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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.
kwp!JAN10153
Important Australian and International Fine Art + Important Indigenous Art
AUCTION • SYDNEY • N.A.S. CELL BLOCK THEATRE • 18 APRIL 2018
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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 – 117 WEDNESDAY 18 APRIL 2018 7:00pm cell block theatre, national art school, sydney forbes street darlinghurst, new south wales telephone: 02 9287 0600 THURSDAY 5 – SUNDAY 8 APRIL 2018 105 commercial road south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00am – 6:00pm THURSDAY 12 – WEDNESDAY 18 APRIL 2018 16 goodhope street paddington, new south wales, 2021 telephone: 02 9287 0600 11:00am – 6:00pm email bids to: info@deutscherandhackett.com telephone: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 0611 telephone bid form – p. 181 absentee bid form – p. 182 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. 182) or telephone bid form (p. 181) SHIPPING Mara Sison 03 9865 6333 CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Claire Kurzmann 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 — 117
page 13
prospective buyers and sellers guide
page 174
conditions of auction and sale
page 176
catalogue subscription form
page 179
attendee pre-registration form
page 180
telephone bid form
page 181
absentee bid form
page 182
index
page 199
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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 + Important Indigenous Art
Lots 1 – 117
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BEN QUILTY 1 born 1973 TORANA, 2002 oil on canvas on board 30.0 x 29.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Torana / Oil on canvas / on board / Ben Quilty / 02 estimate :
$12,000 – 16,000
PROVENANCE Maunsell Hughes Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2003 EXHIBITED Torana, Maunsell Hughes Gallery, Sydney, 15 – 30 October 2003
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WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 2 (1936 – 2015) TWO CUSHIONS, 1998 charcoal on paper 75.5 x 116.5 cm signed and dated lower right: W Delafield Cook 98 PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney estimate :
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$10,000 – 15,000
EXHIBITED William Delafield Cook, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 29 October – 21 November 1998, cat. 1 LITERATURE Hawley, J., ‘The Fine Detail’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 24 October 1998, p. 28
CRESSIDA CAMPBELL 3 born 1960 KITCHEN OBJECTS, 1990 unique colour woodblock print 41.0 x 59.0 cm signed, dated, inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, New South Wales Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2001 estimate :
$20,000 – 30,000
EXHIBITED Cressida Campbell Woodblocks Prints and Woodblocks, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 9 April – 4 May 1991, cat. 13 LITERATURE Crayford, P., (ed.), The Woodblock Painting of Cressida Campbell, Public Pictures Pty Ltd, Sydney, 2008, cat. P9014, p. 343
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OLIVE COTTON 4 (1911 – 2003) TEACUP BALLET, 1935 printed 1991 silver gelatin photograph 35.0 x 28.0 cm edition: 50 signed, dated and inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney estimate :
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$8,000 – 12,000
EXHIBITED Olive Cotton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 May – 2 July 2000; National Library of Australia, Canberra, 12 July – 19 September 2000 (another example) Olive Cotton: Photographs 1920s – 1990s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 19 October – 11 November 1995, cat. 4 (illus. back cover, another example) Olive Cotton: Photographs 1920s – 1990s, Joseph Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 21 October 1995, cat. 43 (another example) LITERATURE Hall, B., & Mather, J., ‘Olive Cotton’ in Australian Women Photographers 1840–1960, Greenhouse Publications, Melbourne, 1986, p. 84 (illus., another example) Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art For a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 152 (illus., another example), 184, 293, 311
KENNETH MACQUEEN 5 (1897 – 1960) BRINGING IN THE COWS, c.1928 watercolour on paper 38.0 x 46.0 cm signed lower left: KENNETH MACQUEEN estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
PROVENANCE Probably: Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney James Irwin Crombie, Papua New Guinea Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 13 April 1988, lot 215 (as ‘Milking Time’) Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 28 April 1998, lot 28 (as ‘Milking Time’) Private collection, Sydney LITERATURE Macqueen, K., Adventures in Watercolour, The Legend Press, Sydney, 1948, n. p. (illus.)
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MAX DUPAIN 6 (1911 – 1992) SUNBAKER, 1937 printed 1970s silver gelatin photograph 39.0 x 42.0 cm signed and dated in image lower right: – Max Dupain ‘37 – estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE The Print Room, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1992 LITERATURE Newton, G., Max Dupain: Photographs 1928 – 80, The David Ell Press, Sydney, 1980, p. 64 (illus. another example) Max Dupain’s Australia, Viking Press, Sydney, 1986, p. 104 (illus., another example) Ennis, H., Max Dupain: Photographs, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1991, p. 18 White, J., Smee, S. and Cawood, M., Dupain’s Beaches, Chapter and Verse, Sydney, 2000, p. 69 (illus. another example) Annear, J., The Photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015, pp. 40, 50, 104 (illus., another example), 294
There are only a handful of artworks that have been as influential on the creation of a national psyche as Max Dupain’s photograph, Sunbaker, 1937. Its enduring power derives from the incorporation of twin social mythologies prevalent during the inter-war period: that of the ‘old sunburnt country’ and physical health as a symbol for the strength and potential of Modernity. Sunbaker would come to represent in a single recognisable image the new outdoor Australian way of life: the simplicity of composition, dramatic contrast of light, and purity of context coincided to create a powerful and iconic image. Judy Annear, Curator of Photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney attributed this to Dupain’s ability to ‘adroitly harness a moment in time that came to symbolise the ambitions of a nation’.1 The story of how this modest snapshot from within one of Dupain’s holiday albums, compiled following a trip to the south coast of New South Wales in 1937 with his friends Harold Salvage and Chris Vandyke, would become the subject of such massive exposure in the latter half of the 20th century is a tale of coincidence. This version of Sunbaker, identical in size and format to those in most of Australia’s state and national collections, is the second version of two pictures that Dupain took at the same time in 1937. The artist chose to publish the other, Sunbaker II, 1937, in a monograph of his work in 1948, and sometime after this,
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its negative was lost. 2 It wasn’t until 1975, thanks to the combined marketing power of a retrospective exhibition of Dupain’s photographs and a later survey of Australian photography, that the image was presented to wide national audiences. The Max Dupain: Retrospective at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney in 1975 used Sunbaker as a promotional image and four years later, it was illustrated on the back cover of the catalogue for Australian photographers: the Philip Morris Collection. The images in Australian photographers were personally selected by James Mollison, founding director of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 3 In formal terms, the composition of Sunbaker marked a departure from the artist’s earlier surrealist studio montages, which often featured fulllength female nudes. Creating a visual correlation between the geometric solidity of a pyramid and the physical strength of a young man, Dupain’s photograph sits in a neat nexus between modernist formalism and an idealistic focus on physical wellbeing in the interwar years. This young man, with his bronzed skin and muscles glistening with salt, sand, sweat and seawater would come to embody the ideal antipodean (ironically, he was an Englishman who had recently emigrated to Australia). The subject does not call out to the viewer, encouraging them to emigrate to the idealised southern land of sunshine and good health, as he would have in contemporary advertisements. Instead, we as viewers, intrude on his intimacy and respite, the reduced form of his recumbent body jutting out into the foreground of the photograph, almost transcending the barrier of the picture plane. The austere simplicity and lack of spatial context of Dupain’s composition creates a timeless and universal space where man is at one with the land, resting on the horizon’s edge. 1. Annear, J., Photography: The Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 142 – 149 2. Newton, G., ‘The Sunbaker’ in White, J., Dupain’s Beaches, Chapter & Verse, Sydney, 2000, p. 68 3. Annear, J., Photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015, p. 46
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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LLOYD REES 7 (1895 – 1988) BALLS HEAD, SYDNEY HARBOUR, 1932 pencil on paper 14.0 x 27.0 cm signed and dated lower right: L. REES 1932 estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Probably: Artarmon Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney RELATED WORK Balls Head, 1931, pencil on paper, 20.3 x 25.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
The late 1920s had been a very difficult time for Lloyd Rees personally. The death of his first wife in 1927 was followed by a period of deep depression. However, in 1930 the artist again found love and it was on a bus trip to visit his fiancé Marjory, who became his wife of 57 years, that a major development in his working method occurred. As Rees explained in his autobiography: ’It was at Pennant Hills that a new movement in my work began. It was a rolling open landscape then and could be reached by bus from Parramatta and it was there that I tried to seriously resume painting. Physical tiredness was still affecting me and one day I tired early and was faced with a long wait for a Parramatta bus. I took a book of drawing paper from my satchel, unused because of an absurd hangover from my student days that pencil was a soft medium which must only be used on softer papers. The paper in this book was ivory smooth – the type recommended for commercial pen drawing, ensuring very black, very clean lines. Almost thoughtlessly, I began working, content in my tired state to merely outline the contour of hills and fences and trees of several varieties, with houses and sheds nestling among them or standing clear’.1
The discovery of this specific pencil and paper combination marked the beginning of an inspired period in which Rees committed himself solely to drawing, a marathon effort which extended well into the mid1930s. Importantly for Rees a group of these drawings was accepted for exhibition by the progressive Society of Artists and in a further boost to his confidence, in 1931 the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney became the first such institution to purchase one of the drawings, Balls Head, Sydney Harbour, 1931, for the permanent collection. Many of the drawings from this time depict scenes around Sydney Harbour, but it was Balls Head to which Rees returned again and again. ‘Balls Head was a favourite early motif. Drawn from the distance, from sea level at Blues Point … the series of drawings gives Balls Head a mass equivalent to its psychological effect. Its rocky formation is drawn as with a chisel. The first drawing captures the full drama of the forms, in later versions he elaborated the foreground’. 2 The delicate detail in Rees’ drawings of this period is staggering; by any measure they are as close as any Australian artist may ever come to the achievements of the Italian masters he so much admired. Rees’ nuanced and inspired drawing is heightened by the virtuosity of his technique. Surprisingly, the breadth of tone and line is not achieved by a range of differing lead pencils – but by using only one. His distinctive technique of sharpening the pencil against the tooth of the paper while using it horizontally to shade, meant that the shift from tone to line was seamless and in no small way helped Lloyd Rees to achieve the fluid nature of these masterful drawings. 1. Rees, L., Peaks and Valleys, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1985, p. 189 2. Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1972, p. 42
HENRY MULHOLLAND
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LLOYD REES 8 (1895 – 1988) SUMMER MORNING, 1927 oil on canvas on board 37.0 x 44.0 cm signed lower left: REES signed, dated and inscribed with title on artist’s label verso estimate :
$55,000 – 75,000
PROVENANCE Dr A. Wallace Weihen, Sydney (label attached to backing board) Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 April 1985, lot 18 Christopher Day Gallery, Sydney Mr and Mrs Rene Rivkin, Sydney Sotheby’s, Sydney, 3 June 2001, lot 49 Private collection, Canberra EXHIBITED Lloyd Rees Loan Exhibition, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 – 30 August 1942, cat. 11 (label attached to backing board, as ‘View in Sydney Harbour’) Australian Paintings 1824 – 1940, Christopher Day Gallery, Sydney, winter 1985, cat. 61 (illus. in catalogue and on exhibition catalogue cover, as ‘Spit Junction, Middle Harbour, Sydney’) LITERATURE Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1972, cat. O32, p. 110 (as ‘View in Sydney Harbour’)
In the last years of his long life, Lloyd Rees became known as the ‘grand old man’ of Australian art. A passionate and driven artist, his scenes, particularly of Sydney harbour and the hinterland, became touchstones for audiences across the country and inspired artistic colleagues such as the much younger Brett Whiteley. Summer Morning, 1927 is from a small group of paintings made after his tour of England and Italy in 1923 – 24, and marks an early – though sadly brief – period in his life characterised by financial stability and familial happiness following his marriage to Dulcie Metcalfe in August 1926. Moving to Cowles Road, Mosman, ‘a cottage in short walking distance of (Dulcie’s) parents’ home in Muston Street’,1 Rees would travel by tram to explore the nearby coastline and it is highly probable that this painting depicts the rocky northern reaches of Balmoral at the base of Stanton Street. That said, Rees never sought topographical accuracy and would often modify reality to suit his immediate painterly needs.
