Important Australian and International Fine Art

Thousands of people work in the wine industry but few end up on the bottle.

At Yalumba, we’ve been making wine since 1849.

One thing we’ve learnt over the years is that you can’t do much with a bunch of good grapes unless you have already picked a bunch of great people.

With this in mind, in 1962, we decided to honour the great people who have made an outstanding contribution to life and tradition at Yalumba by crafting ‘The Signature’.

Each release of this iconic Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz blend bears the signature of the person honoured.

With the 55th Signature, we salute Andrew Murphy.

Murph started his working life in the cellar where he quickly rose to Cellar Manager, qualified as a Winemaker, was promoted to Operations Manager and is today our Director of Wine.

So he doesn’t need anybody to tell him that the wine which now bears his name is one of the finest Signatures we have crafted yet.

In fact, he’d probably say the wine he’s ended up on is the one he’d most like to upend.

One family. Many stories.

Judy Argent 2008 2

Clive Weston 2009

Jane Ferrari 2010

Robert Hill-Smith 2012

Andrew Murphy 2013

Important Australian and International Fine Art

FINE ART AUCTION • SYDNEY • N.A.S. CELL BLOCK THEATRE • 20 SEPTEMBER 2017

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MELBOURNE • VIEWING 105 commercial road, south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 • facsimile: 03 9865 6344 info@deutscherandhackett.com

SYDNEY • VIEWING 16 goodhope street, paddington, new south wales, 2021 telephone: 02 9287 0600 • facsimile: 02 9287 0611 info@deutscherandhackett.com

SYDNEY • AUCTION cell block theatre, national art school forbes street, darlinghurst, new south wales, 2010 telephone: 02 9287 0600

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sydney auction

melbourne viewing sydney viewing absentee/telephone bids live online bidding

LOTS 1 – 78 WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2017 7:00pm cell block theatre, national art school, sydney forbes street darlinghurst, new south wales telephone: 02 9287 0600 THURSDAY 7 – SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2017 105 commercial road south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00am – 6:00pm THURSDAY 14 – WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2017 16 goodhope street paddington, new south wales, 2021 telephone: 02 9287 0600 11:00am – 6:00pm email bids to: info@deutscherandhackett.com fax: 02 9287 0611 telephone: 02 9287 0600 telephone bid form – p. 131 absentee bid form – p. 132 www.deutscherandhackett.com/watch-live-auction

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 head of marketing and client services 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 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. 132) or telephone bid form (p. 131) SHIPPING Mara Sison 03 9865 6333 CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Louise Choi 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 — 78

page 12

prospective buyers and sellers guide

page 124

conditions of auction and sale

page 126

catalogue subscription form

page 129

attendee pre-registration form

page 130

telephone bid form

page 131

absentee bid form

page 132

index

page 147

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IMPORTANT NOTICE

CULTURAL HERITAGE PERMITS

Some imagery on bark and early western desert paintings in this catalogue may be deemed unsuitable for viewing by women, children or uninitiated men. We sug gest ar t co - ordinators at Aboriginal communities show this catalogue to community elders for approval before distributing the catalogue for general viewing. Co-ordinators may wish to mask or remove certain images prior to circulation. The English spelling of aboriginal names has evolved over the years. In this catalogue every effort has been made to use the current linguistic form. However original information from certificates has been transcribed as written with the result that there are different spellings of the same name, title, language group and story.

Under the provisions of the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act, 1986, buyers may be required to obtain an export permit for certain categories of items in this sale from the Cultural Property Section: Department of Communications and the Arts GPO Box 2154 Canberra ACT 2601 Email: movable.heritage@arts.gov.au Phone: 1800 819 461 Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), permits are required for the movement of wildlife, wildlife specimens and products made or derived from wildlife.

This includes species on the endangered species list. Buyers may be required to obtain an export permit for certain categories of items offered at auction. Permits must be obtained from: Wildlife Trade Regulation Section Environment Australia GPO Box 787 Canberra ACT 2601 Email: wildlifetrade@environment.gov.au Phone: (02) 6274 1900 Under the provisions of the Wildlife and Protection (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act, 1982, buyers may be required to obtain an export permit for certain categories of items offered at auction (including plant or animal products derived from an Australian native species such as: ivory, tortoise shell, feathers, etc). Permits must be obtained from the Wildlife Protection Section, Environment Australia-Biodiversity Group at the address above, prior to items being export from Australia.

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Important Australian and

International Fine Art Lots 1 – 78

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CHARLES DIRCK WITTENOOM 1 (1791 – 1843) SKETCH OF THE TOWN OF PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, c.1836 – 37 watercolour and pencil on paper 22.5 x 34.5 cm bears inscription on label verso: C. D. Wittenoom / A STREET SCENE IN PERTH / … / Drawn circa 1832. / … estimate :

$150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Captain Alfred Walter Frances Fuller, United Kingdom Thence by descent Mrs Estelle Fuller, United Kingdom Sotheby’s, London, 30 January 1969, lot 93 Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 3 May 1988, lot 99 Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Various displays, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, February 1989 – 2017 Unknown Land: Mapping and Imagining Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 17 September 2016 – 30 January 2017 (as ‘Sketch of St. George’s Terrace, Perth’) LITERATURE O’Brien, J. and Statham-Drew, P., On We Go: The Wittenoom Way – The Legacy of a Colonial Chaplain, Fremantle Press, Western Australia, 2009, pp. 46 – 47 (illus.)

RELATED WORK Sketch of the Town of Perth, Western Australia, engraving by Henshall, J., illus. in Ogle, N., The Colony of Western Australia: a manual for immigrants, James Fraser, London, 1839, opposite p. 30 and Murdoch, W., Westralia Gift Book: to aid Y.M.C.A. military work and Returned Nurses’ fund: by writers and artists of Western Australia, V. K. Jones, Perth, 1916, p. 40 Rev. John B. Wittenoom, Front View of the Artist’s House, 1832, pen and wash, 21.9 x 31.2 cm, in the collection of Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

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St George’s Terrace is the main thoroughfare of Perth. Formerly cited as one of the most charming boulevards in Australia, it was utterly transformed by the mining booms of the 1960s and 1970s. After a kilometre of imposing skyscrapers, a section of colonial buildings still stands clustered around the Barrack Street precinct but these date predominantly from the years after convict labourers arrived in the 1850s. Going back even further to 1837, Charles Wittenoom stood some twenty metres back from that corner as he drew this historically important view of the young township, then known as the Swan River Colony. To the right is the entrance to what is now Barrack Street, so named for the army barracks which originally stood along the track that continues on the other side of the Terrace. In the foreground, where a mature Marri tree is depicted leaning over the road, was the residence of the artist’s brother Reverend John Burdett Wittenoom who had arrived in Perth in 1830 to take up the position as the colony’s Chaplain, a mere seven months after the Lieutenant-Governor, Captain Stirling, had arrived with the first settlers on the Parmelia.

As part of his contract, Reverend Wittenoom was given title to lot L1, ‘a narrow, deep allotment of about one acre on St George’s Terrace’,1 with Bazaar Street (now The Esplanade) as one of its boundaries. He soon bought the adjoining lot, which had a claypit. Leasing this to a brick maker in return for a tithe of 10,000 bricks, Wittenoom and his sons constructed a handsome two-storey house: ‘The bricks were made and burnt on the premises … The ‘tout ensemble’ looks exceedingly well and hath rather a genteel appearance than otherwise. It is much admired, being decidedly the most substantial and best built house in the colony’. 2 He also planted a bountiful garden featuring a grove of thirteen peach trees. Wittenoom had formerly taught at Oxford University and augmented his theological duties in Perth by founding the colony’s first grammar school in 1838. He enthusiastically promoted the new colony in letters home, describing the climate as being ‘splendid and more congenial to health than any other on the face of the globe’; 3 and became involved with the Children’s Friend Society, a charitable organisation based in London which found posts in the various British colonies for orphaned or abandoned children. It was this confluence of interests that led his brother Charles to travel to Perth, arriving in late December 1835.

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CHARLES DIRK WITTENOOM J. HENSHALL (ENGRAVER) Sketch in the Town of Perth, Western Australia, 1839 hand coloured engraving 10.1 x 16.8 cm image courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Canberra

Already known as a sketcher and newspaper man, Charles chartered a small ship (the Giraffe) from London and brought with him ten children on behalf of the Children’s Friend Society.4 Four weeks later, he took the Giraffe on to Sydney where he stayed for a few months before charting another vessel, the Isabella, for a trading journey to the Dutch East Indies. Detained for a while in Timor, the Isabella returned to Sydney then continued to Perth, arriving 23 November 1836. 5 This time Charles stayed for four months and it is almost certain that he completed this drawing during that period. In the early days of the colony there had been much speculation, but also much disappointment, fuelled by ‘getrich-quick’ settler schemes proposed in London, most of which were undermined by dismal reports from returning ships’ captains who had deposited their passengers at the then-desolate tent city of Fremantle, some miles from the actual township of Perth. If the ships had journeyed further upstream, they would have found a more attractive and wellsheltered location described by its now-displaced indigenous inhabitants as ‘Nyungar boodjar, Nyungar land … [a river landscape created by] the Waakal or Dreamtime Serpent … weaving its bulky body across the plain, curving down to a wide path in front of The City of Perth, the bloated belly of a well-fed python’.6 Recognising the true potential of the new colony, the Wittenooms sought to change the misinformation being disseminated in England.

Sketch of the Town of Perth, Western Australia, c.1836 – 37 is one of only four known drawings executed by Charles Wittenoom whilst in the colony.7 Looking east down the Terrace, he depicted the principal buildings and made a feature of native trees which had been retained along the streetscape, augmented by flourishing introduced species.

Riding toward the viewer in a stylish Stanhope gig is a figure identified by previous researchers as Reverend Wittenoom (in the absence of a visible clerical collar or scarf, it would seem this accreditation is based on the figure’s sober coat, tightly buttoned on a hot summer’s day). To the left, the hill gently inclines to the natural ridgeline that Hay Street now follows.

The white-washed building shown is the original soldiers’ barracks (1829 – 30) with a roofed tent featuring striped canvas added as a side annexe.

In front of this is the Officers’ Barracks built between in 1833, and further along, the Military Hospital (1831) bounded by Cathedral Avenue

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with the adjacent gaol (c.1829) at the corner of Pier Street. Opposite the Officers’ Barracks, visible between the trunk of the Marri tree and the edge of the drawing, is the small cottage, a ‘Palmer’s Hut’, 8 which was Captain Stirling’s original home.9 Subsequently promoted to Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Stirling journeyed to London for a year in August 1832 and on his return10 found the original cottage too small for his needs, so took over the new Officers’ building for his family and as a Vice-Regal headquarters until a more appropriate Government House could be built.

The scene has all the warmth of a Perth summer and the bucolic air of pastoral commerce which would have communicated a clear and positive message to potential emigrants. Further evidence is the shadows, which are cast as if on a summer’s day in England, pointing to the north whereas in Perth, naturally, they face south. The message here is clear – Perth is presented as a genteel mirror of English society. Charles left the colony on 31 March 1837, a week after his brother opened ‘the new building erected to serve as both courthouse and church’. Still standing opposite the site of the Reverend’s own house, the Old Court House is central Perth’s only survivor from these foundation days.11 On arriving in London, Charles contacted Nathaniel Ogle, a Fellow of the Geological Society who had already published a range of books.12 It is almost certain that the two men knew of each other and may have even discussed Charles’ journey beforehand, as Ogle himself had been involved in an unsuccessful earlier proposal to found a colony south of Perth with ‘nearly 1000 well-selected companions to Leschenault and La Vasse’.13 Four of Wittenoom’s drawings were translated into engravings

by J. Henshall and reproduced in Ogle’s highly influential The Colony of Western Australia: A manual for emigrants 1839, a richly detailed compendium which radically altered perceptions of the colony. In the engraved translation of Sketch of the Town of Perth, Western Australia, however, Charles appears to have suggested one distinctive addition – an enhanced view of Captain Stirling’s original dwelling peeking through the lush foliage. In addition, the original image of the Reverend in his horsedrawn gig was replaced with a dray, and the various street characters were augmented with a group of four aboriginal figures in European clothing.

Of the four original drawings executed by Charles, two are in Australian collections – Sketch of the Town of Perth from Perth Water, Western Australia (The Janet Holmes à Court Collection, Perth); and View from the Court House Arthur’s Head, Freemantle [sic] (State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). The third remains in private hands, whilst examples of the engravings are held by various institutions and private collectors.

Sketch of the Town of Perth, Western Australia was last offered for sale in 1988 when it achieved the then-record price of $93,500 for a Western Australian colonial drawing.14 There are other artist renditions of Perth and Fremantle from the 1830s but this particular work is unique with its aspect of St George’s Terrace as it appeared in its earliest inception 180 years ago.

1. O’Brien, J. and Statham-Drew, P., On We Go: The Wittenoom way. The legacy of a colonial chaplain, Fremantle Press, Western Australia, 2009, p. 25 2. Wittenoom, J.B., letter to cousin William Jersey, 24 July 1832, quoted in O’Brien, J. and Statham-Drew, P. op. cit., p. 26 3. ibid., p. 26 4. ‘Shipping Intelligence’, Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, Western Australia, 2 January 1836, p. 626 5. ‘Shipping Intelligence’, Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, Western Australia, 26 November 1836, p. 804 6. Collard, l. et al., ‘Oorl Ngulluck Koorliny (Come we walk together)’, in White, T.A. (ed.), Perth: a guide for the curious, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2016, p. 35 7. A fifth drawing, Front View of the Artist’s House, 1832 (Art Gallery of Western Australia), is attributed to Reverend Wittenoom but Charles is increasingly considered to be the most probable artist.

8. See Royal Perth Hospital Heritage Society website: http://rphheritagesociety.org.au/ wordpress/wa-early-history/, accessed 13 July 2017 9. On the site of the contemporary Stirling Gardens, this building has been previously mis-identified by researchers as being Reverend Wittenoom’s house, but his was well out of this drawing’s frame, some thirty metres south of the mature Marri tree.

10. Stirling landed 19 August 1833, via the James Pattison.

11. Reverend Wittenoom’s house was demolished in 1890 and replaced by the Weld Club.

12. The Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830 and the first paper read before the original members dealt with Western Australia.

13. Battye, J.S., Western Australia: A history of its discovery to the inauguration of the Commonwealth 1924 (facsimile edition), University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1978, p. 78. The author thanks Janet Muir of Muir Old and Rare Books, Perth, for direction to this source.

14. Christie’s, Australian Paintings, Prints & Sculpture, Melbourne, 3 May 1988, lot 99

The author thanks Melissa Harpley and Eileen Jellis, Art Gallery of Western Australia, for assistance in cataloguing this work.

ANDREW GAYNOR

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GEORGE ROWE 2 (1796 – 1864) GEORGE ROWE AT THE DIGGINGS NEAR ARARAT, c.1858 watercolour and gouache on paper on cardboard 63.0 x 186.5 cm signed lower right: GRowe ESTIMATE: $250,000 – 350,000

PROVENANCE The artist, Exeter, United Kingdom Thence by descent James Arthur Rowe, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA until his death in 21 October 1922 Thence by descent George Fawcett Rowe, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA until his death in 9 February 1952 Thence by descent Elizabeth Rowe Holmes, Florida, USA until her death in 17 August 2003 Thence by descent Private collection, New Jersey, USA, great-great-granddaughter of the artist EXHIBITED International Exhibition [Department of the Colony of Victoria, Australia: Mining, Quarrying and Metallurgy Section], London, 1 May – 1 November 1862, cat. 476 George Rowe, Artist and Lithographer, 1796-1864, Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, 21 August – 2 October 1982; Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, United Kingdom, 30 October – 11 December 1982 (reproduction exhibited, as ‘George Rowe on the Bendigo (?) Diggings’) LITERATURE Blake, S., George Rowe, Artist and Lithographer, 1796-1864, Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, 1982, cat. 165 (illus.)

RELATED WORK Six preliminary figure studies for George Rowe at the Diggings near Ararat, c.1858, artist’s Sketchbook, pencil on paper, 12.7 x 17.9 cm, 32 sheets, private collection

The Victorian goldfields of the early 1850s drew all kinds of characters and talents to them, including London lawyers and professional artists.

George Rowe had been High Bailiff of Cheltenham, and, as a master lithographer, one of England’s most successful producers of picturesque and topographical views. Like many, he sought to regenerate his family’s fortunes through gold. And like most, he soon realised that there was more to be made by returning to an earlier vocation. From the Castlemaine diggings in December 1852 he moved on to Bendigo, setting up a refreshment tent with the aid of his son George Curtis (later Fawcett) Rowe. When the rush to the McIvor digging robbed them of customers, Rowe turned to art. His success was remarkable, having difficulty keeping up with the demand for ‘some token of recollection … to be sent to England or America’.1 There was also demand for signboards, painted inscriptions on wooden tombstones, and flags to distinguish the miners’ tents. Son George Fawcett turned to the theatre, painted scenery, and performed at Bendigo’s Crystal Palace.

He eventually established himself in England and the U.S.A, ‘where he made his mark both as an actor and as a dramatic author’. 2 George Rowe’s first watercolours of the Bendigo diggings were generally small in size, a typical one being Australian Settlers’ Tents, 1853 in the Nan Kivell Collection of the National Library of Australia, Canberra. 3 A group of Aboriginal figures stand to the right and a dog sits guard outside one of the tents, characteristic additions found in many a later picture.

At this time Rowe averaged two pictures a day, charging between one and five guineas each.4 In May of 1857, in the long room adjoining the Criterion Theatre, Sandhurst (the old name for Bendigo), he exhibited fifty of his watercolour views of Bendigo, Castlemaine and Forest Creek for an Art Union, also shown in Castlemaine and Melbourne. The Bendigo Advertiser reported with enthusiasm and at length: ‘In every instance the artist has succeeded admirably in a correct delineation of the scenes he has undertaken’. 5 Works included views of Kangaroo Flat, Eaglehawk, ‘New-chum Gully’ and Sandhurst from Quarry Hill, 1857 (Bendigo Art Gallery). ‘Of all the pictures enumerated, which, with others, are all of well known localities in the Bendigo district, we feel it is impossible to speak in too high terms of praise’. 5 Given to travel through the Colony, the following summer of 1858 Rowe made a sketching tour of the Western District of Victoria, its spectacular mountain scenery having attracted other artists of the stature of Eugène von Guérard and Nicholas Chevalier. The chief attraction was Mount

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William, the highest peak in the Grampians Ranges. Rowe recorded the visit in his diary, an extract from which was published by the Melbourne Age newspaper: ‘…the view of the Grampians and the Victorian Ranges repaid us for all our labour. I took a sketch…’.6 And again: ‘I sketched the scene and treasured up in my memory the glorious effects which I was privileged to witness, and hope someday to find time to depict them in another fashion’. While this passionate response and parallel details may suggest a connection with our watercolour and brilliant fulfilment of hope, the entries certainly illuminate Rowe’s interests and provide a fascinating insight into George Rowe at the Diggings near Ararat, c.1858.

Rowe felt passionately about Australia, its climate, landscape, native life and opportunities. He had intended to emigrate, bringing his family out after he had established himself. This enthusiasm for his intended new home spilled over into his earlier letters to his wife, Philippa: ‘… I now like the warm glow of the clear and brilliant sky. I have lived now long enough in the Colony to estimate the qualities of the climate and all that has been written on the subject is true…’.7 And again: ‘It is a new and enterprising country, one that presents under its abundant riches opportunities of accumulation of wealth, and open to the aspiring of ambition and genius…’.

The climbing party, which included Rowe’s young son Sanford, had set out for Mount William on the morning of 24 February 1858. While bad weather delayed the ascent, Rowe described the view with enthusiasm: The scene from the summit of Mount William is as grand and picturesque as those to be viewed from any of the Alps of Europe. The setting sun lit up the massive basaltic rocks that shot up from the summit of the various mountains like columns of ruby – a gorgeous temple based the dark robe of misty forest gradually deepening with the blackest shadow, giving the appearance of unfathomable depth to the gorges of the mountain.

The naked limbs of the great stringy bark trees so white and skeleton like – the solitude, the consciousness of being so far removed from the haunts of man – all tended to create a sensation of undefinable awe.7 Rowe’s sketchbook includes several figure studies for our watercolour – the young man aiming his rifle, the Aboriginal woman in front of her mia-mia, the dog, and himself busily sketching. On the way to Mount William, they had ‘Shot some beautiful parrots, commonly called the Blue Mountain’. 8 In the watercolour, Sanford shoots at parrots. And the

very horizon of craggy mountains, evident on the large sheet of drawing paper in the sketchbook, is similarly seen within the picture within the watercolour, further testimony to Rowe’s incredible attention to detail.

