps because in these relatively uncontaminated domains he is motivated more by love than despair’. 5 Embodying the tremendous sense of freedom and profound curiosity provoked in the artist by the natural world, Whiteley’s bird paintings are indeed, undoubtedly, among the most touchingly beautiful yet playful of his prodigious career. As poet Robert Gray perceptively reflected around the time of the present work’s execution, ‘…in Whiteley’s bird paintings is embodied his finest feeling. They are to me his best work. I like in the bird-shapes that clarity; that classical haptic shapeliness; that calm – those clear perfect lines of a Chinese vase. The breasts of his birds swell with the most attractive emotion in his work: it is bold, vulnerable and tender’.6 1. Whiteley cited in Brett Whiteley: Animals and Birds, exhibition catalogue, The Brett Whiteley Studio, Sydney, 2002 2. McGrath, S., Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney 1979, p. 94 3. ibid. 4. Pearce, B., Australian Artists, Australian Birds, Harper Collins, Sydney, 1989, p. 144 5. McCulloch, A., ‘Letter from Australia’, Art International, Lugano, October, 1970, pp. 69 – 70 6. Gray, R., ‘A few takes on Brett Whiteley’, Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 24, no. 2, 1986, p. 222
VERONICA ANGELATOS
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PORTRAIT OF ARTIST BRETT WHITELEY IN THE STUDIO WITH TAXIDERMIED BIRDS, 1974 Photograph by Lewis Morley courtesy of the National Media Museum, London
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ROSALIE GASCOIGNE 18 (1917 – 1999) LEDGER, 1992 split soft drink crates on plywood 81.0 x 43.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Rosalie Gascoigne / 1992 / LEDGER estimate :
$160,000 – 200,000
PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney Phillips De Pury & Company, Sydney, 26 October 1998, lot 106 Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in June 2000 EXHIBITED Rosalie Gascoigne, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 15 April – 2 May 1992, cat. 30 (label attached verso) Annual Collector’s Exhibition 2000, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 3 June – 24 June 2000, cat. 63 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE MacDonald, V., Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, Sydney, 1998, fig. 25, pp. 34 (illus.), 35, 106, 111 Gellatly, K., Rosalie Gascoigne, Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2008, p. 20, fig. 10 (illus.)
Universally regarded as one of the most significant Australian artists of the twentieth century, remarkably Rosalie Gascoigne did not hold her first exhibition until the age of 57. Immediately attracting the praise of collectors and critics alike, she was soon offered a major survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1978) and in 1982, was selected to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale (alongside Peter Booth), being the first Australian woman to receive this honour. In more recent years, she has featured in numerous important local and international exhibitions, including the prestigious solo exhibition show Material as Landscape held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1997 – 98), and today is represented in all major collections in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Of all Rosalie Gascoigne’s achievements, undoubtedly the most striking and widely celebrated are her assemblages such as Ledger, 1992 which incorporate the shimmering black and gold text of weathered wooden Schweppes crates. Having eschewed the use of iconography, Gascoigne thus transforms text into texture – a wordplay of which she was no doubt aware – to create a powerful sense of landscape and light. With their rhythmic pattern composed of words and letters, such works have not surprisingly been described as ‘stammering concrete poems’1, a perceptive analogy, especially given the artist’s predilection for poetry from Shakespeare to Plath. Notwithstanding, Gascoigne stresses that the flickering word fragments, though carefully arranged, are not intended to be read literally: ‘Placement of letters is important, but it’s not a matter of reading the text – it’s a matter of getting a visually pleasing result.’ 2 Similarly, her titles are not literal but rather, ‘leave room for the viewer’, 3 imbued with various levels of meaning to be deciphered according to the nature of one’s experiences. Accordingly, while the meticulous arrangement here of numbers and letters in columns and rows reminiscent of a ledger may perhaps be a tribute to the artist’s brother Douglas who was an accountant, ultimately the specific feeling evoked within the viewer depends largely upon his or her own memories. As John McDonald elucidates, Gascoigne’s work ‘...awakens associations that lie buried beneath the surface of consciousness; inviting a higher degree of sensitivity and attentiveness to the world around us.’4 Indeed, it is this higher awareness, the ability to recognise beauty in the most humble of materials that Gascoigne demands of her audience. For, as the eye moves through this artful arrangement searching for information and the mind attempts to place different rules of perspective or build upon the suggestion of the marks, ‘in time we realise that the only solution is to stop trying to navigate through the forest of symbols, and enjoy the beauty of the trees.’ 5 1. MacDonald, V., Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, Sydney, 1998, p. 35 2. ibid. 3. ibid. 4. McDonald, J., ‘Introduction’, in MacDonald, ibid., p. 7 5. ibid. VERONICA ANGELATOS
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(1917 – 1999) JIM’S PICNIC, 1975 printed cut-out cardboard shapes (Arnott’s logos), glass bottles, dried (rye) grass, wire netting, weathered timber 44.0 x 75.0 x 22.0 cm signed with initials and dated at base: R.G. ‘76 estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE James Mollison, Melbourne, acquired from the artist in 1976 Niagara Galleries, Melbourne The Reg Grundy AC OBE and Joy Chambers-Grundy Collection, acquired from the above in April 2006 (label attached verso) Bonhams, Sydney, 26 June 2013, lot 25 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Rosalie Gascoigne: Assemblage, Gallery A, Sydney, 11 September 1976, cat. 25 Survey 2: Rosalie Gascoigne, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 29 April – 4 June 1978, cat. 2 Rosalie Gascoigne, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand, 22 February – 16 May 2004 Blue Chip VIII: the collectors’ exhibition, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 1 April 2006, cat. 1, p. 5 (illus. and cover exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Lindsay, R., Survey 2: Rosalie Gascoigne, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1978, pp. 2, 5 (illus.), 6 Kirk, M., ‘Different Means to Similar Ends: Rosalie Gascoigne and Agnes Martin’, Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 23, no. 4, Winter 1986, p. 513 Edquist, H., ‘Material Matters – the Landscapes of Rosalie Gascoigne’, Binocular, Sydney, no. 3, 1993, p. 1 MacDonald, V., Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, Sydney, 1998, p. 106 Eagle, M., From the Studio of Rosalie Gascoigne, Australian National University, Canberra, 2000, pp. 30 – 31 (illus.) Rosalie Gascoigne: plain air, City Gallery Wellington and Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2004, p. 22 (illus.)
Jim’s Picnic, 1975, like many great artworks, was born of a perfect storm of personal artistic evolution and national cultural circumstance. Newly arrived in the nascent suburb of Deakin, in the Australian Capital Territory, Rosalie Gascoigne embarked on an Ikebana from the modern Sogetsu School. For Gascoigne, this disciplined artistic practice gave purpose and direction to her habitual hunting and gathering within the southern tablelands.1 The aesthetic rigour of Ikebana also endowed
Gascoigne with a greater sense of confidence in her artistic ability and identity, and this was in turn a crucial impetus for her involvement in the Canberran art scene. In 1969, Gascoigne’s eldest son, Martin, introduced her to James ‘Jim’ Mollison, who had recently arrived in the capital to assist with the development of the national art collection, under the political tutelage of Gough Whitlam. This initial encounter expanded the artist’s social circle of art-minded people to include those who would later champion her in the upper echelons of cultural governance. 2 James Mollison and Gascoigne began a close friendship akin to mentorship, allowing the artist to enjoy unfettered access to the warehouse in Fyshwick storing contemporary acquisitions for the burgeoning Australian National Gallery. A rare instance within Gascoigne’s oeuvre of direct inspiration from a significant life event, Jim’s Picnic is an assemblage commemorating a bucolic escapade organised by Mollison for an international artistic delegation on the 16 April 1975, fitted into the schedule of their tour in the ACT for the Modern Masters: Manet to Matisse exhibition at the Australian National Gallery, Canberra. 3 This luncheon was a noteworthy moment for the artist, one of only a few locals to be invited to the gathering of significant patrons, but also for the members of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, who had yet to glimpse the famed Australian bush, as they were to experience at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. The artist spoke of this artwork in a lecture at the Canberra School of Art in 1985: ‘This one is called Jim’s Picnic. It was about a picnic and it was meant to be impractical, it was a windy day on top of a mountain. The wire netting I have used is a pretty sort of netting. It gives a good visual reading; in feel, it is mountain air. I was enclosing air with those spaces. The grass stuck in the bottles is as ephemeral as you can get, and it was to show this awful – it wasn’t awful, it was a marvellous impractical picnic with the clouds coming over, the kangaroos hopping up and down. The kangaroos are the parrots, if you can bear the transition, but that was the life element in it and it was to capture the actual event. What are the parrots made of? You haven’t been in the supermarket lately. You can get as many parrots as the kind girls in the check-out will let you by taking the Arnott’s boxes. They haven’t got the variety they used to have. You used to be able to get blue ones and red ones and I have had a great store of them and for me they’re almost the animal in the landscape as Ned Kelly is to Nolan. I used them a lot.’ Jim’s Picnic is a delicate sculpture that encapsulates key aspects of Gascoigne’s artistic practice: the use of found objects to translate visual and cultural realities, the impetus to capture ephemeral meteorological phenomena, and the self-assured arrangement of these items into an aesthetic composition. Exhibited in Gascoigne’s first solo exhibition at Gallery A, Sydney, in 1976, Jim’s Picnic was purchased by James Mollison, for whom it was named, and remained within his personal collection throughout his tenure as Director of the Australian National Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria. 1. Gellatly, K., ‘Rosalie Gascoigne: Making Poetry of the Commonplace’, Rosalie Gascoigne, Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, pp. 12 – 13 2. Gellatly, K., op. cit., p. 24 3. Correspondence between Martin Gascoigne and Deutscher and Hackett, February 2017 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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JOHN OLSEN, 1979 photograph by Greg Weight © Greg Weight National Portrait Gallery of Australia, 2004.80
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JOHN OLSEN 20 born 1928 RIVER AND WATTLE, 1982 oil on canvas 152.0 x 167.5 cm signed and dated lower right: John Olsen 82 inscribed with title verso: River & Wattle inscribed verso: SEND TO MR & MRS H. COLLINS 35 LARBERT STR / NTH BALWYN. estimate :
$180,000 – 240,000
PROVENANCE Gift of the artist to his sister, Mrs H. Collins, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 29 November 2004, lot 16 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED John Olsen, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 19 – 31 July 1982, cat. 5 Australian Landscape, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 12 May – 2 June 2007, cat. 27 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2010, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 6 May – 5 June 2010, cat. 16 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
In the retrospective exhibition currently showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, John Olsen is hailed as Australia’s greatest living artist. With a career that has spanned more than seven decades and witnessed the production of a large oeuvre of paintings, drawings and works in other media that present a vivid and unique interpretation of the Australian landscape, it is a well-deserved accolade. As a young man Olsen travelled to Europe spending much of his time in Spain absorbing the rich historical and contemporary influences of art, culture and landscape there, and distilling them into a pictorial language that was entirely original. Early on he also adopted Paul Klee’s notion of drawing as ‘taking a line for a walk’, and from that point on, the dancing calligraphic line has been a distinctive element of his work. Olsen extended this concept however, taking his line – whether drawn or painted – on a walk through the landscape and using it to record the experience of being in the natural environment rather than just looking at it.1
Talking about the You Beaut Country series of the mid-1960s – so wonderfully titled and so obviously Australian – Olsen explained: ‘... I also wanted to really come to terms with the experience of a total landscape. Not like there is the foreground, there is the middle distance and there is the horizon. I wanted that overall feeling of travelling over the landscape. There you can see the dry creek beds, the nervous system … which when you are just on the ground you don’t witness at all. Then you begin to somehow see the wholeness … It gives you a collective feeling of what’s happening … It’s more than the present, it’s the past and projects itself into the future.’ 2 Painted in 1982, River and Wattle is a landscape that reveals an artist at the height of his powers. While the ground of the painting is rendered in oil, the effect is delicate, the usual opacity of the medium replaced with subtle brushwork and tonal variations that enliven the surface. The river is viewed from above, a dark, solid but sinuous form meandering across the canvas and creating the illusion of vast space. This bird’s eye view is combined with the close-up study of plant, insect and bird life depicted in a riotous jumble of lines, dots and patterns. Vivid yellow dots describe the springtime wattle and amidst the conglomeration of abstract forms and gestural marks that make up this image, a bird in its nest in the top right-hand corner is a delightful detail. In this brilliant merging of the monumental and the miniature, River and Wattle also reflects the experience of Olsen’s extensive journeys through remote parts of Australia during the 1970s – in particular his visit to Lake Eyre in 1974 – during which he was able to fully comprehend the complexity of the natural world, understanding it as both a physical structure as well as a diverse habitat, 3 and expanding his ability to describe this totality in visual terms. 1. See Hart, D., John Olsen, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000, p. 38 2. Hurlston, D. and Edwards, D. (eds.), John Olsen – The You Beaut Country, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016, p. 10 3. Hart, op. cit., p. 123
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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JOHN OLSEN AND CLIFTON PUGH, 1969 type C photograph by Mark Strizic National Portrait Gallery of Australia, 1999.70
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JOHN OLSEN 21 born 1928 COTTLES BRIDGE, 1970 oil on canvas 91.5 x 68.5 cm signed and dated lower right: John / Olsen 70 estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2006, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 8 February – 26 March 2006, cat. 14 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 12 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
Cottles Bridge, 1970 belongs to a distinct and powerful group of paintings within John Olsen’s oeuvre, a significant period which heralded a marked change in his approach to the Australian landscape. The year before it was painted, Olsen relocated from Sydney to Victoria, taking up residence at ‘Dunmoochin’, a community collective in Cottles Bridge. This had been co-established by the artist Clifton Pugh in the early 1950s and extended to 205 acres at its peak. Olsen and his family moved into one of the mud-brick buildings whilst he utilised another as his painting studio. In contrast to the fecund landscape around Sydney Harbour, Cottles Bridge is ‘characterised by dusty, rolling hills, eucalypts, bright-yellow wattles and numerous spherical dams’,1 one of which, near the entrance to the property, is depicted at the base of the painting offered here. ‘Dunmoochin’ was an incredibly vital place during the late 1960s and early 1970s populated at times by prominent political figures such as Gough Whitlam and Sir John McEwan who had commissioned portraits done by Pugh. Other artists also joined the fray including Fred Williams, John Perceval and Albert Tucker, all of whom would paint, draw or photograph together as they created their own distinctively individual visions of the land.