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Rees famously described his first glimpse of Sydney harbour from the porthole of a ship which had brought him from his home town in Brisbane: ‘Opal-blue water, a band of golden sand, another of olivegreen trees … It was one of those early calm mornings, when all was veiled under an ethereal mist of blue through which the sun struck on golden foreshores and russet trees, and depicted in creamy light’. 2 It is a description which could easily match the painting on offer here. On his return from Europe, Rees had attempted to infuse his paintings with some of the classical atmosphere and solidity he had studied first-hand in the works of the Italian masters. However, recognising its inappropriateness to the local scene, he reinvestigated the art of Arthur Streeton and took from it many cues such as the immediacy and freshness of the artist’s brushstrokes and, in particular, his authentic celebration of the unique Australian light. Like Streeton’s own harbour scenes, there is a remarkable interplay on display in Summer Morning between the ruggedness of the shore, the expanse of sandy beach, the sudden rise of the promontory and self-absorption of bathers exploring the rocks. Such bucolic days were soon to end for the artist however as in October 1927 his wife and newborn son tragically died during childbirth, an event which resulted in a complete nervous breakdown for Rees. Unable to paint standing up, as was his norm, he instead focussed on drawing for the next five years meaning this painting is one of the very few that survive from the period. The first owner of Summer Morning was the noted Sydney ophthalmic surgeon Dr A. Wallace Weihen of ‘Berwyn’ in Annandale Street, Darling Point, whose daughter Helen was often featured in society pages. Weihen owned works by other significant Australian artists such as Elioth Gruner and following his death in 1946, Rees’ painting stayed with the doctor’s descendants. In 1985, it was purchased by the colourful business identity Rene Rivkin, who in turn dispersed his own significant collection through auction in 2001. 1. Rees, L., Peaks and Valleys: an autobiography, Collins, Sydney, 1985, p. 152 2. Rees, L., Small Treasures of a Lifetime: some early memories of Australian art and artists, Collins, Sydney, 1969, p. 45
ANDREW GAYNOR
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ROY DE MAISTRE 9 (1894 – 1968) ST JEAN DE LUZ, c.1925 oil on canvas on composition board 32.0 x 39.0 cm signed lower right with artist’s studio stamp estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE Probably: Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Possibly: Oil Paintings by Roy de Maistre, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 6 – 17 April 1926, cat. 27 (as ‘Waterfront, St Jean de Luz’)
When Roy de Maistre was awarded the travelling scholarship offered by the Society of Artists in 1923, he was already recognised as one of Australia’s leading young modern artists. Four years previously, he had held the landmark exhibition Colour in Art with his colleague Roland Wakelin and the two subsequently spent time studying with the controversial Max Meldrum. Thus equipped, de Maistre headed first to London but, unimpressed by the gloomy weather, he travelled to France where he soon became entranced by the small Basque village of St Jean de Luz, already a popular location for British artists such as Sir John Lavery and Keith Baynes. De Maistre returned in 1925 and rented a studio for three months where he painted a series of paintings of the town and fishing port from many angles, including the work on offer here which focuses on the unusual shapes of machinery and boats haphazardly arranged on the waterfront. The Colour in Art exhibition had likewise featured paintings of Sydney’s harbour with particular emphasis on the houses and boatsheds on the northern foreshore. Reduced to contrasting planes of pure colour, these scenes articulated de Maistre’s thoughts on the relationship between colour and music. Conversely, his studies under Meldrum followed that teacher’s theory of the ‘science of optical analysis’ through which painterly form was constructed solely from the depiction of tone, with edges being soft and almost unfocussed. In the St Jean de Luz paintings, de Maistre returned to his original ideas, albeit with less emphasis on high-key ‘musical’ colour, but informed by them nonetheless. In London in December 1923, he is thought likely to have seen an exhibition of twenty paintings by Vincent van Gogh, an artist whose work de Maistre would only have known previously from colour reproductions.1 St Jean de Luz, c.1925 features pronounced brush-strokes which bear a direct relation to the Dutchman’s own vigorous marks though de Maistre uses them in a controlled, less expressive manner to indicate volume and direction. It is a bold composition with the huge blue ship hull on the right and the gantry, depicted on a similarly dramatic angle, dominating the foreground view. The visual anchor thus becomes the white tower in the middle of the quay, with the purple mountains and smoke stack drawing the eye off into the distance. On his return to Sydney, de Maistre held a one-man show at the Macquarie Galleries which had opened the previous year with an exhibition by his former colleague Wakelin. Here he presented 46 paintings, 38 of which had been painted overseas, including eleven scenes of St Jean de Luz. By comparing the dimensions of known works from this exhibition, it is plausible that the painting on offer here was originally titled Waterfront, St Jean de Luz. 1. Roland Wakelin was also in London at the time and records seeing the show.
ANDREW GAYNOR
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CLARICE BECKETT 10 (1887 – 1935) CHESTNUT AVENUE, BALLARAT GARDENS, c.1927 oil on canvas board 30.5 x 40.5 cm signed lower right: C. Beckett bears inscription on old label verso: Chestnut Avenue / Ballarat Gardens / by Clarice Beckett estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Connelly family, Santa Cruz, California Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Catalogue of Paintings by Clarice Beckett, Upper Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 20 September – 1 October 1927, cat. 45 (as ‘Chestnut Walk, Ballarat Gardens’)
Clarice Beckett’s connection with Ballarat was more than that of a happy visit to its beautiful lakeside gardens in 1927. Born in Casterton, she attended school in Ballarat at Queen’s College and also studied charcoal drawing under a Miss Eva Hopkins, before her family moved to Melbourne in 1904. Some years later, in 1914 she returned to art, studying drawing under Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery School, and then painting with Max Meldrum from 1917. While she became Meldrum’s ‘star’ pupil, the poetic and philosophical inclination of her art was, no doubt, encouraged by McCubbin, whose philosophising had led to him being dubbed ‘The Proff’ by his friends. From 1919, when her parents retired to the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris, its beach sides and surrounds became a major inspiration for her paintings. Captured early and late in the day, in different seasons, and focused on the everyday of unglamorous roads and telegraph poles, or bathing boxes, through her art the ordinary was metamorphosed into paintings of profound beauty. Evening Light, Beaumaris, c.1925, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and Sandringham Beach, c.1933, in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra are captivating examples of the prosaic transformed into the poetic. In Melbourne city she painted light-filled streets on wet nights and tranquil views across the Yarra River, often embraced by the spans of its most handsome bridges. One such major work, Princes Bridge, 1930, was sold by Deutscher and Hackett in Melbourne on 29 April 2009, lot 100.
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Paintings of foggy mornings, dreamy sunsets, Collins Street, the Dandenongs and Olinda were among the sixty works that made up Beckett’s 1927 exhibition, which included Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens, c.1927. There were only two other Ballarat subjects in the show – Ballarat Gardens and Ash Tree, Ballarat Gardens, clearly rare examples in her oeuvre. Ballarat Botanical Gardens would have appealed to Beckett both through recollections from childhood and in their own right as highly significant cool climate gardens. Established in 1858, they are noted for their many mature trees, the avenue of Horse Chestnuts being one of the four main axes running north south through the gardens.1 Beckett captures the quiet, natural grandeur of the avenue in Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens, greens contrasted with terracottas, verticals with horizontals, classic in balance. The shadows are as substantial as the trees that cast them, adding a sense of drama within the harmony of forms and colours wrapped in stillness. According to Beckett scholar and curator, Rosalind Hollinrake, one of the most striking features of Beckett’s art is her sense of place, which ‘… became heightened by the growing intimacy she developed for certain locations’. 2 While this has been noted in her Beaumaris works, Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens captures perfectly the stately feel and calm of the place. Its sense of time past is touched by the universal through a seemingly disarming simplicity that invites contemplation of its profundity. Of art, Beckett said her aim was: ‘To give a sincere and truthful representation of a portion of the beauty of Nature, and to show the charm of light and shade, which I try to set forth in correct tones so as to give as nearly as possible an exact illusion of reality’. 3 1. Since 1940 this avenue has also accommodated the avenue of Prime Ministers’ bronze busts. The Botanical Gardens are rich in earlier sculptures, especially Italian marble figures donated by Thomas Stoddart in 1884 and the later Flight from Pompeii and others in the Statuary Pavilion of 1887. 2. Hollinrake, R., Clarice Beckett: Politically Incorrect, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1999, p. 21 3. Clarice Beckett, Twenty Melbourne Painters, 6th Annual Exhibition Catalogue, Melbourne, 1924
DAVID THOMAS
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GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH 11 (1892 – 1984) SAMUEL MARSDEN AFTER SERVICE AT ST. JOHN’S PARRAMATTA, 1937 – 38 oil on pulpboard 66.0 x 58.5 cm signed and dated lower right: G. Cossington Smith 35 bears inscription on old label verso: “Samuel Marsden after / service at St. Johns / Parramatta” / Grace Cossington Smith / McCAUGHEY PRIZE COMPETITION estimate :
$200,000 – 250,000
PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Art Competitions Exhibition: Australia’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations, 1788 – 1938, Education Department’s Art Gallery, Sydney, 2 – 28 February 1938, cat. 24 Grace Cossington Smith, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 21 June – 10 July 1972, cat. 13 (dated as 1935) Grace Cossington Smith: Survey Exhibition 1919 – 1971, Painters Gallery, Sydney, 8 – 26 September 1986; Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 7 – 24 October 1987, cat. 19 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, dated as 1935) Grace Cossington Smith: Loan Exhibition, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 18 October – 18 November 1990, cat. 49 LITERATURE James, B., Grace Cossington Smith, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, pl. 69, p. 109 (illus.)