The carrying tube nearby indicates that Rowe took these large sheets with him – presumably completing the sketch on the spot and later working it into the finely finished watercolour we see today. Moreover, the image of the artist at work within his own picture is a familiar touch in nineteenth century art; even Charles Conder introduced himself working at his easel in All On a Summer’s Day, 1888 (Art Gallery of South Australia, M.J.M. Carter Collection). Importantly, the artist’s presence gives an increased sense of authenticity, certifying his record of the scene. And a further interesting connection between written and drawn detail is mention of the ‘flat rock’ where ‘We put up our canvas’.9 The prominence given to the foreground group incorporates an act of homage to the landscape and its owners. Tall, bearded and well built, Rowe was a striking figure, admired by his contemporaries. He frequently shared his landscapes with the Aboriginal peoples, the presence of their mia-mia, home or camp, again paralleled in Rowe’s Mount William diary entry: ‘At evening we put up our mi-mi in a scrub at about five miles from the base of the mountain, roasted our parrots, and found them the most delicately flavoured birds we had yet met with’. The mia-mia and campfire can be read as a metaphor for the Aboriginal homeland.

This respect and a willingness to share with the indigenous people are seen elsewhere. Of the four Aboriginal figures, three are clad in possum cloaks, the seated male in the foreground wearing a government-issue blanket, identified by its blue line.10 Harmony between peoples and the land continues in the two standing behind the artist. The man shares the breathtaking view with Rowe; the woman looks at his sketch. The indigenous people of central Victoria, the Djab wurrung, were once of large numbers and rich in culture, having lived on the volcanic plain for tens of thousands of years. Rowe was not alone in these sympathetic views. Ruth Pullin, the Von Guérard scholar writing recently of the Indigenous people in Von Guérard’s painting, Mr John King’s Station, 1861, said: ‘…they are depicted both on their land, yet dispossessed of it –’. ‘Their anomalous situation [she added] is expressed in their contradictory apparel …’.11 Like Von Guérard, Rowe’s breathtaking, large-scale panoramas capture the pristine wonder of the great southern land. Each arrived in the Colony in late 1852 – both in search of gold. They shared a love of the sublime

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in nature, the grand view topped by towering mountain ranges, and a land of plenty peopled with life in harmonious accord. While their figures provided a sense of scale, they also expressed the romantic concept of the smallness of humans compared with the might and majesty of nature. Moreover, their empathy with Aborigines was nigh identical. The gold rushes brought disruption and deforestation, disliked by both as depicted by despoiled earth and endless tree stumps. Von Guérard’s masterly paintings of Mounts William and Abrupt belong to the years 1855 and 1856, preceding Rowe’s visit to the area. It was also the beginning of the era of the ‘exhibition’ watercolour. As Andrew Sayers has pointed out: ‘In scale and presentation water-colours came to vie with oil paintings. The enormous water-colours of John Gully, Nicholas Chevalier, George Rowe and Oswald Brierly were conceived on a level of ambition previously reserved only for oil paintings’.12

It is believed that these large panoramic views were painted from sketches after his return to England in 1859. Another of similar scale, Mount Arapiles, c.1858 (private collection) with its prominent Aboriginal figures, was also possibly sketched during this visit and finished later.

Other grand-sized views include the mining scenes Old Bendigo, 1857, and Ballarat, 1858, the latter peopled with Chinese diggers. Both are in the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney.16 In 1862 Rowe exhibited ‘Six water-colour paintings of scenery in Victoria’ in the International Exhibition, London. Von Guérard showed six oil paintings in the same exhibition, one being Mount William from Mount Dryden, 1857, (Art Gallery of Western Australia).17 Rowe was the only artist to be awarded a medal, in the jurors’ words: ‘For faithful and beautiful delineation of the country, workings, and other relations of the gold fields’.18

After Mount William, Rowe wrote: ‘We then shaped for Ararat’.13 Our picture, George Rowe at the Diggings near Ararat, c.1858 shows the Grampians Ranges as a backdrop of mountain splendour, the town of Ararat a little closer. Although gold had been discovered nearby in 1854, it was not till 1857 that a group of Chinese miners found the gold at Ararat that created the boomtown. Rowe had worked in the area before. His panoramic The Gold Fields of Australia, Mount Ararat, c.1857 (National Library of Australia) shows the figure of a shepherd and his dog reclining on a rocky ledge overlooking a valley, with Ararat beyond.14 The first settler in the Mount William area was Horatio Wills, who established a sheep run in 1840. A comparison of the town in the two pictures shows development consistent with the time difference, schools and churches being opened from 1857 on. A courthouse was built in 1859. In our picture, a scene of desolation after the alluvial rush, mining activities occupy the near middle ground, the abundance of water for sluicing and smoke coming from the many chimneys referring to the recent change in weather encountered at Mount William – ‘…a thunder storm broke upon us, and the rain poured down in torrents’.15 Canvas tents rub shoulders with more established buildings, a horse puddler, an isolated windlass.

1. George Rowe, letter to the artist’s daughter, August 1853, quoted in Blake 1982, op. cit., p. 29

The eye-catching presence of the group on the rocky outcrop is characteristic of Rowe’s panoramas where foreground incidents provide narrative and added liveliness. Rowe’s gaze, however, is directed not towards the grand scene he provides for his viewer, but to new horizons, adding credence to the thought that his interests ranged beyond topographical accuracy, providing an amalgam of ideas, including interpretation through heightened awareness, carried to a level unique in his art.

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2. ‘Death of Mr George Fawcett Rowe’, Bendigo Advertiser, 3 September 1889, p. 2 3. Watercolour on paper, 18.5 x 27.2 cm, NLA, NK1988 4. Blake, op. cit., p. 27 5. ‘The Bendigo Art Union’, Bendigo Advertiser, 15 May 1857, p. 3 6. ‘A Leaf from the Diary of an Artist. The Ascent of Mount William’, Age, Melbourne, 23 April 1858, p.4 7. Rowe, G., letter to Philippa Rowe, 1 and 5 January 1854, quoted in Reynolds, P., ‘George Rowe on the Bendigo Diggins’, La Trobe Library Journal, vol. 3, no. 12, October 1973, pp. 92 and 95 8. Age, 1858, op. cit.

9. ibid.

10. Pullin, R., ‘Eugène von Guérard’s Mr John King’s Station’, 1861, Estate of the Late James Fairfax, AC’, Deutscher and Hackett, 30 August 2017, lot 10, p. 55 11. ibid.

12. Sayers, A., Drawing in Australia: Drawings, Water-Colours, Pastels and Collages from the 1770s to the 1980s, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p. 83 13. Age, 1858, op. cit.

14. The Gold Fields of Australia, Mount Ararat, c.1857, watercolour, 65.5 x 156.0 cm National Library of Australia, Canberra, cat. PIC R6195 15. Age, 1858, op. cit.

16. Old Bendigo, 1857, watercolour, 61.6 x 154.9 cm; Ballarat, 1858, watercolour, 62.5 x 153.7 cm. Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, cats. DG3, 853583 and DG2, 888273 17. International Exhibition, London, 1 May 1862, Von Guérard cat. 475-4, Mount William from Mount Dryden, 1857 as ‘Mount William’ 18. ’Awards of the Jurors’, Department of the Colony of Victoria, Australia, International Exhibition of 1862, London, cat. 476

DAVID THOMAS

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GEORGE ROWE 2 (1796 – 1864) GEORGE ROWE AT THE DIGGINGS NEAR ARARAT, c.1858

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GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH 3 (1892 – 1984) WATTLE, c.1944 oil and pencil on board 40.5 x 44.5 cm signed lower left: G. Cossington Smith inscribed with title verso: “Wattle” / Mabel / with love / from grey / … estimate :

$60,000 – 80,000

PROVENANCE A gift from the artist to her sister, Mabel Packenham-Walsh, United Kingdom Thence by descent Private collection, United Kingdom Christie’s, London, 16 December 2008, lot 20 Private collection, Perth RELATED WORK Drapery with Wattle, c.1944, oil on pulpboard, 45.0 x 40.0 cm, private collection, illus. in James, B., Grace Cossington Smith, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, pl. 82, p. 121

Wattle, c.1944 is a very special painting in Grace Cossington Smith’s oeuvre, confirmed by its gift to her elder sister Mabel. They were a very close-knit family. In 1912 Mabel (1891 – 1982) and Grace had made a two-year visit to England and the Continent. Mabel met her future husband, Ridley Pakenham-Walsh, on the ship returning the sisters to Sydney in 1914. Ridley, a young British officer, had been seconded to the training staff at Duntroon. War brought about an early marriage and their departure for England the following day. Grace later caught up with Mabel when she visited England again in 1948.1 The gift of a painting of wattle had added significance. Although golden wattle was not proclaimed the floral emblem of Australia until 1988, it had long been accepted as the popular choice. Its relevance would not have been lost on Mabel.

Cossington Smith’s patriotism was long standing, exemplified in such paintings as The Sock Knitter, 1915 (the artist’s sister Madge knitting socks for the Australian troops in the First World War) in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and Dawn Landing, 1944 in the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia, Perth. Harbinger of spring and yellow, the artist’s favourite colour, wattle features in some of her finest flower paintings as Drapery with Wattle, c.1944 (private collection) and Drapery and Wattle, 1952 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). During a recorded interview with Hazel de Berg in 1965, Cossington Smith said: ‘My chief interest,

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I think, has always been colour, but not flat crude colour, it must be colour within colour, it has to shine; light must be in it…‘. She continued ‘… Australian wildflowers are quite on their own, they are the most lovely things that we have and their colour is not what you’d call brilliant but it is a soft brilliant colour like our atmosphere, which is very wonderful’. 2 Wattle is a characteristic painting of its time, the compositional high viewpoint centring on the vase, around which the flowers and drapery revolve. This ceaseless movement is shared with other still life paintings of the period, from Wildflowers, c.1940 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) 3 through Wildflowers in a Glass, c.1943 (Deutscher and Hackett, 28 April 2010, lot 32) to Drapery with Wattle, c.1944 (private collection).

An affinity between the latter painting and ours continues in the view of the containing jugs and sweep of flowers, the dynamic play of light in vibrant colour and separate, textured brushstrokes. Alive with colour and movement, Cossington Smith’s still life paintings are anything but still. Moreover, the transforming play of light recalls mosaics, the small pieces of coloured glass and stone set at angles to catch and reflect the light giving a shimmering radiance and luminous quality evoking the transcendental. So it is with Wattle, for Cossington Smith’s art is the expression of beauty and ‘… things unseen – the golden thread running through time’.4 Here, familiar objects of everyday life are transformed into things of wonder through the harmony established between outer presence and inner being. Within the characteristic flattening of pictorial space, everything revolves around the glass jug, continued in its very shape and reflections. Offering more than just radial movement, there is also the iconography of the drapery – sometimes anthropomorphic, other times ascending.

1. Modjeska, D., Stravinsky’s Lunch, Picador, Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, Sydney, 1999, pp. 217 – 19 2. Cossington Smith, G., interview with de Berg, H., 16 August 1965, quoted in Thomas, D., Grace Cossington Smith, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1973, p. 6 3. Gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1940 by twenty admirers of the artist’s work.

4. Cossington Smith, G., personal philosophy of art 1971, quoted in Thomas, D., op. cit., p. 6

DAVID THOMAS

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MARGARET PRESTON 4 (1875 – 1963) FLOWERS IN A JUG, 1955 oil on canvas 53.5 x 43.5 cm signed and dated lower right: M. PRESTON / 55 estimate :

$45,000 – 65,000

PROVENANCE Mr and Mrs I. Morris, South Australia by 1980 Peter Walker Fine Art, Adelaide Private collection, Perth, acquired from the above in 2008 EXHIBITED probably: Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Sydney painting 1955 (from Macquarie Galleries), Institute Building, Adelaide, 9 – 20 August 1955, cat. 44 The Art of Margaret Preston, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1980 and touring, cat. 45 (as ‘Mixed Flowers in a White Vase’) LITERATURE North, I. (ed.), The Art of Margaret Preston, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1980, cat. 0.45, p. 51 (illus. as ‘Mixed Flowers in a White Vase’) Margaret Preston Catalogue Raisonné of paintings, monotypes and ceramics, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005, CD-ROM compiled by Mimmocchi, D., with Edwards, D., and Peel, R.

In the catalogue of his 1980 pioneering retrospective exhibition of the paintings and prints of Margaret Preston at the Art Gallery of South Australia, curator Ian North commented: ‘The bulk of Preston’s later paintings were of still-life subjects, in which she reverted again to a more naturalistic style, demonstrating from time to time (e.g. in Mixed Flowers in a White Vase [our painting], 1955) a pungency and flair remarkable in any artist and especially one of her advanced years’.1 The striking individuality of her modernist still life paintings of the 1920s such as Implement Blue, 1927 and Western Australian Gum Blossoms, 1928 (both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), and Aboriginal Flowers, 1928, (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), echoed in her hand-coloured woodcuts of the same time, and today they are still hailed as among her finest works. Grand as they undoubtedly are, they tend, unfairly I believe, to put others too much in the shade, especially those of a more traditional inclination. While boldness of colour and design are the hallmarks of Preston’s art, there are additional qualities deserving admiration in an oeuvre outstanding for its originality and search for the quintessentially Australian.

Her contemporary, Thea Proctor wrote of Preston in 1927, ‘…we have a distinguished and original artist in Australia – an artist with abundant vitality … the intellectual gift of invention and an emotional colour sense which amounts to genius’. 2 And that same year Sydney Ure Smith wrote in an editorial for Art in Australia: ‘All vital artists have enemies. Where they fail to inspire delight they instil terror. Margaret Preston is the natural enemy of the dull’. 3 Throughout her life and her art she remained ‘the enemy of the dull’ in an output in which the avant-garde and the more naturalistic happily co-existed, both enriched by forthrightness and passion. Occasionally they combined, as in Monstera Deliciosa, 1934 (Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria). And Aboriginal influences triumphed in such works as Still Life: Fruit (Arnhem Land Motif), 1941 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) and Banksia, 1953 (University of Newcastle, New South Wales). As seen in this latter painting and Still Life with Sea Shells and Bowl of Flowers, 1955 (private collection), the bold continued to abide with the more conventional. Of these, WA Banksia, c.1954 is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery acquired another like painting, Banksia with Native Flowers, 1955.

Preston’s singular use of colour to create bold visual statements often drew upon her ability to exploit one colour above others. Who can resist those celebrations of red in the two 1928 paintings each titled Australian Coral Flowers, (National Gallery of Australia and private collection)? And white was the perfect foil for the presentation of a feast of colourful wildflowers, as in our painting, Flowers in a Jug, 1955. An important earlier venture in the predominance of white is found in Study in White, 1925 (National Gallery of Australia), while in Gum Blossoms (Art Gallery of South Australia), of the same year as our painting, white continues its dominance. The painterly vigour of Flowers in a Jug engages the white backdrop for the stronger articulation of forms, especially the decorated jug, and cavalcade of native flowers – waratahs, drumsticks, tea tree – which is also cleverly echoed in the flannel flowers themselves.

1. North, I., op. cit., p. 11. The title ‘Mixed Flowers in White Vase’ given to the painting on offer in the 1980 retrospective exhibition was noted as being a descriptive one. That given by the artist was then unknown. See North, I., p. 44 2. Proctor, T., quoted in Edwards, D., Margaret Preston, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005, p. 9 3. Ure Smith, S., editorial for Art in Australia, in 1927, 3rd series, no. 22, quoted in North, I., op. cit., and p. 12 DAVID THOMAS

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ARTHUR STREETON 5 (1867 – 1943) ROSES, LA FRANCE, c.1933 oil on canvas 58.5 x 48.5 cm signed lower right: A STREETON estimate :

PROVENANCE Inherited by the artist’s niece Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 4 May 2004, lot 75 Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 29 August 2012, lot 44 Private collection, Tasmania

$35,000 – 45,000

Flowers are among the most beautiful creations of nature as we are often reminded by poets and the gifts of lovers. The Bible tells us that ‘even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed’ like the lilies of the field; and Shakespeare’s Juliet said ‘... that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet’. They were Arthur Streeton’s favourite, both as gardener and artist, especially when he was living in Melbourne’s South Yarra and then at Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges. As his love of roses grew, they appeared more frequently in his exhibitions, reaching a climax in his 1932 show at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery, Melbourne.

Titled Exhibition of Roses, it included eight paintings of various varieties – Roses, Silver and Silk; Roses, Deep Red and Green; and Roses Pale in Silver Bowl being among them. The poetically inclined titles reflect the artist’s lyrical approach, so redolent of Roses, La France, c.1933. The painterly subtleties of the setting compliment the seductive pinks and textured petals of the flowers, formed and highlighted by the masterly play of light and shade. The bravura technique gives added immediacy, increasing the affinity between artist and viewer as they identify in sharing the moment of exquisite beauty transcending the transience of nature.

When reviewing Streeton’s solo Melbourne exhibition of 1931, which included Roses – Pink among five paintings of roses, fellow artist Harold Herbert remarked, ‘The bowl itself is an object lesson in still-life painting, but the flowers have a quality which almost enables them to be smelt and touched.’1 His words apply equally to our painting on offer. Herbert continued, ‘His love of flowers inveigles him into a manner with paint which makes them fragile, beautiful things.’ It is as if by magic that Streeton conjured up through oil paint the very freshness of the flowers themselves.

1. Herbert, H., ‘Art of Arthur Streeton: Sunlit Landscapes. Beautiful Flower Pieces’, The Argus, Melbourne, 17 March 1931, p. 8

DAVID THOMAS

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MARGARET OLLEY 6 (1923 – 2011) WINTER FLOWERS, 1965 oil on composition board 75.0 x 60.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Olley 65 bears inscription verso: To: OSBORNE ART GALLERY / 13 LEIGH ST. / ADELAIDE / D710 estimate :

$30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Osborne Art Gallery, Adelaide Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Margaret Olley: recent paintings, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 21 September – 16 October 1965, cat. 19

Margaret Olley’s Winter Flowers, 1965 comes from a richly fertile period in her career. Following clinical treatment in 1959, she emerged clearheaded, confident and with a ‘strong desire to get on with painting’.1 The positive results were quickly apparent and her subsequent exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1961 was met with public and critical acclaim. She also garnered a slew of notable prizes between 1962 and 1965, most notably the Redcliffe Prize (twice), the Perth Helena Rubinstein Portrait Award, and the 1965 Bendigo Art Prize with Summer Flowers, the larger companion piece to the painting on offer here. Over the next few years, her solo exhibitions were anchored around still lives which served as a stable motif through which she could progress her technique unswayed by the heady winds of late-Modernism then swirling through the art world.

One of her early champions was the artist and critic James Gleeson who wrote that ‘what distinguishes Margaret Olley’s flower studies from those of most of her contemporaries is her approach, which might best be described as symphonic’. 2 Like the Italian painter Morandi (one of her heroes), Olley accumulated a vast collection of objects during her peripatetic life, each imbued with a story or individual memory.

Constantly arranged and re-arranged, as well as augmented by flowers, fruits and vegetables, these objects became Olley’s subject matter, in time almost as familiar to viewers of her work as to the artist herself. The grey-green vase in Winter Flowers, for example, also appears in related paintings such as Still Life with Oranges, 1964, Pink Datura, 1966, and Floral Still Life (Tiger Lilies), 1969, with the first two also featuring the same setting of the cropped edge of a table with a crumpled cloth on top.

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Olley worked on multiple paintings at the same time, noting that ‘by only doing a small part of the painting then putting it aside for another, I’m maintaining the all-over look of it … getting it right in terms of the whole; that is, I am concerned with both aspects, the particular and the general, simultaneously’. 3 Although Olley claimed she was not a botanical artist per se, Winter Flowers clearly features snowcap daisies, orange honeysuckles and Chinese lanterns, all depicted with an attention to detail that enables their easy identification.4 As these blooms appear in the colder months along most of the east coast, it is uncertain whether this work was painted in the Sydney studio of her close friend David Strachan, or at Farndon, the family home in Brisbane, as she was constantly moving between the two. A tantalising suggestion that it was the latter is found in a photo of the artist painting a similar still life in 1966 at Farndon surrounded by the familiar clutter of objects and blooms, all awaiting their turn to be scrutinised and transformed into their own artistic composition.

1. Pearce, B., Margaret Olley 1923-2011, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2012, p. 238 2. Gleeson, J., ‘Introduction’, Margaret Olley, Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 1964 3. Pearce, B., op cit., p. 241 4. The author thanks David Shannon for assistance in the flowers’ identification.

ANDREW GAYNOR

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CHARLES BLACKMAN 7 born 1928 THE LETTER, c.1968 oil on canvas 172.5 x 213.0 cm signed lower left: BLACKMAN bears inscription on stretcher bar verso: AFTERNOON LIGHT bears on label attached verso: 30 estimate :

$100,000 – 140,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 19 August 1996, lot 156 (as ‘Afternoon Light’) Private collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Amadio, N., Charles Blackman Lost Domains, Alpine Fine Arts Collection, New York, 1980, cat 6.23, p. 98 (illus.)

During the late 1960s, Charles Blackman and his first wife Barbara returned to Australia after a lengthy sojourn in Europe and New York, settling afterwards in Sydney with a newfound wealth of literary and visual culture. A product of this rich cultural cradle, Charles Blackman’s oeuvre is eclectic and diverse, containing countless mysterious works accompanied by poetic titles. The artist was first to admit to the autobiographical symbolism inherent in his work. His painting was undoubtedly influenced by his personal experiences, the physical locations he had inhabited and the pictures he had seen. This is true for any artist; however few would be so ready to admit it. While an ocean of experience inspired Blackman’s images, these were rarely painted directly from reality. They seem instead to be removed from it, drawn from the realm of dreams, having been passed through a filter that both simplifies the image and endows it with a universal quality.