With Pugh, Olsen purchased an etching press and also started collaborating with the potters Robert Mair and Tom Sanders, decorating and glazing items made by them. 2 Inevitably these attitudinally and physically different methods of mark-making started to inform Olsen’s own painterly technique with the result that paintings such as Cottles Bridge feature somewhat blunter marks of impasto paint pushed around on the canvas surface. Prior to this, his celebrated Sydney paintings were articulated through jumpy, tangled, tendril lines bristling with the very energy of the location they sought to portray. Importantly, they included references to incidents, characters and even animals negotiated along the way; and the birds seen enmeshed within the paint surface of Cottles Bridge appear to have met a similar fate through their encounter with the artist’s brush. In a revealing passage from his 1969 diary, Olsen wrote of one painting excursion with his companions that ‘(w)e don’t necessarily copy what is in front of us when we are out there, not at all; it’s the feeling of the landscape that we want, and its unimaginable details. Fred, for instance, makes a straight horizon-line, no matter how hilly the country is. Clif finds apostle birds and bush orchids wherever he looks… I tie a canvas to a tree and see the country in terms of the ‘dragon veins’ lacing the female principle, the Yin.’ 3 Olsen’s interest in Zen philosophy was well noted by this time and places an emphasis on the dual yet opposite principles of emptiness and fullness. Cottles Bridge teases out this duality through the artist’s use of a heightened eye-level which flattens the landscape yet simultaneously tilts it to an alarming angle, a visual effect the artist would bring to fruition in subsequent paintings based on Lake Eyre. In hindsight, the two years at Dunmoochin formed a necessary period of concentrated meditation for Olsen and precipitated a reorientation of his own attitudes to painting, a strategically successful undertaking which resulted in him winning the prestigious Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting in 1969 with The Chasing Bird Landscape (Westpac Corporate Art Collection, Sydney). 1. Hart, D., John Olsen, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000 (2nd edition), p. 95 2. Perceval and Pugh had previously re-sited the old kiln from the AMB Pottery in Murrumbeena up to a studio at ‘Dunmoochin’ 3. Olsen, J., diary entry July 1969, quoted in: Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997, p. 71
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CLIFTON PUGH 22 (1924 – 1990) EUROPA AND THE BULL, 1959 oil on composition board 122.0 x 170.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Clifton/ JULY 59 inscribed with title on stretcher verso: THE RAPE OF EUROPA bears inscription verso: MR MITCHELSON [sic] / ARTS COUNCIL / CLIFTON PUGH / COTTLES BRIDGE VIC estimate :
$55,000 – 75,000
PROVENANCE Lady Naomi Mitchison, Argyle, Scotland Christie’s, London, 28 November 1991, lot 67 (as ‘The Rape of Europa’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Antipodeans, Victorian Artists’ Society, Melbourne, 4 – 15 August 1959, cat. 57 Recent Australian Painting 1961, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, June – July 1961, cat. 86 (as ‘The Rape of Europa, 1960’) on long-term loan to the Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1971 – 1990 Masterpieces of Modern Australian Art from Private Melbourne Collections, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 28 July – 8 August 1999 The Antipodeans, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 5 November – 7 December 2003, cat. 20, not for sale LITERATURE Pringle, J. D., ‘The Australian painters’, The Observer, London, 4 June 1961 Mullaly, T., ‘Great impact of paintings’, The Daily Telegraph, London, 6 June 1961 Carritt, D., ‘The world of art’, Evening Standard, London, 7 June 1961 Strauss, M., ‘Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions: London’, Burlington Magazine, London, no. 700, vol. 103, July 1961, p. 327 Macainsh, N., Clifton Pugh, Australian Art Monographs, Melbourne, 1962, pl. 29, p. 15 (illus.) Allen, T., Clifton Pugh: Patterns of a Lifetime, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1981, pl. 17, p. 56 (illus.)
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In August 1959, a group of seven Australian artists and one art historian gathered to create an exhibition and manifesto in support of the figurative image in painting. Calling themselves The Antipodeans, their activities instigated a turbulent time of argument and counter argument to such a degree that the sheer quality of the artworks exhibited tends to get obscured. One of the show-stoppers was Clifton Pugh’s The Rape of Europa, 1959 a powerful tour de force that neatly underpins a key passage within Bernard Smith’s manifesto which references ‘the great black bull of Lascaux … an old beast and a powerful one, who has watched over the arts and many mythologies.’1 The idea of artists articulating Australia’s own mythologies as a route to national self-identity was of great importance to members of the group and in this painting, Pugh has performed a particularly antipodean inversion by featuring an ancient European story placed squarely within an unmistakably Australian landscape. ‘Nature, red tooth and claw’ is how the artist-critic James Gleeson memorably described Pugh’s paintings, 2 and Pugh was the first to admit that his ‘skeletal’ imagery was informed by his psychological struggle to come to terms with the savage battles he experienced in New Guinea during World War Two. Felled by malaria and blackwater fever, Pugh turned to art during his convalescence discovering ‘the power of art as … a cathartic portrayal and surmounting of those elemental powers of life and death that he had experienced in such overwhelming confusion during the war.’ 3 In 1951 he moved to the scrubby natural haven of Cottles Bridge, on the fringes of Melbourne’s north and built a rambling mud-brick house named ‘Dunmoochin.’ Pugh revelled in his new home recognising that ‘Australia isn’t soft, like Europe. It’s hard, dry, yet with a wonderfully delicate balance.’4 continued page 82...
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In the Greek myth, Europa was the daughter of the King of Phoenicia. Unfortunately, the supreme god Zeus became enamored with her. Taking the form of a bull, his ‘gentle yet majestic’ attitude attracted Europa, and Zeus ‘very gallantly knelt before her’ before suddenly rearing to his feet and abducting her. 5 In Europa and the Bull, Pugh chose to depict the very moment of deception. Europa stretches her whole body in supplication as the animal – massive, rounded and boulderlike – consumes the space around her. Pugh’s painterly technique is fascinating to explore with a background composed of ripples, splatters, and agitated brushmarks, an expressive abstraction in its own right. Fragile flowers and grasses around the base of the bull’s torso highlight Pugh’s notion of ‘delicate balance’, contrasting the suppressed violence within the animal’s enigmatic gaze. Subsequent to The Antipodeans, Europa and the Bull was included in the historically important exhibition Recent Australian Painting at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1961, with The Observer’s critic describing it as ‘one of the strongest pictures’ in the show.6 One co-exhibitor was the young Brett Whiteley and it is tempting to consider the impact this work had for him, as Whiteley’s contemporaneous paintings of gentle Italian landscapes were soon to morph into radically sinuous portrayals of his wife and muse Wendy.
Another who was impressed was the remarkable Naomi Haldane (1897 – 1999), a prolific writer who purchased the work before loaning it for an extended period to the Scottish National Gallery. Married to the barrister, G .R. (Dick) Mitchison MP (later Lord Mitchison), she became a tireless political operative and her myriad friends included artists such as Wyndham Lewis who painted a portrait of her in 1938. On an intimate level, she was described as dressing ‘like a woman of ancient Greece. … Her sandals could be regarded equally as emblems of classical Greece or between-the-wars socialism.’ 7 It is little wonder then that Europa and the Bull attracted the eye of this marvellously independent woman, and through her generosity, she ensured that Clifton Pugh’s work became well known to visitors at Scotland’s premier gallery where this painting’s brooding intensity would have challenged many of the artworks that surrounded it. 1. Smith, B, ‘The Antipodean Manifesto’, The Antipodeans (catalogue essay), Victorian Artists’ Society, Melbourne, August 1959 2. Gleeson, J., Modern Painters 1931-1970, Lansdowne, Sydney, 1971, p. 96 3. Macainsh, N., Clifton Pugh, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1962, p. 2 4. Hetherington, J., ‘Clifton Pugh: an ideal in five acres of bushland’, Age, Melbourne, 9 December 1961, p. 18 5. Graves, R., and others, Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Batchwork Press, London, 1959, pp. 110 – 111 6. Pringle, J. D., ‘The Australian painters’, The Observer, London, 4 June 1961 7. Longford, E., ‘Obituary: Naomi Mitchison’, The Independent, London, 13 January 1999, accessed online: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-naomimitchison-1046691.html
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CLIFF AND MARLENE PUGH, 1964 photograph by Sue Ford © Estate of Sue Ford, licensed by VISCOPY
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CHARLES BLACKMAN AT HOME IN WOOLLAHRA, 1966 photograph by Robert McFarlane © Robert McFarlane. Courtesy of Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney
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CHARLES BLACKMAN 23 born 1928 GIRL WITH FLOWERS, c.1958 oil on composition board 122.0 x 91.0 cm signed upper left: BLACKMAN bears Australian Galleries cat. verso: AG413 estimate :
$100,000 – 140,000
PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne Sam and Tess Rose, acquired from the above in May 1963 Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from Tess Lang (formerly Rose) in 1995 EXHIBITED possibly: Second Anniversary Exhibition, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, June 1958
A delightful charmer, Blackman always pulled himself together for major occasions and spoke at three openings at my Melbourne and Sydney galleries, most notably launching our landmark exhibition The Antipodeans in 2003. Gould Galleries held three solo Blackman exhibitions. The gallery was instrumental in the location and loans for Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in 2006 and Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, currently viewing at Heide Museum of Modern Art. ROB GOULD
Although Charles Blackman received strong critical notice for his now-famed Alice in Wonderland paintings, it was his subsequent series of young girls and flowers that truly found him popular acclaim. First exhibited in early 1958 at the Terry Clune Galleries in Sydney (where purchasers included the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), Blackman then showed a small group at the Australian Galleries, Melbourne in June before an augmented selection travelled to Brisbane as one of the first exhibitions mounted in Brian Johnstone’s new gallery building in Bowen Hills. The financial success of this show was a major boon for the artist and particularly for his Queensland-born wife Barbara, for she was the inspirational muse for the whole series. In Girl with Flowers, c.1958 the young woman’s eyes are shrouded in deep shadow and stare beyond the picture frame in a thoughtful yet ‘unseeing’ attitude. Barbara, a writer and poet, was already legally blind when she married Blackman in 1952, a condition which worsened considerably over the next decade to the point that these paintings were amongst the last she was able to truly perceive using her eyes alone. By 1958, the artist was working at Georges and Mirka Mora’s Bistro Balzac and had also come within the orbit of the art patrons John and Sunday Reed, who were instrumental in getting one of Blackman’s ‘Alice’ paintings accepted for the Collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris that same year, a spectacular achievement for any Australian artist. Similar connections also led to his invitation to join the group of artists who exhibited under the banner of The Antipodeans the following year. After the Sydney exhibition with Terry Clune, the Blackmans returned to Queensland staying with friends near the luxuriant flower farms surrounding Mount Tambourine. Given Barbara’s condition, Blackman focussed his painterly attention to the senses that now gained greater importance in her perception of the world around her, those of touch and smell. Such intimate scrutiny is particularly evident in Girl with Flowers, a ‘world of trance and dream – of things sensed rather than seen.’1 As Blackman would later comment on the series, ‘what emerged was that in relation to (flowers) human beings start to do certain kinds of things … that is, the flowers evoked the people, in a certain kind of gentility, or substance, or reverence, or sensitivity.’ 2 In Girl with Flowers, Barbara sits within an atmospheric blue background devoid of any subject beyond its brushwork, and all attention inevitably focuses on her eye, distinctive nose and the vivid yellow-green flowers she clutches in her hand. The critic Gertrude Langer also noted this effect: ‘Bathed in a light that has its source in the luminous colours, these inward gazing faces full of a gentle sadness, these flowers, which often seem like souls of flowers, have a stringent poetry that lingers in the mind.’ 3 1. ‘The Antipodeans’, Modern Art News (Contemporary Art Society broadsheet), Melbourne, vol.1, no.1, August 1959, p. 9 2. Shapcott, T., Focus on Charles Blackman, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1967, p. 36 3. Langer, G. Courier Mail, Brisbane, 18 November 1958
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ALBERT TUCKER, MELBOURNE, 1961 photographer unknown courtesy of the Art Gallery of New South Wales archive
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ALBERT TUCKER 24 (1914 – 1999) INTRUDER AND PARROTS, 1964 – 68 synthetic polymer paint on composition board 122.0 x 152.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Tucker 64 – 68 bears inscription verso: “INTRUDER ATTACKED / BY PARROTS” / ALBERT TUCKER bears inscription verso: FROM / AUSTRALIAN GALLERIES / MELBOURNE / TO / CLUNE GALLERIES / SYDNEY estimate :
$600,000 – 800,000
PROVENANCE Dominion Art Galleries, Sydney Australian Galleries, Melbourne Fibremakers Pty Ltd, Melbourne Australian Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1982 EXHIBITED Albert Tucker, Dominion Art Galleries, Sydney, 6 April 1965, cat. 7 Survey 68, White Studio Exhibition Gallery, Beaumont, South Australia, 11 August 1968, cat. 40 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Intruder attacked by Parrots’) LITERATURE Art and Australia, Sydney, vol. 3, no. 1, Winter 1965, p. 72 (illus., as the work appeared in 1964) probably: Uhl, C., Albert Tucker, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, cat. 18.27, p. 105 (as ‘Explorer and Parrots’) Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 173 (illus.)