By the end of the 1930s, Grace Cossington Smith had hit her creative stride, producing paintings which would confirm her place among the ranks of Australia’s foremost modern artists. ‘The years from 1926 until the late 1930s’, as Deborah Hart has written, ‘were among the most important in (her) artistic life, when her potential as a painter of colour and light, structure and rhythmic pattern, was realised in work after work. It was as though the previous years of concentrated effort and inventiveness in drawing and painting blossomed into her mature vision’.1 1938 was a significant year in Cossington Smith’s life for several reasons: the death of her father propelled her to the head of the family; fellow modernist Thea Proctor highlighted her work in Art in Australia, noting her ‘personal technique, and … lovely and individual colour sense’, 2 and for the first time, she was included in a museum exhibition. Shown at the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 150 Years of Australian Art, was organised by the then Director, Will Ashton, and according to the editors of Art in Australia, ‘The hanging of the pictures (was) exceptionally well carried out – a difficult task with eight hundred works so diverse in character and appearance’. 3 The motivation for such a massive undertaking was the sesquicentenary of European settlement of Australia, an event which witnessed a flurry of special activities and celebrations to mark the significant historical milestone. Another such activity which piqued the interest of contemporary visual artists was an art prize administered by the 150th Anniversary Celebration’s Council. In addition to an award of 250 Guineas funded by the Commonwealth Government for a large oil painting depicting an aspect of Australia’s history, smaller prizes were offered for works of various subjects and in various media.4 Beginning work in December 1937 and completing her painting in January of the following year, 5 Cossington Smith entered Samuel Marsden After Service at St John’s Church, Parramatta, 1937 – 38 into the category of ‘historical subject in oils’. While far from a household name, Marsden holds a significant place in Australian colonial history, arriving in 1794 to take up the role of assistant to the chaplain of New South Wales and later, for some years, being the only Anglican clergyman on the mainland.6 Stationed at Parramatta he was the driving force behind the construction of St John’s Church (now Cathedral) on a site which lays claim to being the oldest continuous place of Christian worship in Australia.7 In a letter home to England in
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GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH 11 (1892 – 1984) SAMUEL MARSDEN AFTER SERVICE AT ST. JOHN’S PARRAMATTA, 1937 – 38
late April 1803, Marsden wrote, ‘last Easter Sunday I consecrated my church at Parramatta. This building proves a great comfort to my mind as I can now perform a divine service in a manner becoming the worship of Almighty God. At Sydney there is no place for public worship and I fear will be none for a long time to come … It has been with many years labor and patience I have got a temple erected’. 8 Cossington Smith’s highly personal choice of subject reflected her own life as a devout Anglican Christian. Marsden stands firmly at the centre of the image, the strong geometry of the composition leading the eye towards him and beyond, to the church which he was so instrumental in founding. Uniformed figures in the distance and the small child to the right of Marsden, symbolise the development of the settlement from a penal colony to a place where the growing and increasingly free population gathered together for regular worship. Typical of the artist,
this work was signed and dated some years after execution, most likely prior to its first commercial exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in 1972 when she was 80 years old. In the catalogue accompanying the major Cossington Smith survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in 1973, there are numerous examples of erroneous dating by the artist and Daniel Thomas notes that she ‘never inscribed dates on early paintings’ and those ‘included in the one-man shows of 1968, 1970 and 1972 … were given dates by the artist before being exhibited, and these dates ... are sometimes as much as ten years astray’.9 A celebratory picture infused with a deeply personal meaning, this is a fascinating work which perfectly encapsulates Cossington Smith’s belief that ‘painting … (expresses) form in colour – colour vibrant with light’10 and her ability to achieve this in an image redolent with both creative and spiritual joy. 1. Hart, D., Grace Cossington Smith, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2005, p. 27 2. Proctor, T., ’Modern Art in Sydney’, Art in Australia, Sydney, 3rd series, no. 73, November 1938, p. 28 3. Ure Smith, S. & Gellert, L., ‘Editorial’, Art in Australia, Sydney, 3rd series, no. 70, March 1938, p. 13 4. Art Competitions Exhibition: Australia’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations 1788 – 1938, exhibition catalogue, Education Department Gallery, 1938. The major prize was awarded to Ivor Hele for his dramatic depiction of Sturt’s reluctant decision to return 1937 (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide) and B.E. Minns won the historical subject in oils for The Landing at Botany Bay, 1788. Thanks to Jin Whittington, Art Gallery of South Australia Research Library, for her research assistance. 5. James, B., Grace Cossington Smith, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, p. 109 6. See: Yarwood, ‘A. T., Marsden, Samuel (1765–1838)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ marsden-samuel-2433/text3237, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 22 February 2018 7. http://www.discoverparramatta.com/places/heritage_and_historic_sites/st_johns_church, accessed online 22 February 2018. Towers were added to the 1803 church in 1818 and in 1855, having fallen into disrepair, it was demolished and replaced. 8. Marsden, S., letter to Mrs John Stokes, 27 April 1803, quoted in Mackaness, G., Some Private Correspondence of the Rev. Samuel Marsden and Family 1794–1824, Review Publications, New South Wales, 1976, pp. 30 – 31 9. Thomas, D., Grace Cossington Smith, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1973, p. 9 10. Smith, G.C, quoted in Modjeska, D., Stravinsky’s Lunch, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 1999, reprinted 2000, flyleaf
Grace Cossington Smith (right) with her sister Diddy, dog Rex (Krinkley Konks), brother Gordon, father Ernest and young niece Ann (Mills) at Cossington, in Turramurra, in 1937 courtesy of the artist’s estate
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KIRSTY GRANT
Grace Cossington Smith, Sydney, undated, Private collection
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WILLIAM DOBELL 12 (1899 – 1970) STUDY FOR PORTRAIT – THE TELEPHONIST, 1946 oil on cardboard 30.0 x 25.5 cm signed and inscribed with title lower left: Study for Portrait / The Telephonist / W DOBELL estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Donated by the artist to the ‘French Comforts Fund’, Sydney, February 1946 [to aid the appeal for destitute artists in Paris] David Jones Gallery, Sydney Mr & Mrs H. K. C. Dettmann, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 17 April 1989, lot 492 Private collection, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED French Comfort Fund Exhibition in aid of the Artists of Paris, David Jones Gallery, Sydney, 20 – 28 February 1946, cat. 24 (as ‘Study’) Dobell Retrospective: William Dobell paintings from 1926 to 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 July – 30 August 1964, cat.105 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Adams, B., Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of William Dobell, Hutchinson of Australia, Victoria, 1983, p. 228
By 1946, William Dobell was hailed as ‘Australia’s most distinguished painter’.1 He was only 47, had won the 1943 Archibald Prize with Portrait of an Artist – Joshua Smith, and exhibitions of his work drew crowds ‘almost equal to a fair day at Randwick Racecourse’. 2 In The Strapper, 1941 (Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales), Brian Penton, 1943 (once in Sir Frank Packer’s collection), and The Billy Boy, 1943 (Australian War Memorial, Canberra), he had already painted some of the finest portraits known to Australian art. More were to follow in such masterpieces as Margaret Olley, 1948 and Dame Mary Gilmore, 1957, both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. The portrait of Olley won the 1948 Archibald and his Storm Approaching Wangi took the Wynne Prize that year, the first time such a double had been achieved. Returning to 1946, the year of our portrait, Sydney Ure Smith published a monograph on Dobell, richly illustrated and representing ‘a comprehensive record of his work’. 3 Dobell was drawn by character expressed through the appearance of the individual, using both image and technique to recreate it as a work of art in paint. At times his then highly imaginative approach resulted not so
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much in portraits, but absorbing inventions based on character types. In Mrs South Kensington, 1937 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) the paint is as dry and scratchy as the person, and in The Red Lady, 1937 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) the amplitude of her body and personality expands the composition. For The Strapper, 1941, Dobell groomed and pampered the paint as the strapper might care for the thoroughbred. Study for Portrait – The Telephonist, 1946 shares with The Strapper and Joshua Smith striking oval heads and prominent ears. But being a head study, there are no hands nor the same degree of technical finesse through which to speak of character and professional interest. The painting’s intriguing genesis explains why. The ever-generous Dobell had agreed to give a painting to an exhibition and raffle at David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, in late February 1946. Held ‘under the auspices of the French Comforts Fund’ it was to help destitute French artists.4 Some 110 oils, watercolours, prints and drawings were donated, each holder of a five-guinea ticket being entitled to a picture at the draw taken on the last day of February. 5 Three thousand people were reported to have visited the exhibition in the one week. Brian Adams, in his 1983 book on Dobell, tells us that Dobell experienced his usual difficulties ‘meeting the deadline’: At the last minute he submitted a painting titled Study of a Telephonist which he admitted had taken only six and a half hours to complete – ‘the fastest I’ve ever worked’.6 The subject was a young telephonist who had recently installed a telephone for Dobell. While the quick application of paint may have been a necessity, it also enabled Dobell to capture the open-faced affability of the sitter. Dobell must have liked the painting for, years later, it was included in the major retrospective exhibition arranged by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1964 in honour of the artist. 1. Penton, B., ‘Introduction’, Ure Smith, S. (ed.), The Art of William Dobell, Ure Smith Pty Limited, Sydney, 1946, p. 11 2. ibid. 3. Ure Smith, S., ‘Preface’, The Art of William Dobell, op. cit., p. 9 4. ‘Aid for French artists’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, February 14, 1946, p. 6 5. Caption to photograph, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 1 March 1946, p. 3 6. Adams, B., Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of William Dobell, Hutchinson of Australia, Victoria, 1983, p. 228. There is an interesting postscript. Adams tells that the Meldrumite painter Hayward Veal invited Dobell ‘to a speed painting contest’. Dobell declined.
DAVID THOMAS
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JAMES GLEESON 13 (1915 – 2008) FILIGREE, 1939 oil on canvas 72.5 x 63.5 cm signed and dated lower left: Gleeson 39 inscribed with title on frame verso: Filigree estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 2 November 1977, lot 1247 Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne
James Gleeson was Australia’s most sustained and committed surrealist artist and this remarkable painting dates from the earliest years of his career. It has rarely been seen in public since. In 1939, when Filigree was painted, Gleeson submitted eleven paintings to the second Teachers’ Federation Art Society Annual Exhibition in Sydney. One of his coexhibitors (with six paintings) was the future art historian Bernard Smith, who recognised that this combined outing ‘was the largest number of surrealist works that had been shown publicly in Sydney up to that time’.1 Although Filigree, 1939 was not included in that show, it is a fascinating record in itself of the influences being rapidly absorbed and personalised by the young artist. The late 1930s were increasingly troubled times with the inexorable climb of Fascism as the Spanish Civil War raged. It was ‘a time of fear, anxiety, and the coming to a crossroads where taking one path instead of another could mean death and loss of integrity’. 2 In Sydney, as in Melbourne, political debates raged within the artistic community and would lead to serious divisions over the following years. However, Bernard Smith, who met Gleeson in January 1939, recognised that Gleeson’s interest in surrealism was not political; rather, ‘It was the intuitive, unpolitical (sic) side of the movement that attracted him: Freud and Dali’. 3 Formally conceptualised in 1924 in Paris by Andre Breton, the surrealist movement understood that ‘the flint that supplies the magic spark of true creative thought is always found in the more unruly regions of the mind … in the minds of all Surrealists, true creativity, this unique and precious human attribute, has something untamed about it’.4 Gleeson already owned a copy of Dali’s rare publication Conquest of the Irrational (1935) and whilst there are definite echoes of the Spanish painter’s imagery in Gleeson’s early paintings, other strong stimuli came from artists such as Andre Masson and Yves Tanguy. Gleeson was also looking after a 1925 painting by Giorgio de Chirico whilst its owner was overseas, and elements of all these artists come together in his early paintings.
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Filigree is like a moment of frozen entropy, held firm by the artist’s brush. There is a palpable feeling that the ribbon-like figure will soon drip from the scaffolding as the building decays around it. There can be no literal interpretation for the scene – it is what it is – and no doubt relates deeply to Gleeson’s personal exploration of the subconscious. In a poem-drawing from that same year, Gleeson wrote: ‘I have shown my breast dutifully in the house/ for the familiar things to see it. They have been afraid/ of the eye that weeps in my breast’.5 Dreamlike and esoteric, these words could also be applied to the imagery found in Filigree. In September 1939, Gleeson presented a talk at the Teachers’ Federation exhibition entitled ‘What is Surrealist Art? ’ and in it, he questioned whether surrealism was to be ‘a fleeting transition or the beginning of a new movement.’ With a notable career that was to span the next seventy years, it would seem that Gleeson was able to provide his own answer, a resounding ‘yes!’ to its longevity. 1. Smith, B., The Boy Adeodatus: the portrait of a lucky young bastard, Allen Lane, Victoria, 1984, p. 281 2. Free, R., James Gleeson: Images from the shadows, Craftsman House, Sydney 1993 (1996), p. 11 3. Smith, B., op. cit., p. 258 4. Wach, K., ‘James Gleeson and Surrealism: The Inexhaustible Murmur’, in Klepac, L., James Gleeson: Beyond the screen of sight, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 24 – 25 5. On the Destruction of the Face as Authentic Phenomenon, 1939, in the collection of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, reproduced in Gleeson, J., Selected Poems, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1993, p. 26
ANDREW GAYNOR
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JOHN PERCEVAL 14 (1923 – 2000) OAKLEIGH LANDSCAPE, 1946 oil on canvas on cardboard 65.5 x 69.0 cm signed and dated lower right: ’46 / Perceval estimate :
$80,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Andrew Ivanyi Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne LITERATURE Allen, T., John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 106 (illus.), 150
In 1946, the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh, 15 kilometres south-east of the city, was comprised of orchards and small farms interspersed by a complex of industrial brickworks. The first of these was established as early as 1857 when it was discovered that the area contained large deposits of high quality clay.1 John Perceval himself was also reliant on clay at that time for use at the successful AMB Pottery, which he was running with his brother-in-law Arthur Boyd one kilometre away on busy Neerim Road. He was also creating a small series of paintings, his so-called ‘religious old masters’, which depicted biblical events set within the urban environment of Melbourne, and in semi-rural situations inspired by Murrumbeena and Oakleigh; and Oakleigh Landscape, 1946 is directly related to these significant images. Perceval was the youngest member of the ‘Angry Penguins’, a group of artists which included Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Arthur Boyd. Whilst the geographical nucleus of the group was Heide, the farm at Heidelberg owned by the mentor-patrons John and Sunday Reed, Perceval and Boyd were more firmly centred on the latter’s family property ‘Open Country’ in Wahroongaa Crescent, Murrumbeena. This shambolic, overgrown compound had been established by Boyd’s parents, Merric and Doris, in 1913 and was a suburban wonderland for generations of bare-footed children. Perceval had a troubled childhood so when he met Boyd in the army in World War II and subsequently married his sister Mary, it was as if he had discovered his own idealised family. Merric Boyd was Australia’s first studio potter and the ceramics training he passed on to the younger men planted the seed that became AMB (Arthur Merric Boyd) Pottery which opened in a former butcher’s shop in 1944.