The Letter, c.1968, is a large scale painting, executed around the same time as the artist’s ‘Park’ and ‘Garden’ paintings. As explained by Felicity St John Moore, in the National Gallery of Victoria’s extensive 1998 catalogue Schoolgirls and Angels, Blackman had recently returned from a trip to New York, a city that had filled his mind’s eye with experiences of urban parks.1 Renting a warehouse in Sydney, on Leswell Street, near Centennial Park, Blackman produced a number of bucolic scenes that captured the outdoor nature of Australian life.

Compositionally, this painting is closely linked to two others from 1968, Fête Champêtre and Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. All three feature a seated couple, their backs turned to the viewer, peacefully absorbed in each other’s company enjoying their natural environment. As indicated by the titles of these two works, the series of paintings display Blackman’s appreciation for French art of the mid-19th century. Like these bright, sunlit paintings, The Letter follows the same classical quality of composition, its static silhouettes reminiscent of the figures populating the banks of the Grande Jatte in Seurat’s Pointillist masterpiece. While the subject matter and composition may have been inherited from French Impressionism, the way in which Blackman approached them, in particular the flat application of paint and schematic design, was inspired by his discovery of the symbolist French painter, and ancestor of surrealism, Odilon Redon. Blackman found a particular affinity with the stillness of Redon’s work, it’s brooding long shadows and stark patterned surfaces.

A theatrical contrast between the couple, spotlit in the foreground, and the darkened sky against which they are placed, heightens the pictorial tension, intriguing the viewer yet revealing precious little of the narrative. Having attracted attention with its large scale, sumptuous colour and simplicity of form, Blackman invites the viewer to partake in this intimate scene. However, like the protagonist of Johannes Vermeer’s Lady Reading a Letter, the complete absorption of Blackman’s figures in their task of reading aloud and listening to the contents of a letter exclude the viewer from their private world. This symbiotic dynamic was one familiar to the artist, who had become used to reading to his wife, her eyesight having completely deteriorated by the 1940s. As St John Moore aptly writes, it was Barbara’s deteriorating vision that enabled Blackman to enter a literary and imaginary world, refining his observation and translation of a sense of poetic reality.

1. Moore, F. St. J. (ed), Schoolgirls and Angels, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 24

LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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JEFFREY SMART 8 (1921 – 2013) THE DOME II, 1978 – 79 oil and synthetic polymer paint on paper on board 44.0 x 44.0 cm signed lower left: JEFFREY SMART estimate :

$150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Commissioned by Guilford Bell, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne RELATED WORK The Dome, 1977, oil and acrylic on canvas, 75.0 x 75.0 cm, in the collection of TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, illus. in Pearce, B., Jeffrey Smart, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 138 The Dome, c.1979, colour aquatint, 48.5 x 48.0 cm, edition of 100, an example in the collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Stephen Rogers, Archivist for the Estate of Jeffrey Smart, in cataloguing this work.

The Dome II, 1978 – 1979 is based on one of Jeffrey Smart’s most difficult compositions, The Dome, 1977. The use of the word ‘difficult’ comes directly from the artist, an absolute perfectionist, who wrote that in spite of the apparent simplicity of the image, ‘almost more than any other painting, the theme would not resolve itself without a great number of studies… the last three studies were exhibited, but all the first ‘tryouts’ have been destroyed’.1 Smart was one of the last classically trained artists in Australia, one who looked more to the Renaissance than any other period as an exemplar of geometric precision and perspective.

It is this fidelity to visual truth that conversely makes his paintings so compelling as viewers recognise all the individual components but struggle to make a coherent narrative between them.

anchored and harmonious. The Dome, 1977, for example, ‘owes its genesis to Smart coming upon surveyors planning building developments in a field which gave a remarkable vista of (the cupola of) St Peter’s (in the Vatican)’. 3 Of the surviving studies, (First Study for) The Dome, 1977 shows only the dome and one surveyor’s pole set against the field of grass, whereas the final image includes two poles and a tree that is thick with foliage. What makes the final image unsettling is that the marked measuring sticks are actually of no use to a viewer when attempting to set a scale of proportion within the painting. ‘Near and far have no significance. … We seek to measure distance, to understand our position, estimate scale, locate objects. Yet we are at a loss in this sea of grass, and without secure foundation for the tree, the dome or the foreground pole which we could reach out and grasp’. 4 The art critic John McDonald also noted that the cross on the cupola falls at the exact centre of the composition. 5 Such was the precision of Smart’s Renaissance vision.

Following its exhibition and sale, Smart was approached by the Melbourne-based architect Guilford Bell who commissioned the artist to do a smaller version of The Dome. In a revealing letter to Bell, Smart wrote: ‘The picture… has been covered with a protective film of nonshining PVA which has brought out the colour beautifully. … It should be stuck down with a water glue on a board’ 6, and both features are still apparent in The Dome II. Smart also decided to produce a detailed colour aquatint based on the commission, declaring ‘I think it will be beautiful’.7 Produced in an edition of 100, this subsequent rendering proved to be an extremely sought after item in itself.

1. Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1983, p. 84 2. Smart, J. letter to Barry Pearce, 21 January 2005, cited in Pearce, B., Jeffrey Smart, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 189 3. Quartermaine, P., op cit., p. 84

After a burgeoning career in Australia, Smart travelled overseas in the early 1960s and finally settled in a rustic farmhouse in Tuscany in 1971.

From this base, he travelled widely, taking notes and photographs of stray industrial oddities and situations. Smart recognised the urban milieu as his true subject, a site of random, slightly surreal couplings that stirred his imagination. A realist by nature (‘I don’t want to be Dufy, I want to be Vermeer’.)2, he would produce many preliminary sketches of his projected paintings, honing the composition until it was truly

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4. ibid.

5. McDonald, J., Jeffrey Smart: Paintings of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, p. 30 6. Smart, J. correspondence with Guilford Bell and Denis Kelynack, 20 March 1979, kindly provided by Stephen Rogers, archivist to Jeffrey Smart, 10 May 2017 7. Smart, J., op cit., 20 March 1979

ANDREW GAYNOR

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HENRY MOORE 9 (1898 – 1986, British) RECLINING STRINGED FIGURE, 1939, cast 1982 bronze and brass wire 9.5 x 25.5 x 8.0 cm base: 28.0 x 9.5 cm edition: 5/5 signed and numbered on base: Moore 5/5 bears inscription on label on base: 24. STRINGED FIGURE, 1981 / Bronze. 8’’Long. Edition : 5 bears inscription on label at base: 9 estimate :

$180,000 – 240,000

PROVENANCE Alex Rosenberg Gallery, New York, 1984 Private collection, USA, acquired from the above in 1984 The Estate of E. Franklin Robbins, USA NYE & Company, New Jersey, USA, 28 June 2017, lot 19 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Henry Moore: Recent Work, Sculpture and Graphics and Drawing, Alex Rosenberg Gallery, New York, 4 May – 2 June 1984 LITERATURE Bowness, A., (Ed.) Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture 1949–54, London, 1986, vol. 6, p. 31, cat. LH 199a (illus. another example) RELATED WORK Other examples from this edition are in the collections of the Henry Moore Foundation, Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, Japan, and Leeds City Art Gallery, United Kingdom Stringed Figure, 1939, bronze and string, 26.0 cm height, collection of Mr and Mrs Billy Wilder, USA, illus. in Seldis, H., J., Henry Moore in America, Phaidon Press in association with Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1973, p. 47 Stringed Reclining Figures, 1938, pencil on paper, 27.7 x 18.1 cm, private collection, USA, The Henry Moore Foundation cat. HMF 1401 Reclining Stringed Figure, 1982, plaster with surface colour, 9.5 x 27.5 x 10.0 cm, The Henry Moore Foundation, United Kingdom, cat. LH199a Deutscher and Hackett gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Sophie Orpen, Archive Research Coordinator, Henry Moore Foundation, in cataloguing this work.

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Henry Moore OM CH (1898 – 1986) is regarded today, as he was during his lifetime, as one of Britain’s greatest Modernist artists. Approaching the subject of the reclining human form with a radical revision of naturalist figurative representation, Moore came to symbolise the resilience and inventiveness of the English people in the wake of the devastation of the First and Second World Wars. His works are unique and unmistakable, often displayed as monumental public artworks around the world.

Between 1937 and 1939, Moore associated closely with a group of artists living in Hampstead Heath, London. These artists included Barbara Hepworth and her husband Ben Nicholson, as well as émigré artists, the Constructivist Naum Gabo and even, briefly, Piet Mondrian.

It was in this auspicious milieu that Henry Moore created a small group of powerful sculptures using strings, revealing strong connections to not only the artistic discourse of the time, but also to works of his peers and the volatile socio-political context of the antebellum period.

Reclining Stringed Figure, 1939, is one of these few works, initially created in soft materials and revisited by the artist much later, to be cast in bronze in 1981.1 While this Reclining Stringed Figure physically dates from 1981, its significance lies in the conceptual basis from which the 1939 maquette was born. Like many other stringed sculptures by Moore, this work is not, as one would assume, a purely abstract form.

In its horizontal position it is a reclining female figure, her physiological characteristics reduced to mounds and ridges. Chords of wires, having replaced delicate strings during the casting process, bridge the negative space between excrescences in parallel and asymmetric strands. A sensuous contrast is created between the solid, shining, curvaceous form and the taut and translucent sets of wires cutting through both the bronze ridges and the air between them. Arranged in two pairs of concentric circles, the wires radiate from holes along the ridges, traversing the crests and bowls of the sculpture. One set of wires is twisted, providing a variety of conical structures visible through the uppermost set of parallel wires. It is telling that this configuration is almost identical to that of Fabre de Lagrange’s 1872 String surface model: Conoids, in the collection of London’s Science Museum.

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Moore’s stringed figures, in their many forms – from the earliest carved Cherrywood sculptures (such as Stringed Figure, 1937, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, USA) to those moulded out of lead and clay, and later cast in bronze – were included in many seminal exhibitions of Moore’s works. David Sylvester, the acclaimed British critic, writing for a 1951 Tate exhibition anchored his appreciation of these sculptures in a discussion of open and closed forms, which formed the bedrock to their understanding for decades to come. Sylvester noted that the interaction of strings created movement that alerts the viewer to a closer consideration of mass and space: ‘a counterpoint of movement bringing to life the space around and within which the strings operate’. 2 According to Hammer and Lodder, 3 fascination for mathematical models was widespread in artistic circles in the 1930s, particularly amongst the Constructivists and Surrealists with whom Moore was briefly associated in 1936. While Moore attributes his inspiration for this group of sculptures to his discovery of mathematical models during a personal trip to London’s Science Museum,4 the artistic confluence around this subject should not be overlooked. In 1936, mathematical models from the Poincarré Institute were included in the Exposition Surréaliste d’objets at Galerie Ratton in Paris, and photographs of these objects, taken by Man Ray two years prior, were included in a special edition of the international art journal Cahiers d’Art. Moore was purportedly a regular reader of the journal and certainly would have noticed this edition. According to Alfred Barr (the first director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art), Naum Gabo also drew inspiration from mathematical models, as early as 1936.5 Furthermore, during Moore’s stay in Hampstead, the exchange of ideas between Hepworth, Gabo, Nicholson and Moore was so reciprocal and complex that it is now almost impossible to establish a chronology of individual use of the strings in their artworks. Barbara Hepworth, a friend of Moore’s since their college days at Leeds School of Art in 1920, pushed the incorporation of strings within sculpture to its apex, creating forms of purified geometric abstraction. The works of both (fig. 1) Stringed Reclining Figures, 1938, pencil on paper, 27.7 x 18.1 cm, private collection, USA © Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation

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Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth from this era also show the impact of Alberto Giacometti’s early Surrealist works, with Will Grohmann writing that Moore’s stringed figures were spiritually charged, and shared the same ‘spectral existence’ as Giacometti’s sculptures.6 Moore’s oeuvre is underpinned by the concepts of transformation and metamorphosis, using organic objects as stimuli, combined with a Jungian theory of archetypal images and collective unconscious.7 Astoundingly well documented and cared for by the Henry Moore Foundation, Moore’s is a remarkably cohesive body of work. As a result, one can trace the organic progression of a thought throughout the entire creative process, from the preparatory drawings to monumental bronzes.

There are several sketches for this Reclining Stringed Figure that trace the genesis of its form (fig. 1) Moore spoke of this process in 1937: ‘my drawings are done mainly as a help towards making sculpture, as a means of generating ideas for sculpture, tapping oneself for the initial idea; and as a way of sorting out ideas and developing them […] I use drawing as a method of study and observation of natural forms’. 8 The drawings demonstrate the extraordinary fecundity of Moore’s artistic imagination, and his clear development of ideas and progressive reduction of form. Moore’s entire graphic oeuvre also gives the basis for an interesting humanist re-evaluation of his stringed works, suggested

by Anita Feldman, the deputy director of the Henry Moore Foundation in 2017. Feldman links Moore’s exploration of string to a topical concern for the plight of refugees of the Spanish Civil War, drawing similarities between the taut strings of his sculptures and the barbed wire motif within the 1939 lithograph Spanish Prisoner. 9 Considering the cohesiveness of Moore’s oeuvre and the highly collaborative artistic environment in London immediately prior to the declaration of World War Two, the inspiration for these stringed figures is manifold and inextricably intertwined with international art movements as well as with the cataclysmic political events of the time.

1. Correia, A., ‘Stringed Figure, 1938’, Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity, Tate, London, 2013. She suggests that Moore’s motive to return to early unique maquettes to create small editioned bronzes (each limited to an edition of five) was a financial one, in order to offset the cost of casting large public sculptures. Many original maquettes were lost when Moore’s studio was bombed during the Blitz [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/researchpublications/henry-moore/henry-moore-om-ch-stringed-figure-r1146217] 2. Sylvester, D., Henry Moore, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London, 1951, p. 16 3. Hammer, M., and Lodder, C., ‘Hepworth and Gabo: A Constructivist Dialogue’ in Thistlewood, D. (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered, Liverpool, 1996, p. 116 4. ‘Undoubtedly the source of my stringed figures was the Science Museum… I was fascinated by the mathematical models I saw there, which had been made to illustrate the difference of the form that is halfway between a square and a circle […] it wasn’t the scientific study of these models but the ability to look through the strings as with a bird cage and to see one form within another which excited me’. The artist, 1968, quoted in Dyer, A., Mitchinson, D, and Waterlow, N., Henry Moore 1898 -1986, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1992, p. 77 5. Barr, A., Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936, cited in Toland, J., Intersections: Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces, exhibition catalogue, Science Museum London in association with The Royal Society and The Isaac Newton Institute, London, 4 April – 20 June 2012, p. 3 6. Grohmann, W., The Art of Henry Moore, Thames and Hudson, London, 1960, p. 103 7. Calvocoressi, R., director of the Henry Moore Foundation, quoted in ‘Henry Moore Wunderkammer Origin of Form’s’, Gagosian, London, February – April 2015, p. 78 8. The artist quoted in Seldis, H. J., Henry Moore in America, Phaidon Press in association with Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1973, p. 50 9. Sharpe, E., ‘String Theory: Spanish refugees inspires Henry Moore’s 1930s stringed sculptures’, The Art Newspaper, 21 February 2017

LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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CLEMENT MEADMORE 10 (1929 – 2005) VIRGINIA, 1970 painted aluminium 46.5 x 183.0 x 71.0 cm edition: 5/6 signed and numbered at base: Meadmore 5/6 cast by Lippincott Sculpture, Connecticut, USA estimate :

$80,000 – 120,000

PROVENANCE Lippincott Sculpture, Connecticut, USA, acquired directly from the artist Private collection, Florida, USA, acquired from the above in 2007 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Clement Meadmore, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, 6 – 31 March 1971 (another example) RELATED WORK Virginia, 1970, cor-ten steel, 365.0 x 1402.0 x 609.0 cm, in the collection of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, acquired in 1973

‘Modern American art came into its own when it stopped trying to be American’.1 It is interesting that Clement Meadmore should say this for it speaks volumes about his reason for leaving Australia for the USA in 1963. He found that the general expectation that Australian artists should be working in an Australian idiom was inhibiting his development.

He therefore yearned to be near the artistic capital of the world and with good reason; once he had established himself in New York, accolades and commissions soon followed.

By the time Meadmore moved to the United States the international minimalist movement had peaked. Interpreted by many as a logical response to the excesses of abstract expressionism and born out of the cool lines of modernism, the minimalist movement produced giants of twentieth century painting and sculpture: Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and Frank Stella to name few. However, it is arguable that Meadmore’s elegant curves would have overstimulated the minimalists and therefore disqualified him from the club. But it was the minimalists’ predilection for closed form sculpture which became the movement’s lasting legacy for Meadmore. From 1966 onwards, the artist worked within a narrow range of forms and materials to create his remarkably even body of work. Eric Gibson has written extensively on the artist, and below talks about the artist’s choice of square, tubular metal to create his forms ... ‘coupled with the clear-cut edges and smooth surfaces, the blunt ends are the chief means by which his sculptures

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set themselves off from space. In them line, edge, and plane come together to delineate abruptly and clearly the end of the form and the beginning of space and to keep them clearly separate. They are a way of asserting the sculpture’s status as an object, as something distinct from the space around it’. 2 In the late 1960s plans for a National Gallery for Australia were being drawn up and it began acquiring works of art for its collection. The gallery’s proposed sculpture garden, to be situated on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin, would be a feature of the new building and so the acquisition of major sculpture was a priority. The Gallery commissioned the international Australian sculptor Clement Meadmore to create a major work for the site and this resulted in the massive, rusted, corten-steel work, Virginia, 1970, of which our current example is a large maquette.

His infinitely variable maquettes were bronze cast in small editions and chosen examples were then massively upscaled at the Lippincott sculpture fabricators in Connecticut. The current example on offer was originally owned by the Lippincott family, who acquired it directly from the artist in lieu of payment. Further midsized examples of Meadmore’s sculpture were also created at Lippincott and exhibited at commercial galleries in Australia and New York. Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York became an important venue where Meadmore’s work was accessible to the local audience. Many Meadmore works are colossal in scale and proudly occupy the sculpture parks and malls of major cities the world over.

1. The artist quoted in Gibson, E., The Sculpture of Clement Meadmore, Hudson Hill Press, New York, 1994, p. 14 2. Gibson, E., The Sculpture of Clement Meadmore, Hudson Hill Press, New York, 1994, p. 42

HENRY MULHOLLAND

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JOHN BRACK 11 (1920 – 1999) NEVER, 1989 – 90 oil on canvas 106.0 x 182.5 cm signed and dated lower right: John Brack 89/90 estimate :

$800,000 – 1,200,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 – 1994, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 1 April – 28 May 2000 Blue Chip XIII, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 8 March – 2 April 2011, cat. 1 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Millar, R., ‘Brack deals stunning cards’, Herald, Melbourne, 24 October 1989 (illus.)

Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, cat. o311, p. 40, p. 187 (illus.)

Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 – 1994, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2000, p. 33 (illus.)

John Brack’s work of the 1950s and 60s retains an unrivalled and ongoing popularity. One of the reasons for this is the familiarity of his subject matter; even if we didn’t live through these years, his depictions of Collins Street, the six o’clock swill, new suburban developments and Edna Everage are a recognisable part of our recent heritage. Paintings including The bar, 1954, Collins St, 5p.m., 1955 (both National Gallery of Victoria), and the ballroom dancing series of the late 1960s, have developed an iconic status and Brack is renowned as the artist who most succinctly captured the character of twentieth century Australian life.

Brack’s imagery was often interpreted as ironic satire and social commentary, however his primary motivation was quite different: ‘What I paint most is what interests me most, that is, people; the Human Condition … A large part of the motive … is the desire to understand, and if possible, to illuminate … My material is what lies nearest to hand, the people and the things I know best. It has never been my object to record Australian city life as distinct from life in general’.1

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While Brack’s work evolved both stylistically and technically throughout a career that spanned more than five decades, as well as witnessing distinct changes of subject matter, this focus on the human condition remained a consistent and primary theme. One of the most dramatic shifts in his practice occurred in the mid-1970s following the artist’s first experience of overseas travel when the human figure almost completely disappeared and was replaced by depictions of inanimate objects merged with images of postcards of the artefacts of ancient cultures he had seen in international museums. 2 This so-called Unstill Life series marked the beginning of the second part of Brack’s oeuvre in which he constructed subtle visual metaphors using various everyday props – walking sticks, umbrellas, pens and pencils, playing cards and later, wooden artists’ manikins and Pinocchio dolls. As Sasha Grishin has explained, this approach ‘[permitted] him to express the whole complexity of social interconnections’ 3 and his perspective on the perennial forces of human nature was transformed from something that was decidedly local and individual, to a broader view of universal relevance.