I first met Albert Tucker in about 1983 when I purchased one of his major paintings, Intruder and Parrots 1964-68 and we immediately hit it off. He was a great orator with a never-ending, fascinating repertoire on the history of the Melbourne art scene… from his perspective. We attended many art events together and I was delighted when he agreed to open my first John Perceval exhibition in 1988. Gould Galleries included his paintings in numerous significant exhibitions, notably The Angry Penguins: Boyd, Nolan, Perceval, Tucker in 1997. ROB GOULD
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Albert Tucker left Australia bound for London in late 1947 and spent the next thirteen years living and working in Europe and America. Exposed to the art, history and rich culture of Paris, Rome, New York and other great cities during these years, he absorbed all they had to offer, experimented with technique and a diverse range of themes, synthesising and distilling these influences to develop his own distinctive style. For Tucker art was a vocation, and he held strongly to the belief ‘that to create easy and saleable art was merely an acquired skill, [but] to create challenging and culturally important art was the true purpose of the artist.’1 It was this uncompromising vision and Tucker’s determination to make art of substance that sustained and motivated him and which, toward the end of the 1950s, saw him achieve the acknowledgement he had long sought. A significant turning point occurred in 1958 when Alfred Barr, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, saw examples of Tucker’s recent paintings in the stockroom of Poindexter Gallery on his regular weekend rounds of the city’s commercial galleries. Impressed by the strength and originality of what he saw, Barr recommended a purchase to the museum’s Board and the subsequent acquisition of Lunar Landscape, 1957 placed Tucker’s work in the company of the best twentieth century artists in what was arguably the most significant collection of modern art in the world. Although his practice was yet to be acknowledged in this way by any major gallery in Australia, this critical recognition of his art gave Tucker the confidence to persist and pursue his current direction. Success continued, and in the same year Tucker won the Australian Women’s Weekly art competition, famously receiving the news that he had been awarded the 1000 pound prize at a time when he had only a few dollars left in his pocket. 2 A commercial exhibition in New York in 1960 resulted in the purchase of a second painting by MOMA and another being acquired for the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. continued page 92...
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Tucker returned to Australia in 1960 to participate in a major survey exhibition of his art of the past five years that was being organised by John Reed and the Museum of Modern Art of Australia. The exhibition was well funded and unusually for the time toured to every state (where it was shown in commercial galleries), as well as to regional galleries in Newcastle, Launceston and Mildura. John Reed wrote in the exhibition catalogue that ‘many artists, including Albert Tucker, have felt obliged to leave Australia because of lack of recognition, so it is with special pleasure that we welcome him back as our distinguished guest. Albert Tucker’s international reputation precedes him on this visit; but we can now for the first time see the paintings on which this reputation has been established.’ 3 Tucker had returned to Australia after his recent success in New York with his head held high and this exhibition brought due acknowledgment of his work in his own country, with paintings being purchased by private collectors and public galleries including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney as well as a feature article being published in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. For some years Tucker’s imagery had increasingly focussed on Australian themes, subjects drawn from the country’s unique history – convicts, bushrangers, explorers – and others based on its distinctive landscape. The theme of the figure in the landscape had first become evident in the Ned Kelly series of the mid-1950s and by the time Tucker began painting his iconic antipodean heads towards the end of the decade, the figure had transformed and become the landscape. ‘I’d been away long enough to be suffering acute bouts of nostalgia and I was getting all these memory images of Australia – and oddly enough not so much specific imagery, but in images of texture and colour and light and all that kind of thing that’s very Australian, very rough textures.’4 His longstanding friendship with fellow artist Sidney Nolan, whose work had consistently addressed such themes with considerable critical and commercial success, must have influenced this development but so too did something more fundamental. Over time Tucker recognised that although he was living in sophisticated cultures with firsthand access to masterpieces of the Western art tradition, he was always at one remove from his surroundings. Despite the philistinism and stunted appreciation of true art and creativity that Tucker perceived in Australia, in this country he was literally at home, part of a community (no matter how much of an outsider he may have felt) and possessed an innate understanding of his environment. It took at least a decade of being away from the country of his birth for Tucker to come to terms with this and see Australia in a positive light and as a place that could both inspire and sustain a serious career. In 1961 the sales of paintings from his touring exhibition enabled Tucker to buy five acres of bush in Hurstbridge, a still largely rural area about one hour’s drive north-east of Melbourne. Tucker lived in a simple cottage on the block while building a prefabricated house with a studio
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on the second floor that looked out into the canopy of eucalypts and the vividly coloured rosellas that lived in them. This environment had a profound effect on his imagery – Tucker later recalled ‘the Australian bush was very powerful and almost a shock after not seeing it for so many years. It gripped my imagination, being so full of wonderful colours and wildlife – I’d forgotten the freedom you have in it.’ 5 Tucker’s absolute confidence and utterly bold approach to picturemaking is on clear display in Intruder and parrots, 1964 – 68, a major painting of the period that summarises many of his key concerns. In visual terms, colour is the dominant feature. In the background a brilliant yellow and orange glow emanates from the setting sun, transformed via broad brushstrokes into the colours of dusk towards the top of the painting. The parrots are also vividly coloured, but it is their attitude of aggression towards the figure in the painting that is more significant. Explorers are often beset by parrots in Tucker’s work, a symbolic representation of their lack of familiarity with the environment that conveys something of the European settlers’ struggle against an alien landscape. In this picture however, the figure has become an intruder – horned, fearsome, devoid of colour and carrying a rifle – whose trespassing into territory where he doesn’t belong prompts the birds’ decisive response. With Tucker’s newfound appreciation of the Australian bush came an increasing awareness of the vulnerability of the natural environment, especially areas on the fringe of the city and the suburbs that were the focus of developers. Over time this awareness developed into activism, and in the 1970s Tucker bought land in the Queensland rainforest and other parts of the country in order to protect it and the rich habitat it provided from inappropriate development. In this light, Intruder and Parrots can be read as a powerful statement about the natural world and the need to protect and preserve it. A comparison of the present painting with a reproduction of the same work in Art and Australia reveals that Tucker reworked it after 1964, adding more foliage to the trees and filling in the intruder’s previously hollow eyes. It is tempting to interpret these changes as a toughening of Tucker’s stance on the environmental cause during the intervening years, the modifications adding to the beauty of the natural world as depicted in the painting and emphasising the ominous presence and potential of the intruder. 1. Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 212 2. See ibid., p. 159 3. ibid., p. 189 4. Harding, L., Hinterlands: Albert Tucker’s Landscape (exhibition catalogue), Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2008, p. 31 5. ibid.
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
ALBERT TUCKER, ARTHUR BOYD AND SIDNEY NOLAN, HURSTBRIDGE, VICTORIA, 1968 photograph by Barbara Tucker gelatin silver photograph National Library of Australia, PIC/3161/26 © The Estate of Barbara Tucker Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia
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ALBERT TUCKER 25 (1914 – 1999) WOUNDED MAN, 1958 synthetic polymer paint and cement on composition board 91.5 x 122.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Tucker ‘58 bears inscription with title verso: WOUNDED MAN / 200 gns / ALBERT TUCKER / 4 CRAVEN HILL / LONDON W2 estimate :
$90,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Mr Moses Lasky, Los Angeles, USA Clars Auction Gallery, Oakland, USA, 5 March 2005, lot 6395 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2006, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 8 February – 26 March 2006, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Uhl, C., Albert Tucker, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, cat. 10.49, p. 101 (as ‘Forsaken Man’) ‘Art in a Sunburnt Country’, Morning Herald, Sydney, 21 May 2003 Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 136 (illus.)
‘I met Alberto Burri in 1953 – 54 because he lived not far from me. He spoke English quite well. When I went around [to] his studio … I noticed he had a whole stack of tins – blue tins – of stuff called Vinivyl … He said “It’s marvellous stuff” … He showed me big built up masses of it which had dried right out. I tested it and you could mortar to an inch thick and if there was a big enough sheet of it, it could still bend, it had this flexibility and leathery toughness to it’.1 One of the most significant meetings of Albert Tucker’s thirteen-year sojourn in Europe was with the Italian artist, Alberto Burri (1915 – 1995), renowned for producing abstract images that blurred the boundaries between painting and relief sculpture. This introduction to polyvinyl acetate (PVA) as a new medium for his work enabled Tucker to build up texture without having to use vast amounts of valuable paint 2 and heralded the beginning of his production of paintings in which the scraped, scratched, gouged and sometimes even sculpted surfaces make a vital contribution to the expression of their meaning.
Tucker discovered that PVA could be mixed with almost anything – sand, dirt, sawdust and feathers – and for Wounded Man, 1958 he used Portland Cement combined with pigment. The surface of the painting is heavily textured, scored with a variety of expressive marks that Tucker uses to define pictorial elements such as the anguished facial features of the figure, and to create a rich overall patina reminiscent of dry, cracked earth – something that reminded him of Australia. Wounded Man is an austere and essentially abstract picture that uses a simple combination of geometric forms to depict a human figure, his head looking upwards, arms raised and a dramatic open wound in his side. The crescent-shaped head is a distinctive motif within Tucker’s oeuvre that can be traced back to sources as diverse as Picasso and Etruscan sculpture, as well as to the lips of prostitutes in his Images of Modern Evil series. Living in Italy during the early 1950s, Tucker was struck by what he described as the ‘atmosphere of Christian tragedy in every museum, every church, every public building … mutilations and blood and human agony and despair … that the medieval and Renaissance artists would paint with such lavish and loving detail and care’. 3 Wounded Man clearly shows this influence, recalling depictions of Christ on the cross and the martyred Saint Sebastian, subjects in which Tucker found a natural affinity as someone with an inclination towards themes that confront the dark side of human nature and experience. While the iconography of Wounded man is more closely related to Tucker’s religious subjects of the earlier 1950s, its technique prefigures the so-called ‘antipodean heads’ that he began painting at this time and for which he became well-known following his return to Australia in 1960. It was in these images that Tucker so vividly expressed one of the central themes of his oeuvre, the fusion of man and his environment and the inevitable tensions within such a relationship. 1. Tucker, A., to Mollison, J., quoted in Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 136 2. See Fry, ibid. 3. Uhl, C., Albert Tucker, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, p, 52
KIRSTY GRANT FORMER DIRECTOR OF HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, FORMER SENIOR CURATOR, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
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JOHN OLSEN 26 born 1928 MALLEE ROAD TO NHILL I, 1981 oil on canvas 152.0 x 136.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John Olsen 81 inscribed with title verso: Mallee Road to Nhill 1 estimate :
$120,000 – 160,000
PROVENANCE BOC Limited, Sydney Menzies, Melbourne, 24 September 2015, lot 51 Gould collection, Melbourne
John Olsen’s Mallee Road to Nhill I, 1981 is an evocation which distills the essence of a traveller’s experience through Victoria’s Wimmera region. With the endless tarmac of the Western Highway leading the eye and the arabesque twists of the Wimmera River chiming in, the bustling township of Nhill beckons ‘with a silo like a cathedral dominating the town.’1 Although he had painted the region earlier in the late 1960s, Olsen was now having a far more immersive experience having recently relocated to Clarendon, ‘a small hamlet … in the cleavage of two hills’, 2 a short drive out of Adelaide. Here, he set up his new studio in the main street in the historic Institute Building dating from 1853. This relocation also triggered regular air travel between his new home and the eastern state capitals of Sydney and Melbourne, meaning the artist experienced elevated views of this landscape, an aspect which further informed his painterly renditions.