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At the same time, Boyd and Perceval became absorbed in studying the influential technical manual Materials of the Artist and their Use in Painting by Max Doerner. Through this, they sought to emulate in their own paintings the rich colour and glazing of Dutch masters including Rembrandt and Breughel, and Perceval was particularly inspired by the latter’s rustic, bucolic scenes of peasant life. As part of the process, he painted a suite of paintings of locales near Murrumbeena and a number, including Oakleigh Landscape, feature the prominent brickwork chimneys. Others in the series are Brickworks at Oakleigh, 1946 (private collection), Cabbage Field, Oakleigh, 1947 (private collection) and Oakleigh vegetable garden, 1947 (Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria). Oakleigh Landscape is painted with Perceval’s trademark vigour, but he took pains to dismiss the notion that he was somehow a haptic painter, slapping paint on in an expressive manifestation of ‘joie de vivre’. Instead, he argued, ‘my work is primarily a response to the subject, to light and trees, air, people etc. Whatever success it may achieve is due to the desire to equate the vitality, the pulse of life in nature and the world around us’. 2 In works like Oakleigh Landscape, this attitude is on full display as is his technical prowess indicative of his deep study of the painterly techniques of the northern European masters. 1. Until 1953, the area supplied 20% of Melbourne’s bricks. 2. Perceval, J. quoted in Reed, J., New Painting 1952–1962, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p. 24
ANDREW GAYNOR
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CHARLES BLACKMAN 15 born 1928 THE SISTERS, 1953 oil on board 62.0 x 74.0 cm signed and dated lower left: BLACKMAN / 13, MAY 53 estimate :
$70,000 – 90,000
PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Savill Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth (label attached verso) Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Paintings and Drawings: Charles Blackman, Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, 12 May 1953, cat. 1 8 Melbourne Painters, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 29 July – 10 August 1953, cat. 5 BLACKMAN, Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 26 June – 15 July 1960, cat. 9 Charles Blackman, The Schoolgirl Years, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 10 June – 2 July 1988, cat. 15 Charles Blackman, Intimate Reflections, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 13 March – 12 April 1997, cat. 1 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE ‘At Sydney Galleries. 8 Melbourne Painters’, Le Courrier Australien, Sydney, 7 August 1953, p. 2 RELATED WORK The Exchange, 1952, oil on plywood on composition board, 91.7 x 91.7 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, illus. in Moore, F. St J., Charles Blackman Schoolgirls and Angels, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 37
The Sisters, 1953 is an important painting from Charles Blackman’s Schoolgirls series, the young artist’s ’first significant sequence of work and the central theme of his inaugural commercial exhibition at Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, in May 1953’.1 Listed as number one in the exhibition catalogue, it has rarely been seen in public since. Blackman is on record stating that his painterly visions of anxious and vulnerable schoolgirls were triggered in part by the brutal murder of twelve yearold Alma Tirtschke in a CBD alley in 1922, and by the (still) unsolved murder of a university friend of his wife Barbara, but in many ways The Sisters has a stronger relationship to poetry and to Barbara’s encroaching blindness. Blackman was born in Sydney where he worked for a while as a cadet cartoonist for The Sun newspaper. Following his marriage to the
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Brisbane-born Barbara, the family moved into an old coach house and loft in Chrystobel Crescent, Hawthorn, in 1951. Already friendly with the artists Danila Vassilieff, Joy Hester, Laurence Hope and Sidney Nolan, Blackman converted the loft into a studio. On daily walks, he discovered that ‘we were surrounded by thousands and thousands of schools and schoolgirls’ 2 and soon covered the walls with his paintings and drawings, adding to them every day in a frenzy of work. Bearing distinct linear qualities reminiscent of his previous cartoon work, Blackman also utilised strident colours which matched the mood of the local contemporary art scene still affected by ‘the disturbed years that followed World War II (where) change and disorder were in the artistic air. This was a period in which pastoral harmony and tonal recession were challenged by an expressionism which stirred up the look of things, even seemed to court downright ugliness’. 3 Using a similar tactic to other paintings in the series, Blackman upsets the perspective in The Sisters through the use of a sharply angled directional line, seen also in The Crossing, 1952; Schoolgirl at Kooyong, 1953; Prone figure, (1953); and the drawing Schoolgirl and Man, 1952. Set against a ground of acid pink, anxiety pervades the side-long glance of the smaller girl as she leads her companion into the blanket coverage of the tree’s foliage, a possible allusion to Barbara’s blindness and her increased need for protection and physical guidance. Blackman reproduced stanzas from the poem ‘Schoolgirls Hastening’ by the bush poet John Shaw Neilson in the Peter Bray exhibition catalogue – (t)he schoolgirls hastening through the light – but another Neilson poem, ‘The Orange Tree’, seems a more apt beginning: The young girl stood beside me. I / Saw not what her young eyes could see.4 The exhibition attracted much attention and not a little controversy but, as ever, the Herald’s critic Alan McCulloch proved perceptive arguing that ‘Blackman’s concepts are not painterly, or linear, or tonal, they are psychological … at once exciting and extremely stimulating’. 5 Of the extended Schoolgirls series , examples are now housed within major institutional collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and in significant corporate collections such as Australian Capital Equity (Kerry Stokes), Wesfarmers, as well as the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria. 1. Morgan, K., ‘Artist’s Biography’, Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2017, p. 76 2. Shapcott, T., Focus on Charles Blackman, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1967, p. 16 3. Wallace-Crabbe, C., ‘Girls and the City’, in Morgan, K., Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2017, p. 33 4. Neilson, J.S., ‘ The Orange Tree’, cited in Wallace-Crabbe, C., ‘Girls and the City’, op cit., p. 37 5. McCulloch, A., ‘Quantity and quality’, Herald, Melbourne, 12 May 1953, p. 10 ANDREW GAYNOR
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ARTHUR BOYD 16 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN oil on composition board 19.5 x 30.5 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
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$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Deutscher~Menzies, Sydney, 8 December 2004, lot 49 The Estate of Roger Langsworth, Sydney
ARTHUR BOYD 17 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN RIVERBANK oil on composition board 29.5 x 24.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Art Galleries Schubert, Queensland (label attached verso) Private collection, Brisbane Menzies, Melbourne, 11 December 2014, lot 1 The Estate of Roger Langsworth, Sydney
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ARTHUR BOYD 18 (1920 – 1999) LOVERS AND BEAST IN A FOREST, 1966 oil on canvas 108.5 x 113.5 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1969 EXHIBITED Philipp, F., Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967, cat. 17-24, p. 277
Encapsulating the heroic and poetic in an Antipodean tragedy of thwarted lovers, Arthur Boyd’s ‘Love, Death and Marriage of a HalfCaste’ series 1954 – 59 is universally considered among his finest. Thus, upon his arrival in London shortly after the completion of the landmark series which had won him so much acclaim, Boyd did not immediately abandon this hauntingly beautiful theme, but rather began to expand its imagery further – transforming the poignant narrative into more general meditations upon the destinies of Eros and the mythology of desire. Profoundly influenced by the great masterpieces of Renaissance art which were now so readily accessible in the vast museum collections of Europe, Boyd was attracted in particular to the work of fifteenthcentury painter, Piero di Cosimo with his famous painting, A Mythological Subject in the National Gallery, London, leaving a particularly indelible impression. Unlike Titian, Tintoretto and Rembrandt, di Cosimo was not considered one of the masters of his time, but rather its unicum; ‘he loved to see everything wild’ wrote Vasari and accordingly, his most memorable work explores the development of man from animal state to early civilisation.1 Consciously or otherwise, it was this streak of primitivism and the slightly macabre association of eroticism and death by the Renaissance artist that would inexorably pervade Boyd’s images of love for decades to come. Upon first glance, the present Lovers and Beast in a Forest, 1966 bears echoes of Boyd’s Angel Spying on Adam and Eve, 1947 – 48 with the two lovers embracing furtively behind a tree in the woods, accompanied by the signature Boydian motif of the black ram. However, if playing a passive, almost protective role in the earlier composition, here the horned beast is decidedly more active, aggressively charging the couple and thus, evoking unmistakable allusions to the nature of sexuality in the vein of Boyd’s sensuous mythological tableaux from the same decade – for example, the ‘Nude with Beast’ series inspired by Titian’s The
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Death of Actaeon (National Gallery, London). Significantly, Lovers and Beast in a Forest is also distinguished from Boyd’s work prior to the 1960s by a more sophisticated painterly technique in which the relative flatness of the picture surface is exchanged for a heavier impasto style featuring thick streaks of paint carefully worked with a knife or brush handle akin to the vigor of expressionism. While no doubt deriving its impetus from the Antipodean artist’s first-hand experience of viewing works by Tintoretto and Rembrandt, such stylistic transition arguably carries powerful iconographic implications as well. Not only do the united lovers here seemingly merge into a ‘joined figure’ suggestive of the ‘oneness’ of the Platonic myth, and possibly even extending to notions of fertility-death or Narcissistic doom, as contemplated by Boyd elsewhere. Moreover, such ‘effacement’ continues between the two figures and the ground; the enclosing, darkly glutinous forest appears at once threatening and embracing, perhaps implying the re-entering of an eternal cycle of Nature. Imbued with energy, drama and multifaceted meaning, Lovers and Beast in a Forest offers a compelling example of one the most tender and enduring themes in Boyd’s highly idiosyncratic oeuvre – the concept of lovers brought together by mysterious forces and their struggle to make sense of themselves, both as individuals and a couple, in a universe that invariably conspires against them. 1. Hoff, U., The Art of Arthur Boyd, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986, p. 53
VERONICA ANGELATOS
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BRETT WHITELEY 19 (1939 – 1992) L’ÎLE DE LA CITÉ, 1989 brush and ink on paper 57.0 x 76.0 cm dated lower right: 4 / 6 / 89 bears artist’s stamp lower right estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in July 1992 EXHIBITED Paris Regard de Côté, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 March – 6 May 1990 Paris – The Complete ‘Regard de Côté’ Series Plus Works from Other Visits 1982 – 1992, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 20 July – 8 August 1992, cat. 54 (label attached verso) Brett Whiteley’s Paris, Brett Whiteley Studio, Sydney, 11 September – 28 November 1999, cat. 21 LITERATURE Whiteley, B., Paris Regard de Côté, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1990, cat. 54 (illus.)