Never, 1989 is part of the series of paintings begun in the late 1970s that features anthropomorphised pens and pencils behaving just like people, forming into groups, declaring allegiances, breaking rank, going into battle and marching in triumph. Recalling after-dinner conversations at the home of his new wife’s parents many years earlier, where ‘those old gentlemen would start refighting the battles of World War I … [picking] up their knives and forks and saltcellars … to represent the lines of troops’, Brack said, ‘My pens and pencils are the same thing.’4 In this painting, two opposing groups are assembled in symmetrical arrangements that curve sinuously from a point of apparent confrontation at the centre of the circular table on which they stand. Each group displays a banner of playing cards that spells out a word, although ‘Never’, reminiscent of the rhetoric of political rallies and military speeches, is the only one visible. The irony of this depiction (and of course, of all conflict) is that both groups are composed of pencils of a uniform size and similar mix of colours, and mirror each other’s shape identically – although they have different beliefs, Brack shows us that at their core, they are fundamentally the same.

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Brack once said, ‘For me I think that there must always be some sort of comment, but it must never be the sort of comment that could be put into words’ 5 and in his late paintings he utilised all of his technical and conceptual skills to communicate meaning. The unique patterning of the marble table, a studio prop that featured in many paintings from this time, makes symbolic reference to experience and the passing of time.

In conjunction with the distinctive pictorial device of an irregular frame painted within the border of the picture, this serves to point the viewer towards the examples of history, as well as highlighting the illusionistic nature of painting. As Helen Brack has explained, ‘The margins here are very important, because they are about a dark past, other ages.

[John] was extremely interested in how you can use structure to say what you want to say’.6 The extraordinary level of detail and meticulous finish of paintings such as Never were the result of a labour-intensive and complex working method. Beginning with a series of preliminary sketches, Brack would construct a ‘stage-set’ in his studio and after settling on the final composition, made a carefully detailed watercolour of the tableaux as a guide. Embarking on the oil painting, he employed various aids including set squares, compasses, stencils and tracings, as well as ‘a particular commercial medium that made possible the finest lines of an 00 sable brush, or a flick, using paint as if it were on the fine point of a pen’.7 1. Brack, J., quoted in Reed, J., New Painting 1952-62, Longman, Melbourne, 1963, p. 19 2. Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974-1994, exhibition catalogue, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2000, pp. 6 – 7 3. Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 140 4. Brack, J., interview with Clarke, A.,’The Lone Course of John Brack’, Age, Melbourne, 4 June 1983 quoted in Lindsay, R., John Brack. A Retrospective Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 20 5. Brack, J., speaking in Morphett, T., The Lively Arts: John Brack, ABC-TV documentary, Melbourne, 1965, quoted in Grant, K., John Brack, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2009, p. 89 6. Brack, H., quoted in Gott, T., op. cit., p. 11 7. ibid, p. 18. See also for more detail regarding Brack’s process.

KIRSTY GRANT

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‘The Hunt’, was in 1988, as were ‘The Queen’, and ‘One Two Three Up’.

‘The Club’ was 1989 as was ‘NEVER’. ‘Sailing’ was in 1990.

John used the device of configuration in the construction of his pictures, constantly, e.g. in the dinosaur shape across ‘The Battle’, the primitive head in both ‘Yes No’ and in ‘Now and Then’, and the very obvious human figure in ‘Tower’.

The title ‘NEVER’ is clear but the 3 cards, their backs facing the viewer, are not. The obvious word is ‘NOW’, and this may be so but there could simultaneously be other references. With the 3 cards not facing us, facing NEVER; NOW would spell WON from our position, making the pair of words be NEVER WON. From John’s oeuvre we know that he loved to use ambiguity so NEVER WON is possible. When we look further into the picture, the 3 letters could be END, NEVER END. All of these 4 words have congruity within the Picture, with the word NEVER. The configuration made by the pencils within the picture is a back-tofront S shape, the S lying down, (or a 2 made into an S) but looking at the whole, the S shape and the table make a figure of 8, an image for never ending, as is the horizontal 0 of the table. ‘We came from; and we are going to,’ – so the S configuration suggests. The S is divided in the center, where the cards are, thus making 2 distinct sections, with a chasm between. The NEVER banner and the crowd of pencils behind form a crown, a V shaped head, and when the 3 front cards are included, the configuration is of an eye, as well as of a head, that frontally makes its statement; NEVER. Upon staring at the whole, the 2 sections become very different. NEVER, by the colors of its pencils, seems merciless, violent, cold and hard, there are no warm colors. The pencils configure to a wild creature that has swished around to face us – assault us – whereas the front curve of the S shape, with its 3 cards that are flesh-colored, has warm colored pencils, including yellow and

warm pink, that loosely configure into the shape of a 3 dimensional arrow – with a side wall and a flat level top surface – pointing away from the center where the cards are. The arrow head is completed and there is a new set of pencils that start around the table back edge, one red pencil leader, followed by one green pencil, and almost by its side there is a very warm yellow pencil – surely the colors for the continuation of life. It is a confusion, whether the two groups clash in the center – whether the center is the culmination of force, or whether it is the end of a Time, the arrow configuration continuing the direction, but starting a new shape from the center of the S. I think the S shape answers this, this shape that is also the shape of a question mark, AND of a scythe or sickle, or even a shepherd’s crook – Yin and Yang have a similar structure. John is redefining an archetype.

It is a little interesting that the NEVER side of the table appears light – because against the dark ground of the pencil wall, but the NOW side of the table is darker, because of the lighter ground of the wall behind.

Those 2 leading pencils from the arrow tip are going into an unknown, along the edge of the table, and the optimism is in the vertical stripes of the wallpaper, that flow upwards – a device John frequently used.

Is it NEVER give up, is it Continuation, that Humanity will continue – in whatever manner? On the back edge of the table, where those 3 leading pencils are leaving the NOW, there is a space, a sort of gateway against which the wallpaper stripes stream upwards, and the section that starts with the 3 cards and ends with the single pencil is a perfect half-circle.

Below the table floor – underneath – there is a hot dark orange glimmer of light, as if from a furnace, from amidst a dark hot expanse – John has not used the boards of the floor, as had become his usual language.

There is no flow beneath the table of lived. Is this our ancient prehistoric past from which we all come?

It is interesting that the space behind the whole tableau, that narrow irregular area that completes the picture’s rectangle, is not a black hole of nothing, of a space outside the living, as is so often the case in John’s pictures. It has the warmth of the living – but not the heat of below the Table – and there is a faintly warm stripe, as if of life, in the wallpaper.

One of the assets of a picture is, as in opera, that incompatible meanings can coexist; multiple meanings, as the cubists practiced. One intriguing illusion in this picture is that all the pencils are the same size, both back ones and front ones, but it looks as if the back ones are bigger. We look up at the back pencils, but down upon the front ones. The floor of the table, another creature-like shape as it oozes flatly around, identifies the animal shape of NEVER, and is in contrast with the semicircular cove of the other side of the table. Human savagery and civilization, both present.

The whole picture, by the mauve wallpaper with its overlay of flicked cross-hatching, suggests the light going, perhaps the ending of an era before the beginning of the next, but there are the warm stripes – are they the glimmer of light returning, not going? They may well indicate both.

The whole scene is within a corner of a room, the line of the right angles meeting to halve the picture. The darker wall is on the right side, the lighter on the left and the skirting board on the right side is faintly lighter than that on the left side. Maybe this signifies a future, not yet lived therefore unknown, but the next chance.

HELEN BRACK

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HOWARD ARKLEY 12 (1951 – 1999) A FREEWAY PAINTING (EXIT), 1994 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 182.5 x 365.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Name Howard Arkley / Title A Freeway Painting (exit) / … / Date 1995 / … estimate :

$450,000 – 550,000

PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Gould Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Victoria, acquired from the above in 1996 Gould Galleries, Melbourne Corporate collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2002 EXHIBITED Howard Arkley: The Pointillist Suburb Series, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 7 November 1994 – 3 December 1994, cat. 10 Downtown: Ruscha, Rooney, Arkley, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 14 March – 14 May 1995 Into and Out of Abstraction, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 5 December 1995 – 5 February 1996 Cars and Culture: Our Driving Passions, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 10 December 1998 – 22 January 2000 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Howard Arkley: Gould Contemporary, Gould Galleries, Melbourne, 12 August – 2 September 2001, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition brochure) Howard Arkley: Gould Contemporary, Gould Galleries, Sydney, 16 March – 14 April 2002, cat. 9 (illus. in exhibition brochure)

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LITERATURE Engberg, J., Downtown: Ruscha, Rooney, Arkley, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 1995, p. 19 (illus.)

Crawford, A. and Edgar, R., Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House in association with G+B Arts International, Sydney, 1997, p. 116 (illus.)

Safe, M., ‘Four on the Floor’, The Australian Magazine, 5 – 6 December 1998, p. 27 (illus.)

Preston, E., Not Just a Suburban Boy, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 2002, p. 201 RELATED WORK A Freeway Painting (Over Pass), 1994, acrylic on canvas, 203.5 x 305.0 cm, private collection, illus. in Crawford, A. and Edgar, R., Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House in association with G+B Arts International, Sydney, 1997, p. 117

Howard Arkley was an excitable chap at the best of times, but when curator Juliana Engberg approached him with the notion of including him in an exhibition alongside his friend and critical ally Robert Rooney and his hero, American artist Ed Ruscha, in order to explore the suburban in art, Arkley was simply beside himself. Downtown: Ruscha, Rooney, Arkley at the Museum of Modern Art at Heide was indeed a potent and brilliantly curated show and, for all its obvious linkages, saw the three artists clashing vibrantly as they each staked a place in reinterpreting the world immediately around them. As critic Charles Green noted in Artforum magazine, Arkley, Rooney, and Ruscha had been ‘working through the paradoxical forms of the (sub)urban abyss for well over twenty years. These artists not only took the demon out of suburbia but, less obviously, made the familiar into something more than Pop defamiliarization achieved through repetition’.1

But the results! As A Freeway Painting (Exit) attests, the strange angle, the sense of daunting weight, the non-human environ, all combined to create a masterpiece of contemporary suburban portrayal. But, as always with Arkley, there is something wonderfully ‘off’ about this work. Part of this was the fact that he never portrayed vehicles in his freeway works, his roads are denuded of cars, lonely, silent expanses. A part of it may be the sense of yearning that A Freeway Painting (Exit) evokes. This is obviously an exit to the suburbs, the city still clearly a long drive away.

But it was arguably Arkley who stole the show with his fully resolved, classically balanced and vibrantly executed work, A Freeway Painting (Exit), 1994. The freeway as subject appeared comparatively late in Arkley’s practice and followed on from his clear victories via the suburban home and his factory works, and there is a certain frisson attached to his freeway paintings that was lacking in other works. There was a clear-cut reason for this. Unlike taking polaroids of his potential subject matter in quiet, shady suburban backstreets, Arkley would risk life and limb to capture the desired angle of the automotive bridges he wished to portray, dodging screaming traffic and blaring trucks in the process. Artist Callum Morton, who travelled with Arkley to Los Angeles – the capital of freeway architecture – believed Arkley’s tendency to leap into the fray of speeding traffic was borderline suicidal and, having witnessed it myself, I would agree that it was bordering on kamikaze art practice.

That this work hit a nerve is beyond a doubt. First shown at Tolarno Galleries in 1994, post-Downtown it went on to be included in Into and Out of Abstraction at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1995 and then Cars and Culture: Our Driving Passions at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney in 2000. What is astonishing, given the clear confidence evinced by the seeping line-work is the fact that A Freeway Painting (Exit) was in fact Arkley’s first engagement with this subject, the ground zero work in what would become a major part of his oeuvre.

But the fact that we are heading somewhere is beyond dispute. The long expanse of grey siding draws us in, dragging us toward a left-hand exodus and avoiding the soulless generic city ahead. The fact that Arkley chose a verdant green for his tarmac, while utterly surreal, crystalises this odd sense of optimism.

While Arkley executed a number of paintings based on the freeway, most of them lack the level of intimacy of A Freeway Painting (Exit). And despite the fact that this is a massively-scaled, museum-quality work, it is tempting to pull up the couch and join Arkley as we turn left and avoid the rat-race of the impending metropolis and drive into the shady back streets of his suburbia.

1. Green, C., ‘Downtown: Arkley, Rooney, Ruscha’, Artforum, New York, November 1995

DR ASHLEY CRAWFORD

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HOWARD ARKLEY 12 (1951 – 1999) A FREEWAY PAINTING (EXIT), 1994

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Š The Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

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ROSALIE GASCOIGNE 13 (1917 – 1999) BYZANTIUM, 1997 retro-reflective road sign on board 78.0 x 82.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Rosalie Gascoigne / 1997 / BYZANTIUM estimate :

$120,000 – 160,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Canberra, acquired directly from the artist in 1997 RELATED WORK Medusa, 1998, reflective synthetic polymer film on wood, 70.0 x 70.0 cm, private collection, illus. in Gellatly, K., Rosalie Gascoigne, Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2008, p. 104

Rosalie Gascoigne first showed her art publicly in 1974, at the age of 57. Four years later she was the subject of a solo survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and eight years later she represented Australia at the 1982 Venice Biennale.1 With no formal art training, Gascoigne’s entry into the art world had not been anticipated, but the impact she had on it throughout a three-decade career is indisputable.

Combining an innate drive to collect – not valuable or precious items, but objects that had been discarded or that she found in nature – and an unerring eye for structure, pattern, texture and tone, Gascoigne’s distinctive aesthetic represented one of the most individual contributions to contemporary Australian art of the late twentieth century.

Although she used a wide range of materials, Gascoigne’s oeuvre is strongly identified with works such as the monumental Monaro, 1989 (Art Gallery of Western Australia), composed of slats made from timber soft-drink crates (here, the familiar yellow and black of the Schweppes brand) and others including Flash Art, 1987 (National Gallery of Victoria) and Metropolis, 1999 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), made of recycled retro-reflective road signs. While the worn painted timber of the softdrink crates had an immediate appeal, the shiny surface and vivid colour of the road signs was at first too much for Gascoigne who initially collected a pile of them, along with high-visibility vests and other material discarded by road workers, as props for her grandchildren’s games. 2 Sometime later, on a day following rain, she saw the signs anew and the first retro-reflective work was made in 1985. 3

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Gascoigne said of these works, ‘… I’ve always liked the glint to be brought out. I don’t want it to be dramatically lit, but I do want it to sometimes flash at you, as roadsigns do, and then go sullen, then flash, like a living thing …’4 There is a palpable sense of energy in Gascoigne’s art, a product of the way in which she worked with her materials, fragmenting and dividing them into smaller irregular components that were rearranged like pieces of a puzzle, the solution to which could only be found through her singular vision. In Byzantium, 1997, this feeling is further emphasised by the changing play of light across the work’s jewel-like surface and the focus on the curves of black letters and numbers as abstracted graphic forms, that rotate, twist and turn in a constant dancing motion. Peter Vandermark, who assisted Gascoigne in the studio, recalls Byzantium being cut into several sections that were swapped and reordered until the final composition emerged and even then, after the work had been signed, the artist once again reversed its orientation for display.5 Gascoigne worked intuitively and as this example shows, her work was never finished until it left the studio. Her ‘processes remain[ed] deceptively simple’, as Deborah Edwards has noted, and ‘while [her works] speak of minimal intervention with material, they are entirely transformative in their effect. It is in the entwining of process and material that content lies’ 6 and in which the poetry of Gascoigne’s art is found.

1. Gascoigne shared this honour with Peter Booth.

2. Macdonald, V., Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, Paddington, 1998, p. 35 3. ibid.

4. Gascoigne, R., quoted in Gellatly, K., ‘Rosalie Gascoigne: Making Poetry of the Commonplace’, Rosalie Gascoigne, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2008, p. 13 5. Vandermark, P., quoted in ‘Peter Vandermark and Marie Hagerty in conversation with Mary Eagle’, Eagle, M. (ed.), From the Studio of Rosalie Gascoigne, exhibition catalogue, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 2000, p. 25 6. Edwards, D., ‘Material as Landscape’, Rosalie Gascoigne: Material as Landscape, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1998, pp. 12 – 13

KIRSTY GRANT

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CRESSIDA CAMPBELL 14 born 1960 SPOTTED EUCALYPTS, ORANGE, 2000 watercolour on incised woodblock 89.0 x 80.0 cm signed lower left: C.C. estimate :

$45,000 – 65,000

PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Cressida Campbell, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 14 November – 9 December 2000, cat. 3 Trees, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 2003, cat. 3 LITERATURE Crayford, P., (ed.), The Woodblock Painting of Cressida Campbell, Public Pictures, Sydney, 2008, cat. P0005, p. 346 RELATED WORK Spotted Eucalypts, Blue, 2000, watercolour on incised woodblock, 90.0 x 81.0 cm, private collection, Melbourne Landscape with Spotted Eucalypts, 2000, watercolour on incised woodblock, 91.0 x 81.0 cm, private collection, London

The strongest element of Cressida Campbell’s work, and that which has earned her a cult-like following in recent years, is what Christopher Allen called a ‘pervasive sense of delight in the visual world’,1 inherent in each exquisitely detailed woodblock and print that comes out of her studio. Spotted Eucalyptus, Orange, 2000 is no exception. A special work within Campbell’s oeuvre, it is a product of perhaps the only instance in which the artist returned to the same scene for the creation of three woodblocks and three prints, one with an intricate wooded view (Landscape with Spotted Eucalypts, 2000), one with a rich blue background, and another one in bold orange.

The densely patterned, naturalistic version illustrated in Campbell’s monograph, is a view from the verandah of the Stella James House in Avalon, designed by Walter Burley Griffin, in which she lived over an extended period of time, including the summer of 1999 – 2000.

Her time in this heritage-listed residence also led to the creation of the masterful Walter Burley Griffin House, 1999, featuring its unmistakable bank of Art Deco folding windows.

This house, hidden within the lush bushlands of Pittwater in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, is bordered by tall gum eucalypts and angophoras which cover the steep slopes surrounding the cottage. With keen attention to detail and composition, Campbell chose the Eucalypts, including one charred branch, as the heroes of the composition, returning to these to create two more woodblocks and prints with a simplified background of solid colour and a slightly wider field of vision.

In a sublimely balanced composition, the spindly branches of several gum trees are intertwined with their sturdy, mottled trunks. While Campbell usually reserved a simple colour field background for close, detailed studies of individual branches and flowers, for example Gum Blossom, 2000 and White Waratah, 2000, Spotted Eucalypts, Orange provided Campbell with greater artistic licence, allowing for large expanses of deep russet and startling accents of blue and canary yellow. The dense layers so common to Campbell’s landscape vistas are exchanged here in favour of rich colour and an almost abstracted composition, delighting not in naturalism but in pure design. This work displays the analogue woodblock techniques that Campbell learnt at the Yoshida Hanga Academy in Tokyo along with a decidedly Japanese aesthetic. The artist’s unusual technique of handpainting each unique woodblock with watercolour allows for greater chromatic freedom, situating Campbell’s placing halfway between painting and printmaking.

The level of detail, respect for decorative design and refinement of colour all endow Campbell’s familiar domestic and landscape views with an intimate originality. A tightly cropped view, Spotted Eucalypts, Orange is a moment of close attention that the artist extends to the viewer – whose breath is restricted for fear of disturbing the peace of this serene, shared moment.

1. Allen, C., ‘Happy Days’, The Australian, 31 January 2009

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NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE 15 (1930 – 2002, French/American) LES BAIGNEURS, 1980 – 81 painted polyester resin 47.0 x 47.0 x 30.5 cm edition: 7/20, aside from the edition of 150 signed and numbered on base: Niki / VII/XX stamped on base with Plastiques d’Art R. Haligon foundry mark estimate :

$35,000 – 55,000

PROVENANCE Galerie Samy Kinge, Paris Private collection, California Private collection, Melbourne RELATED WORK Les Baigneurs, 1980 – 81, vinyl paint and polyester, 51.0 x 48.0 x 35.0 cm, Yoko Shizue Masuda Collection, Japan, illus. in Morineau C., and Yamada Y., Niki De Saint Phalle, National Art Centre Tokyo, Tokyo, 2015, cat. 065, p. 99

As High Priestess of her own idiosyncratic, mythological world – Niki de Saint Phalle has created a universal vocabulary that enables her to address the challenges of contemporary society with tenderness, playfulness, passion and mystery.

Striking and naïve, Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculptures are instantly recognisable and easily bring joy to those who bask in their presence.

A French-American painter, sculptor and film-maker, she had a long and unquiet presence in the male dominated avant-garde movements of post-war Europe and America. A self-taught artist, this rebellious outsider became a well-known figure within the French group of Nouveau Réalisme through her visceral tir paintings (in which she used a shotgun to explode bags of paint over sculptures and canvases), images of which were quickly disseminated around the world.

The French Nouveau Réalisme movement of the 1960s sought a greater connection between art and reality, re-establishing contact with society through a poetic appropriation of popular images, a process that had more in common with Dadaist thought than with the concurrent American Pop-Art movement. For Saint Phalle, this idea of a heightened link between art and society was most manifest in her Nana sculptures which addressed the role of women and reappropriated a derogatory French word for young women (i.e. gals, chicks, babes). As a group, the nanas constitute Niki de Saint Phalle’s most iconic and celebrated works.

In Les Baigneurs, 1980 – 81, the nana and her male companion balance on their tip toes, unpretentiously frolicking in a small corner of the deep blue sea. Taking many shapes and forms, the nanas are a tribe of archetypal females, celebratory vehicles for female power – embodying

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a victorious rebirth after the catharsis of Saint Phalle’s tir paintings.