In Mallee Road to Nhill I, Olsen emphasises the sparseness of the surrounding land with its innumerable acres of wheat crops ripening in the sun. Low rising scrub appears intermittently as does the occasional fauna, such as the kangaroo on the bottom edge. Olsen’s diary reveals that in early October of 1981, he was spending days ‘drawing, puddling with ink and gouache. I’ve come to love working with a brush, sloppy thick and thin marks, sometimes changing the pace of it with crisp hairy marks.’ 3 Interestingly, he was also reading correspondence by Sidney Nolan dating from that artist’s own time based in Nhill and nearby Dimboola in the Second World War. During this period, Nolan painted the influential painting Kiata, 1943 which depicts the Western Highway running through this nearby town, not flat as would be expected, but sharply inclined instead, rising up into the horizon. With this one masterly tactic, Nolan revitalised Australia’s landscape painting tradition and Olsen was acutely aware of its significance, going as far as to transcribe text from one of Nolan’s Dimboola letters to Joy Hester, describing ‘the pure mornings here with big gum trees and green parrots flying up from burnt grass… something clean and brittle.’4 Olsen’s diary also records that he was painting three inter-related Mallee paintings that week ‘one with gooky emus staring, which I am not absolutely certain of, two of a single road straight as straight can be, going into a wheat town called appropriately Nhill.’ 5 The combination of Olsen’s reading, bravura technique and deep philosophical connection to land all come to the fore in Mallee Road to Nhill I. It is a painting which also marks a distinct break from his extended series on Lake Eyre which determined much of the previous decade’s output; but does not discount this period either. Instead, Olsen distilled this outback experience, one infused with the Zen Buddhist ideology of ‘everything and nothingness,’ and in Mallee Road to Nhill I delivered a breakthrough painterly image, one that evokes the artist’s personalised, macro-micro understanding of the pulsating expanses of the Wimmera. 1. Olsen, J., diary entry 9 October 1981, in: Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997, p. 157 2. Ward, P., ‘The Un-greening of John Olsen’, Weekend Australian, Sydney, 31 July 1982 3. Olsen. J., diary entry 3 October 1981, in: Olsen, op cit., p. 156 4. Nolan, S., letter to Hester, J., 1943, cited in: Olsen, ibid., p. 156 5. Olsen, J., diary entry 9 October 1981, in: Olsen, ibid., p. 157
ANDREW GAYNOR
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JOHN BRACK 27 (1920 – 1999) MOUNTING, 1956 etching and drypoint 27.0 x 14.5 cm (plate); 37.0 x 26.5 cm (sheet) edition: 11/16 signed, dated and numbered below image: 11/16 John Brack 56 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 18 November 1997, lot G128 (as ‘Mounting Up’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED John Brack: The Race Course Series, Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, 5 – 15 November 1956, cat. 22 (another example) John Brack: The Sport of Kings and Other Paintings, The Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 27 March – 8 April 1957, cat. 24 (another example) John Brack: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 December 1987 – 31 January 1988, cat. 144 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, another example) Twentieth Century Australian Art: A Major Collectors’ Exhibition, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 25 March – 30 April 2000, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 13 May – 11 June 2000, cat. 17 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) John Brack, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 24 April – 9 August 2009, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2 October 2009 – 26 January 2010 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 54, another example) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 10 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Langer, G., ‘Painter portrays city life’, Courier Mail, Brisbane, 25 March 1957, p. 2 Millar, R., John Brack, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1971, p. 106 Lindsay, R., John Brack, A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, pp. 90, 103 (illus.), 142 Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, cat. p50, vol. I: p. 188, vol. II: p. 200 (illus.) estimate :
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$14,000 – 18,000
RELATED WORK Other examples of this print are in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
JOHN BRACK 28 (1920 – 1999) THE DRAWING TABLE, 1970 conté on paper 71.0 x 38.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John Brack 70 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Melbourne Helen Brack, Melbourne Eastgate & Holst, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in August 2013 EXHIBITED John Brack: Drawings and Paintings of the Nude, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 1 – 28 April 1971, cat. 25 (dated as 1971) John Brack: Conte Drawings of the Nude, Crossley Gallery, Melbourne, July 1972 John Brack: Drawings, Etchings, Lithographs, Eastgate & Holst, Melbourne, 10 – 30 August 2013, cat. 11 The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 16 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Lindsay, R., John Brack, A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 126 Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, cat. p153, p. 58 estimate :
$20,000 – 25,000
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JAKE AND DINOS CHAPMAN 29 born 1966 and 1962, British UNTITLED (SKULL PANEL), 2003 fiberglass and resin relief panel 120.0 x 243.5 cm accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Jake and Dinos Chapman, London, 4 July 2006 estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, London, acquired directly from the artists Sotheby’s, London, 19 June 2006, lot 688 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED COLLECTABLE + EXCEPTIONAL: The Director’s Choice 2007, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 17 February – 20 March 2007, cat. 21 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) RELATED WORK Skull Wall Panel (Triumph), 1999, mixed media, 240.0 x 243.5 cm, private collection, illus. online catalogue, www.jakeanddinoschapman. com/works/skull-wall-triumph/ This work has been requested for inclusion in the exhibition Romancing the Skull, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria, 13 October 2017 – 28 January 2018
Provocative enfants terribles of the Young British Artist (YBA) movement, brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman have such a fixation with death that they even fashioned their logo from the skull-and-crossbones icon of the pirate ships of times past. However, for all their revelling in the most macabre constructions of their imagination(s), the Chapman Brothers create artworks that encourage us to give into our unregulated urges to laugh at unpalatable visions and situations, and, more seriously, to consider both the fleeting nature of human life and the atrocities that we alone are capable of. Closely related to the upper panel of a large earlier work, titled Skull Wall Panel (Triumph), 1999, the work on offer, Untitled (Skull Panel), 2003, is a relief in fiberglass and resin coated with a varnish to resemble rich soil. Although not immediately evident, the surface of this large panel is riddled with floating human or ape-like skulls surging out of its taut surface. These forms are uncovered by the viewer, like an unexpected archaeological unearthing, a macabre discovery of a mass burial. The skulls, in their arrangement and expressions, also seem to display their own desire to escape the confines of their fiberglass encasing. The Chapman Brothers illustrate a sublime tension between material and object, a battle between forces that has inspired sculptors and philosophers for millennia. In this respect, the sculpture draws from other classical works such as the lintel of French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s Gates of Hell, 1883, which features a frieze of heads and skulls in partial relief from their bronze panel. Created in 2003, the year the Chapman Brothers were nominated for the respected British Turner Prize, Untitled (Skull Panel) is a unique work within the brothers’ practice. Uncharacteristically subtle, this work is more meditative than others in their oeuvre, featuring little of the Chapmans’ black humour undercutting the mastery of their craftsmanship. In contrast, its related work, Skull Wall Panel (Triumph), 1999 has countless pairs of painted googly eyes on each skull, giving the ensemble an unavoidable comical air, the skulls rendered caricatures of death popularised by punk imagery of the early 1990s. Dinos Chapman spoke of the power of this device in the years preceding the creation of the work on offer: ‘the eyes deflate any sense of menace, the whole image deflates itself’.1 Untitled (Skull Panel) is a rare, pure and intact example of the brothers’ artistic impulse, unobscured by humour and gimmicky risqué suggestions. 1. Chapman, D., quoted in In Print: Contemporary British Art from the Paragon Press, exhibition catalogue, Cvijeta Zuzoric Art Pavilion, Belgrade, London, 2001, p. 21
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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© JAKE AND DINOS CHAPMAN. DACS/LICENSED BY VISCOPY, 2017
LUCIAN FREUD 30 (1922 – 2011, British) PORTRAIT HEAD, 2001 etching on Somerset textured white paper 59.5 x 46.5 cm image; 72.5 x 57.0 cm sheet edition: 33/46 signed with initials and numbered below image: 33/46 L.F. proofed and printed by Marc Balakjian at Studio Prints, London published by Matthew Marks Gallery, New York estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2001 EXHIBITED Lucian Freud, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, September 2004, cat. 7 (another example) Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, 16 December 2007 – 10 March 2008, cat. 61 (another example) Lucian Freud: Etchings 1946 – 2004, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2 April – 13 June 2004 and travelling (another example) Lucian Freud: Etchings 1946 – 2005, Marlborough Graphics, London, 23 May – 25 June 2005, cat. 57 (illus., another example in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 28 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Smee, S., Lucian Freud, 1996 – 2005, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005, cat. 44 Figura, S., Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, pl. 61, pp. 92, 138 (illus., another example)
Bruce Bernard, picture editor and lifelong friend of the late Lucian Freud, once wrote that the very medium of copper-plate etching allowed the artist to pursue a softer examination of his female sitters, sparing them the surface scrutiny so closely associated with Freud’s hogshair brushes.1 Freud’s etched portrait heads, in particular, display the artist’s delight in minor imperfections, those appearing in the physique of his sitter as well as the artistic imperfections inherent in engraving and printing procedures. Furthermore, this medium allowed Freud to pursue a more abstract investigation of the human body, absent in his painting since his early Surrealist works of the 1940s. Stripped bare by Freud’s penetrating gaze, the girl in Portrait Head, 2001, seems to be suspended in a melancholy meditative state. Cast in flattering natural light as opposed to the harshly lit studio paintings, the elongated topography and sculptural nature of the sitter’s face is still far from a contrived ideal conception of female beauty. As Bernard mentions, the multiple nervous lines of Freud’s copper-plates create a tightly woven net over the distorted busts of his sitters, marking out rather than outlining their forms. Although Freud came to etching relatively late in his career, it quickly became a constant and integral part of his practice. Following the creation of a handful of etchings in the late 1940s, it took Freud over thirty years to return to the demanding medium. The impetus for doing so came from his biographer Lawrence Gowing, who asked Freud during the early 1980s to create one hundred limited edition prints to accompany a deluxe publication of his monograph, published in 1982. 2 Portrait Head was created many years after this return to the medium. A product of the collaboration with Marc Balakijan (Freud’s professional printer in London from 1986), this copper plate is of a much larger format and is more generously cropped, a strong artwork in its own right. The girl who appears in this portrait remains anonymous to the spectator, presumably to preserve the privacy of her artistic exchange with the painter. She was undoubtedly a regular sitter of Freud’s, and the etched work is a tangible record of a long process of intimate interaction and scrutiny. The American art critic Donald Kuspit writes that a sense of emotional urgency is characteristic of Freud’s etched oeuvre, and indicates an intimacy between artist and model different to that produced by his painted portraits. 3 1. Bernard, B. and Birdsall, D., Lucian Freud, Random House, London, 1996, p. 21 2. Figura, S., Lucian Freud, The Painter’s Etchings, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2008, p. 18 3. Kuspit, D., ‘Lucian Freud. MoMA. Marlborough Graphics’, Artforum, XLVI, no. 7, March 2008, p. 360
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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JOHN BALDESSARI
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born 1931, American NOSES & EARS, ETC.: PROFILE WITH EAR AND NOSE (COLOR), 2006 FROM ‘THE GEMINI SERIES’ colour screenprint collage mounted on foamcore with hand painting 76.0 x 69.0 cm edition: 42/45 signed, dated, and numbered within image: 42/45 BALDESSARI 06 published and printed by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. PROVENANCE Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in June 2007 EXHIBITED John Baldessari – Noses & Ears, Etc., Part Two, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 19 October – 25 November 2006 (another example) John Baldessari Noses & Ears, Etc.: The Gemini Series, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York, 29 March – 12 May 2007, cat. 1 (another example) Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, Art Basel, Switzerland, 11 – 17 June 2007 estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
MARC DE JONG 32 born 1970 INEQUALITY, 2010 oil on canvas 127.0 x 162.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: INEQUALITY / MARCSTA / 2010 PROVENANCE Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist EXHIBITED COLLECTABLE + EXCEPTIONAL: The Director’s Choice 2010, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 6 May – 5 June 2010, cat. 24 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
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$6,000 – 9,000
LITERATURE Morgan, J., ‘Somebody to Talk To’, Tate Etc., xvii, Autumn 2009, pp. 74 – 85 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Other examples of this print are in the collections of The Broad Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A. and of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
EX DE MEDICI 33 born 1959 HELMET’S SKULL, 2005 watercolour on paper 107.0 x 114.0 cm sheet signed and dated verso: eX de Medici/ November 2005 inscribed lower left: TAKEN (something crawled in) / IIII IIII II PROVENANCE Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$20,000 – 25,000
EXHIBITED Who Cares?, Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney, 21 February – 24 March 2006 (exhibition sheet attached verso) The Director’s Choice 2010, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 6 May – 5 June 2010, cat. 20 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE ‘The eX Files’, Art Monthly, Canberra, issue 212, August 2008, p. 32 (illus.)
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WILLIAM ROBINSON 34 born 1936 THE BALL GAME, 1995 hand painted and glazed ceramic 60.0 cm height signed and dated at base: William Robinson / 95 inscribed on base: ERROL BARNES estimate :
106
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne acquired in 1999 Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 24 November 2003, lot 28 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED William Robinson: Wave Pots, in collaboration with Errol Barnes, Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, 28 July – 23 August 1995, cat. 6 The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 25 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
BRETT WHITELEY 35 (1939 – 1992) DEREK SMITH (POTTER) born 1931 MADAM LASH, 1975 ceramic vase 34.0 cm height signed on base: Brett / Whiteley estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2002 EXHIBITED GOULDmodern, GOULDtraditional, GOULDcontemporary, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 22 February – 30 March 2003, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 22 February – 23 March 2003, cat. 36 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
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PROVENANCE Roslyn Moffat, New South Wales Badgery’s Auctioneers, Sydney, 20 May 2007, lot 50 Gould collection, Melbourne
CLEMENT MEADMORE 36 (1929 – 2005) HUNCH, 1971 polyester resin 21.0 x 35.5 x 39.0 cm edition: 52/75 signed, dated, numbered and inscribed with title on base: HUNCH / 52/75 / Meadmore / 1971 estimate :
108
$8,000 – 12,000
EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2009, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 May – 13 June 2009, cat.13 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Gibson, E., The Sculpture of Clement Meadmore, Husdson Hills, New York, 1994, p. 75 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Another example of this work was formerly in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
PROVENANCE Gift from Andrew Klippel to Ann Lewis AO in 2008 Mossgreen, Sydney, 7 November 2011, lot 31 Gould collection, Melbourne
ROBERT KLIPPEL 37 (1920 – 2001) No. 549, 1985 wood assemblage 71.0 cm height signed with initials, dated and numbered on side: RK. 1985. 549. estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 14 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Edwards, D., Robert Klippel: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculptures (CD-ROM), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, No. 549 (illus.)