The quintessential ‘city of love’, Paris had always held special appeal for Brett Whiteley who considered her a kind of ‘mistress’, weaving her beguiling feminine charms through the myriad streets and boulevards. As he poignantly mused, ‘… I love the stoniness and creaminess, that wonderful soiled magnolia feeling. Paris is so sensual, beautiful, flirtatious, mischievous, arrogant, orderly, civilised. They call Paris a whore because she seduces you on every corner, and every street I turned, l could see another picture’.1 Significantly, Whiteley’s untiring affair with Paris began at the age of 20 when, as the recipient of the Italian Travelling Scholarship, he visited the city to explore the haunts of one of his greatest artistic mentors, Modigliani. Fascinated by the possibility that the brilliance of the past might somehow be embedded in the very fabric of the streets and buildings, the young artist had hoped he might gain, by proximity, further understanding of the inextricable link between Paris and ‘genius’. Returning to the city three decades later, Whiteley reflected that he had been too ‘obsessed with modernism and abstraction’ in his earlier years to paint the city; by contrast, ‘now, with fresh eyes, I could respond figuratively and lyrically to the one ravishing subject – Paris and her cultural heroes’. 2
Setting himself the ambitious task ‘to produce one work a day for sixty days’, thus in June 1989 Whiteley embarked upon his celebrated ‘Paris ‘Regard de Côté’ series of gouaches, drawings and photographs – paying homage in particular to that district of the École de Paris that Marquet, Utrillo and Nicolas de Staël had so immortalised through their art. Although acutely aware of the vast legacy bequeathed by his artistic predecessors, Whiteley never falls victim to the visual cliché in his views of the city’s various landmarks and streetscapes. As he recognised in his text accompanying the acclaimed exhibition of the series at Australian Galleries in 1990, ‘… how to find a new vision is the challenge. What one is after is a high-octane visual poetic journalism, brief, essential and above all, fresh. This can best be achieved by drawing, and not by the heavy métier of oil paint … To revive the sketch, to Zen in and out quickly, to stalk the streets with a tiny leopard camera, to try to look at the obvious obscurely, and to introduce into each view the right amount of humour, or irony, or Dada’. 3 Richly redolent and exuding sensuality, the superb ink and brush drawing offered here illustrates well how successfully Whiteley achieved his goal. Featuring the ship-shaped island of the Île de la Cité – widely considered the historical heart of Paris and home to the famous medieval cathedrals of Notre-Dame and Sainte Chapelle – the sketch betrays all the informality of a camera shot, a transitory moment in time drawn from the western end downstream with the Place Dauphine, the iconic Pont Neuf and River Seine foregrounded. Noticeably bereft of figures (aside from two tiny fishermen perched on the tip of the island), the subject here is unequivocally Paris – her architecture invested with an almost anthropomorphic quality to capture the essential character and beauty of this city he so loved. Comprising the last major series produced by the artist before his untimely death in 1992, such works eloquently attest not only to Whiteley’s unwavering sense of discovery and engagement, but to his extraordinary ability as a draughtsman to create incandescent moments of vision; in his words, ‘… to make freshness permanent. Out of billions of seconds of futility, occasionally, sparks of the life force are immutably held forever’.4 1. Whiteley, B. quoted in Hawley, J., ‘Brett Whiteley: The Art of the Warrior’, The Age Good Weekend, Melbourne, 17 February 1990, p. 17 2. ibid. 3. Whiteley, B., ‘Preface’, Paris ‘Regard de Cote’, exhibition catalogue, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1990, unpaginated 4. Whiteley, B., quoted in Klepac, L., Brett Whiteley: Drawings, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2014
VERONICA ANGELATOS
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LLOYD REES 20 (1895 – 1988) MORNING ON THE DERWENT, 1971 oil on canvas 89.5 x 100.5 cm signed and dated lower left: L REES 71 bears inscription on label verso: “Morning on the Derwent” / Lloyd Rees. estimate :
$90,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Dr Peter Elliott AM, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist Private collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above in 2007 LITERATURE Fry, G., The Peter Elliott Collection of Australian Art, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2013, p. 50 (illus.)
Lloyd Rees’ incredibly long career as a landscape artist can be broadly divided into five painterly divisions. Starting with his early work featuring Sydney and its environs, Rees subsequently captured scenes of Bathurst, the Illawarra and onwards to Europe, before his fifth and final sequence based around Tasmania. He first travelled to Hobart in the late 1960s following his son Alan’s relocation to work at the University of Tasmania. As the latter series unfurled, the artist and writer James Gleeson acknowledged that the later works were ‘something rare and profound, reminding us of the late styles of other great artists who reach their full creative powers. There is a simplification to the point of universal form; there is mastery of technique to the point where it no longer matters. There is a direct communication from the centre of the artist’s being’.1 In Tasmania, Rees painted in three main locations, at his son’s house, perched high on Sandy Bay with the Derwent in the distance; in a studio located in the grounds of the university; and at the house of his friend, the artist Jack Carrington Smith, also sited on the river. Due to the relatively low aspect of Morning on the Derwent, 1971, it is probable that this latter location was the site at which it was painted. In a scene enveloped in morning mist (a common Derwent occurrence), Rees has abandoned his usual crisp line in favour of form, with the rocks, trees and distant shoreline all hazily suggested in a teal/azure blue applied using a palette knife highlighted with white. At the time, Rees was utilising his own homemade PVA-based ‘plaster’ to build up a low impasto over which he would paint vigorously or, to use his own words, ‘roughly – attack them, as it were (but) it is from this attack that unity emerges (once) a canvas is well covered with paint’. 2 He was always at pains to emphasise that his paintings were never topographically true for although he may begin with an accurate sketch of a scene, ‘painting
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is a creative process. It is not nature, it is a man-made thing’. 3 Rees also admitted that ‘when I enter the studio, a different person seems to take over, the picture on the easel dominates and everything else fades away’.4 Rees mounted a large exhibition of his Tasmanian paintings at the Macquarie Galleries in 1971 and it is plausible that Morning on the Derwent was exhibited there under another name before being purchased by the noted obstetrician Peter Elliott. With his wife Jane, Elliot amassed a large collection of artworks often in association with the gallerist Rudy Komon (Elliot was at Komon’s bedside when he died). Over many years, they also formed strong friendships with artists in their collection particularly Brett Whiteley, 5 Fred Williams and William Robinson, and representatives from a younger generation including contemporary artists such as Anne Wallace and Noel McKenna. Amidst all this visual splendour, Morning on the Derwent would no doubt have acted as a calm centre, a ‘shrouded mystery’ 6 painted by an artist fascinated by light, mood and paint. 1. Free, R., Lloyd Rees: the last twenty years, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1983, p. 13 2. The artist quoted in Free, R., op cit., p. 15 3. ibid., p. 15 4. Rees, L., Peaks and Valleys: an autobiography, Collins, Sydney, 1985, p. 227 5. Their son James Elliott married Arkie Whiteley. 6. Free, R., op cit., p. 17
ANDREW GAYNOR
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JOHN OLSEN 21 born 1928 THE BRIDGE watercolour and pastel on paper 94.5 x 99.5 cm signed and inscribed with title lower right: The Bridge / John Olsen estimate :
PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 25 August 1997, lot 222 (as ‘Harbour Bridge’) Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney
$45,000 – 65,000
John Olsen is a master water-colourist and in The Bridge he conveys the vitality and organic dynamism of the harbour, Sydney’s crown jewel, with sincere expression and lyricism. Informed by the philosophy of Vitalism, the belief in the organic interconnectedness of all things, Olsen’s work is characterised by an exuberant, expressive celebration of the environment and of the life forces that govern it: the sun, the sky and water. All of Olsen’s work displays a deep engagement with the Australian landscape, but those depicting the harbour, described by the artist as the city’s ’umbilical chord [sic.]’1, reveal the symbiosis between the city and its inhabitants. While most of Olsen’s paintings of Sydney Harbour – particularly those of his ‘littoral’ series between 1963–65 – featured a diminutive Harbour Bridge engulfed by a chaotic flux of tides, city and people, The Bridge places the iconic structure in the centre of the picture plane, yawning across the watery expanse. Olsen is an intuitive and meditative draftsman, whose work expresses the Vitalist principle of interconnectedness by literally connecting each element of his compositions through line. 2 In The Bridge, Olsen’s archetypal visual language, characterised by his gestural and calligraphic line, harnesses and maintains the viewer’s attention. The line swerves and wanders across the paper, from lazy undulating wisps and spirals, to staccato dashes and vigorous scrawls. With this work showing an extraordinary range of mark-making of varying degrees of intensity and pace, layered over a delicate background wash, Olsen expresses the beauty of Sydney harbour with joyful abandon. 1. Olsen’s deliberate misspelling reinforcing the qualities of harmony and unity – Murphy, J., ‘The Journals of John Olsen’ in Hurlston, D., and Hart, D. (eds.), John Olsen The You Beaut Country, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016, p. 98 2. Edwards, D., ‘The Littoral and the Void’, in Hurlston, D., and Hart, D. (eds.), op. cit., p. 25
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
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JEFFREY SMART 22 (1921 – 2013) HEAD OFFICE, 2002 – 03 oil on canvas 56.0 x 80.5 cm signed lower right: JEFFREY SMART estimate :
$200,000 – 300,000
PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above on 18 October 2003 EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart Painting and Studies 2002 – 2003, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 23 September – 18 October 2003, cat. 25 LITERATURE Grishin, S., Jeffrey Smart: Paintings and Studies 2002 – 2003, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 2003, pp. 13, 39 (illus.), 50 (illus.), 51 RELATED WORK Study for Head Office, 2002, oil on canvas, 38.0 x 54.0 cm Figure Drawing for ‘Head Office’, 2002, pencil on paper, 22.0 x 14.0 cm Drawing for ‘Head Office’, 2002, blue ink on paper
Jeffrey Smart’s paintings delight the eye with their immaculate order and tantalise the mind through tempting clues. Wrapped in the sensuous beauty of his colour and light, their sense of actuality is as powerful as it is artificial. In Head Office, 2002 – 03 subjects are again drawn from the modern urban world, dehumanised, then enlivened by ambiguity and irony. A master of the enigmatic, he claims the completion of the picture as his role, leaving it to the viewer to interpret if so inclined.1 For Head Office, refinement of composition can be traced through three studies, while the evolution of meaning is found in clues that equally lead astray. Within the balanced verticals and horizontals fall the shadows of diagonals. One recalls Smart’s liking for T. S. Eliot. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow. – T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, 1925
The fallen shadow is central to the frozen mobility of the echoing harmony of angles and immobile figures. And a brilliant note of red, the woman’s dress, is chosen once again as the focal point. Poised in the doorway, she is about to step into a darkness of uncertainty, adding to the pervasive air of expectancy, the hallmark of the best of Smart’s art. The evolution of Head Office from the first composition drawn in blue ink, through the study in oil (both of 2002), to the pencil drawing of the figure of the man of 2003, is fascinating in its pursuit of resolution. 2 In the preliminary ink drawing, what lights do the inscriptions ‘Head Office’ and ‘Credits’, with the figure of an armed soldier outside, throw on the delicious ambiguities of the final painting? In the oil study, does the tympanum with its classical figures, suggestive of an angel with arms outstretched to Adam and Eve (everyman), introduce religious connections with allied notions of power? Even the ever- solid doors of security and geometric patterns play with concepts of hard-edged and colour field painting. (As a figurative artist, Smart was very aware of modern movements, comments on which often found their way into his paintings.) And is a pun at work in the alignment of church entrance and head office? Smart plays with incongruity like a toy, and meaning is as ubiquitous and ephemeral as light. Yet, as Sasha Grishin has observed, Smart has ‘… an obsession with the physical and metaphysical effects of light…’. 3 This is further compounded by the pink poster to the right, Italian words truncated to celebrate other uncertainties. Translated, the words ‘Friday’, ‘Municipality of V[aldarno?]’ and ‘Jeffrey Smart’ may be clear; but is an auction sale to take place? And may ‘Roselavie Enr…’ be an anagram of the song ‘La Vie En Rose’, popularised by Edith Piaf? Or again, of ‘Rose Sélavy’ a pseudonym used by Marcel Duchamp, who challenged the very notion of art? Within the super clarity of composition, there remains a likely random jumble, temptingly suggestive without clear meaning. Colour, light and composition are his subject. Whatever we may find in Head Office, there is great pleasure in looking. Moreover, in a world in which noise is the greatest pollution, Smart’s silence is empowering. 1. Grishin, S., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s Eternal Order of Light and Balance’, Jeffrey Smart Paintings and Studies 2002 – 2003, exhibition catalogue, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 2003, p. 8 2. All four works are illustrated in the above-mentioned catalogue, pp. 36 – 39 3. Grishin, S., op. cit., p. 8
DAVID THOMAS
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The Artist in his studio, Tuscany, painting Head Office, 2002 – 2003 courtesy of Australian Galleries Archives, Melbourne
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JEFFREY SMART 23 (1921 – 2013) OUTSKIRTS, ATHENS, 1964 oil on composition board 65.5 x 82.5 cm signed and dated lower left: JEFFREY SMART 64 inscribed with title verso: OUTSKIRTS ATHENS estimate :
$300,000 – 400,000
PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 May 2002, lot 70 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart, Galleria 88, Rome, 8 – 23 April 1965, cat. 9 Exhibition of Paintings, Jeffrey Smart, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 29 September – 11 October 1965, cat. 10 LITERATURE Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1983, cat. 454, p. 109 (dated as 1965) Capon, E., et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Art publishing, Melbourne, 2001, fig. 8, pp. 70 (illus., dated as 1965), 202 RELATED WORK Study for Outskirts, Athens, 1965, ink and watercolour on paper, 15.5 x 23.0 cm, illus. in Capon, E., et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Art publishing, Melbourne, 2001, cat. 68, p. 70
The geometry of Jeffrey Smart’s paintings is so cleverly conceived that it invites the eye to feel as well as see. And so it is with Outskirts, Athens, 1964, immaculately crafted with rectangles and curves, horizontals, verticals and diagonals. The corrugations of the iron fence contrast with the flatness of the cubic apartment block and look so man-made against the crumbling earth embankment. It is a classic Smart, superbly composed, painted, flat and textured, ever masterly in the handling of light and sharp-edged shade. Moreover, there is that magic touch of the cinematic, a still from the movies – enigmatic. Writing about the 1965 Macquarie exhibition in which Outskirts, Athens was introduced to Sydney audiences, James Gleeson described Smart as ‘… a narrative painter who deliberately refrains from telling a story. Instead he paints a “still” and leaves us to construct a sequence around it’.1 To this he adds a particular liking for repetition as in the seemingly endless curves of rhythmic corrugation. The same 1965 Sydney exhibition included
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another striking variation of repetition, of steps ascending in the painting E.U.R I., 1964 in the collection of the Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales. Part of the genius of Smart is his ability to dress up the familiar as a new experience. 2 He spent the summer of 1964 in Athens followed by six months on the island of Skyros. The stay in Athens ‘provided enough material for the whole Skyros period’. 3 Curiously, the fences and line of washing in Outskirts, Athens were based not on a Greek scene, but a Roman view, specifically the ink and watercolour study, Porta Portese, Rome.4 Athens, as we all know, is the home of the Parthenon, one of the world’s greatest architectural achievements. That Smart should look instead to the fringe of its urban wasteland adds to the painting’s irony and wit. And does the washing evoke any notion of being hung out to dry, of abandonment of someone in need? Smart’s comment on the environment is given an extra twist by painting the sky an unnatural muted colour, empty and full of portent. Sky blue is featured prominently instead in the large lettering across the front fenced picture plane. These truncated words and letters add further to the visual feast and its critique of the modern world in which we fail so miserably to communicate effectively. Smart sites this in today’s Athens, birthplace of democracy, and once the centre of great oratory. The more super realistic Smart’s paintings appear, the more subtle are their innuendoes. As James Gleeson observed in 1965: ‘Smart preserves a façade of objectivity even when he is being most subjective’. 5 While the front and backsides of the tin fences in Outskirts, Athens are regimented in an informal way and nature is quite fenced in, the leading electricity pole is not quite straight. Smart’s autobiography, published in 1996 and dubbed a ‘wicked and utterly engaging memoir’, is titled Not Quite Straight.6 1. Gleeson, J., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s “still” lifes’, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 3 October 1965, p. 76 2. Thornton, W., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s Exhibition’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 29 September 1965, p. 21 3. Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 1983, p. 20 4. Capon, op. cit., p. 70, which also refers to the same study being used for other works including the painting The Plastic Tube, 1980. 5. Gleeson, op. cit. 6. Not Quite Straight: a memoir, William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1996
DAVID THOMAS
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JOHN BRACK 24 (1920 – 1999) THE TUMBLERS, 1990 oil on canvas 122.0 x 137.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John Brack 1990 inscribed with date and title on artist’s label verso estimate :
$550,000 – 750,000
PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED John Brack Recent Paintings and Drawings, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 13 April – 1 May 1993, cat. 5 (illus. on exhibition invitation) John Brack’s 75th Birthday Exhibition, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 23 May – 10 June 1995, cat. 6 LITERATURE Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, cat. o313, p. 40 RELATED WORK The Tumblers, 1990, watercolour on paper, private collection, Melbourne, in Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, cat. p312, p. 74
John Brack is renowned as the artist who most succinctly captured the character of twentieth century Australian life. His iconic paintings including The bar, 1954, Collins St, 5p.m., 1955 (both National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), and the ballroom dancing series of the late 1960s are eternally popular with successive generations of viewers and now more than fifty years on, also tinged with nostalgia for our recent past. While Brack’s imager y was of ten interpreted as satirical social commentary, his primary motivation was quite different. As he explained, ‘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’.1 Throughout a career that spanned more than five decades Brack’s work evolved both stylistically and technically, as well as witnessing distinct changes of subject matter, however this focus on the human condition remained a consistent and primary theme. Ironically, in the mid-1970s the human figure disappeared almost entirely from Brack’s imagery, replaced in ensuing series by various inanimate objects, from museum postcards, umbrellas, pens, pencils
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and playing cards, to wooden artists’ manikins and Pinocchio dolls. Using these everyday props to construct subtle visual metaphors, Brack’s new approach ‘[permitted] him to express the whole complexity of social interconnections’ 2 and his perspective on the perennial forces of human nature was transformed from the local to a broader universal view. Brack turned seventy in 1990 and many of the works made around this time show the artist reflecting on his own experience of life as well as looking forward. As Helen Brack recalled, ‘John was getting older, and so he was starting to think of the future – not his future but the future … (He realised) that it was the same again – we’d very much seen this, been there. That was the beginning of his making an image for perpetuation … There is an optimism at the end of John’s life that wasn’t there earlier’. 3 In this context the acrobatic manikins that leap and somersault across the picture in The Tumblers, 1990 reflect the carefree confidence, energy and freedom of youth. Their placement on a sheet of glass resting on wooden juggling clubs introduces an unsettling note however, highlighting the precariousness of the situation and the critical role that each figure plays in maintaining balance and flow. How better to depict the interdependence of individuals within any community? Pictured in an enclosed domestic space against a backdrop of subdued striped wallpaper and flecked carpet, the scene is at once intimate and familiar while the intricate pattern and strong colour of the Persian carpet (an often-used motif in Brack’s work from the 1950s on) pushes it out into the world making it an image and associated lesson that is relevant to all. From the depiction of the patterned carpet to the reflections of the manikins in the glass, The Tumblers reveals the extraordinary level of detail and meticulous finish that typifies Brack’s late paintings. Beginning with a series of preliminary sketches, Brack would construct a ‘stageset’ in his studio and after settling on the final composition, made a carefully detailed watercolour as a guide. Embarking on the oil painting, he employed various aids including 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’.4 1. Brack, J., quoted in Reed, J., New Painting 1952–62, Longman, Melbourne, 1963, p. 19 2. Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 140 3. Brack, H., quoted in Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 – 1994, exhibition catalogue, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria, 2000, p. 34 4. ibid, p. 18. See also for more detail regarding Brack’s process.
KIRSTY GRANT
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ARTHUR BOYD 25 (1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN oil on composition board 91.5 x 122.5 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
$80,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Lister Gallery, Perth, acquired directly from the artist Private collection, Perth
Arthur Boyd returned to Australia in 1971, eager to rediscover his antipodean 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. On this 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 majesty of the soaring cliffs which border the Shoalhaven remained a perennial image of the 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 Devoid of the boats, figures and swans often featured in the series, Shoalhaven is a pure landscape, celebrating the unspoiled bush, completely removed from urban life. The piercing blue of the sky above the still waters of the river, creates a scene that ‘glow[s] with well-being, joy and a sense of youth’. 2 Shoalhaven is removed from the religious and lyrical connotations imbued in a number of paintings of this subject, 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 Shoalhaven bears a remarkable likeness to Tom Roberts’ In a corner on the Macintyre, 1895 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra). Both paintings, local of scene, yet national in imagery, are unquestionably Australian in colour, light and atmosphere. Sandra McGrath describes this influence more broadly:
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While Boyd in general chooses to portray the Shoalhaven landscape more identified with Von Guerard and Buvelot, at other times he cannot resist the temptation to paint the landscape in the manner of the early Box Hill painters ... Despite their reliance on a realistic approach to the subject, the Boyd Shoalhaven landscapes are more varied in technique and style than one might suppose. With his prodigious ability the artist is able to take the nature of the subject and render it in a manner which captures the essence of its particular properties at that time, or imbue it with a sense of character and meaning which is the result of his own immediate emotional or psychological response.4 Having always delighted in his painting trips along the river, Boyd believed his magical Bundanon property should belong to the Australian people. Soon after Shoalhaven 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. 62 3. ibid. 4. McGrath, S., The Artist and The River: Arthur Boyd and The Shoalhaven, Bay Books, Sydney, 1982, p. 63
MELISSA HELLARD
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WILLIAM ROBINSON 26 born 1936 WATTLE TREES WITH APPROACHING STORM, 2003 oil on linen 122.0 x 183.0 cm signed and dated lower right: William Robinson 2003 dated and inscribed with title verso: WATTLE TREES WITH APPROACHING STORM. 2003 estimate :
$200,000 – 250,000
PROVENANCE Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso) Private collection, Brisbane Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED William Robinson: Paintings and Pastels, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 12 August – 6 September 2003, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 11)
By the time William Robinson came to paint Wattle Trees with Approaching Storm, 2003, he was well established as a great Australian landscape painter. With four of Australia’s most prestigious art prizes to his name (two Archibald and two Wynne prizes) as well as thirty solo exhibitions, the artist had every right to feel comfortable with the mantle. Robinson broke the mould when it came to painting the Australian landscape. Where many artists of his generation chose to look inwards towards the outback’s desperate beauty, Robinson focussed almost entirely on the ancient rainforests and eucalypt forests of south east Queensland.
the eye in towards the centre of the composition and down through the painting toward the distant coast. Robinson’s paintings attempt to create the sensation of being in the landscape and in the passage below the artist explains the feeling he attempts to convey: ‘I want to move away from observing the picture as some sort of representation. I want to sweep the observer down gullies and up into the sky. The observer is drawn into the landscape not physically but as a sort of connection to memory. The painting reminds us of experiences we might have had when walking in the bush ... I am only presenting personal experience to be shared, but I would like to give some clues that may help the observer to experience the picture.’1 The sensation when viewing these fuller, later Robinson paintings is one of contentment. The artist’s enjoyment, confidence and wonder at what he has achieved as a painter is easily felt in the finished paintings. The near conventional perspective in later Robinson landscape paintings is, in itself an innovation when compared to the turbulent compositions with which the artist established his reputation. 1. Seear, L., Darkness and Light, The Art of William Robinson, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2001, p. 118
HENRY MULHOLLAND
His progress as a painter is easily charted as each of the artist’s exhibitions trumpeted his latest innovation or discovery. By the time of his 2003 exhibition, which included Wattle Trees with Approaching Storm, the artist’s trade mark staccato brush work had given way to a more contemplative, patient method of applying the paint. The urgency to capture the moment and draw it to a towering crescendo had given way to a rhetorical meditation on the picture itself. In the title Wattle Trees with Approaching Storm, Robinson points us to the actual subject within the broader context of the landscape. Wattle trees flower following the winter solstice and those growing nearest the coast flower first. They signal that the earth has begun to pivot north, the sun is rising earlier and spring is approaching. Robinson presents this optimistic moment, but then tempers it with the approaching storm. In the centre of the work we see light mist dipping deeper into the valley as the barometric pressure drops and the approaching storm rolls in over the cliffs. In a dramatic overture, the front of the painting appears to reach out to envelop the viewer. The subsequent vacuum effect draws
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TIM STORRIER 27 born 1949 THE STARS AND THE SPARKS, 1993 synthetic polymer paint on linen 243.5 x 305.0 cm signed, dated, and inscribed with title lower left: “The Stars & the Sparks “ / Storrier / 1993 signed on frame verso: STORRIER estimate :
$150,000 – 200,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist LITERATURE Capon, E., Wright, W., Zimmer, J., and McGregor, K., Tim Storrier: Moments, McMillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, p. 140 (illus.)