In a letter to the Swedish curator Pontus Hulten, the artist described her intention: ‘I wanted to invent a new mother, a mother goddess, and in these forms be reborn’.1 Harbingers of the women’s liberation movement, the nanas anticipated many of the major feminist issues of 1970s, including the representation of female sexuality, the image of the great goddess and a politicisation of female modes of decoration. 2 While initially created with assemblages of fabric, wire mesh, hair and plastic found objects, the discovery of the polymer material, polyester enabled the artist to execute her nanas on a much larger scale and in multiple editions.

The couple was a recurrent theme in Saint Phalle’s work, stimulated by her artistic and emotional partnership with Swiss kinetic artist Jean Tinguely, whom she later married. The artworks exploring this theme restored balance between her all-powerful female goddess and various male companions – presenting the pairs in harmonious interaction (although often with a slightly larger Nana).

These taboo-breaking, assertive females presented a bold and buoyant representation of women. Large, frolicking and emblazoned with bold patterns and symbols from Saint Phalle’s own personal iconography (hearts, flowers, concentric circles, serpents etc.), they are Earth Mothers. The gay patterns that envelop the nana’s voluptuous forms are not intended to clothe the figures, they are rather the very skin of her goddesses. The highly feminine decorative element of Saint Phalle’s work exalted historical and domestic modes of expression for women, particularly craft and needlework, elevating them to the realm of high art.

This is the first work of Saint Phalle’s to be offered in Australia. In 2012, a monumental version of Les Baigneurs was temporarily installed on Park Avenue in New York, and throughout 2015, a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the Guggenheim, Bilbao and the Grand Palais in Paris.

1. The artist in a letter to Pontus Hulten, Niki de Saint Phalle, exhibition catalogue, Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik, Germany, 1992 – 3, p. 15 2. Johnston, J. (et. al), Niki de Saint Phalle and the Tarot Garden, Acantos Benteli, Germany, 2010, p. 77

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MICHAEL JOHNSON 16 born 1938 AGAINST THE LIGHT, 2002 oil on canvas 183.0 x 183.0 cm signed and dated verso: Michael Johnson 2002 inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: … / TITLE: “AGAINST, THE LIGHT” estimate :

$35,000 – 45,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 29 April 2009, lot 107 Private collection, Sydney

‘I think that painting is more about feeling than what you see ... I don’t make thick paint for that reason, mind you ... but I think it is about touch ... All painting is invisible in this sense ... We feel our way through life, we don’t see our way through life’.1 Throughout the 1970s Michael Johnson worked with acrylic paints popularised by a generation of American painters. The resulting paintings were disciplined arrangements of shaped canvases which relied on complimentary colour juxtapositions to create the work. In 1981 the artist sheepishly began using oil paint. I say sheepishly as oil paint is encumbered by centuries of tradition and the notion that ‘new work’ needed new materials is a guiding edict for artists who work against the parameters of convention. His late 1980s exhibitions at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney were greeted with great enthusiasm and this fuelled the artist’s already strident presence on the Australian art scene. Each following exhibition would trump the previous for bravado and creative flare. As hungry art students, we would visit the Macquarie Galleries and view the paintings in awe of the sheer energy of the works and the volume of paint he used.

The artist explained his initial reluctance to use oil paint along with some remarks about his subject to Barry Pearce: I fear oil, even though it is the most natural thing to paint with and I love it. But I fear its trickery. You can get too clever with it.

I went through this funny period where I recalled my childhood with the Quasar and Cattai paintings, memories of watching floodwaters bringing debris down to the ocean at little Hallow Beach. I don’t know what the diagonals were about but, without being figurative I was trying to get a feel of association with experience, not place ... and suddenly I could use opaque overpainting as a transparency, and I could veil my paintings and push things back and forwards. 2

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As if compensating for years of working with inert acrylic surfaces, a dense textured quality created entirely from pure oil paint quickly became a central feature of Johnson’s painting. His forensic understanding of colour honed over many years now fitted his fresh appreciation for the physicality of oil paint, as the density of the paint was matched by that of the pigments. Against the Light, 2002, is a classic example of Johnson’s work, the formal symmetry of the composition and the rhythmic colour, combine with his signature application of paint to create a work of both power and presence.

Johnson’s paintings are closer to the nature of nature itself than they are to any literal aspect of it. They draw upon the ephemeral as much as the literal in nature – the pull of the moon or mood of a tide are as legitimate a subject as any. Calligraphic arabesques are overlayed onto the canvas directly from the tube; these forms are raked back into the surface and then redrawn with paint applied in swathes of oil. Metres of pure paint in even lines come together creating a mesh of colour which provides each work with its individual beauty.

1. Transcript of taped interview with the artist by the Barry Pearce, 13 June 1997, Australian artists archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales Library 2. ibid.

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AIDA TOMESCU 17 born 1955 SALAMANDER, 2007 oil on canvas 184.0 x 152.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: ‘SALAMANDER’ 2007 / Aida Tomescu / “SALAMANDER” estimate :

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$20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, New South Wales Sotheby’s Australia, Sydney, 13 May 2014, lot 80 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Aida Tomescu: Campi Flegrei, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney, 18 August – 13 September 2007, cat. 22 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)

TIM MAGUIRE 18 born 1958 WALSH BAY II, 2010 Duratran on lightbox 120.0 x 220.0 cm edition: 2/3 signed, dated and numbered on label verso: Maguire ’10 2/3 estimate :

$12,000 – 18,000

PROVENANCE Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Tim Maguire: Light and Water, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, 21 October – 7 November 2010, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Tim Maguire: Light and Water, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 23 October – 20 November 2010 (another example) © courtesy of Tim Maguire Tim Maguire is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

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TRACEY MOFFATT 19 born 1960 SOMETHING MORE NO. 1, 1989 Cibachrome print 82.0 x 104.0 cm artist proof, apart from an edition of 30 estimate :

$45,000 – 65,000

PROVENANCE Collection of the Artist Private collection, Sydney Phillips De Pury & Company, New York, 30 July 2001, lot 126 Gordon Darling AC, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED (Selected) Other examples of this image have been exhibited and published widely including: Something More, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, and touring through regional galleries, 1989 Tracey Moffatt, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and Asia Link, Melbourne, 1990 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 55) Tracey Moffatt, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 10 April – 7 June 1998 and travelling throughout Europe (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 55) Tracey Moffatt, Nassau County Museum of Art, New York, February – April 2001 Tracey Moffatt, City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, 1 February – 26 May 2002 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 26) Tracey Moffatt, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 17 December – 29 February 2004 Tracey Moffatt. Between Dreams and Reality, Spazio Oberdan, Milan, 28 June – 1 October 2006 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 120) LITERATURE Newton, G., Tracey Moffatt: Fever Pitch, Piper Press, Sydney, 1995, pp. 13, 16, 17 (illus.), 39 (illus., another example) Martin, A., ‘Tracey Moffatt’s Australia (A Reconnaissance)’, Parkett, no .53, 1998, p. 23 (illus. another example) Reinhardt, B. et al., Tracey Moffatt: Laudanum, Hatje Cantze, Germany, 1999, p. 10 (illus., another example) Travis, L., ‘Mirage: Drysdale and Moffatt in the Australian Outback’, Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, 2000, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 548 – 555 (illus. p. 552, another example) Summerhayes, C., The Moving Images of Tracey Moffatt, Edizioni Charta, Milan, 2007, pp. 15 (illus., another example)

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RELATED WORK Other examples of this edition are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury-Wodonga, and the Artbank Collection, Sydney.

The scene set with a painted backdrop evoking the ubiquitous and prosaic Australian back verandah, the opening frame of Tracey Moffatt’s acclaimed photographic series Something More presents the artist herself as the protagonist of a tawdry melodrama. The carefully constructed, rich, staged tableaux of Moffatt’s works transcend simple photographic practice, melding with classical iconography and the popular, timebased medium of cinematography. Tracey Moffatt is a contemporary storyteller who uses photography and film to create a narrative and a social commentary, derived from her personal memory, classic tropes of Hollywood film, current affairs, and history itself. Moffatt is a part of a generation of photographic artists emerging in the 1980s who subverted the camera’s claim to naturalism, creating works that were fanciful and sometimes entirely incompatible with reality (such as Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, and Yasumasa Morimura).

Something More No. 1, 1989 is the first photograph in a suite of nine Cibachrome prints, like film stills that create a storyline of a young woman hoping in vain to escape both her humble beginnings and destiny. This modern Australian adaptation of the story of the Fallen Woman is one told with sensitivity, wry humour, and a strong identification between the artist and her flawed heroine. Cinematic effect is central to the power of Moffatt’s work, as is the plethora of highly-informed visual references.

Created in 1989, this series quickly won her international acclaim and was exhibited extensively throughout the world, becoming the subject of many a lively literary analysis. For the emerging artist, 1989 was a watershed year, with her short film Night Cries also being screened at the Cannes Festival. For Moffatt, 2017 is an even more momentous year, having been chosen to represent Australia in the 57th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

While the complex web of artistic references, iconography and popular visual culture is too rich to address within the scope of this essay, it should not be discounted in the appreciation of this artwork. It enables the artist to transcend the physical limits of her photographic print,

creating instead an image that is inscribed within time and whose narrative is open-ended. Each frame distils a scene, containing as much visual information as possible to carry the storyline across only nine frames. Gael Newtown writes of the complex composition of this first frame of the series, noting that is constructed according to the codes of Medieval altarpieces, each character inhabiting a panel of the polyptych.1 Something More No. 1 is undoubtedly the most iconic image of the series. It captures not only a scene, but condenses the entire narrative into one frame. It is also the most hopeful image of the series – featuring the artist centre stage, inhabiting a theatrical space between the spheres of private experience and public performance, the multiple endings of her story all still possible.

Combining the depression-era squalor of Russell Drysdale’s 1942 painting Back Verandah, with the sultry glamour of Hollywood, Moffatt herself plays the role of hopeful starlet in a tattered red and black cheongsam, wide-eyed and taking a step forward towards an unknown future. The wistful expression on her face is central to Moffatt’s message and artistic practice. Catherine Summerhayes notes in her 2007 survey of Moffatt’s cinematic practice that this look is pervasive throughout Moffatt’s oeuvre – ‘Moffatt looks out beyond the foreground of her visual frames; she is looking for “something more” than the immediately obvious. Her searching gaze is directed outwards at what being in the world means.’ 2

Installation photograph featuring SOMETHING MORE No. 1 (top left image) in TRACEY MOFFATT Something More, 1989 the full series of nine Cibachrome prints Collection MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart photograph by Rémi Chauvin courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

TRACEY MOFFATT AT THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION, VENICE BIENNALE, 2017 Photograph by John Gollings

1. Newton, G., Tracey Moffatt: Fever Pitch, Piper Press, Sydney, 1995, p. 16 2. Summerhayes, C., The Moving Images of Tracey Moffatt, Edizioni Charta, Milan, 2007, p. 16

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LIN ONUS 20 (1948 – 1996) DEEP WATER (MATONG), 1995 synthetic polymer paint on linen 91.0 x 152.0 cm signed lower right: LIN ONUS bears inscription verso: cat. 039 S011 and cat. 9512 bears inscription on label verso: artist name, date, title and medium bears inscription on stretcher bar verso: ‘MATONG’ estimate :

$120,000 – 160,000

PROVENANCE The Estate of the Artist, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Bama-Mutjing (Barmah – My Father’s Country), Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 12 September – 8 October 1995, cat. 18 (label attached verso) RELATED WORK Barmah Forest, 1994, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 183.0 x 244.0 cm, in the collection of the Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra, illus. in Neale, M., Urban Dingo: The Art and Life of Lin Onus 1948 – 1996, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000, p. 76 Morumbeeja Pitoa (Floods and Moonlight), 1993, oil on canvas, 182.0 x 182.0 cm, in the collection of Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, illus. in Neale, M., Urban Dingo: The Art and Life of Lin Onus 1948 – 1996, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000, p. 104

Lin Onus’ depiction of land has been interpreted by art historian Sylvia Kleinert as not only a ‘means of retrieving and rewriting history’, but also vitally important because he responded to the land as a ‘cultural archive’.1 When Onus was asked what school or movement of art he belonged to, he often replied, ’the Bower Bird School. You know the one – picking up bits and pieces, here and there.’ 2 The son of a Scottish mother and a Yorta Yorta man from the Aboriginal mission of Cummerangunja near Echuca, Onus described himself as a selfconfessed cultural mechanic, 3 someone whose art interlaced elements from his European and Aboriginal heritages bringing together the two parts; one Western and representational and the other Aboriginal and spiritual.

The Barmah Forest on the Victorian side of the Murray River is Onus’ ancestral and spiritual home. His father’s county and a place Onus would regularly return to, where he would sit along the banks of the Murray River looking out over the Barmah Forest and its great trees reflected in the mirrored waters. There his uncle Aaron Briggs, also known as ‘the old man of the forest’, would tell Onus about his Koori heritage and

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the stories of the river.4 It is this spiritual narrative that ebbs and flows through this important body of works, which culminated in the critical example, Barmah Forest, 1994 now in the collection of the Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra and reflects a theme that Onus returned to often in the final period of his life. Deep Water (Matong), 1995, shows the forest during flood, a regular occurrence during high flows of the Murray River and a time of rejuvenation for the Barmah wetlands. Onus captures this sanctuary-like quality of the forest wetlands in his depiction of the still, reflective surface of the waters but it is his inclusion of cross hatched fish viewed through the water that illustrate his idea of (cultural) transparency and the existence of tradition and meaning beneath the surface of everything.

This stylistic evolution was the result of the relationship he fostered in Arnhem Land with the highly esteemed Aboriginal painter Jack Wunuwun, who became his adoptive father and mentor. Margo Neale notes that from 1986 – 1996, Onus made 16 ‘spiritual pilgrimages’ to Garmedi, 5 resulting in a brilliant personal style that juxtaposed the rarrk clan patterns of Maningrida, learnt from the older artist, with a photorealist style of landscape. This combination created a visual disjuncture, rich in reflections and ambiguities, that acts as a metaphor for the cultural destruction suffered as a result of colonisation, substituting the traditional European panoramic view for one described by his mentor Wunuwun as ‘seeing below the surface’.

It has been over two decades since Lin Onus died tragically and prematurely in Melbourne in October 1996. Onus died before the recognition of his art and activism, both of which clearly exposed the inequality facing indigenous Australians, was honored at a retrospective of his work held at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2000 and touring nationally in 2001.

1. Kleinert, S., ‘Aboriginal Enterprises: negotiating an urban Aboriginality’, Aboriginal History, vol. 34, 2010 accessed online August 2017 http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/ p170581/html/ch07.xhtml?referer=1272&page=8 2. Neale, M., Urban Dingo - the Art and Life of Lin Onus 1948-1996, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2000, p. 12 3. Onus, L., artist statement, 1990 4. Neale, M., op. cit., pp. 13 – 14 5. ibid., p. 15

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EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE 21 (c.1910 – 1996) ALHALKERE (MY COUNTRY), 1990 synthetic polymer paint on linen 150.0 x 120.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name and Delmore Gallery cat. OG25 estimate :

$100,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE Delmore Gallery, Alice Springs Gabrielle Pizzi Gallery, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Paintings by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 1990 RELATED WORK Emu Story, E002, 1989, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 151.0 x 120.0 cm, formerly in the Delmore Gallery collection, Northern Territory, illus. in Isaacs, J., Smith, T., Ryan, J., Holt, D., and Holt,J., Emily Kame Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 47, pl. 4 This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Delmore Gallery, Alice Springs

‘Alhalkere’, Emily Kngwarreye answered when questioned by Rodney Gooch about her imagery is, ‘Whole lot, that’s whole lot, Awelye (my Dreaming), Arlatyeye (pencil yam), Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard), Ntange (grass seed), Tingu (Dreamtime pup), Ankerre (emu), Intekwe (favourite food of emus, a small plant), Atnwerle (green bean), and Kame (yam seed). That’s what I paint, whole lot’.1 Not only the place of her birth, Alhalkere was ultimately the nexus of everything that empowered Kngwarreye’s life, reflecting her participation in ceremony and a lifetime of traditional cultural practice, this small triangular shaped land was the place and the law that she continually re-created in her art Kngwarreye holds a position in history as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists and it is difficult to think of another artist who, having started painting so late in life, left such an enduring mark on modern Australian art. She was a prolific artist who often worked at a pace that belied her advanced age. It is estimated that she produced over 3000 paintings in the course of her eight-year painting career — an average of one painting per day. For virtually two-thirds of her life she had only sporadic contact with the outside world. It was not until she was about 80 that she became, almost overnight, an artist of national and international standing.

Painted in the late summer heat of February 1990, Alhalkere (My Country) was included in the artist’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne, held that same year at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi. Characteristic of her early tonal paintings and refreshingly free flowing, this work is painted over a golden ground with irregular shapes created by a meandering pink and white line that maps the underground spread of the roots of the Arlatyeye (pencil yam), contained only by the rectangular shape of the canvas. These shapes are infilled with sequences of distinct dots of differing colours that are aligned between and straddled over the lines creating a mesmerising carpet built up through rhythmic application, suggesting the overlaying of leaves and flowers above the subterranean root system. Emu tracks bisect the painting and the random scattering of black dots suggests seeds and the black desert plum, a favourite food of the emu.

Her remarkable work, inspired by her cultural life as an Anmatyerre elder, and her lifelong custodianship of the women’s Dreaming sites in her clan Country radically altered the way in which we see and understand modern Aboriginal art. While much has been made of the way in which we might view her work in parallel with modern, non-indigenous abstraction, we must first recognise her achievement as a truly inventive and original contribution to Aboriginal art.

1. Kngwarreye, E., interviewed by Rodney Gooch, Soakage Bore, 1990, translated by Kathleen Petyarre, in Boulter, M., The Art of Utopia, A New Direction in Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1991, p. 61

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EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE 22 (c.1910 – 1996) UNTITLED, 1991 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 122.0 x 91.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist name, Delmore Gallery cat. 91.J02, commissioned by Delmore estimate :

PROVENANCE Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, via Alice Springs in 1991 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs Private collection, Canberra, acquired from the above in 1991 This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Delmore Gallery, Alice Springs

$60,000 – 80,000

The genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye is evident in the way she created highly evocative paintings of great visual complexity out of deceptively simple marks with the brush. This bold and striking early painting by Kngwarreye conveys the drama and fertility of the desert landscape toward the end of the winter dry season. Painted in October of 1991, it is one of a series of paintings undertaken at the time that celebrate the life-giving forces of nature, and the corresponding metaphorical equivalents in spiritual and human terms – recurring themes throughout the artist’s body of work.

Significantly, Untitled, 1991 was created at a time when Kngwarreye’s painting was itself undergoing a process of transformation, with the artist abandoning the background tracery of the underlying yam roots and emu tracks, a consistent compositional device in her earlier paintings, and transitioning instead into fields of pure dots. This was also a time when Kngwarreye experimented with colour and broadened her palette beyond traditional colours and their derivatives, to incorporate brighter hues such as blue, green, and in this case, vivid reds and yellows.

Kngwarreye suggests not only a sense of delight in the colours of the landscape; rather, now colour itself becomes both the impetus for – and subject of – such paintings.

The powerful colours in this work are taken from the life cycle of the berry called Oorooterna. The berry’s fruits range in colour from pale cream in its infancy through a spectrum of yellows into oranges and finally into a red/orange. This progression is determined by the stage of ripeness and decay of the fruit.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted a number of canvases in this style, including Kame Flowers of 1991 in the Holt collection, Northern Territory1 and Fruit of the Vine, 1990, in the Behan collection, Canberra. 2 These paintings glow with a sense of exuberant celebration of the ancestral forces that permeate the earth.

1. See Isaacs, J., Kame flowers, 1991 in Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 66, pl. 18 (illus.)

2. See Neale, M. et al., Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Utopia: The genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2008, p. 130, pl. D-17 (illus.)

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BERTRAM MACKENNAL 23 (1863 – 1931) CIRCE, c.1902 – 04 bronze 57.0 cm height inscribed on base: KIP KH B MACKENNAL estimate :

$120,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Another statuette of Circe was included in Bertram Mackennal: The Fifth Balnaves Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 August – 4 November 2007; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 30 November 2007 – 24 February 2008 LITERATURE References to Mackennal’s Circe are too numerous to list. For the most recent see, Edwards, D., et. al., Bertram Mackennal, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 30 (illus. another example), 31 – 34, 168 – 71, 211 (illus. detail), and catalogue in accompanying CD–ROM RELATED WORK Circe, 1893, bronze, 240.0 x 79.4 x 93.4 cm, in the collection of National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1910 Circe (statuette, c.1902 – 04), bronze, 57.0 x 27.0 x 21.8 cm, in the collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Circe, Salomé and other femmes fatales captured the creative minds of many writers, artists and composers of the fin-de-siècle, and were a popular subject with the Symbolists. There was Medea, Cleopatra, Mallarmé’s Hérodiade, Gustave Moreau’s The Apparition, Franz von Stuck’s The Sphinx, and Edvard Munch’s The Vampire. Wagner’s operas were heavily populated with such ladies, Rimsky-Korsakov composed his symphonic suite Schéhérazade in 1888, and Wilde, Beardsley and Strauss produced their own Salomés. Others, like Klimt, indulged in the sexually provocative Judith, and Delilah and the Sirensall had their day. Significantly, one of the most popular paintings in the Art Gallery of South Australia today is J. W. Waterhouse’s Circe Invidiosa, pointing to ongoing interest in such themes that fascinated our forefathers. Bertram Mackennal’s Circe is no exception, its outrageous London debut adding to its popularity and encouraging the production of an edition of statuettes. Symbolist interests were also embraced by Mackennal’s Australian expatriate friends like Bunny with his witches, images of death, and mer folk, and Longstaff in his huge painting The Sirens of 1892, in the National Gallery of Victoria.