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LLOYD REES 38 (1895 – 1988) DURAMANA LANDSCAPE, 1977 pencil and watercolour on paper 34.0 x 44.0 cm signed and dated lower left: L REES / 77 inscribed verso: No. 3 Morning Sun […] estimate :
110
$10,000 – 15,000
PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Gouldmodern, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 8 February – 10 March, 2002, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 16 March – 14 April 2002, cat. 26 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
ARTHUR BOYD 39 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN RIVER AT BUNDANON, c.1980 oil on board 21.0 x 14.5 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Geoff K Gray, Sydney, 2 March 1987, lot 82 Private collection, South Australia Christies, Melbourne, 24 November 1999, lot 9 (as ‘Shoalhaven River’) Gould collection, Melbourne
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JOHN OLSEN 40 born 1928 YOUNG MINER, 1985 oil on canvas 91.5 x 76.0 cm signed and dated lower left: John / Olsen ‘85 inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: Young Miner estimate :
$25,000 – 30,000
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Pancontinental Mining Limited, Western Australia LGC Limited, Brisbane Corporate collection, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 21 November 2006, lot 228 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED John Olsen: Gold, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, October 1986, cat. 8 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2007, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 17 February – 30 March 2007, cat. 13 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
Six months after winning the 1985 Wynne Prize for landscape painting, John Olsen found himself in a modern Sydney skyscraper in the middle of 1985 when Pancontinental Mining Limited invited him to travel to outback Western Australia and record the events surrounding the opening of their new Paddington gold mine. Olsen, an inveterate traveller of this country’s harsh interior, accepted the commission whilst noting the contrast of the Chairman’s twentieth storey harbour-side office to his proposed destination, recording wryly in his diary that in spite of this ‘they have a gold mine at Kalgoorlie in the desert; the idea of working there appeals.’1 Following his success with the Wynne it is possible that the company expected solely to receive a suite of landscape paintings but a closer examination of Olsen’s extended practice would have revealed his ongoing skill as chronicler of people, either through individual portraiture or as startling characters who ‘leer out of (his) painting, recalling for a moment the darker side of you beaut country.’ 2 Young Miner, 1985 is a wonderful evocation of this talent, depicting a bare-chested worker still covered in the grime of his occupation. It is as if the dirt has become part of his uniform along with his regulation hard hat, matching Olsen’s observation that ‘(i)t is best to let the fearful red dust become part of your nature. Everything will be touched by it, red grit in your tea, a few days out and the pillows become light red, your hair will be as dry as straw.’ 3 It is important to note that Young Miner is not simply a pictorial record, it is also a psychological penetrative study of a young man growing up quickly in the harsh and masculine world of underground gold mining. His eyes betray deep uncertainty and seem fixed on some unseen dilemma just outside the frame. Olsen magnifies this unease by capturing the miner’s right arm as it reaches briefly to scratch one broad shoulder, disrupting his hitherto defensive stance of solidly crossed arms. As Australians know too well, the mining industry follows regular cycles of bust following boom, and in Olsen’s physic portrait, his subject seems uncertain of his own fate within the Kalgoorlie region, a landscape ‘most abjectly left; the impression is of an industrial cavalry with abandoned rusted machinery, sometimes fallen on its side in a heave of exhaustion.’4 Following the completion of the commission, the resultant eleven paintings and eighteen works on paper were exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney before entering Pancontinental Mining collection. 1. Olsen, J., diary entry 5 June 1985, in: Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997, p. 239 2. McCaughey, P., Australian Abstract Art (National Gallery of Victoria booklets), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1969, p. 8 3. Olsen, J., ‘Gold!’, catalogue essay in: John Olsen: Gold, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986. 4. Olsen, 1985, op. cit.
ANDREW GAYNOR
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ON THE COUCH: MAX HARRIS, JOHN REED, SIDNEY NOLAN AND SUNDAY REED, AT HEIDE, TEMPLESTOWE, 1945 photograph by Albert Tucker gelatin silver photograph National Library of Australia, PIC/6451/2 Gift of Mrs Barbara Tucker under the Cultural Gifts Program, 2008 © The Estate of Barbara Tucker. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia
115
SIDNEY NOLAN 41 (1917 – 1992) GIRL ON HORSE, 1940 enamel paint on canvas 35.5 x 30.5 cm inscribed lower right: 19 dated and inscribed with title verso on stretcher bar: GIRL ON HORSE 1940 / Newcastle No 7 estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan, Hatton Gallery, University of Durham, Newcastle-uponTyne, then touring to: Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; Temple Newsam House, Leeds; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; City Art Gallery, Bristol; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Scottish Royal Academy, Edinburgh; City Art Gallery, Wakefield, 13 May – 28 November 1961, cat. 7 Sidney Nolan: Landscape and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 15 April 2001, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 1 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, cat. 2 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) RELATED WORK Girl on Horse, 1941, enamel on canvas, 54.0 x 48.5 cm, private collection
Sidney Nolan was the most famous Australian painter of the 20th century. Charismatic, well read and born with the gift of the gab (courtesy of an Irish heritage), he mixed freely with people from all walks of life including actors, royalty, arts personalities and academics yet maintained an enduring respect for his own working class origins. After his birth in Carlton, his tram-driver father moved the family to St Kilda when Nolan was two. This beachside suburb is a short distance from Melbourne and already had a raffish reputation as a place of relaxation and amusement, a ‘kitsch heaven’ … where he and his imagination could run wild.’1 Numerous dance halls, pavilions, movie houses and fun parlors dotted the area, all presided over by the grinning face, Moorish spires and scenic railway of Luna Park; and the delightful Girl on Horse, 1940 is an early celebration by Nolan of the area.
At fifteen, he commenced work as a junior learning the trade and techniques of commercial art before enrolling in classes at the National Gallery School, though he famously spent more time reading in the adjacent State Library. He then started producing small abstracts and collages which only attracted critical disdain and little public attention. Desperate to travel overseas, he approached the newspaper magnate Keith Murdoch for financial assistance in February 1938. Murdoch steered him instead to his art specialist Basil Burdett who, in turn, introduced Nolan to John Reed, resulting in of one of the most compelling and creative collaborations in Australian art history. Ten months later Nolan married Elizabeth Paterson, and in 1940 the young couple moved into a rundown tenement studio opposite the Melbourne Museum in Russell Street. Importantly, its walls had been painted a ‘shocking pink’ by a previous tenant 2 and it is tempting to recognise this as the impetus for the numerous candy pink, blue and yellow paintings that tumbled from his brush over the next two years. Girl on Horse is an early member of this series and displays the strong influence of paintings from the 1920s and 30s by Picasso, Leger and Klee with ‘flat planes of bold colour separated by thick black lines.’ 3 Apart from the Russell Street location, Nolan temporarily shared a studio in St Kilda with John Sinclair. In between periods of painting, he spent many enjoyable hours watching horses being exercised in the shallow waters of the bay and this return to his childhood roots also triggered memories of fairgrounds. Significantly, Nolan had used a circus tent motif the previous year in his theatre designs for the ballet Icare presented by Colonel le Basil and Serge Lifar but the tent-like compression seen here in Girl on Horse is also informed by contemporary commercial art which was already ‘including cubistic fractured imagery, non-recessional space, abstracted line pattern and flat, bright colours.’4 Bold and assured (and painted on a preciously rare piece of war-time canvas), Girl on Horse remained in the artist’s possession for many years before passing to Nolan’s long-term English studio assistant John Hull. It is also the antecedent for a slightly larger version exhibited at the Contemporary Art Society, Melbourne, in 1941. 1. Nolan, S., 1977, quoted in: Underhill, N., Sidney Nolan: a life, NewSouth, Sydney, 2015, pp. 26 – 27. 2. See: Clarke, J., Sidney Nolan: Landscapes and Legends, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 16 3. Clark, J., op. cit., p. 37 4. Underhill, N., op. cit., p. 42
ANDREW GAYNOR
116
117
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SIDNEY NOLAN ON THE BALCONY, CANBERRA, c.1963 photographer unknown Australian National University Archives, courtesy of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre
119
SIDNEY NOLAN 42
(1917 – 1992) LANDSCAPE, 1969 oil on composition board 91.5. x 91.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Nolan. / 6 Oct 69 signed and inscribed with title verso: Nolan / Landscape bears inscription verso: Geoff Ryan / original / Dec 99 bears inscription verso: Public Flow Space. estimate :
$40,000 – 50,000
PROVENANCE Tony Reichardt, London Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 4 November 1987, lot 1163 Private collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 4 May 2004, lot 44 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED possibly: Sidney Nolan: Recent paintings, Skinner Galleries, Perth, 3 February 1970, cats 2, 4, or 5 (‘Landscape 1969’) Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, cat. 30 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
In 1964, the artist Fred Williams was given the task of cleaning Sidney Nolan’s celebrated ‘Ned Kelly’ series of paintings before their first exhibition overseas. Williams is on record as saying that he had never truly appreciated Nolan’s skill in depicting the Australian landscape until he studied the backgrounds in these figure-dominated scenes. From his earliest days in the Wimmera, where his use of sharply titled horizons heralded a completely new way of conveying the endless space of rural Australia, Nolan’s deft touch delivered a startling array of views of his homeland over his extensive career. Landscape, 1969 is from a small body of works painted after his completion of such landmark paintings as the multi-panelled River Bend, 1964 – 65 and Desert Storm, 1966 – 67. Following the mud and rain streaked approach of the former, and the scraped, turbulent vistas of the latter, Landscape, 1969 comes as an almost gentle relief, a heated outback scene but one tinged with gentle blushes of purple-crimson and viridian green. It is a reminder that Australia’s otherwise harsh inland often reveals unexpected surprises such as waterholes at the base of rugged, iron-rich scarps or Spring-time fields of wildflowers extending to the horizon. Two years prior, Nolan had briefly returned to Australia as a result of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney mounting his first-ever Australian Retrospective (a prior one had been held in 1957 at London’s influential Whitechapel Gallery). Such was the positive public and critical reception to the Sydney exhibition that Nolan decided to return the next year for an extended stay. Notably, he commenced this sojourn in Western Australia with an exhibition at the Skinner Galleries as part of that year’s Festival of Perth. Rose Skinner had been the artist’s major champion in that city ever since she had held his first exhibition there in 1962, a sell-out display of Leda and Swan where she had used her considerable influence to have HRH Duke of Edinburgh open the exhibition whilst he was there for the Commonwealth Games. Nolan often painted works in serial form, contemplating ideas and imagery for some time before unleashing his vision in torrents of energy during sustained stints in the studio; and this particular Landscape is almost certainly one of three at this size shown by Skinner Galleries in the artist’s subsequent exhibition there in 1970, alongside another group of smaller scale works with the same title.1 As the catalogue essay’s author Patrick Hutchings noted ‘(p)aint becomes the presence of sand, stone outcrop and scrub. Not the scale simply, but the texture, the light and the haunting space.’ 2 The benefits of Nolan’s, by now, thirty-year career are fully evident in Landscape which is distinguished by the vigorous passage of turps-laden oil paint which mimics the translucence and possibility he originally encountered through his use of liquid polyvinyl acetate in the late 1950s. Painted wet-on-wet, Nolan alternates between sweeping strokes in the sky to short, sharp stabs in the foreground, exclamations of artistic intent as he marks his creative journey. 1. The exhibition also included Desert Storm, 1966 – 67 which was immediately purchased by the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth. 2. Hutchings, P. A., ‘Introduction’, Sidney Nolan: recent paintings, Skinner Galleries, Perth, 1970
ANDREW GAYNOR
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JOY HESTER 43 (1920 – 1960) WOMAN IN THE SHOWER, c.1945 brush and ink on paper 49.5 x 40.0 cm sight signed lower right with estate stamp PROVENANCE Sweeney Reed, Melbourne Thence by descent The Reed Family Collection, Victoria Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Joy Hester: Works from the Reed Family Collection, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 27 April – 22 May 2005, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 1 – 26 June 2005, cat. 21 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
$6,000 – 9,000
JOY HESTER 44 (1920 – 1960) HOUSE, c.1944 – 45 brush and ink on paper 32.0 x 49.0 cm sight signed lower right with estate stamp PROVENANCE Sweeney Reed, Melbourne Thence by descent The Reed Family Collection, Victoria Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Joy Hester: Works from the Reed Family Collection, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 27 April – 22 May 2005, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 1 – 26 June 2005, cat. 24 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
122
$1,500 – 2,500
CHARLES BLACKMAN 45 born 1928 THE CROSSING, 1951 enamel paint on composition board 50.5 x 76.0 cm signed lower left: BLACKMAN estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1996 EXHIBITED Charles Blackman: The Early Years 1951 – 1974, Gould Galleries, Sydney, 18 February – 28 March 2004, cat. 2 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
123
DANILA VASSILIEFF 46 (1897 – 1958) TWO WOMEN, 1955 oil on composition board 55.5 x 31.5 cm signed lower left: Vassilieff bears inscription verso: SR188 PROVENANCE Sweeney Reed, Melbourne Thence by descent The Reed Family Collection, Victoria Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Forgotten Treasures, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 7 June – 17 July 1994 Moments of Mind: The Sweeney Reed Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 25 January – 6 July 2003 Danila Vassilieff: Works from the Reed Family Collection, Gould Galleries, Sydney, 4 – 29 May 2005, and Gould Galleries, Melbourne 8 June – 3 July 2005, cat. 7 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Moore, F. St. J., Vassilieff and His Art, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2012, cat. 416, p. 211 estimate :
$8,000 – 12,000
DANILA VASSILIEFF 47 (1897 – 1958) DANCING WOMEN gouache on paper 29.0 x 39.5 cm bears inscription verso: U (P) 85 / No 2 PROVENANCE Barbara Tucker, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Moore, F. St. J., Vassilieff and His Art, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2012, p. 212 (illus.) estimate :
124
$2,000 – 3,000
DANILA VASSILIEFF 48 (1897 – 1958) SWAN HILL, 1956 oil on canvas 58.0 x 70.0 cm signed upper left: Vassilieff inscribed with title on label verso: SWAN HILL bears inscription verso: SR73 PROVENANCE Sweeney Reed, Melbourne Thence by descent The Reed Family Collection, Victoria Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
EXHIBITED Forgotten Treasures, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 7 June – 17 July 1994 Moments of Mind: The Sweeney Reed Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 25 January – 6 July 2003 Danila Vassilieff: Works from the Reed Family Collection, Gould Galleries, Sydney, 4 – 29 May 2005, and Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 8 June – 3 July 2005, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2009, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 May – 13 June 2009, cat. 4 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Moore, F. St. J., Vassilieff and His Art, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2012, cat. 424, pp. 152 (illus.), 211
125
DONALD FRIEND 49 (1915 – 1989) THREE SHY NUDES, BALI ink and watercolour on paper 74.0 x 54.0 cm sight signed and inscribed with title lower right: Three Shy Nudes. / Donald Friend / Bali PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Goodmans Auctioneers, Sydney, 18 November 2002, lot 57 Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$8,000 – 12,000
DONALD FRIEND 50 (1915 – 1989) NUDE STUDIES, BALI watercolour and ink on paper 74.0 x 54.0 cm signed and inscribed with title lower right: Nudes Studies, / Donald Friend, / Bali PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
126
$6,000 – 9,000