Encompassing the subtlety of nature’s fugitive diurnal moods, its mysterious, silently unfolding rituals and vast droning presence, Tim Storrier’s iconic outback paintings evoke a poignant sense of place that is inextricably Australian; as Edmund Capon, a former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales elucidates, ‘… they could not, I believe have come from any country other than Australia’.1 Typically juxtaposing the element of fire against low horizons and expansive skies, his evocations are indelible echoes of this brooding landmass – long-contemplated narratives inspired by Storrier’s own highly personal experience of the landscape, and enhanced by the alluringly beautiful texture and finish of his art. Utterly independent and exquisitely rendered, thus his interpretations feature among the most instantly recognisable and universally admired images in Australian art. Upon first glance, The Stars and the Sparks, 1993 mines familiar territory in Storrier’s oeuvre, with the strong horizontal tension of the blazing horizon echoing his celebrated ‘point to point’ paintings of the 1980s. Yet despite such affinities, the composition reveals a significant shift in Storrier’s vision towards the end of the millennium: where previously his evocations of fire had been literal and direct, now his treatment is more subdued, reflective and abstract. The rope too has been replaced by a burning log and the glowing embers of a vacated campsite, thus inviting darker, more sublimated readings which explore concepts of displacement and isolation. As Lumby suggests in her monograph on the artist, these nocturnal landscapes ‘announce a more sophisticated exploration of the emotive, melancholic mood that has always haunted Storrier’s work – of the themes of isolation and abandonment which he had focused on explicitly in works like Retreat, 1972, Defence of Indado, 1973, and Death of a Warrior in Spring, 1975. The skies in his nocturnal paintings are an intense cobalt blue, cut back with darker glazes ... the landscape here is at once awe-inspiring and threatening, both enveloping and alienating’. 2
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Like the finest of Storrier’s work, The Stars and the Sparks encapsulates the artist’s enduring interest in the four elements and the power of life which they embody. In the manner of the great Romantic painters of the nineteenth century such as JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, Storrier here contemplates the insignificance of humankind when compared to the awesome magnitude of the natural world, drawing upon the symbolism of the fading light of day as a metaphor for change or the fin de siècle, end of an era. Unifying fire with an entirely different great vastness (untraversed bodies of water and infinite celestial skies), the present work may be construed as bearing allusions to evolution, the passing of time and the grandeur of decay in the same vein as the traditional vanitas still life. As Storrier himself muses, ‘... there is a relationship between fecundity and mortality, between something that is wet and something that is burning. These are primal poetic qualities that do not change in terms of the human spirit’. 3 1. Capon, E., quoted in Lumby, C., Tim Storrier: The Art of the Outsider, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000, p. 8 2. ibid., p. 142 – 43 3. The artist quoted in Tim Storrier: The Burning Gifts, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1989, p. 11
VERONICA ANGELATOS
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ETHEL CARRICK FOX 28 (1872 – 1952) ON THE SANDS, c.1913 oil on plywood panel 27.0 x 35.0 cm signed lower right: CARRICK bears inscription verso: On the Sands / Ethel Carrick / (Mrs E Phillips Fox) estimate :
$150,000 – 200,000
PROVENANCE Joseph Prieur, France Thence by descent Richard Prieur, Paris Private collection, Sydney
is closely related in subject, freedom of handling and palette. Here, at Manly, they share play of light and shade, overall feel of movement, and that pleasantly casual air which characterises Australians at play. Even the Manly beach chairs are more relaxed than those so upright in the French scenes.
EXHIBITED Possibly: Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Mrs. E. Phillips Fox, Anthony Horderns’ Fine Art Gallery, Sydney, April 1916, cat. 15
One recalls the remarks of The Age critic writing about Carrick’s Melbourne exhibition of July 1913: ‘She delights in colour and light … in the movement of holiday crowds at the seaside, and in the parks’. 3 In On the Sands, even the breaking waves join in the overall feeling of activity, generated so much through the play of light. Red-and-white striped beach tents, characteristic of the French seaside resorts are gone; and no men are present. In 1913 there were still restrictions on mixed bathing in Australia! Finally, Carrick adds the feeling of a refreshing sea breeze blowing through the summer heat and turns all into a captivating work of art.
RELATED WORK Manly Beach – Summer is Here, 1913, oil on canvas, 81.0 x 100.0 cm, in the collection of Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney, gift of the artist, 1934
When Ethel Carrick visited Sydney in 1913, some of her best works were inspired by Manly. Her husband, Emanuel Phillips Fox had been delayed in Melbourne by a request from the Historic Memorials Commission to paint the portrait of Prime Minister Andrew Fisher. Carrick busied herself painting the Harbour and other Sydney scenes, before Fox arrived in midSeptember to follow suit. It was springtime and Sydney was sparkling, judging by the views they painted. Carrick’s November solo show at Anthony Hordern’s Fine Art Gallery featured Corner of Circular Quay, On Balmoral Beach, Off Cremorne Point and twelve Notes on Sydney Harbor. They inspired the Sydney Morning Herald art critic to write of Carrick and her paintings in terms of ‘joyous vivacity’, delighting in ‘a prominence of light and colour’. ‘Painting after painting [he added] display an almost child-like love for light, movement, the interplay of brilliant hues’.1 As evidenced by the sunlit atmosphere and feeling of freedom, Carrick and Fox loved the beaches of Sydney, possibly even more than those of the fashionable French resorts of Trouville and Saint-Malô. One special outcome of Carrick’s Sydney visit was her painting Manly Beach – Summer is Here, 1913. Wisely kept as a favourite, she took it back to France with her and when exhibited later, the painting won ‘the diploma of honour at an international exhibition at Bordeaux’. 2 (French audiences were not entirely unfamiliar with such Australian views. In 1910 Carrick had shown The Quay, Milson’s Point, Sydney, translated as ‘Sur la plage’, in Paris in the Salon d’Automne.) On loan to the Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Carrick eventually gave Manly Beach – Summer is Here to the lucky gallery in 1934. Our painting, On the Sands, c.1913,
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In Australia, the beach has long provided a way of life, so it is not surprising that this French nineteenth century fashion was readily embraced here both for pleasure and art. Carrick and Fox enjoyed a special role in the latter – an English and an Australian artist living in Paris, and painting on the best of French, Melbourne and Sydney beaches. Their light-filled Australian paintings are among the most colourful and best – major compositions, or moments of almost casual indulgence, intimate in size for easy sharing with their viewers, as in our painting. 1. ‘Impressionism’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 7 November 1913, p. 7 2. The Argus, Melbourne, 23 October 1939, p. 7 3. ‘Mrs. E. Phillips Fox’s Pictures’, Age, Melbourne, 11 July 1913, p. 9
DAVID THOMAS
The Beach, Manly, c.1910 Cave & Hurley Postcard
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ETHEL CARRICK FOX 29 (1872 – 1952) SUR LA PLAGE, 1910 oil on wood panel 27.0 x 35.0 cm signed and dated lower left: CARRICK 1910 bears inscription verso: Né [sic] en Australie / Membre des Artistes Français / a obtenu la medaille de 3e classe / en 1894 bears inscription on label verso: 10 / Sur la plage / Ethel Carrick / 65 Bd. Arago estimate :
$200,000 – 250,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, USA Christie’s, London, 14 December 2017, lot 2 Private collection, Sydney RELATED WORK Beach Scene, c.1909, oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, 38.0 x 55.4 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Emanuel Phillips Fox, (On the Sand), c.1910, oil on wood panel, 26.7 x 35.1 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Illus. in Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of E. Phillips Fox in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, p. 51
When Ethel Carrick Fox held her solo exhibition in Sydney in July of 1913, the critic for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote: ‘The first characteristic observed on meeting [her] is a certain joyous vivacity, an air of pouncing upon the matter in hand and bearing it at once into a prominence of light and colour. The same qualities are reflected in her work. Painting after painting display an almost child-like love for light, movement, the interplay of brilliant hues’.1 The artist is her art, an enthusiast for beauty. In Sur la Plage, 1910 the visual excitement created by the deft handling of paint – touched, drawn, or shaped into an image – witnesses the marriage of light and colour. The spontaneous, almost impetuous brush strokes respond directly to the motif with all the freedom provided by painting out-of-doors. Add the elegance and fashion of La Belle Époque and you have a masterpiece, intimate in scale and moment, sunny in mood. Emanuel Phillips Fox’s (On the Sand), c.1910, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, provides a companion view. Settings, figures, attire and poses show that they were painted together, probably at Royan, variations being the different responses of two highly individual artists. The Foxes often spent their summers painting at the fashionable French beach resorts – Trouville, Deauville, Dinard and Royan, where their friend, Rupert Bunny, had painted two years previous. Middlesex born and London bred, Ethel Carrick had married Emanuel Phillips Fox in London in 1905 before moving to Paris with him to live
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near Jeanne and Rupert Bunny. (Their address of 65 Boulevard Arago, Paris is recorded on the label on the verso of our painting.) With a Slade School background, Ethel had embraced plein-air painting at the Newlyn artists’ colony, Cornwall, before graduating to the more avant-garde colony of St Ives, where she met Fox. In France, the Foxes painted in the Luxembourg Gardens and the fashionable beachside resorts, Emanuel and Rupert having a pleasing influence on each other’s work. Beginning with Eugène Boudin and Claude Monet at Trouville, paintings of beaches came into prominence in France in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Carrick and Fox painted there in 1909. Two fine examples, Carrick’s Beach Scene, c.1909 and Fox’s Promenade, c.1909, are in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Sur la Plage recalls Monet’s breezy The Beach at Trouville, 1870 (National Gallery, London) in its handling of light and presentation of figures, sun shaded and seated on the beach. The differences are Carrick’s colour-loaded palette and lively brushwork, showing the impact of Henri Matisse and fellow-exhibitors at the Salon d’Automne, of which she became a sociétaire in 1911. As in many of her beachside paintings, in Sur la Plage the red-and-white striped tents on golden sands, anchored by deep blacks, capture the eye and set up a vibrancy that echoes throughout the composition. Here, the engaging expression of belle époque elegance and pleasure in idle moments, entwines leisure and beauty within the sensuous play of light, texture and colour. 1. ‘Impressionism’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 7 November 1913, p. 7 DAVID THOMAS
EMANUEL PHILLIPS FOX (On The Sand), c.1910, oil on wood panel, 26.7 x 35.1 cm image courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
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EMANUEL PHILLIPS FOX 30 (1865 – 1915) CASSIS, SOUTH OF FRANCE, c.1912 – 13 oil on canvas on plywood 38.0 x 44.0 cm signed lower left: E. Phillips Fox estimate :
$60,000 – 80,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Sigmund Horowitz, Perth Thence by descent Private collection, Perth Bonhams, Sydney, 21 November 2011, lot 3 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Australian Art: Colonial to Modern, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 – 25 April 1986, cat. 63 (illus. in exhibition catalogue as ‘Harbour Scene, South of France’) LITERATURE Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1995, cat. 426, p. 229 (as ‘Harbour Scene, South of France’)
The sea and the beach had a special appeal for Emanuel Phillips Fox, being at the centre of some of his finest paintings including Bathing Hour, c.1909 (Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane) and The Ferry, c.1910 – 11 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). In others, Rocks and Sea, c.1911 (University of Melbourne Art Collection, Melbourne) and Green Wave, Manly, c.1914 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), for example, they are the very subject itself, celebrations of freedom in ever-changing form and colour. Earlier, at the fashionable French beach resorts of Trouville and Royan, Fox and his wife Ethel Carrick delighted in capturing elegant moments of La Belle Époque, and later the brilliant sunlight of Tangiers, Cadiz, Melbourne and Sydney. Fox’s letters to Hans Heysen in Australia often mention his travels and pursuit of sunlight: ‘…I hope to go South for October & look forward to getting some good work, in the neighbourhood of Arles…’.1 During 1912 – 13, Fox and Carrick made several visits to southern France. Attracted by the various Mediterranean coastlines, they painted at Le Brusc, Sanary and Cassis. Years later, Ethel recalled the early part of 1913 when they stayed ‘some time in the South of France where Fox painted several brilliant seascapes’. 2 This brilliance was not confined to the big paintings, as confirmed by a reviewer of Fox’s 1913 Melbourne exhibition of many of these works: ‘Leaving the larger works to their own attractions, many of