Mackennal’s life-sized Circe, centrally placed in the 1893 Paris Salon, gained an honorable mention and highly favourable reviews, followed by controversy when shown at London’s Royal Academy in 1894. Noted for its blend of French and British aesthetics, technical excellence and invention, it established his European reputation. Writers of the time commented on its ‘distinctive individuality’. The critic for the Revue des Deux Mondes, remarked – ‘The tense, restrained, but triumphant beauty of the sorceress bears itself with a firm and elegant alertness which is free from all trace of vulgarity and all suggestion of the model’. While, on the other side of the Channel, it was ‘the irresistible supremacy of her nudity’ and an expression ‘of scorn for her victims’ that attracted attention.1 A supremely Symbolist work, more recent writers have commented on its ‘absolute embodiment of female sexuality and power’. 2 Its brilliant combination of naturalism and symbolism shows Mackennal in full command of his creativity.

Derived from Homeric myth, Circe is the unrivalled female temptress whose hypnotic beauty ensnares men and turns them into swine, a universal comment on the animal nature of man. Part of the fascination of Mackennal’s interpretation lies in its blend of confronting sexuality, beguiling beauty and arresting power. The life-sized Circe was cast in bronze in Paris in 1901 and acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1910 through the Felton bequest. The statuettes were cast in bronze in Paris between 1902 and 1904.

1. Quoted in Jope-Slade, R., ‘An Australian Quartette’, The Magazine of Art, London, 1895, vol. 18, p. 390 2. Read, B., ‘Introduction’, p. 11, and Lane, T., ‘An Homeric goddess for the modern age: Circe 1893’, p. 171, in Edwards, D., et. al., Bertram Mackennal, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007

DAVID THOMAS

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IAN FAIRWEATHER 24 (1891 – 1974) SCOOTERS, 1950 gouache and watercolour on paper 58.5 x 72.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed lower right: IF [in Chinese characters] / 1900 [in Chinese characters] 50 / Scooters estimate :

$70,000 – 90,000

PROVENANCE Collection of Lina Bryans, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Fairweather: a Retrospective Exhibition, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 3 June – 4 July 1965; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 21 July – 22 August 1965; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 9 September – 10 October 1965; National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 October – 21 November 1965; Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, 9 December 1965 – 16 January 1966; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 10 February – 13 March 1966, cat. 85 Ian Fairweather 1891-1974, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 25 September – 6 November 1991, cat. 16 Fairweather, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1 October – 27 November 1994; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 December 1994 – 19 February 1995, cat. 16 (label attached verso) The Drawings of Ian Fairweather, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 21 June – 24 August 1997; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 October – 7 December 1997; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 7 February – 29 March 1998, cat. 23 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Fisher, T., The Drawings of Ian Fairweather, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, pp. 14, 20, pl. 7 (illus.)

Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, revised edition, 2009, cat. 89, pp. 95, 251, pl. 72 (illus.)

In the introduction to the catalogue for Ian Fairweather’s nationally touring retrospective exhibition of 1965, curator Robert Smith wrote, ‘In his paintings Ian Fairweather has always been concerned with people – not as individuals, not as types, but as people: part of the vast unfolding tapestry of life’.1 In Scooters, 1950 line effortlessly captures and expresses movement as much through the figures of the young people as the scooters themselves. Murray Bail in his monograph on Fairweather refers to its ‘deliberate awkwardness’. 2 It is an awkwardness, to my mind, that extends the feeling of movement and captures that feeling of momentary imbalance one may have when riding such wheeled vehicles – riding a bike or scooter is not always an elegant activity. This is allied to a feeling of freedom, colour free of form, line following its own circuitous fascinations, tapestry-like in its frontal, frieze-like and flattened patterning. There is a sense that the pigment is about to free itself from reality, the painting beautifully balanced between figuration and abstraction. As Fairweather said, ‘... I don’t feel I am a complete abstractionist – I still like – perhaps mistakenly in this age of collectivism – to retain some relic of subjective reality’. 3 The seeming simplicity of the work is arresting – a few gestures of line and colour and a work of fascination is created – a sure measure of Fairweather’s masterly creativity. As fellow-artist and art critic James Gleeson wrote about Fairweather’s art in general, ‘He can evoke a world of subtly fluctuating values with a palette almost entirely restricted to a range of earthy browns and greys that lie anywhere between black and white and are cooled or warmed with suggestions of blue or rose. With such limited means he conjures up organizations of colour that rival the lustre of a grey pearl’.4 After such fulfillment, should one dig deeper? Some see the figures of a girl (two girls?) and boy dramatically divided by a jagged fissure. 5 Yet, their faces look too content for such perturbations. The outlining by black-edged, torn shapes gives emphasis to their figures. Moreover, while being an effective compositional device with an interlocking play between surface and the illusion of depth, it does remind that riding a scooter can be bumpy at times, for Fairweather’s embrace is wide.

1. Smith, R., Fairweather: A Retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1965, unpaginated 2. Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, revised edition, 2009, p. 94 3. The artist quoted in Bail, ibid., p. 140 4. Gleeson, J., ‘Painting in Australia since 1945’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1963, p. 7 5. Bail, op. cit., p. 94

DAVID THOMAS

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JOHN PERCEVAL 25 (1923 – 2000) THE STUDIO – CANTERBURY, 1962 oil on canvas on composition board 83.0 x 100.5 cm signed and dated lower centre: Perceval 62 estimate :

$30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso) Private collection, Perth RELATED WORK The Artist’s Studio, 1961, oil on canvas, 91.7 x 119.8 cm, in the Monash University Collection, Melbourne

The Studio – Canterbury, 1962 is one of the last paintings John Perceval created before moving his whole family to London for an extended period. The relocation was the culmination of a highly successful series of exhibitions by the artist featuring his celebrated paintings of the working port of Williamstown, and ceramic sculptures of wildly exuberant Angels. Further, the National Gallery of Victoria mounted a major survey in 1962 of the so-called ‘Angry Penguins’, the group of artists from the 1940s including Nolan, Tucker and Boyd, who had radically transformed the artistic landscape of Australia. Entitled Rebels and Precursors, the exhibition also included many works by Perceval, the youngest of the group, whose paintings revealed a deeply personal and humanist response to the world around him. Since 1954, the Percevals had lived in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs and The Studio – Canterbury shows the artist’s working area at the back of their house. It may be interpreted as a nostalgic farewell to familiar domesticity and is also one of a very few works painted by Perceval in that year during which he was otherwise engaged in completing a major ceramic commission for Monash University.

Tangled and rambunctious, Perceval’s studio was the complete opposite of the usual quiet, contemplative space employed by artists. Children and pets were a constant presence, as was the wild garden beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Such an atmosphere was a direct extension of the famed AMB Pottery that the artist had operated with his brotherin-law Arthur Boyd, vividly captured in such paintings as The Pottery, 1948 (Deutscher and Hackett, 4 May 2016, lot 10) where pots teetered from shelves and rafters, and children crawled under tables. The Studio – Canterbury is the companion to The Artist’s Studio, 1961 (Monash University Collection), a slightly larger painting which shows the same room from a different angle. Whereas the latter depicts the artist’s naked model wandering Eve-like in the verdant growth, the work on offer here features three of the artist’s children and their shaggy black-and-white

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dog, ‘a (painterly) prospect that strikes out to be joyous’.1 The room itself is painted in relatively flat passages, but the application for the garden is thick and buttery, ‘commas and squiggles of pure pigment’. 2 Additional details, such as the children, are applied in sharp impasto strokes that harmonise the differing treatments of the two areas.

Awarded the Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting in 1960, Perceval’s exhibition at Australian Galleries the following year included works based on the studios of his friends Mirka Mora, Neil Douglas, and John and Sunday Reed; and The Studio – Canterbury is the conclusion to this sequence. That same year, he was also included in the ground-breaking exhibition, Recent Australian Painting, held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. With his colleagues Charles Blackman and Arthur Boyd already living there, the time was right for Perceval to take advantage of the situation and join them. The Canterbury house was sold in January 1963 to fund the expedition and it is likely that he took The Studio – Canterbury with him, as it appears not to have been exhibited and small passages of the impasto have been flattened, evidence of being packed against other paintings whilst still slightly wet. Settling in Hampstead, the family were delighted to discover another overgrown garden next door, thus providing a new motif and logical extension for Perceval in paintings such as Deserted Garden at Hampstead Heath, c.1963 where the vegetation now totally engulfs the picture plane.

1. Plant, M., ‘Australian Modernism’, in Duncan, J. and Michael, L. (ed.), Monash University Collection: Four decades of collecting, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2002, p. 54 2. ‘Australian Painter’s Youthful Zest’, Times, London, 12 March 1964, p. 16

ANDREW GAYNOR

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CHARLES BLACKMAN 26 born 1928 SPRING HILL WITH FIGURES, 1952 oil on board 62.0 x 74.5 cm signed lower right: BLACKMAN estimate :

$30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Collection of the artist Barbara Blackman, Melbourne Eastgate Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Melbourne Fine Art Gallery, Melbourne Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Lure of the Sun: Charles Blackman in Queensland, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 7 November 2015 – 31 January 2016

‘I think that Queensland probably had the best influence on me as a person, its sunshine and its lightness and its colour and its friendly spirit probably helped me to flower as a personality in some way’.1 Charles Blackman first ventured to Queensland in 1948 at the age of twenty, eager to break away from the familiarity of Sydney and lured by the vibrant creative scene nourished by the Barjai literary and artistic group. In Brisbane, Blackman discovered a vivacious circle of artists, poets, philosophers and writers including artist Laurence Hope, poet Judith Wright and his future wife, Barbara Patterson. This assorted group encouraged Blackman’s emerging style, introducing him to the beauty and vitality of Australia’s north and remaining important to the artist’s practice throughout his career. Blackman soon married Barbara, subsequently moving to Melbourne where he established a home and studio. Barbara’s family resided in Brisbane, enabling an ongoing connection with the city and the couple returned to Queensland in the winter of 1952, where Blackman painted a small group of works amid the distinctive houses of Spring Hill, portraying the warm simplicity of subtropical Brisbane.

The vernacular architecture of the charming ‘Queenslander’ home, responding to the local climatic and cultural needs of mid-19th century Queensland, was a subject fundamental to Blackman’s depictions of the Sunshine State. Wide verandahs and steeply pitched corrugated roofs were purposely designed to be hardy and rugged like the people inhabiting them. The distinctive silhouette of the ‘slanting, slatting, latticed timber houses’ 2 was conducive to Blackman’s developing artistic voice, with a geometric quality that would become a defining feature of the artist’s style. In the present work fence posts, weatherboards and steep front steps form rhythmic patterns which frame the central figures within the urban landscape.

Blackman’s time in Queensland was vital to subsequent developments in his work, as confirmed by the exhibition Lure of the Sun: Charles Blackman in Queensland at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2016. The exhibition highlighted the powerful impact that Brisbane had on the artist, both on and off the canvas, particularly in the friendships forged there, and his becoming acquainted with notable influences including Sidney Nolan. Nolan’s paintings, first viewed by Blackman in Brisbane, introduced the young artist to a poetic and allegorical method of expression.

There are notable parallels between the paintings Blackman produced in Brisbane and his ensuing work, including the famed Schoolgirl series which immediately followed the Queensland sojourn in 1952. The figures in the present work are veiled in menacing shadows, conjuring the same sense of unease which pervaded the Schoolgirl paintings. Similarly isolated and cloaked in obscurity, the figures here are a precursor to the later school children who inhabited deserted locales. A strong use of pattern points to the uniform pleats and sharp repetitive rooftops recurrent in the Schoolgirl series, while the harsh light and ominous shadows, together with unexpected colour combinations seen here, remained a significant feature of the artist’s oeuvre. An important work from Blackman’s formative years, Spring Hill with Figures, 1952 is a fascinating signal of things to come for a promising young artist on the path to a prodigious career.

1. The artist quoted in Hawker, M., Lure of the Sun: Charles Blackman in Queensland, exhibition catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery, 2015, p. 16 2. Shapcott, T., Focus on Charles Blackman, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1967, p.

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MELISSA HELLARD

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JOHN OLSEN 27 born 1928 THE BICYCLE BOY’S COLLISION, 1961 oil on composition board 76.0 x 101.5 cm signed lower right: John Olsen estimate :

$50,000 – 70,000

PROVENANCE John Landau, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Private collection, Perth LITERATURE Spate, V., John Olsen, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1963, p. 18 RELATED WORK The Bicycle Boys, 1955, oil on canvas, 92.5 x 77.2 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, illus. in Art and Australia, Sam Ure Smith and The Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 14, No. 3 – 4, Summer 1977, p. 340 The Bicycle Boys Collision, 1955, oil on canvas, 60.0 x 75.5 cm, formerly in the collection of James O. Fairfax AC, New South Wales, illus. in Hurlston, D., and Edwards, D. (eds.), John Olsen: The You Beaut Country, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016, p. 40

Robert Hughes was the most acclaimed art critic Australia has ever produced yet he was happy to state publicly that ‘everything I know about painting, I learned in John Olsen’s old Victoria Street studio in Kings Cross’.1 Having returned from a revelatory period in Spain, Olsen took up residence on the edge of the Kings Cross cliff in 1960 in a rambling terrace house with views directly over the sprawling streets of working-class Woolloomooloo and the harbour beyond. The suburb was already an artists’ hub and nearby studios housed William Rose, Stanislav Rapotec, Bernard Hesling and others. It was also here that Olsen developed the sensational ‘You Beaut Country’ series which transformed Australia’s landscape tradition and signaled a new way of interpreting life itself. In his meandering lines and calligraphic splashes, Olsen’s paintings sought to depict the experience of an actual walk through the streets, including chance encounters with locals, barking dogs and incidents as he witnessed them; and The Bicycle Boy’s Collision, 1961 is an extension of this process.

Three bikes are involved in this crash, and the figure on the right wears a jersey bearing the number ‘7’, indicating this was an actual race and heightening the drama of the image. It is also a reworking of a celebrated earlier painting, The Bicycle Boys Rejoice, 1955 which was a feature

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of the renowned James Fairfax AO Collection (Deutscher and Hackett, 30 August 2017, lot 7). This work clearly showed the influence of the artist’s teacher John Passmore who was a devotee of Cezanne, and of Olsen’s own admiration for the Swiss painter Paul Klee, as noted by Olsen’s first biographer Virginia Spate: ‘Here Klee’s wit is transformed into Rabelasian laughter. Yet for all its laughter, one recognises that the painting is a serious thing. It is orgiastic rather than humorous. … a wild joy (with) an intensity that disturbs and threatens’. 2 Spate also identified that this earlier painting displayed ‘the beginning of the linearism which is … Olsen’s most expressive quality’. 3 During his overseas sojourn, the young artist saw Cézanne’s work in the flesh for the first time and recognised that the Frenchman’s process could never fully capture the dynamism he wished to portray. Exposure to the materially impoverished but spiritually rich communities in Spain was a further revelation, as was Olsen’s viewing of examples of international contemporary abstraction.

Additionally, he was already an admirer of Aboriginal art, ‘the striations and dots, as well as the handprints imbedded in the landscape’,4 and on his return to Australia, sought to amalgamate these sources to capture the pulsating sprit of the Australian experience.

The Bicycle Boy’s Collision is an unashamedly ‘vulgar’ painting with echoes of doodles, graffiti and children’s art, but Olsen has utilised these influences ‘with a power, persistence and penetration that is quite outside the capacity of immature, inattentive or incapable minds. … It is art with its guards down – spontaneous and completely personal’. 5 The bicyclists seem caught between grimace and exultation, set in a flatly defined space of broad brush-marks deliberately lacking a third dimension. Angles, lines and colours create repeat sequences such as where the pedals of the rider to the right mimic the outstretched arms above them; and the eye roams around the chaos in a similarly jagged manner.

1. Hughes, R., quoted on back cover of Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997 2. Spate, V., Australian Art Monographs: John Olsen, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1963, pp. 12 – 13 3. Spate, V., op cit., p. 4 4. Hart, D., John Olsen, Craftsman House, Sydney, second edition, 2000, p. 59 5. Gleeson, J., ‘Why Not Picture on the Ceiling?’, The Sun-Herald, Sydney, 25 November 1962, p. 53

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ARTHUR BOYD 28 (1920 – 1999) WIMMERA LANDSCAPE WITH FULL MOON AND WHITE COCKATOOS, c.1985 oil on board 90.0 x 120.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd bears inscription verso: 6 six estimate :

$80,000 – 100,000

PROVENANCE Savill Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, London, acquired from the above in 2000 EXHIBITED 120 Years of Australian painting, Savill Galleries, Melbourne, 3 September – 1 October 2000, cat. 44 (as ‘Wimmera Landscape with Full Moon’)

Throughout the course of his career, Arthur Boyd has been an untiring and extremely skillful and beautiful painter of landscapes. … If Boyd paints distance and the horizon it is always in a spirit of sensitivity, he wishes to reveal the appeal and delicacy of far-off things. The effects of great distance and extreme clarity of light are nostalgic, and the most everyday objects and happenings become literally transfigured.1 Boyd never endows (the Wimmera) with the drama of the desert. Even when painting its most parched and bare condition … he invariably includes some sign of life, human or animal: a ramshackle shed, scattered thin, dusty sheep, a hunter followed by his slow thirsty dog, some distant houses or even only a bird … rising or nesting. 2 (In these paintings) Boyd created an archetypal Australian landscape. Possessing both a poetic lyricism and a down to earth quality and capturing the glorious light, these works … (project) a sense of acceptance that many country-dwelling Australians could identify with readily. 3 Arthur Boyd first visited the Wimmera in north-west Victoria in the summer of 1948 – 1949. His paintings of the wheat-growing region, particularly those based around Horsham and Ararat, met with both critical and popular acclaim when exhibited in 1950, and their success led directly to his inclusion as one of Australia’s representatives in the 1958 Venice Biennale. Boyd revisited the theme on occasion over the following decades, painting at his property Riversdale in southern New South Wales, or at the households he established in Britain and Italy. Such was the impact of the Wimmera on his psyche that ‘every house was his studio, and the Australian landscape, strongly held in memory, was as accessible to him in his Suffolk Studio as anywhere else’.4 In Wimmera Landscape with Full Moon and Nine Cockatoos, c.1985, Boyd presents a familiar vision but one set at an unfamiliar time, namely early evening when the sky is still blue and the full moon is already prominently visible. The lights in distant houses beckon and a squall of cockatoos – the Wimmera’s most ubiquitous bird – are screeching past, catching insects for their dinner. In the middle distance, a fire-scorched patch of pasture offsets the soft green of the foreground and the scattering of pink and blue spiky plants. For the painting’s previous owner in London, such an immediately recognisable landscape would have been a source of continuing delight, memory and tangible connection to Australia.

1. O’Shaughnessy, B., ‘Introduction’, Arthur Boyd: Retrospective exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1962, pp. 16 – 17 2. Philipp, F., Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967, p. 62 3. McKenzie, J., Arthur Boyd: art and life, Thames and Hudson, London, 2000, p. 91 4. Niall, B., The Boyds, Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2007, p. 342

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RUSSELL DRYSDALE 29 (1912 – 1981) SOLDIERS RESTING OUTSIDE ALBURY STATION, c.1943 ink and watercolour on paper 33.0 x 37.0 cm signed lower right: Russell Drysdale estimate :

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne

The following excerpt is quoted from Klepac, L., Russell Drysdale, the drawings, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2012, p. 13:

RELATED WORK Albury Platform, 1943, gouache and ink on pulpboard, 54.5 x 65.0 cm, in the collection of Albury Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, illus. in Smith, G., Russell Drysdale 1912 – 81, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, cat. 18, pp. 68 – 69 (illus.)

Soldiers Sleeping Outside Albury Station, c.1943, pen and ink and gouache on paper, 17.2 x 22.3 cm, illus. in Klepac, L., Russell Drysdale: The Drawings, The Beagle Press, Sydney, p. 64

‘The Drysdales arrived in Sydney in November 1940 and settled in to their new home, but when the Japanese submarine surfaced in Sydney Harbour and torpedoed a ship at Circular Quay, Drysdale moved his family to Albury. There he set up a studio in an old barn and discovered a new subject: soldiers. They were everywhere in the town and at the railway station, as Hume Army Camp was situated near Albury.’