DONALD FRIEND 51 (1915 – 1989) THE BARRACKS, 1944 watercolour and ink on paper 34.5 x 40.5 cm sight signed, dated and inscribed with title upper left: Donald 44. / The Barracks. PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Christie’s, Sydney, 23 August 2004, lot 337 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Director’s Choice 2006, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 8 February – 12 March 2006, cat. 4 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
$12,000 – 18,000
SALI HERMAN 52 (1989 – 1993) INTERIOR WITH STILL LIFE, 1960 oil on canvas 60.0 x 51.0 cm signed and dated lower left: S. Herman 60 PROVENANCE Dr Harold Schenberg, Perth Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 May 2002, lot 79 (as ‘Interior with Figure and Cat’) Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$6,000 – 8,000
127
ARTHUR STREETON 53 (1867 – 1943) EVENING, c.1927 oil on canvas 46.0 x 36.0 cm signed lower right: A. STREETON estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 14 November 2000, lot 63 (as ‘Blue Gums’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED possibly: Exhibition of Paintings by Arthur Streeton, Fine Art Society Galleries, Melbourne, 15 – 27 March 1928, cat. 19 Director’s Choice 2005, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 16 February – 13 March 2005, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 18 March – 24 April 2005, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE possibly: Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Melbourne, 1935, cat. 930
The spontaneity with which Arthur Streeton painted the Australian landscape is contagious, drawing the viewer not only into the subject itself, but also enabling a sharing of the artist’s own enthusiastic response. In Evening, 1927, painted near Olinda, this can be felt through the liveliness of the brush strokes, a subtle vigour that translates through the colours and forms into the very being of the painting. The paint almost dances across the picture’s surface, inviting participation in a moment of shared involvement. Poised between day and night and bathed in its gentle atmosphere, the two gums of Evening incline towards silhouette, while the upper branches sparkle with the touches of the light of departing day. When shown in his 1928 solo exhibition at Melbourne’s Fine Art Society Galleries, the critic for The Argus enthused about Streeton’s ability ‘to create an illusion of the golden light of the Australian landscape’.1 Noting the ‘scheme of gold and blue, [as] a favourite one of the artist’, the writer singled out a related painting – ‘Effective painting is displayed in the boldly contrasted mountain study “Sassafras”, in which the rich golden sunlight catches the trees here and there’. It was the writer for The Age, however, who noted a ‘robustness’ in his landscapes, a quality found in Streeton’s overall handling of Evening, and adding to the very grandeur of the gums as they dominate the composition. 2 The gum tree is a signature feature of Streeton’s art. In 1890 it towers elegantly above the young lovers embraced in the twilight of ‘Above us the great blue sky’, or singularly fills the sky in The Selector’s Hut: Whelan on the Log, both works being in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The gum populates the heroic panoramas of gold and blue as in Land of the Golden Fleece, 1926, in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, or, when silhouetted against the blue waters of Sydney Harbour, creates a focal point as in The Harbour from Kurraba (1926 – 27) in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. The motif of woodcutter by the fallen and the lone standing trees, as in Whelan on his log, is revisited in Last of the Messmates listed, together with Evening, among his paintings for 1927 in Streeton’s 1935 catalogue of his works. The contrast between the living and the fallen giant is increased by the sharp angle of their vertical and the horizontal presence. Later paintings, as The Vanishing Forest, 1934 (private collection) and A Mountain Side, 1935 (in the collection of the Westpac Banking Corporation), record Streeton’s ongoing concern about the destruction of the forests of the Dandenong ranges where he lived … of a loved and endangered national symbol. 1. ‘Mr. Streeton’s Landscapes’, The Argus, Melbourne, 15 March 1928, p. 13 2. ‘The Art of Arthur Streeton’, Age, Melbourne, 15 March 1928, p. 11
DAVID THOMAS
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129
JAMES ALFRED TURNER 54 (1850 – 1908) TREE FELLING oil on canvas 31.5 x 47.0 cm signed lower left: J. A. Turner PROVENANCE Mr Warren Anderson, Perth Bonhams, Sydney, 25 June 2010, lot 599 (as ‘Man felling a tree in a wooded landscape’) Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
JAMES ALFRED TURNER 55 (1850 – 1908) ABANDONED HOMESTEAD AND KANGAROOS, c.1899 oil on canvas 30.5 x 61.0 cm signed lower left: J A Turner PROVENANCE Private collection, London Gould Galleries, Melbourne acquired in 1988 Mr Warren Anderson, Perth Bonhams, Sydney, 25 June 2010, lot 600 (as ‘Kangaroos at a Billabong’) Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
130
$15,000 – 20,000
JAMES ALFRED TURNER 56 (1850 – 1908) BREAKING IN THE BRONCO, c.1899 oil on canvas 35.5 x 51.0 cm signed lower left: J A Turner estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Sotheby’s, London, 22 October 1980, lot 178 (as ‘Colonial Experience’) Mr Warren Anderson, Perth Bonhams, Sydney, 25 June 2010, lot 603 (as ‘Colonial Experience’) Gould collection, Melbourne
131
KITTY KANTILLA 57 (c.1928 – 2003) UNTITLED, 2001 ochre on linen 95.0 x 85.0 cm bears inscription on Jilamara Arts and Crafts stamp verso: Artist: Kitty Kantilla / Skin: Fire / Dance: Rain / Catalogue No.: 666-01 estimate :
PROVENANCE Jilamara Arts and Crafts, Melville Island (stamped verso) Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in December 2001 EXHIBITED Kitty Kantilla, Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney, 29 November – 22 December 2001, cat. 11 The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 27 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
$30,000 – 40,000
I will paint until the day I die.1 ‘Kantilla’s poetics of intimacy taught the art world that quality is not contingent upon scale. Her means were few: she needed only dots, lines and ochre colours to create infinite variations of rhythm, balance and beauty, of which no two are exactly alike. Kantilla’s works, like those of early European modernists, do not map space or tell a story, but radically affirm the painted surface and thereby guarantee the autonomy of art. Yet the power and inwardness of Kantilla’s innovative art hinges on its deep resonance with customary ritual. For the viewer, Kantilla’s inescapably modern works are also highly charged with ceremony, with something spiritual and untouchable. Kantilla’s sophisticated form of abstraction eludes explanation in terms of narrative because she strenuously pursued her art from deep within her culture. By painting, Kantilla was also singing and dancing: she sensed and invoked holistically, through a special music of natural ochre and design, the decorated objects, the painted dancers and their kinetic movement, the percussive rhythm and dynamism of ceremony. This was her Tiwiness, her identity: it drove her to make art and was her special form of activism; painting was central to her identity.’ 2 ‘Kitty Kantilla was one of Australia’s most remarkable Indigenous artists, celebrated for her innovation, unique style and mastery of a range of mediums... Kantilla produced an extraordinary body of work from the 1970s until her last days in 2003. In her hands the magic of Tiwi culture was translated into works of international significance.’ 3 1. Kantilla, K., quoted in Ryan, J., ‘Kitty Kantilla’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007 http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/kittykantilla/background.html 2. ibid. 3. ‘KITTY KANTILLA’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007 http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/archives_2007/kitty_kantilla/
132
133
GEORGE TJUNGURRAYI 58
GEORGE TJUNGURRAYI 59 born c.1943 MOON DREAMING AT THE ROCKHOLE, 1998 synthetic polymer paint on linen 105.5 x 27.5 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Papunya Tula Artists cat. GT 980442
PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne (label attached verso) Gould collection, Melbourne
PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne (label attached verso) Gould collection, Melbourne
EXHIBITED George Tjungurrayi: Recent Paintings, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 2 June – 11 July 1998, cat. 19
EXHIBITED George Tjungurrayi: Recent Paintings, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 2 June – 11 July 1998, cat. 20
estimate :
134
born c.1943 TWO ABORIGINAL HEALERS, 1998 synthetic polymer paint on linen 105.5 x 27.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Papunya Tula Artists cat. GT 980443
$3,000 – 5,000
estimate :
$3,000 – 5,000
EXHIBITED Road Paintings: Work from Central Australia, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, 28 June – 27 July 1991, cat. 2 The Director’s Choice 2015, Celebrating 35 Years, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 1 May – 13 June 2015, cat. 21 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
DAVID LARWILL 60 (1956 – 2011) HILL NEAR RAINBOW VALLEY, 1991 oil on canvas 152.0 x 182.5 cm signed lower left: David Larwill bears inscription verso: DAVID LARWILL. CAT 2. / HILL NEAR RAINBOW VALLERY 1991 […] PROVENANCE William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (bears inscription verso) Western Mining Corporation, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 15 March 2004, lot 117 Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
LITERATURE McGregor, K., David Larwill, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, pp. 114, 115 (illus.), 200 Gould Galleries represented David Larwill from 1994 until his untimely death in 2011, holding eight solo exhibitions. Gould Galleries was instrumental in organising the location and loans to numerous exhibitions including David Larwill: Stuff that Matters, Ballarat Art Gallery in 2002, David Larwill: Ten Years On, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2013. David was easy to get along with, his charm, wit and directness were rewardingly disarming. He wore his heart on his sleeve … his sleeve was his canvas. I lost more than just an artist. ROB GOULD
135
JOHN OLSEN 61 born 1928 FROG, 2005 bronze 8.5 cm height edition: 3/20 signed on base: John / Olsen signed and numbered at base: J.O. 3/20 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$6,000 – 8,000
JOHN OLSEN 62 born 1928 FROG, 2005 bronze 9.5 cm height edition: 3/20 signed on base: John / Olsen signed and numbered at base: J.O. 3/20 PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
136
$6,000 – 8,000
LINDE IVIMEY 63 born 1965 VOVO (BUNNY), 2009 steel armature, acrylic resin, dyed cotton, natural and cast chicken, turkey and fish bones, black pearls, garnet 53.0 x 41.0 x 44.0 cm signed with initials on foot: L / I PROVENANCE Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney The Estate of Ms Lillian Hoffman, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Linde Ivimey and McLean Edwards, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, 16 September – 11 October 2009 Leave No Bone Unturned, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 26 May 2012, cat. 16 If Pain Persists: Linde Ivimey Sculpture 2004 – 2012, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 3 November 2012 – 24 March 2013
LITERATURE Martin-Chew, L., Linde Ivimey, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2009, pp. 152, 155 (illus.) estimate :
$12,000 – 16,000
© Courtesy of Linde Ivimey. Linde Ivimey is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Michael Reid Art Dealer, Berlin
LINDE IVIMEY 64 born 1965 ARNO, 2009 steel armature, acrylic resin, dyed cotton, natural and cast chicken and fish bones, 24ct gold and ruby 48.0 x 53.0 x 35.0 cm signed with initials on foot: L / I PROVENANCE The Estate of Lillian Hoffman, Sydney Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Linde Ivimey: Leave No Bone Unturned, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 26 May 2012, cat. 17 The Director’s Choice 2012, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 19 July – 31 August 2012, cat. 30 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
LITERATURE Martin-Chew, L., Linde Ivimey, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2009, pp. 16 (illus.), 22 estimate :
$12,000 – 16,000
© Courtesy of Linde Ivimey. Linde Ivimey is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Michael Reid Art Dealer, Berlin
137
SIDNEY NOLAN 65 (1917 – 1992) FIGURE AND CAMEL, 1962 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower right: Nolan PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Landscape and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 15 April 2001 and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 29 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, cat. 29 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Lynn, E., Myth and Imagery: Sidney Nolan, Macmillan, London, 1967, p. 83 (illus.)
estimate :
$8,000 – 12,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 66 (1917 – 1992) LEDA, 1959 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed centre left: Nolan signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: LEDA / Nolan / 27th December 1959 PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
138
$4,000 – 6,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 67 (1917 – 1992) DESERT LANDSCAPE, 1949 ink and enamel paint on glass 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial and dated lower right: 49. N PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$6,000 – 9,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 68 (1917 – 1992) DESERT PLANTS, 1949 ink and enamel paint on glass 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed with initial lower centre: N PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, United Kingdom Lady Mary Nolan, United Kingdom Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 September 2001, lot 3 Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED possibly: Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1977 (label attached verso, Australian Galleries cat. 9134) estimate :
$6,000 – 9,000
139
SIDNEY NOLAN 69 (1917 – 1992) MINOTAUR, 1956 fabric dye on paper 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial upper right: N signed with initial and dated verso: 30-1-56. / N. inscribed verso: Crete 123 inscribed verso: Cynthia / with love xx / 13-7-56. bears inscription verso: Sidney Nolan estate Cynthia Nolan / […] Signed ’56 / Property Jinx Nolan. PROVENANCE Gift of the artist to his wife, Cynthia Nolan, United Kingdom Jinx Nolan, United States of America Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$3,000 – 5,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 70 (1917 – 1992) ITALIAN CRUCIFIX – VERVE, 1956 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed with initial, dated, and inscribed with title verso: Ischia / 13-7-56 / N PROVENANCE Gift of the artist to his daughter, Jinx Nolan, United States of America Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, cat. 18 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
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$6,000 – 9,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 71 (1917 – 1992) MONKEY AND ACROBAT, 1967 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial lower right: N signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Nolan / 29 July 1967 / Monkey + Actrobat [sic] PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Landscape and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 15 April 2001 and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 38 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
$5,000 – 7,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 72 (1917 – 1992) FLOWER STUDY, 1968 fabric dye on paper 30.0 x 25.0 cm dated verso: Feb 68 / ... inscribed verso: 5 PROVENANCE Private collection, United Kingdom Gould collection, Melbourne estimate :
$2,000 – 4,000
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SIDNEY NOLAN 73 (1917 – 1992) PROMETHEUS: IO AND BABY, 1968 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 30.5 x 25.5 cm dated and inscribed with title verso: Lowell-Prometheus / 8 Feb 68 / Io and baby PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Landscape and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 15 April 2001 and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 41 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, cat. 32 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE Rosenthal, T. G., Sidney Nolan, Thames and Hudson, London, 2002, pp. 263 (illus.), 149 estimate :
$5,000 – 7,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 74 (1917 – 1992) PROMETHEUS, 1968 wax crayon and fabric dye on paper 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower right: Nolan signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Lowell-Prometheus / 6 / 8 Feb 68 / Nolan PROVENANCE John Hull, London Gould collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Sidney Nolan: Landscape and Legends, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 7 March – 15 April 2001, and Gould Galleries, Sydney, 2 May – 3 June 2001, cat. 40 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Sidney Nolan: Myth and Country, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 9 November – 4 December 2005, no. 30 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) estimate :
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$5,000 – 7,000
end of sale
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1. PRIOR TO AUCTION CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Catalogues can be obtained at Deutscher and Hackett offices or by subscription (see the Catalogue Subscription Form at the back of this catalogue or online for more information). PRE-SALE ESTIMATES The price range estimated against each lot reflects the opinion of our art specialists as to the hammer price expected for the lot at auction and is informed by realised prices for comparable works as well as the particularities of each lot including condition, quality, provenance and rarity. While presale estimates are intended as a guide for prospective buyers, lots can be sold outside of these ranges. Pre-sale estimates include GST (if any) on a lot but do not include the buyer’s premium or other charges where applicable.