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SALI HERMAN 30 (1898 – 1993) OUTBACK, 1946 oil on canvas on composition board 51.5 x 61.5 cm signed and dated lower right: S Herman. 46 estimate :

$25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Sydney Ure Smith, Sydney Thence by descent Ure Smith collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 2 December 2015, lot 11 Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1946 (bears inscription on label verso: Winne [sic] Prize competition: / Artist: S Herman / title: ‘Outback’) Sali Herman Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 – 26 July 1981, cat. 29 (label attached verso), and touring nationally from September 1981 – July 1982 to State and Regional galleries LITERATURE Ure Smith, S. (ed.), Present Day Art in Australia, Ure Smith Publishing, Sydney, 1949, p. 48 (illus.)

Art and Australia, vol. 3, June 1965, p. 80 (illus.)

Thomas, D., Sali Herman, Collins, Sydney, 1971, pl. 20, p. 111 (illus.)

Pearce, B., Sali Herman: Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1981, cat. 29, p. 49 (illus.)

Such was the reach of Sali Herman’s work, that there was a time when almost every pub in New South Wales seemed to have a reproduction of his House on the Hill, 1948 hung in a prominent place. Without a doubt this widely reproduced image would have introduced many Australians to the work of Sali Herman, and it is his paintings of Sydney’s post-war street scenes that are his most recognisable works.

In 1945 Herman was awarded the Wynne Prize for landscape painting and also had a work purchased for the National Art Gallery of New South Wales collection. He then accompanied the gallery’s Travelling Art Exhibition service on a tour across western New South Wales as a lecturer. This afforded him the chance to observe firsthand the hardship being experienced by drought stricken outback Australians at that time. The drought was to last ten years and was responsible for much hardship and heartache, but also inspired several paintings that are widely regarded as masterpieces of Australian art.

Outback, 1946 fits neatly in Herman’s oeuvre alongside his steadfast commitment to depicting the dwellings of inner Sydney workers. Herman’s depictions of working class ‘Sydney slums’ sat comfortably with his leftist ideals which he formed during his time travelling in Europe between the two world wars. Paris in particular enabled him to mix with revolutionary writers and artists. The political ferment of that time stayed with the artist throughout his life.

His participation in exhibitions with the Studio of Realist Art offered a sympathetic environment in which to express his socialist ideals. Herman’s paintings have been seen by many as paying homage to the struggles of Sydney’s underclass following WWII. His 1944 Wynne Prize winning painting McElhone Stairs, 1944, was said to represent labour and hardship, as the artist chose to depict the figures dwarfed by the stairs which appear to get steeper as they rise.

In Outback the heroes of the painting are clearly the family, as the mother and child occupy the dwelling and appear to be waiting for the return of the male bread winner. This depiction of a scene on the road to Broken Hill shows a typical outback family of the period. Having to travel in search of work the father is absent for long stretches. The chickens wander, the dog keeps vigil the car is redundant and serves only to amplify the remoteness of the scene. A water tank looms large over the dwelling like a lung crucial to the survival of the family; a bucket sits under the tap to ensure nothing gets wasted.

Outback depicts the adversity faced by stoic outback Australians who demonstrated a stubborn resilience in the face of relentless hardship. We empathise with the outback characters; we see them as battlers in the face of overwhelming odds, an idea that is central to the image many Australians have of themselves.

HENRY MULHOLLAND

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ARTHUR BOYD 31 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN RIVER, c.1995 oil on canvas 100.0 x 80.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd bears inscription verso: 5 estimate :

PROVENANCE Private collection, New South Wales

$55,000 – 75,000

Arthur Boyd returned to Australia in 1971, eager to rediscover his Australian roots, having spent over a decade in the lush English countryside. A short time after his homecoming, art dealer Frank McDonald invited Arthur and his wife Yvonne to visit his property by the banks of the Shoalhaven River, on the south coast of New South Wales. A sweltering hot day, Boyd commenced a sketch of the Shoalhaven River, thus beginning a love affair with the region and its many moods. Boyd and his wife proceeded to purchase two properties adjacent to the Shoalhaven River – ‘Riversdale’ and later ‘Bundanon’ – the wild landscape becoming one of Boyd’s most enduring subjects, painted well into his final years.

The majestic soaring cliffs which bordered the Shoalhaven remained a perennial image of this series, with the sunbathed Nowra sandstone standing timelessly above the tranquil river. As Janet McKenzie has observed; ‘The natural beauty of the Shoalhaven area caused Boyd to marvel constantly. His paintings are a celebration of the grandeur and wonder of Nature. It is to Boyd’s credit that a single landscape can inspire such diversity of work.

He gives us the impression that in life there are infinite possibilities, as long as we train ourselves to see.’1 In his 1970s paintings of the Shoalhaven River, Boyd depicted the sandstone escarpments and untamed shrubbery using crisp lines and fine detail. However later works, including Shoalhaven River, c.1995, employed a looser painterly technique, as the artist grew to recognise the subtleties of the region. As in the present work, Boyd would at times paint with his hands, a method which enabled greater intimacy with and devotion to the subject. This physical act allowed the artist to paint with strong intent, capturing the essence of the landscape and its many nuances.

Devoid of the boats, figures and swans often featured in the series, Shoalhaven River is a pure landscape, celebrating the unspoiled bush, completely removed from urban life.

The piercing blue of the sky reflected, mirror-like, on the water below, creates a scene that ‘glow[s] with well-being, joy and a sense of youth’. 2 Shoalhaven River does not have the religious and lyrical connotations imbued in a number of Shoalhaven paintings, instead portraying a truly enchanting summer day, with ‘air so clear and hot that light carved out the shapes of rocks like a burning scalpel’. 3 Having always delighted in his painting trips along the river, Boyd believed his magical Bundanon property should belong to the Australian people. Shortly before Shoalhaven River was painted, the property was gifted to the Australian Government, to be preserved forever, in the hope that future generations may also be inspired by the beauty and brilliance of the Shoalhaven River.

1. McKenzie, J., Arthur Boyd at Bundanon, Academy Press, London, 1994, p. 42 2. McGrath, S., The Artist and the River: Arthur Boyd and the Shoalhaven, Bay Books, Sydney, 1982, p. 79 3. ibid., p. 62

MELISSA HELLARD

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TIM STORRIER 32 born 1949 NIGHT FIRE, 1990 synthetic polymer paint and rope on canvas 61.0 x 198.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title lower right: ‘Night Fire’ / Storrier / 1990 bears inscription on stretcher verso: 6 estimate :

PROVENANCE Christopher Leonard Gallery, New York (label attached verso) Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne

$50,000 – 70,000

‘When Tim Storrier first strung a piece of rope between two poles and set it alight, he had no idea that he was opening a creative seam that would sustain his work for decades: a seam rich in concepts and images relating to the distance between two points and the rope as a defining and tensioning device between these points’.1 With its sublime beauty and disorienting juxtaposition of real and surreal, Night Fire, 1990 encapsulates well the highly individual evocations of nature that have brought Tim Storrier such widespread acclaim. Fascinated by the concept of the seemingly endless horizon – and particularly, that exciting point where horizon meets the sky – during the eighties, Storrier began experimenting with three dimensional constructions of wire, rope and steel which he would install in remote locations and subsequently ignite, capturing the entire dramatic event on cibachrome film. Deriving their impetus primarily from these ‘performances’, the ‘point to point’ paintings which ensued thus explore an iconic image whose atmospheric resonance differs widely depending upon the time of day or night.

Concerned with the elements of light, action and stillness, Storrier here merges the real and imagined to construct a highly personal landscape imbued with the ‘myth of the outback’; as he muses, ‘The idea of those horizons is something I still find challenging and rather wonderful. But again it is my view; it is not the reality of the farmer or the people that live there. It is a mythical quotient that had probably gone. As with Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalous, the painting is a myth. 2 ‘Drawing upon memory and intuition to forge a potent symbol of place, indeed Storrier has been compared to artists such as Streeton and Roberts who fused the actuality of the Australian bush with a sense of poetry, and Nolan and Drysdale who, realising the Australian outback as a vast and uncompromising landscape, pursued theatrical possibilities for creating a distinct and identifiable consciousness. 3 In his contemplation of the relative insignificance of humankind vis a vis the awesome magnitude of the natural world, Storrier’s art also bears strong affinities with the European tradition of romantic landscape painting, and specifically, Constable and Turner with their ‘great big skies, endless horizons and the air you can cut with a knife ‘thick with moisture’.4 1. Murray Cree, L., Dust and Ashes, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 2003 2. Storrier cited in Hart, D., ‘The Australian Context: Real and Imagined’, Tim Storrier: Burning of the Gifts, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 1989, p. 19 3. Hart, ibid., p. 18 4. Hart, ibid., p. 19

VERONICA ANGELATOS

84

85

GARRY SHEAD 33 born 1942 THE SENTINEL, 1992 (FROM ‘D.H. LAWRENCE’ SERIES) oil on canvas 91.0 x 121.0 cm signed lower right: Garry Shead signed and inscribed verso: The Sentinel Garry Shead estimate :

PROVENANCE Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, 1992 Company collection, Sydney Company collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Sydney, 24 September 2008, lot 24 Private collection, London

$60,000 – 80,000

The D.H Lawrence paintings marked the height of Garry Shead’s journey toward literary works which had fascinated the artist some two decades earlier. First reading the work of Englishman David Herbert Richards Lawrence during a 1968 trip to the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, Shead shared an immediate spiritual affinity with the author, sensing their experiences of Australia were to be inextricably linked. Later, having moved with his wife Judith to Bundeena on the New South Wales coast in 1987, Shead drew comparisons to the nearby town of Thirroul where Lawrence wrote his novel Kangaroo while visiting Australia in 1922. So began a committed response to the words of Lawrence which had charmed Shead as a young man. The entire first series of D.H Lawrence paintings, comprising approximately fifty works, was completed within six months, demonstrating a vision of considerable intensity and clarity. In the tradition of Arthur Boyd’s Bride series and Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series, the D.H Lawrence paintings oscillate between interpretations of reality and visions replete with mythology and poetic metaphors.

Of the D.H. Lawrence paintings, Sasha Grishin elucidates ‘Shead’s Kangaroo series is a personal, intuitive response to the novel rather than an attempt to illustrate the narrative.

The imagery has much to do with the Lawrences at Thirroul, as with the characters in the novel. Richard Somers and his wife Harriet, of the novel, in the paintings appear as strange and ambiguous figures, at times taking on the features of Lawrence and Frieda, at others, having more than a passing resemblance to Shead and his wife Judith.’1 Typical of the series, the ambiguous figures in The Sentinel, 1992 serve as a caution against literal interpretation.

Their identities unclear and complex, the man and woman waver between an embodiment of one of the three couples, and an indefinite combination of all. The kangaroo, armed with a rifle and standing tall above the figures is similarly ambiguous. Often theorised as a symbol of Kangaroo antagonist, political activist Cooley, the kangaroo motif featured across the series is the manifestation of a spiritual presence, rather than a tangible character. An omniscient adversary, the kangaroo in The Sentinel characterises the spirit of the place, its concrete formation ensuring a resolute and permanent gaze across the land and its trespassers.

The novel Kangaroo builds and maintains an enduring sense of anticipation, where the reader remains ‘... waiting, waiting for something to happen, waiting for this spirit of the land to strike’. 2 Likewise, The Sentinel conveys a quiet suspense, as though the figures and the kangaroo, surveying their surrounds, are attempting to foretell their personal fate. The landscape, discernibly Australian with its rocky cliff sides and sweeping bush backdrop, is strangely timeless and as much an expression of Lawrence’s 1922 Thirroul as Shead’s coastal home of Bundeena. Rich with allegory, The Sentinel is a wonderful homage to Lawrence, bearing the prevailing lyricism and resonance of the much loved series to which it belongs.

1. Grishin, S., Garry Shead and the D.H. Lawrence Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1993, p. 14 2. ibid.

MELISSA HELLARD

86

87

SAM FULLBROOK 34 (1922 – 2004) SUNDOWN NEAR WARRAWAGINE, c.1960 – 64 oil on canvas 52.5 x 70.0 cm signed lower left: Fullbrook estimate :

$18,000 – 25,000

PROVENANCE Clune Galleries, Sydney (inscribed verso) Lister Gallery, Perth (label attached verso) Wesfarmers Art Collection, Perth, acquired from the above in 1987 (label attached verso) Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 29 August 2012, lot 14 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED The Song of the Lamb: The Wesfarmers Collection of Australian Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 19 August – 2 October 1989 LITERATURE Gooding, J., Topliss, H., Sharkey, C., and Horridge, N., The Song of the Lamb: The Wesfarmers Collection of Australian Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1989, p. 90 (illus.)

From timber cutter to commando, Melbourne’s National Gallery School to cane cutting in north Queensland, painter of fences, portraits, flowers and landscapes, gold prospector, shearer, lover of horses, racing and punting – Sam Fullbrook was all of them and more.

And they all found their way into his art. Diversity was the keynote of his life and his art. His portraits ranged from jockeys, Jockey, Norman Stephens (The Brisbane Club Collection), which won the 1974 Archibald Prize, to the Governor-General. Democratic in his approach, Fullbrook once said that he aimed to ‘paint good pictures that children will love’.1 It is no paradox that their lyrical beauty and simplicity of directness were gauged to appeal to the naive and sophisticate alike; but, as in a child’s vision, his paintings have a freshness and innocence that evokes the elemental. To this is added his bushman’s vision and empathy with the country and its fauna. His compassionate paintings of Aboriginal people drew upon the time spent living and working in an Aboriginal co-operative in north-western Australia. This understanding of the people and their identity with the land is strongly felt in Jacob Obajui, 1956 – 60 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), a portrait of the head stockman and elder of the Pindara co-operative. Fullbrook’s own time as head stockman in the Pilbara increased even further his identification with the environment. Underneath a toughness of character and appearance lay a deep feeling for the land and its creatures, finding expression in such distinctive paintings as Sundown near Warrawagine, c.1960 – 64 and the evocative 1963 Wynne Prize winner Sandhills on the Darling (collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). 2 Few paintings could be more endearing and humorous than those of native animals – koalas, kangaroos, platypus – even fish.

In Aeroplane and Emu, 1964 (private collection), one of his finest works, movement is a metaphor of freedom. Sundown near Warrawagine is informed by a different sense of movement engendered through the lively strokes of his brush. The landscape of Shay Gap pass in the East Pilbara is one of the oldest on earth, of majestic ranges, gorges and deserts. The Warrawagine cattle station nearby joins the Great Sandy Desert to the east.

Fullbrook chose the less spectacular, exploring the poetry of the subject in the silence of a timeless land. The softening effects of sunset, or more colloquially ‘sundown’, are employed to increase that sense of intimacy and harmony so readily felt at the closing of the day. Of art and life, Fullbrook said, ‘put your heart and soul into it. Do that and people will love you for it.’ 3 1. The artist quoted in Horton, M. (ed.), Present Day Art in Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1969, p. 74 2. He also won the 1964 Wynne Prize (shared with David Strachan) with Trees in a Landscape.

3. The artist quoted in Beeby, R., ‘You Don’t Sell, You Don’t Eat’, Age, Melbourne, 12 August 1985, p. 11

DAVID THOMAS

88

89

CHARLES BLACKMAN 35 born 1928 THEY BROUGHT HER RIBBONS OF YELLOW AND CRIMSON AND GREAT CLUSTERS OF FLOWERS, c.1980 oil on composition board 48.0 x 66.0 cm signed lower right: BLACKMAN bears inscription verso: No. 23 estimate :

90

$16,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 28 August 2002, lot 18 Private collection, Melbourne

CHARLES BLACKMAN 36 born 1928 THE DREAM, c.1966 oil on paper on composition board 50.5 x 70.5 cm signed lower right: CHARLES BLACKMAN inscribed with title verso: DREAM estimate :

$18,000 – 25,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 23 November 1998, lot 79 Savill Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Australian Paintings: Traditional, Modern & Contemporary, Savill Galleries, Perth, 7 February – 4 March 2003, cat. 25 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)

91

DORRIT BLACK 37 (1891 – 1951) THE STRING QUARTETTE, c.1935 colour linocut on thin oriental wove paper 15.0 x 24.0 cm edition 1/50 signed, numbered, and inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE The Estate of Edith Lawrence Tennants, United Kingdom, 25 March 2017, lot 747 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

92

$15,000 – 20,000

EXHIBITED British Lino Cuts, Ward Gallery, London, 10 June – 8 July 1936, cat. 19 (another example) Dorrit Black, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, 7 – 23 July 1938, cat. 40 (another example) Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1 June – 7 September 2014 (another example) LITERATURE North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1979, p. 204 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Another example of this print is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Study for The Quartette, pencil and watercolour on paper, 15.1 x 24.6 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

ETHEL SPOWERS 38 (1890 – 1947) REFLECTIONS OF A CHINA FAWN, 1932 colour linocut on buff oriental tissue 26.0 x 20.5 cm edition: 2/30 signed, dated, numbered and inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE Wingrove Fine Prints, Washington, DC, USA Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Washington, DC, USA, acquired from the above in 1986 Freeman’s, Philadelphia, USA, 6 April 2017, lot 52 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$6,000 – 8,000

EXHIBITED Exhibition of Progressive Art, Modern Art Centre, Sydney, March 1932, cat. 40 (another example) Exhibition of Linocuts, Everyman’s Lending Library, Melbourne, 5 – 16 April 1932, cat. 18 (another example) Gladys Owen and Ethel Spowers, Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney, 6 – 31 December 1932, cat. 9 (another example) LITERATURE Coppel, S., Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School, Scolar Press, Aldershot, United Kingdom, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1995, cat.ES20, pp. 173, 174 (illus., another example)

93

GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH 39 (1892 – 1984) DEVON – TRUSHAM LANDSCAPE, 1949 oil on canvas on board 33.5 x 44.5 cm signed lower left: G. Cossington Smith estimate :

94

$10,000 – 15,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Grace Cossington Smith, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 3 – 15 March 1978, cat. 30

JOHN PASSMORE 40 (1904 – 1984) HARBOUR VIEW, c.1952 oil on composition board 38.5 x 55.5 cm signed lower right: J PASSMORE bears inscription on label verso: TR 13.18 / John Passmore / Coll. Mrs. M.A. Franks PROVENANCE Mrs M. A. Franks, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$10,000 – 15,000

LLOYD REES 41 (1895 – 1988) BLACKWATTLE BAY, 1965 carbon pencil and watercolour wash on paper 25.0 x 40.0 cm signed and dated lower right: L. REES / 1965 PROVENANCE Private collection, Perth estimate :

$5,000 – 8,000

95

ARTHUR BOYD 42 (1920 – 1999) SLEEPING WOMAN WITH DRAGONFLY AND WATCHING FIGURE, c.1964 pastel on paper 48.5 x 63.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :

96

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Sol: A Summer Survey, Olsen Irwin Gallery, Sydney, 18 December 2012 – 27 January 2013, cat. 2

ARTHUR BOYD 43 (1920 – 1999) SPIRITS, c.1963 – 64 (FROM THE ROMEO AND JULIET SERIES) glazed ceramic tile 53.0 x 56.0 cm signed lower left: Arthur Boyd estimate :

$18,000 – 25,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 31 July 1985, lot 23 Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 24 July 1988, lot 227 Private collection, Sydney RELATED WORK Romeo and Juliet, 1963 – 64, earthenware, lead, wood, polyptych, 222.6 x 371.4 x 4.2 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

97

TONY TUCKSON 44 (1921 – 1973) UNTITLED (TP 134), c.1952 oil on canvas on composition board 60.5 x 41.5 cm bears inscription verso: TP134 bears inscription on label verso: 14 ISAACS estimate :

98

$10,000 – 15,000

PROVENANCE Watters Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso, cat. TP 134, 76/11/014) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above c.1976 Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Victoria EXHIBITED Tony Tuckson 1952? – 1956?, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 2 – 19 June 1976, cat. 14

SAM FULLBROOK 45 (1922 – 2004) DARLING RIVER LANDSCAPE, 1965 oil on canvas 63.0 x 71.0 cm signed with initials lower left: S F estimate :

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist Menzies, Melbourne, 14 September 2011, lot 103 Private collection, Perth

99

ALBERT TUCKER 46 (1914 – 1999) PARROTS IN THE BUSH oil on composition board 37.0 x 49.0 cm signed lower right: Tucker inscribed on label verso: ALBERT TUCKER / “Parrots in Bush” / … estimate :

100

$12,000 – 18,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 March 1982, lot 903 (as ‘Parrots in Bush’) Private collection, Melbourne

ROBERT DICKERSON 47 (1924 – 2015) ULTIMO, AN EARLY MORNING WALK oil on canvas 55.5 x 60.5 cm signed lower right: DICKERSON bears inscription on label verso: 44 estimate :

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Holdsworth Gallery, Sydney (partial label attached verso) Prouds, Sydney Private collection, Sydney

101

DONALD FRIEND 48 (1915 – 1989) THE TROUPE, 1953 pen and ink and gouache on paper 55.0 x 43.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title upper left: The Troupe. / Donald Friend. ’53. estimate :

102

$6,000 – 9,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Maunsell Wickes at Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Donald Friend, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 24 November – 6 December 1954

ARTHUR BOYD 49 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN LANDSCAPE oil on board 23.0 x 30.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney, a gift from the artist Gallery Savah, Sydney Private collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 19 April 2011, lot 50 Private collection, New South Wales estimate :

$22,000 – 28,000

SIDNEY NOLAN 50 (1917 – 1992) FIGURE AND FLOWERS IN LANDSCAPE oil on paper on composition board 75.5 x 51.5 cm signed lower right: Nolan PROVENANCE Savill Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne estimate :

$8,000 – 12,000

103

PROVENANCE Galeries Georges Petit, Paris Private collection, Paris

RUPERT BUNNY 51 (1864 – 1947) JEUNE FILLE EN BLEU monotype 24.5 x 24.5 cm signed with artist’s monogram on image upper left: RCWB estimate :

104

$7,000 – 9,000

EXHIBITED Exposition Rupert Bunny: monotypes, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, March 1921, cat. 29 LITERATURE Thomas, D., The Life and Art of Rupert Bunny: A Catalogue Raisonné, Thames and Hudson, Melbourne, 2017, cat. M76, p. 113

BERTRAM MACKENNAL 52 (1863 – 1931) SALOMÉ, c.1895 bronze 28.5 cm height signed at base: B. MACKENNAL inscribed at base: LONDON / SALOME stamped inside base with E. Gruet Jeune Paris foundry mark PROVENANCE Private collection, France Thence by descent Private collection, France EXHIBITED Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, May 1897, cat. 2053 (another example) Bertram Mackennal sculpture from the Stawell Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, February 1901 (another example) Bertram Mackennal Retrospective Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 August – 4 November 2007; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 30 November 2007 – 24 February 2008 (another example, lent by the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth) estimate :

$12,000 – 18,000

LITERATURE Edwards, D., Bertram Mackennal: The Fifth Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 5, 115 (illus., other examples) RELATED WORK Other examples of this work are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

105

DAVID DAVIES 53 (1864 – 1939) AUTUMN, c.1904 oil on canvas 39.5 x 23.5 cm signed lower left: DAVIES. PROVENANCE Davies Family Collection, United Kingdom Adrian Mibus, London Phillip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Perth estimate :

106

$15,000 – 20,000

EXHIBITED Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1904, cat. 672 Aspects of European Art … 1900, Whitford and Hughes (London), Queen’s Gallery, Woollahra, August – September 1981, cat. 22 (as ‘Wooded Landscape’) David Davies Retrospective, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 September – 11 November 1984; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 4 December 1984 – 6 January 1985; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 February – 10 March 1985, cat. 32 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Cowden, A., David Davies: The Expatriate Period, Anthony Cowden, London, 1978 (unpaginated) Sparks, C., David Davis 1864 – 1939, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 1984, cat. 32, p. 48 (illus.)