prospective buyers and sellers guide ALL PARTIES ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE CONDITIONS OF AUCTION AND SALE INCLUDED IN THIS CATALOGUE
RESERVES The reserve is the minimum price including GST (if any) that the vendor will accept for a lot and below which the lot will not normally be sold. PRE-AUCTION VIEWINGS In both Sydney and Melbourne pre-auction viewings are scheduled for several days in advance of each auction. Deutscher and Hackett specialists are available to give obligation free advice at viewings or by appointment and prospective buyers are strongly encouraged to thoroughly examine and request condition reports for potential purchases. Pre-auction viewings are open to the public and are free to attend. SYMBOL KEY ▲ Unless ownership is clearly stated in the provenance, this symbol is used where a lot is offered which Deutscher and Hackett or an affiliate owns in whole or in part. In these instances, Deutscher and Hackett has a direct financial interest in the property or means that Deutscher and Hackett has guaranteed a minimum price. ● Used to indicate lots for sale without a reserve. EXPLANATION OF CATALOGUING PRACTICE AND TERMS All information published in Deutscher and Hackett catalogues represent statements of opinion and should not be relied upon as fact. All dimensions are listed in centimetres, height before width and are approximate. All prices are in Australian dollars. ARTIST’S NAMES All reference to artists make use of common and not full names in accordance with the standards outlined in the National Gallery of Australia reference publication Australian Art: Artist’s working names authority list. For instance, John Brack rather than Cecil John Brack; Roy de Maistre rather than Leroy Leveson Laurent De Maistre; Rosalie Gascoigne rather than Rosalie Norah Gascoigne. Terms used in this catalogue have the meanings ascribed to them below: a. NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work by the artist. b. Attributed to NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, probably a work by the artist, in whole or in part. c. Circle of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work showing the influence and style of the artist and of the artist’s period. d. Studio/Workshop of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work possibly executed under the supervision of the artist. e. School of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work by a follower or student of the artist. f. Manner of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work created in the style, but not necessarily in the period, of the artist. g. After NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a copy of a work by the artist. h. “signed” / “dated” in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has been signed/dated by the artist. i. “bears signature” / “bears date” in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has possibly been signed/dated by someone other than the artist.
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PROVENANCE Where appropriate, Deutscher and Hackett will include the known provenance, or history of ownership of lots. Non disclosure may indicate that prior owners are unknown or that the seller wishes to maintain confidentiality. 2. THE AUCTION Auctions are open to the public and are free to attend. Deutscher and Hackett may exclude any person at any time in its discretion. REGISTRATION Bidders must register to bid prior to the commencement of an auction. Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion. CONDUCT OF AUCTION Lots are offered for sale on a consecutive basis. Deutscher and Hackett will determine the conduct of the auction in its absolute discretion, including the regulation of bidding. Consecutive or responsive bids may be placed by the auctioneer on behalf of the vendor up to the reserve. ABSENTEE OR COMMISSION BIDS AND TELEPHONE BIDS As a courtesy service, Deutscher and Hackett will make reasonable efforts to place bids for prospective buyers in absentia provided written or verbal instructions (as indicated on absentee bid forms included at the back of this catalogue or online) are received 24 hours prior to auction. Where successful, lots will be purchased at the lowest possible bid and in the event of identical absentee bids, the bid received earliest will take precedence. Deutscher and Hackett accepts no responsibility for errors and omissions in relation to this courtesy service and reserves the right to record telephone bids. RESERVE Unless indicated otherwise, all lots are subject to a confidential reserve price determined by the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett or the auctioneer may place any number of bids on behalf of the vendor below the reserve price and is not obliged to identify that the bids are being placed on behalf of the vendor. BIDDING INCREMENTS Bidding usually opens below the listed pre-sale estimate and proceeds in the following increments (the auctioneer may vary the bidding increments at his or her discretion): $500 – 1,000 by $50 $1,000 – 2,000 by $100 $2,000 – 3,000 by $200 $3,000 – 5,000 by $200 / $500 / $800 $5,000 – 10,000 by $500 $10,000 – 20,000 by $1,000 $20,000 – 30,000 by $2,000 $30,000 – 50,000 by $2,000 / $5,000 / $8,000 $50,000 – 100,000 by $5,000 $100,000 – 200,000 by $10,000 $200,000 – 300,000 by $20,000 $300,000 – 500,000 by $20,000 / $50,000 / $80,000 $500,000 – 1,000,000 by $50,000 $1,000,000+ by $100,000 SUCCESSFUL BIDS The fall of the auctioneer’s hammer indicates the final bid and the buyer assumes full responsibility for the lot from this time. UNSOLD LOTS Where a lot is unsold, the auctioneer will announce that the lot is “bought in”, “passed”, “withdrawn” or “returned to owner”.
3. AFTER THE AUCTION PAYMENTS Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer. If payment is made by credit card the price will increase by any merchant fees payable by Deutscher and Hackett (1.15% (including GST) for Visa and Mastercard and 3.10% (including GST) for American Express). In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Cleared funds will be held in an interest bearing trust account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to retain any interest earned during this period. Payment by the vendor of any charge to Deutscher and Hackett is to be made within fourteen days of invoice. PURCHASE PRICE AND BUYER’S PREMIUM The purchase price will be the sum of the final bid price (including any GST) plus a buyer’s premium set at 22% (plus GST) of the final bid price. Buyers may be liable for other charges reasonably incurred once ownership has passed. GOODS AND SERVICES TAX Buyers are required to pay a 10% G.S.T which sum is: a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor; and b. included in any additional fees charged by Deutscher and Hackett; and c. added to the buyer’s premium. Where GST applies to some lots the final bid price will be inclusive of the applicable GST. A list of those lots is set out in the catalogue on page 166. If a buyer is classified as a “non-resident” for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met. COLLECTION Lots paid for in full may be collected from Deutscher and Hackett premises the day after the auction occurs but lots paid for by cheque may not be collected until all funds have cleared. Proof of identification is required upon collection and lots not collected within seven days of the sale may incur costs associated with external storage and freight. LOSS OR DAMAGE Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on either the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made, or on collection by the buyer, whichever is earlier. The buyer is therefore encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from the payment due date. TRANSPORT AND SHIPPING Deutscher and Hackett directly offers services including storage, hanging and display, appraisals and valuations, collection management and research and in all instances will endeavour to coordinate or advise upon shipping and handling, insurance, transport, framing and conservation at the request and expense of the client. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept liability for the acts or omissions of contracted third parties. EXPORT Prospective bidders are advised to enquire about export licences — including endangered species licences and cultural heritage permits, where relevant — prior to bidding at auction. Telephone the Cultural Property and Gifts Section, Museums Section, Ministry for the Arts, on 1800 819 461 for further information. The delay or denial of such a licence will not be grounds for a rescission of sale. COPYRIGHT The copyright in the images and illustrations contained in this catalogue may be owned by third parties and used under licence by Deutscher and Hackett. As between Deutscher and Hackett and the buyer, Deutscher and Hackett retains all rights in the images and illustrations. Deutscher and Hackett retains copyright in the text contained in this catalogue. The buyer must not reproduce or otherwise use the images, illustrations or text without prior written consent.
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The terms and conditions of business set forth below are subject to amendment by verbal or written notice prior to and during the auction and sale. They constitute the entire contractual agreement with the buyer in respect to any lot offered at auction. By bidding at auction in any manner compliant with bidding procedures, the buyer and all bidders agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the terms of the prospective buyers and sellers guide contained in this catalogue, as amended. To the extent that an agent acts on behalf of the buyer, liability for obligations arising from these conditions of business will pass to the buyer. Multiple buyers are jointly and severally liable for obligations arising from this agreement. DEFINITIONS 1.
conditions of auction and sale ALL PARTIES ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE CONDITIONS OF AUCTION AND SALE INCLUDED IN THIS CATALOGUE
Definition of terms: a. The ‘buyer’ refers to the party with the highest accepted bid for any lot at auction and/or such party’s principal where bidding as agent. b. The ‘vendor’ refers to the party consigning property for sale and/or such party’s principal where acting as agent. c. ‘Deutscher and Hackett’ refers to Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd ACN 123 119 022, its subsidiaries, officers, employees and agents. d. The ‘hammer price’ refers to the final bid price (including any GST) accepted by the auctioneer, or in the case of a post-auction sale, the agreed sale price (including any GST). e. The ‘buyer’s premium’ refers to the 22% charge (plus GST) payable by the buyer calculated as a percentage of the hammer price. f. ‘GST’ refers to the goods and services tax imposed by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 as amended. g. The ‘lot’ refers to the item(s) described against any lot number in the catalogue. h. The ‘reserve’ refers to the minimum price (including any GST) the consignor will accept for a lot.
PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS AND DISCLAIMER 2. Agency: Deutscher and Hackett acts as agent for the vendor and the contract of sale for the lot will be between the buyer and the vendor. 3.
Property is sold ‘as is’: To the extent permitted by law: a. no guarantees, warranties or representations are made (express or implied) by Deutscher and Hackett or the vendor in relation to the nature and condition of any lot; and b. Deutscher and Hackett disclaims liability for any misrepresentations, errors or omissions, whether verbal or in writing, in the catalogue or any supplemental material. All factual information provided by the vendor is merely passed on by Deutscher and Hackett from the vendor or other source. Deutscher and Hackett has made no attempt to verify this information. All additional statements of opinion represent the specialist opinions of Deutscher and Hackett employees and should not be relied upon as statements of fact. 4. Responsibility to inspect: Responsibility remains with the buyer to satisfy its, his or her self by inspection and evaluation prior to purchase as to the nature and condition of any property. CONDITIONS AT AUCTION 5. Registration: Bidders must register to bid and obtain a bidder’s paddle prior to the commencement of the auction. Registration requires that bidders provide proof of identity and Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion. 6. Auctioneer’s discretion: Deutscher and Hackett reserves the right to absolute discretion over the conduct of the auction including the regulation of bidding and its increments. This discretion extends to the challenge or rejection of any bid, the right to withdraw any lot and the right to determine the successful bidder or reoffer a lot in the event of a dispute. The prospective buyers and sellers guide details an indicative process for the conduct of auctions. All parties are strongly urged to read the prospective buyers and sellers guide included in this catalogue.
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7. Bidding: Deutscher and Hackett may sell each lot to the highest bidder at auction provided the reserve price has been met or where the net amount accounted to the vendor is at least equivalent to the net amount that would have been achieved for a sale at the reserve price. The fall of the auctioneer’s hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the vendor and the buyer. Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Deutscher and Hackett, the individual physically present at the auction who signals the bid accepts personal liability to pay the purchase price, including the buyer’s premium and all additional fees, taxes and charges. GOODS AND SERVICES TAX 8. Amounts inclusive of GST: Unless otherwise specified, all amounts specified in this section as payable by the buyer, or otherwise used to calculate payment to Deutscher and Hackett, are inclusive of any GST component. Deutscher and Hackett will provide buyers with a tax invoice that meets the requirements of the Australian Taxation Office. 9. Application of GST to buyers: Buyers are required to pay a 10% GST which sum is: a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor (a list of lots consigned by GST Registered Entities is set out on page 166 of the catalogue); and b. included in any additional fees charged by Deutscher and Hackett; and c. added to the buyer’s premium. If a buyer is classified as a “non-resident” for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met. POST-SALE CONDITONS 10. Post auction private sale: Should the lot fail to sell at auction, Deutscher and Hackett is authorised to sell the lot privately for a period of seven days in which event this agreement shall apply to the relevant buyer to the full extent of its provisions. 11. Payment: The buyer will not acquire title until payment has cleared in full. Interest at a rate of 17.5% p.a. will be charged over outstanding accounts where no extension of terms has been granted. Interest will be payable from the payment due date. With respect to each lot purchased, the buyer agrees to make the following payments within seven days from the date of sale: a. The hammer price. b. In exchange for ser vices rendered by Deutscher and Hacket t, a buyer’s premium calculated at 22% (plus GST) of the hammer price. c. Post sale packing, handling, shipping and storage where applicable. d. If payment is made via Visa, Mastercard or American Express, any merchant fees payable by Deutscher and Hackett on the transaction as indicated in the prospective buyers and sellers guide. Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer using the form and/or trust account details provided at the back of this catalogue. In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Once funds have cleared, the proceeds of the sale less the buyer’s Premium, GST and any commission or costs charged as agreed will be remitted to the vendor within thirty-five days of the date of sale provided payment has been received in full. Funds will be held in an interest bearing account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to any interest earned during this period. Application for a cultural heritage export licence or any other licence in no way affects the buyer’s obligation to make payment or collection within the periods specified in sections 10 and 13a. 12. Risk and Title: Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on the earlier of: a. the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made; and b. collection by the buyer. The buyer assumes risk for the property in all respects from this date and neither Deutscher and Hackett nor the vendor will be liable for loss or damage occurring after the payment due date. The buyer is encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from this date. Title in the lot does not pass to the buyer, even if the lot is released to the buyer, until the buyer has paid all sums owing to Deutscher and Hackett. If a buyer makes a claim against Deutscher and Hackett for damage or loss after sale, the buyer’s premium and the final bid price shall be payable notwithstanding.
13. Freight: a. The buyer may only remove a lot from the Deutscher and Hackett premises once payment has been cleared in full and must be removed no later than seven days after the date of sale. Should items not be removed by this time, storage and insurance costs may be charged to the buyer. If a lot has not been collected within 30 days after the date of sale and alternative arrangements have not been with Deutscher and Hackett, the lot may be re-sold by Deutscher and Hackett without reserve at the next auction and Deutscher and Hackett may set off any amounts owed for storage and insurance costs and its standard commission before remitting the proceeds to the buyer. b. Buyers are required to make their own arrangements for packing, handling, shipping and transit insurance for their property. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept responsibility or liability for the acts or omissions of any third party, such as a shipping agent, whether or not such a party has been recommended or suggested by Deutscher and Hackett. 14. Limited Warranty of Authorship: If a buyer is able to establish that a lot is a forgery in accordance with these conditions for sale within five years of the date of sale, the buyer shall be entitled to rescind the sale and obtain a refund of the hammer price from the vendor. The buyer must return the lot in the state in which it was sold within fourteen days of notifying Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations. For a lot to be established as a forgery, the following conditions must be satisfied: a. the buyer must supply two independent expert testimonies attesting to the forgery. Deutscher and Hackett is entitled to request further expert evidence where it deems the evidence provided to be unsatisfactory; b. there must be no conflict of opinion among accepted experts in the field; and c. the forgery must be able to be proven through means that at the time of publication of the catalogue were commonly employed and that will not damage or otherwise put the lot in jeopardy. The limited warranty and the right to rescind the sale is not assignable and the buyer must have retained title to the lot without disposing of any interest in it up until the buyer notifies Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations. The buyer acknowledges that it has no rights directly against Deutscher and Hackett if a lot is established to be a forgery. 15. Termination, Breach and Legalities: a. Deutscher and Hackett breach: To the extent permitted by law, the sole and maximum remedy to a buyer for breach of warranty is a refund of original purchase price, including buyer’s premium. In such an event the sale contract shall be rescinded and all costs associated with returning the property (in the state in which it was sold) to the premises of Deutscher and Hackett are to be borne by the buyer. Deutscher and Hackett is not liable for any indirect or consequential loss or damage for any matter arising directly or indirectly as a result of the sale. b. Buyer breach: Deutscher and Hackett may, in addition to other remedies available by law, exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies for breach: i. Cancel the sale and retain any payment or property in Deutscher and Hackett custody as collateral or liquidated damages. ii. Charge the buyer interest at the rate of 2% above the rate fixed under section 2 of the Penalty Interest Rates Act 1984 (Vic). iii. Resell the property without reserve at the next auction or privately on five days notice. Any disparity between sale and resale prices, including associated costs such as, but not limited to, legal, storage and sale expenses, will be to the account of the defaulting buyer. iv. Apply any part payment received from the buyer in respect of any lots at its discretion. v. Retain any of the buyer’s property held by Deutscher and Hackett until the buyer has satisfied its obligations to Deutscher and Hackett. vi. Take any other action Deutscher and Hackett deems necessary or appropriate. vii. Refuse to permit the buyer to participate in future auctions. viii. Provide the vendor with the buyer’s details to permit the vendor to take action against the buyer to recover the money. 16. Governing law and jurisdiction: These terms and conditions and any matters concerned with the foregoing fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the state in which the auction is held. 17. Severability: In the event that any provisions of this agreement should be found unenforceable in a court of law, that part shall be discounted and the remaining conditions shall continue in full force and effect to the extent permitted by law.
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COOL CLIMATE ART IN A BOTTLE. With its dramatic, cool climate, the breathtaking Tasmanian landscape is an artist’s dream and a sparkling winemaker’s paradise. This is Méthode Tasmanoise.
148 kwp!JAN10153
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SALE CODE: GOULD SALE NO.: 047 THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
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SYDNEY AUCTION 15 MARCH, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 74 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010
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BUYER PRE-REGISTRATION FORM please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 55 OXFORD STREET SURRY HILLS NSW 2010
fax: 02 9287 0611 tel: 02 9287 0600 info@deutscherandhackett.com we must receive buyer pre-registration forms at least 24 hours prior to the auction
(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)
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Address
City
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Preferred method of payment: ❑ personal cheque ❑ bank cheque ❑ direct bank transfer ❑ credit card* ❑ other * Merchant fee surchage applies to credit card payments
Signature
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149
ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER/DIRECT DEPOSIT FORM Buyer number
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150
Date paid:
SALE CODE: GOULD SALE NO.: 047 THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
SYDNEY AUCTION 15 MARCH, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 74 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010
TELEPHONE BID FORM SALE CODE: GOULD SALE NO.: 047 THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)
Billing address (PO Box insufficient)
Address
SYDNEY AUCTION 15 MARCH, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 74 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010
City
State
Post Code
1. 2. Telephone numbers for auction date in order of preference
Facsimile
Signature (required)
please email, post or fax this completed form to:
LOT NO.
Date
ARTIST/TITLE
COVER BID*
1.
DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 55 OXFORD STREET SURRY HILLS NSW 2010
2.
fax: 02 9287 0611 tel: 02 9287 0600
4.
info@deutscherandhackett.com
5.
we must receive buyer pre-registration forms at least 24 hours prior to the auction
6.
3.
7. 8. 9. 10. *Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). Bids are made in Australian dollars INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY
DATE
TIME
Please refer to the Guidelines for Potential Purchasers and Buyer’s Conditions in this catalogue for information regarding sales. By completing this form, I authorise DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT to contact me by telephone on the contact number(s) nominated. I understand it is my responsibility to enquire whether any Sale-Room Notices relate to any lot on which I intend to bid. I also understand that should my bid(s) be successful, a buyer’s premium of 22% (plus GST), as described in the Guide to Potential Purchasers and Buyer’s Conditions printed in this catalogue, will be added to the final hammer price. I accept that DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to its clients, that there are inherent risks to telephone bidding, and I will not hold DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT responsible for any error.
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ABSENTEE BID FORM SALE CODE: GOULD SALE NO.: 047 THE GOULD COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART
(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)
Billing address (PO Box insufficient)
Address
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State
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LOT NO.
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SYDNEY AUCTION 15 MARCH, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 74 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010
Date
ARTIST/TITLE
MAXIMUM BID*
1. 2. 3.
please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 55 OXFORD STREET SURRY HILLS NSW 2010
4.
fax: 02 9287 0611 tel: 02 9287 0600
5.
info@deutscherandhackett.com
6.
we must receive buyer pre-registration forms at least 24 hours prior to the auction
7. 8. 9. 10. *Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). Bids are made in Australian dollars Absentee bids must be received a minimum of twenty-four hours prior to auction. All absentee bids received will be confirmed by phone or fax. In the event that confirmation is not received, please resubmit or contact our office. Please refer to the Guidelines for Potential Purchasers and Buyer’s Conditions in this catalogue for information regarding sales. By completing this form, absentee bidders request and authorise DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT to place the following bids acting as agent on their behalf up to and including the maximum bid specified. Lots will be bought at the lowest possible bid authorised by a bidder in absentia. Should the bid be successful, the buyer will be obliged to pay the final bid price plus buyer’s premium of 22% (plus GST) of the final bid price. DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to clients and does not accept liability for errors and omissions in the execution of absentee bids.
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INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY
DATE
TIME
consigning now important australian + international fine art AUCTION
•
MAY 2017
for appraisals please contact Sydney • 02 9287 0600 Melbourne • 03 9865 6333 info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com
WALTER WITHERS Midsummer, c.1895 oil on board 24.5 x 33.0 cm EST: $100,000 – 140,000 SOLD $122,000 (inc. BP) Sydney, November 2016
Not As The Songs of Other Lands
19th Century Australian and American Landscape Painting
14 March to 11 June 2017
Symposium 6–8 April
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Gloucester Harbor (detail) 1856 oil on canvas Courtesy of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J Terra Collection
The Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne Swanston Street, Parkville VIC 3010 Tues–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat & Sun 12–5pm www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au Not As The Songs of Other Lands is presented in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund
“Don’t miss this breathtaking and exclusive show in Canberra” Tina Arena
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun Yolande‐Martine‐Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac 1782 © RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles) / Gérard Blot
FREE ENTRY
SEE THE WORK OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS AT NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA. EXCLUSIVE TO MELBOURNE.
David Hockney Untitled, 263 2010 (detail) iPad Drawing Collection of the artist © David Hockney
NGV.MELBOURNE
everyone hasahistory partoneplainspeak artgallerywa 25february– 13august2017 partofpiaf Presented as part of the Perth International Arts Festival
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ATSIC Digitisation Partner
DONORS ARE THE VERY LIFE BLOOD OF THE GALLERY
When you become a donor to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, you are keeping our collection alive with new and significant acquisitions. It is the loyalty and generosity of our donors that enable the Gallery to be consistently fresh and relevant. Donations are also tax deductible. If you are a lover of art, could there be anything more satisfying than giving to the Gallery? It’s a gesture that brings vitality to the heart of our arts culture, and reaches every part of the Gallery’s dynamic functioning body. Your contribution could assist in the restoration of an artwork, in the cost of a publication, the acquisition of a work or the development of an entire department. Supporting the Gallery is also an ideal way to mix with fellow art lovers. Donors are included in Gallery events and can choose to have their generosity publicly acknowledged or remain anonymous. Why not contact us for further information or to discuss your bequest in confidence, by phoning Jane Wynter, the Head of philanthropy on 02 9225 1818 or email jane.wynter@ag.nsw.gov.au
John Nixon Black and orange cross 1992, enamel on chipboard. Purchased with funds provided by the Rudy Komon Memorial Fund
After a sell-out season in London, this virtual reality experience comes to the National Museum.
NOW SHOWING ‘Be prepared to be blown away’ THE REGISTER, UK
Admission costs apply. For session times and to book your ticket visit
nma.gov.au/virtualreality Photo by James Horan. Images courtesy the Australian Museum
IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES BY
Bodies across space and time 4 March — 2 July 2017
Over 60 modern and contemporary artists
versus Rodin. Book online or in person Art Gallery of South Australia artgallery.sa.gov.au
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Presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation and supported by Adelaide Festival
Government Partners
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image detail: Auguste Rodin, France, 1840 – 1917, Pierre de Wissant, Monumental Nude, c.1886‑87 (Coubertin Foundry, cast 1985), Paris, bronze, 215.0 x 100.0 x 60.0cm; William Bowmore AO OBE Collection. Gift of the South Australian Government, assisted by the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1996, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
COPYRIGHT CREDITS Lot 1 Lot 2 Lot 5 Lot 6 Lot 7 Lot 8 Lot 13 Lot 14 Lot 15 Lot 17 Lot 18 Lot 19 Lot 20 Lot 21 Lot 23 Lot 24 Lot 25 Lot 26 Lot 27 Lot 28 Lot 29 Lot 35 Lot 36
© reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © The Estate of Barbara Tucker. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © courtesy of Wendy Whiteley © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © The Estate of Barbara Tucker. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia © The Estate of Barbara Tucker. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © courtesy of Helen Brack © courtesy of Helen Brack © Jake and Dinos Chapman. DACS/ Licensed by Viscopy, 2017 © courtesy of Wendy Whiteley © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd
Lot 37 Lot 38 Lot 39 Lot 40 Lot 43 Lot 44 Lot 45 Lot 49 Lot 50 Lot 51 Lot 52 Lot 57 Lot 58 Lot 59 Lot 60 Lot 61 Lot 62 Lot 63
Lot 64
© reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © The Estate of David Larwill. Courtesy of Fiona Larwill and Sotheby’s Australia © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © courtesy of Linde Ivimey, Linde Ivimey is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Michael Reid Art Dealer, Berlin © courtesy of Linde Ivimey, Linde Ivimey is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Michael Reid Art Dealer, Berlin
ALL LOTS IN THIS AUCTION ARE CONSIGNED BY A GST REGISTERED ENTITY, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE FOLLOWING Lot 1 Lot 7 Lot 11 Lot 14 Lot 22 Lot 23
John Perceval Charles Blackman Sidney Nolan William Dobell Clifton Pugh Charles Blackman
RESALE ROYALTY Some lots consigned for this sale may be subject to the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2009 (Cth). Any payments due under the obligations of the Act will be paid by the vendor.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Photography: Graham Baring Design: Sevenpoint Design © Published by Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd 2017 ISBN 978-0-9953817-1-1
166
Lot 24 Lot 47 Lot 50 Lot 69 Lot 72
Albert Tucker Danila Vassilieff Donald Friend Sidney Nolan Sidney Nolan
index B BALDESSARI, J. BLACKMAN, C. BOYD, A. BRACK, J. C CHAPMAN, J. AND D. D DE JONG, M. DE MEDICI, E. DOBELL, W. F FREUD, L. FRIEND, D.
31 7, 8, 23, 45 13, 39 27, 28
29
32 33 14, 15
30 49, 50, 51
G GASCOIGNE, R.
18, 19
H HERMAN, S. HESTER, J.
52 43, 44
I IVIMEY, L.
63, 64
K KANTILLA, K KLIPPEL, R.
57 37
R REES, L. ROBINSON, W.
38 34
L LARWILL, D.
60
S STREETON, A.
53
M MEADMORE, C.
36
N NOLAN, S.
O O’BRIEN, J. OLSEN, J.
P PERCEVAL, J. PUGH, C.
3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 41, 42, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74
T TJUNGURRAYI, G. TUCKER, A. TURNER, J. A.
58, 59 2, 24, 25 54, 55, 56
V VASSILIEFF, D.
46, 47, 48
W WHITELEY, B.
17, 35
16 20, 21, 26, 40, 61, 62
1, 5, 6 22
167
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