Graves, A., The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work, from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, Kingsmead Reprints and Hilmarton Manor Press, vol. I, London, 1989, p. 256

BESSIE DAVIDSON 54 (1879 – 1965) FLEURS, 1942 oil on wood panel 39.5 x 32.0 cm signed lower left: Bessie Davidson signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Fleurs / Bessie Davidson / 1942 estimate

$25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, United Kingdom Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood, United Kingdom, 11 July 2017, lot 458 Private collection, Sydney

107

WILL ASHTON (1881 – 1963) ST IVES oil on canvas 61.0 x 91.5 cm signed and inscribed with title lower right: J. WILL. ASHTON / St IVES estimate :

108

$30,000 – 40,000

55 PROVENANCE Sir John Langdon Bonython, Adelaide Thence by descent Sir John Lavington Bonython, Adelaide Thence by descent John Langdon Bonython, Adelaide Shirley Bonython, Adelaide, until 2000 Private collection, Melbourne

DUNCAN McGREGOR WHYTE 56 (1866 – 1953, Scottish/Australian) COTTESLOE BEACH, c.1910 oil on canvas on board 23.0 x 32.0 cm signed lower left: DMcG Whyte bears inscription verso: Cottesloe Beach c1910 / Duncan McGregor / Don (on his birthday) / & Marg (even though it’s not her birthday) / with warmest regards, / Philip / 8.7.91 estimate :

$8,000 – 12,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 41 (as ‘The Beach’) Private collection, Perth

109

HANS HEYSEN 57 (1877 – 1968) FARMYARD WITH HAYSTACK AND CATTLE watercolour on paper 30.0 x 37.0 cm signed lower right: HANS HEYSEN estimate :

110

$5,000 – 8,000

PROVENANCE Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (partial label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne

SYDNEY LONG 58 (1871 – 1955) LANDSCAPE, PASTORAL, 1919 watercolour on paper 29.0 x 35.0 cm signed and dated lower left: SID LONG / 1919. inscribed with date and title on label verso: “Landscape Pastorale” 1910 / SID LONG / … estimate :

$5,000 – 7,000

PROVENANCE Decoration Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso, as ‘Tree Study’) Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 12 April 1989, lot 1376 (as ‘Tree Study’) Private collection, Perth

111

McLEAN EDWARDS 59 born 1972 PYGMALION WRESTLES, 1997 oil on canvas 167.5 x 137.5 cm estimate :

112

$8,000 – 12,000

PROVENANCE Legge Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED McLean Edwards: Pygmalion, Legge Gallery, Sydney, 18 March – 12 April 1997, cat. 13

MICHAEL ZAVROS 60 born 1974 DEBASER/BURBERRY, 2007 charcoal on paper 122.0 x 86.0 cm signed with initials and dated lower right: MZ07 estimate :

$16,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney Private collection, Brisbane

113

PHILIP WOLFHAGEN 61 born 1963 STILL LIFE TRIPTYCH NO. 3, 2000 oil and beeswax linen triptych 151.0 x 56.0 cm each right panel: signed with initial, dated and inscribed with title lower right: W February / 2000 / STILL LIFE / TRIPTYCH No. 3 / (RIGHT PANEL) right panel: artist’s stamp lower right each inscribed with title verso: Still Life Triptych No. 3 / … estimate :

114

$12,000 – 18,000 (3)

PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Philip Wolfhagen: Converging Planes, Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney, 9 March – 1 April 2000, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)

RICK AMOR 62 born 1948 SAILING TO THE WEST (EVENING), 2001 oil on canvas 56.0 x 71.0 cm signed and dated lower left: RICK AMOR ‘01 dated and inscribed with title verso: NOV 01 / SAILING TO THE / WEST (EVENING) / …

PROVENANCE Collection of Lex Aitken and Alfredo (Bouret) Gonzalez, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 28 August 2013, lot 29 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$15,000 – 25,000

LITERATURE Fry, G., Rick Amor, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2008, p. 122 (illus.)

RELATED WORK Sailing to the West, 1996, oil on panel, 23.0 x 30.0 cm, Deakin University Art Collection, Melbourne, illus. in Fry, G., Rick Amor, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2008, p. 64 Study for Sailing to the West, 1996, charcoal, 75.0 x 105.0 cm, illus. in Fry, G., Rick Amor, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2008, p. 123

115

NICHOLAS HARDING 63 born 1956 NOCTURNE, 2000 oil on canvas on board 67.0 x 72.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: NOCTURNE / LANDSCAPE / STUDY / 2000 / Nicholas Harding PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection Lawson~Menzies, Sydney, 23 February 2012, lot 65 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$5,000 – 8,000

PETER BOOTH 64 born 1940 (UNTITLED), 1979 ink on paper 75.5 x 113.0 cm PROVENANCE Gary Catalano, Melbourne Niagara Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Brisbane EXHIBITED Blue Chip XI: the collectors’ exhibition, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 3 – 28 March 2009 estimate :

116

$6,000 – 9,000

NICHOLAS HARDING 65 born 1956 ERSKINEVILLE RAILWAY, 1992 – 93 oil on canvas on board 122.0 x 122.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: ERSKINEVILLE / RAILWAY / 1992 – 93 / Nicholas Harding estimate :

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Nicholas Harding Paintings and Drawings, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 26 November – 18 December 1993, cat. 3 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1994

117

PRINCE OF WALES (MIDPUL) 66 (c.1935 – 2002) BODY MARKS, 2002 synthetic polymer paint on linen 137.0 x 80.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, date, title, size and Karen Brown Gallery cat. KBD901 estimate :

118

$15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Commissioned by Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin Aboriginal Pacific Arts, Sydney Private collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above in 2002

BILL WHISKEY TJAPALTJARRI 67 (c.1920 – 2008) ROCKHOLES AND COUNTRY NEAR ULURU, 2006 synthetic polymer paint on linen 125.0 x 150.0 cm estimate :

$12,000 – 16,000

PROVENANCE Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu, Mount Leibig, cat. 81-0614 Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu.

ROVER THOMAS (JOOLAMA) 68 (c.1926 – 1998) UNTITLED, 1992 natural earth pigments and synthetic binder on canvas 40.0 x 50.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name and Waringarri Arts cat. AP3781 and S.4306 bears inscription on label attached verso: #4 PROVENANCE Waringarri Arts, Kununurra Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne estimate :

$8,000 – 12,000

119

LUCY CULLITON 69 born 1966 COWS AND BULLS, 2000 oil on twelve boards 20.0 x 20.0 cm each ten panels signed with initials and dated lower right: LC 00 two panels signed with initials and dated lower left: LC 00 each panel signed, dated and inscribed with title verso estimate :

PROVENANCE Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne Lawson~Menzies, Sydney, 21 November 2013, lot 140 (as ‘Cows’) Private collection, Sydney

$4,000 – 6,000 (12)

NOEL McKENNA 70 born 1956 PLAYROOM, 1992 watercolour on paper 42.0 x 36.0 cm signed and dated lower left: N McKenna 92 estimate :

$1,500 – 2,000

PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Access Contemporary Art Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney

NOEL McKENNA 71 born 1956 (I) UNTITLED, 1998 glazed ceramic tiles 20.0 x 40.0 cm signed and dated lower right: N. McKENNA 98 (II) UNTITLED, 2000 15.0 x 20.0 cm signed and dated lower right: N. McKENNA 00 estimate :

120

$1,200 – $1,800 (2)

PROVENANCE Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney Private collection, New South Wales

CRESSIDA CAMPBELL 72 born 1960 UNTITLED (STILL LIFE INTERIOR) oil on canvas 35.0 x 45.5 cm signed lower left: Cressida Campbell PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Shapiro Auctioneers, Sydney, 22 August 2012, lot 21 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$8,000 – 12,000

CRESSIDA CAMPBELL 73 born 1960 UNTITLED (STILL LIFE BANANAS) synthetic polymer paint on paper 51.0 x 40.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Cressida Campbell ‘81 PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Shapiro Auctioneers, Sydney, 22 August 2012, lot 64 Private collection, Sydney estimate :

$4,000 – 6,000

121

VIDA LAHEY 74 (1882 – 1968) ALLAMANDA, 1919 watercolour on paper 60.5 x 84.0 cm signed and dated lower right: V. LAHEY 1919 signed and inscribed with title verso: “Allamanda” / Vida Lahey / 1 / /x / Dr Ivan Maxwell / …

PROVENANCE Dr Ivan Maxwell, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne estimate :

$6,000 – 8,000

BESSIE DAVIDSON 75 (1879 – 1965) MARSEILLE, 1939 oil on wood panel 18.0 x 23.0 cm signed lower right: Bessie Davidson signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Marseilles [sic] 1939 / Bessie Davidson / BESSIE DAVIDSON PROVENANCE Private collection, United Kingdom Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood, United Kingdom, 11 July 2017, lot 459 Private collection, Sydney estimate

122

$3,000 – 5,000

WILLIAM FRATER 76 (1890 – 1974) LONG GULLY, BENDIGO, 1940 oil on board 50.0 x 60.0 cm signed lower left: William Frater inscribed with date verso: II / O / 1940 PROVENANCE Mr William Millane, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Artemis Auctions, Melbourne, 4 August 2009, lot 148 Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED William Frater Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 11 August – 2 October 1966, cat. 27 (label attached verso) William Frater 1890 – 1974, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 12 – 29 June 1991, cat. 10 estimate :

$4,000 – 6,000

EDITH HOLMES 77 (1893 – 1973) TREE AND SUNSET, BALLY PARK, TASMANIA, 1967 oil on canvas on board 74.5 x 61.5 cm signed lower left: Edith Holmes PROVENANCE Mrs Joan Dabrowski, Tasmania Glenorchy Antique Bazaar and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1975 The Estate of Ian Alstergren, Tasmania Mossgreen Auctions, Hobart, 7 December 2008, lot 234 Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Tasmania Art Prize Exhibition, National Theatre and Fine Arts Society, Hobart, 1968, cat. 28 Edith Holmes, Chapman Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, 1974, cat. 3 Edith Holmes, Glenorchy Antique Bazaar and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1975, cat. 55 estimate :

$4,000 – 6,000

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PROVENANCE Estate of the artist Thence by descent Marina Picasso, France Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney

PABLO PICASSO 78 (1881 – 1973, Spanish) MINOTAURE AVEUGLE GUIDÉ PAR UNE FILLETTE II, 1934 (FROM LA SUITE VOLLARD) etching on Montval laid paper 23.5 x 29.5 cm (plate) inscribed verso: 16 from the edition of 260 published by Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1939 estimate :

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$16,000 – 20,000

EXHIBITED Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 1989, cat. 16 (illus.)

Works on Paper, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 23 March – 8 April 1993 (illus. on invitation) Pablo Picasso: Graphics and Ceramics, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 17 July – 11 August 2001, cat. 10 LITERATURE Bloch, G., Pablo Picasso: Catalogue of the Printed Graphic Work 1904–1967, Editions Kornfeld et Klipstein, Berne, 1968, cat. 223

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 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 1.65% (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 146.

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.

127

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 146 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.

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SALE CODE: ROWE SALE NO.: 051 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL FINE ART SYDNEY AUCTION 20 SEPTEMBER, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 78 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010

please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 16 GOODHOPE STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021

tel: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 0611

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

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ATTENDEE PRE-REGISTRATION FORM SALE CODE: ROWE SALE NO.: 051 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL FINE ART

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Business name

Address

City

Telephone/Mobile

State

Email

Post Code

SYDNEY AUCTION 20 SEPTEMBER, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 78 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010

please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 16 GOODHOPE STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021

tel: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 0611 info@deutscherandhackett.com we must receive buyer pre-registration forms at least 24 hours prior to the auction

132

TELEPHONE BID FORM SALE CODE: ROWE SALE NO.: 051 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL FINE ART SYDNEY AUCTION 20 SEPTEMBER, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 78 CELL BLOCK THEATRE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL, SYDNEY FORBES STREET DARLINGHURST NSW 2010

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Billing address (PO Box insufficient)

Address

City

State

Post Code

1.

2.

Telephone numbers for auction date in order of preference

Facsimile

Email

Signature (required)

please email, post or fax this completed form to:

LOT NO.

Date

ARTIST/TITLE

COVER BID*

1.

DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 16 GOODHOPE STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021

2.

tel: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 0611

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: ROWE SALE NO.: 051 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL FINE ART

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Billing address (PO Box insufficient)

Address

City

State

Telephone

Facsimile

Business/Mobile

Email

Signature (required)

LOT NO.

Post Code

SYDNEY AUCTION 20 SEPTEMBER, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 78 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 16 GOODHOPE STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021

4.

tel: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 0611

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

notes

THE LIFE AND ART OF

RUPERT BUNNY A Catalogue Raisonné

THE LIFE AND ART OF RUPERT BUNNY A Catalogue Raisonné

by David Thomas The first comprehensive history of the artist's life and career in two volumes with slipcase.

Available from all good bookstores.

consigning now important australian + international fine art auction • november 2017 for appraisals please contact melbourne • 03 9865 6333 sydney • 02 9287 0600 info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com

ARTHUR STREETON SETTLER'S CAMP, 1888 (detail) oil on canvas 86.5 x 112.5 cm EST: $1,000,000 – 1,500,000 Sold for $2,520,000 (inc. BP) May 2012, Sydney

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

The Score

Image: Sriwhana Spong, The Fourth Notebook 2015 HD video, Courtesy of the artist and Michael Lett, Auckland

Pia Borg / John Cage / Roy de Maistre / Fayen d’Evie / Marco Fusinato / Charles Gaines Kurltjunyintja Jackie Giles / Michaela Gleave / Agatha Gothe-Snape / Nathan Gray Helen Grogan / Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack / Yuki Kihara / Emily Kam Kngwarray / Shelley Lasica Sonia Leber & David Chesworth / Dylan Martorell / Angelica Mesiti / John Nixon Sandra Parker & Rhian Hinkley / Rammey Ramsey / Mia Salsjö / Charlie Sofo / Sriwhana Spong Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader / Danae Valenza / Jude Walton

Until 5 November 2017 This exhibition has been generously supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; Naomi Milgrom AO; and the Consulate General of the United States, Melbourne.

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EG GEENN ULLAATTE NSSU EERR N CCOO

THE UNITE OF D AL

OFFAAM MEERR ESSO IICC AATTE SSTT

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 Follow us on Facebook

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Presented in association with Media partner the Melbourne Festival Partner

BRAVE NEW WORLD AUSTRALIA 1930s

14 JUL – 15 OCT THE IAN POTTER CENTRE: NGV AUSTRALIA FEDERATION SQUARE

Douglas Annand; Max Dupain Australia c. 1937 (detail) Australian National Maritime Museum. Purchased, 1991 (00015603) © Courtesy of the artist’s estate

NGV.MELBOURNE

Hyper Real

A levitating man, a genetically

engineered baby and towering giants.

Welcome to humanity amplified.

On sale Sam Jinks Woman and child 2010 (detail) Collection of the artist

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PIPILOTTI RIST Sip my Ocean

Exclusive to Sydney A major new exhibition by pioneering Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist – from her early videos to her large-scale immersive installations. mca.com.au/pipilottirist #pipilottirist

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Muda Mathis & Pipilotti Rist, Japsen, 1988, video (still), image courtesy the artists, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine © Muda Mathis, Pipilotti Rist

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1 Nov — 18 Feb 2018

Immerse yourself in the epic saga of the Seven Sisters — a journey into the heart of Australia.

Intrigue, desire, drama, passion and beauty ... connect with the songlines of the Seven Sisters. This Aboriginal-led exhibition shares an ancient way of holding culture and telling stories written in the land. See the stories embedded in rock art inside a state-of-the-art digital dome, or visit our vibrant art centre hub where artists create works you can take home.

Don’t miss out — this exhibition is a journey like no other.

SUPPORTED BY

15 SEPTEMBER 2017 TO 25 FEBRUARY 2018 National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Book now (costs apply). Visit nma.gov.au/songlines IMAGE Sarah Kenderdine, Peter Morse and Paul Bourke. Seven Sisters rock art with permission of Walinynga (Cave Hill) custodians.

DomeLab is a research infrastructure project led by Professor Sarah Kenderdine, University of New South Wales, supported by the Australian Research Council. niea.unsw.edu.au/research/projects/domelab. Research for the Songlines project was partially funded by the Australian Research Council.

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© reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © Margaret Olley Trust © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart © reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © courtesy of Helen Brack © The Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed

by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art © 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 Tim Maguire Tim Maguire is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © The Estate of Lin Onus. Reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY © 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

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Photography: Graham Baring Design: Sevenpoint Design © Published by Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd 2017 978-0-9953817-5-9

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Courtesy of Sotheby’s Australia. © courtesy of Dickerson Gallery © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © The Sidney Nolan Trust / Bridgeman Images © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © reproduced with the permission of VISCOPY Ltd © Michael Zavros © 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

index A AMOR, R. ARKLEY, H. ASHTON, W. B BLACK, D. BLACKMAN, C. BOOTH, P. BOYD, A. BRACK, J. BUNNY, R. C CAMPBELL, C. CULLITON, L. D DAVIDSON, B. DAVIES, D. DE SAINT PHALLE, N. DICKERSON, R. DRYSDALE, R. E EDWARDS, M. F FAIRWEATHER, I. FRATER, W. FRIEND, D. FULLBROOK, S. G GASCOIGNE, R. H HARDING, N. HERMAN, S. HEYSEN, H. HOLMES, E. J JOHNSON, M. K KNGWARREYE, EMILY KAME L LAHEY, V. LONG, S.

62 12 55

37 7, 26, 35 – 36 64 28, 31, 42 – 43, 49 11 51

14, 72 – 73 69

54, 75 53 15 47 29

59

24 76 48 34, 45

13

63, 65 30 57 77

16

21 – 22

M MACKENNAL, B. MAGUIRE, T. McKENNA, N. MEADMORE, C. MOFFATT, T. MOORE, H.

23, 52 18 70 – 71 10 19 9

N NOLAN, S.

50

O OLLEY, M. OLSEN, J. ONUS, L.

6 27 20

P PASSMORE, J. PERCEVAL, J. PICASSO, P. PRESTON, M. PRINCE OF WALES (MIDPUL)

40 25 78 4 66

R REES, L. ROWE, G.

41 2

S SHEAD, G. SMART, J. SMITH, G.C. SPOWERS, E. STORRIER, T. STREETON, A. T THOMAS (JOOLAMA), ROVER TJAPALTJARRI, BILL WHISKEY TOMESCU, A. TUCKER, A. TUCKSON, T.

33 8 3, 39 38 32 5 68 67 17 46 44

W WHYTE, D.M. WITTENOOM, C.D. WOLFHAGEN, P.

56 1 61

Z ZAVROS, M.

60

74 58

149

150

150