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the smaller landscapes claim attention, notably “The Blue Shutters,” a remarkable essay in pure sunlight as brilliant as anything an Australian midsummer sun could accomplish’. 3 (The Blue Shutters, believed to be a Cassis subject, was sold by Deutscher and Hackett in November 2016, lot 43). The exhibition, held at the Athenaeum Hall in June, featured many major works shown previously at the London Royal Academy and Paris Salons. They now enliven the walls of our leading state and national galleries. The exhibited landscapes ranged through views of Cordova, Sanary, Le Brusc, and possibly our harbour-side painting – unidentified among the seventy works catalogued. Nevertheless, Cassis, South of France, c.1912 – 13 likewise qualifies for the praise given by another critic of the 1913 exhibition: ‘The little landscapes are strong in their effects of the sun’s heat and glitter, with a sense of the all-enveloping atmosphere, which harmonises all things in nature … spontaneous records of effects seen and rapidly noted’.4 The Mediterranean fishing port of Cassis near Marseilles is overlooked by an ancient chateau, seen on the right horizon of Fox’s painting. While boats fill the harbour foreground, Fox surrounds the busy quayside with brightly coloured buildings, outdoor cafes, restaurants and promenading figures. All are enveloped in that balmy, captivating atmosphere so characteristic of the Mediterranean. From Paul Signac in the springsummer of 1889 to Rupert Bunny in March of 1931, Cassis attracted many artists. They all celebrated its glorious light, to which Fox added a serenity and optimism that characterises the best of his art. 1. Fox, E.P., letter to Hans Heysen, 27 September 1912, quoted in Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 183 2. Ethel Carrick manuscript notes for 1949 Fox retrospective exhibition, Fox file, Art Gallery of New South Wales, quoted in Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of E. Phillips Fox in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, pp. 77, 80, footnote 86 3. ‘Mr. Phillips Fox’s Exhibition’, Argus, Melbourne, 17 June 1931, p. 9 4. ‘Art Exhibitions. Mr. E. Phillips Fox’s Pictures’, Age, Melbourne, 17 June 1913, p. 8
DAVID THOMAS
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BERTRAM MACKENNAL 31 (1863 – 1931) DIANA WOUNDED, 1905 bronze 37.0 cm height signed and dated at base: 1905 / B. Mackennal estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, United Kingdom, acquired c.1933 Thence by descent Private collection, United Kingdom EXHIBITED Royal Academy, London, 1906, cat. 1648 (another example) Bertram Mackennal: The Fifth Balnaves Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 August – 4 November 2007 (another example) LITERATURE Edwards, D., Bertram Mackennal: The Fifth Balnaves Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 66 – 68, 116 – 118 (illus., p. 66, another example) RELATED WORK Diana Wounded, 1907 – 08, life-size marble version, Tate Gallery, London, acquired by the Chantrey Bequest, 1908
The mythological tales of Diana, virgin huntress, inspired many artists over the centuries, Titian’s painting Diana and Actaeon in London’s National Gallery being one of the Renaissance master’s greatest works. Bertram Mackennal’s bronze Diana Wounded, 1905 is a far cry from Actaeon being torn to pieces by his own hounds. Moreover, she is stripped of her godly attributes ‘her bow and hounds’ and presented as a blithe nude in her virgin splendour. Her contemporary appearance, as a nubile Edwardian beauty, has been commented on by several writers.1 Like his fellow Symbolists of the 1890s Mackennal portrayed the femmes fatales of his time ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and the past Circe, 1893 (bronze, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest 1910), and Salome, c.1895 (bronze, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). Things changed in the first decade of the new century. His women became outwardly more genteel, though refinement did not reduce their considerable appeal. Diana, in Roman mythology, was the moon goddess of the hunt and birthing, equated with the Greek Artemis, daughter of Zeus and brother of the sun god Apollo. Jupiter gave Diana permission ‘to live in perpetually celibacy’ and, as ‘the patroness of chastity’, ‘to shun the society of men’. 2 Mythological references are avoided in Mackennal’s bronze. ‘Diana Wounded is even more tongue-in-cheek. The vicious Roman moon goddess in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is inverted. It is she, not the quarry Damasichthon, son of Amphion and Niobe, who is injured in the leg’. 3 Taking into account the association of ‘Diana’ with ‘heavenly’ and ‘divine’, Mackennal carried this further. Divine in looks rather than status, she is a sight perilously tantalising to the mortal male. The action of bandaging her thigh, inspired by the more explicit sight of ‘a model doing up her stocking’, effectively enabled the artist to show off her bodily attributes without loss of modesty.4 This teasing play between the appealing and the unobtainable epitomised that beguiling blend of poise and pleasure so typical of la belle époque and its English Edwardian counterpart. Although calling freely upon ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of the goddess of love, Aphrodite and Venus, she is a thoroughly modern Edwardian maiden. Effectively using the contrappostal pose, Mackennal created an ideal image endowed with grace, but sensuous of modelling. When Mackennal made a marble life-sized version in 1907 – 08, he crowned Diana with her crescent moon. It was smartly acquired by the Chantrey Bequest and given to London’s Tate Gallery in 1908. The Times called it ‘one of the most beautiful nudes that any sculptor of the British school has produced’. 5 The artist thought it one of his best works too. 1. Edwards, D., Bertram Mackennal: The Fifth Balnaves Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 67 – 68 2. Lemprière, J., Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary of Proper Names mentioned in Ancient Authors, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London, revised edition, 1972, p. 204 3. Hutchison, N., ‘Here I am!’; sexual imagery and its role in the sculpture of Bertram Mackennal’, in Edwards, op. cit., p. 116 4. ibid. 5. ’The Royal Academy: second notice’, Times, London, 8 May 1908, p. 6, quoted in Edwards, op. cit., p. 67
DAVID THOMAS
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FREDERICK McCUBBIN 32 (1855 – 1917) WILLIAMSTOWN, c.1909 oil on canvas board 25.0 x 35.0 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin bears inscription on old label verso: “Williamstown”/ by Fred McCubbin / Painted about 1910–1911 / (final period) bears inscription on Sedon Galleries label verso: Fred McCubbin / “Fishermans Bend” estimate :
$45,000 – 65,000
PROVENANCE Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 2 May 2000, lot 16 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Possibly Exhibition of Paintings by the Late Fred McCubbin, The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 12 August 1949, cat. 19 (as ‘Williamstown, c.1908 – 09’) Possibly, in McCubbin’s joint exhibitions with his son Louis at the Athenaeum Art Gallery, Melbourne, 14 August – 1 September 1912, and 27 June – 11 July 1916
When Frederick McCubbin’s painting Williamstown was shown in a collection of his works exhibited at the Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, in August 1949, his son Louis described it as ‘A brilliant colour note’.1 While it is not possible to identify, with certainty, this painting with the one on offer, the description applies equally. During the period of 1909 – 10, McCubbin sketched and painted over twenty oils of Williamstown subjects. When included in his solo exhibitions from 1911 onwards, he gave them the briefest of titles – often simply Williamstown or At Williamstown. Some sketches grew into major paintings, two important examples being Williamstown Landscape, 1909, formerly in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the rather grand, later dated The Old Slip, Williamstown, 1915 in a private collection. Louis McCubbin described Williamstown as ‘One of the artist’s favourite sketching grounds’. 2 McCubbin’s enthusiasm for the place bubbled over in a letter he wrote from his home in South Yarra to Tom Roberts in England in the summer of 1909: ‘I have been down at Williamstown for a few pochades, my dear boy just like Venice, lovely colour. Water and sky and an old ship … the older I get the wider my interest grows in all life, colour, charm. My dear Tom in our past work we have been too timid’. 3 This new boldness is seen best in his numerous oil sketches, complete pictures in their own right.
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When working outdoors directly from the motif, McCubbin frequently used ‘oil sketching tablets’ prepared by Winsor and Newton, London. Easy to handle, they gave him the opportunity to capture, with palette knife and broad brush, the vibrancy of the scenes in passionate responses of light and colour. Williamstown gave McCubbin the ideal opportunity of blending his old romance, of the sea and ships, with his new passion for light and colour, ignited by the late work of J. M. W. Turner (especially views of Venice) seen during his visit to England in 1907. When Harmony in Blue, Williamstown, c.1909 was exhibited at the Joshua McClelland’s Rooms, Melbourne in 1955, the catalogue entry had the added note ‘Influence of J. M. W. Turner’.4 The musical allusion of the title and poetic mood also indicate the allied influence of J. M. Whistler. The painting had once been in the historic collection of George Page Cooper of Melbourne. Others from prestigious private collections include Ships, Williamstown, c.1909, from the Philip Bacon Collection, Brisbane, and Boats at Williamstown, Melbourne, c.1909 from the Holmes à Court Collection, Perth. Williamstown, c.1909 was most likely painted in the summer of 1909 and may have been one of those ‘pochades’ or sketches McCubbin referred to in his letter to Roberts. Viewed closely, the paint and colour can be enjoyed for themselves, while remaining inviting parts of the pictorial whole. Its sunny, atmospheric appeal is enhanced by the veritable dance of paint across the picture’s richly textured surface, the sense of freedom and delight with which it is applied providing the painting with another dimension of pleasure. 1. Note to catalogue 19, ‘Williamstown’, Exhibition of Paintings by the Late Fred McCubbin, The Sedon Galleries, Melbourne, 2 – 12 August 1949 2. ibid. 3. McCubbin, F., letter of 27 January 1909 to Tom Roberts (Letters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, no.18, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney) 4. Exhibition and Sale of a small collection of Paintings by Frederick McCubbin (1855–1952) & Louis McCubbin (1889–1952), Joshua McClelland’s Rooms, Melbourne, 26 July – 5 August 1955, cat. 11
DAVID THOMAS
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TOM ROBERTS 33 (1856 – 1931) A WINDY DAY, DORSET, c.1921 oil on canvas on wood panel 30.5 x 44.5 cm signed lower left: Tom Roberts. bears inscription verso: Landscape in Dorset England. Tom Roberts / PROPERTY OF W.G. BUCKLE estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE William Grant Buckle, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Perth Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 21 November 2006, lot 20 Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Sydney, 25 March 2009, lot 62 Private collection, USA Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Tom Roberts Retrospective Exhibition, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, November 1947 – January 1948; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, February – March 1948, cat. 75 (lent by Mrs W.G. Buckle) John Brackenreg at Wales House Gallery, Sydney, June 1962, cat. 36 LITERATURE Topliss, H., Tom Roberts 1856–1931: A Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985, cat. 525, vol. I, p. 199; vol. II, pl. 213 (illus.)
Tom Roberts’ A Windy Day, Dorset, c.1921 belongs to a special group of paintings full of atmospheric skies exploring wondrous effects, of clouds pierced by shafts of light, tossed high by the winds, or in the stately calm of an English late afternoon. In Storm at Sea, 1907, a dramatic view off the Norfolk coast, and The Harrow on the Hill, c.1910 – 12, (both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), the influence of the late paintings of J. M. W. Turner and John Constable can be readily felt. This passionate response to the landscape continued through his Dorset paintings of the early twenties and on to his later works of the Dandenong Ranges. Settled in Australia, he was so captivated by the skies that he painted a number of studies of them, one particularly fine example, Cloudscape, c.1923, being in Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia.1 Roberts had written from his home in the Dandenongs: ‘Up here are the most wonderful clouds; one goes at ‘em and is almost afraid to look next day at the result for fear of disappointment – High piled up cumuli reared up over a shadowed hill are inspiring’. 2 It is the late Dorset paintings, however, that call for special attention. For it is here that we find Roberts capturing the character of the English landscape with that special perception and feeling given to one making a heartfelt farewell to the place of their birth. Born in 1856 in Dorchester, Dorset, where his father Richard was editor of the Dorset County Chronicle, Roberts spent his early years there. It was not until 1868, following the death of Richard Roberts, that the family migrated to Australia. Yet, the call of his birthplace was so strong that Roberts visited Dorset during his student years at London’s Royal Academy Schools. His Churchyard at Shillingstone (Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 28 August 2013, lot 78) was painted in north Dorset in 1884. Much later, and after many years living in England, Roberts and his wife finally decided to return and settle in Australia. ‘Shortly before leaving England’, Roberts tells us, ‘we spent some memorable weeks down in Thomas Hardy country. The Dorset villages are ideal subjects for an artist. We went along the south and west of England, and I made many sketches of those beautiful types of scenery’. 3 A Windy Day, Dorset is from this time, blending Roberts’ characteristic realism with a poeticism inspired by nostalgia in a moving expression of attachment to the countryside. The grandeur of the sky, filled with the atmospheric effects of high wind and clouds, is in gentle harmony with the view across the fields and the nobility of working the land, imaged in the small figures of farmers and their horses ploughing the fields of promise. The air is filled with diffused light, colours of soft harmonies, as birds rise on the wind. 1. See Gray, A., Tom Roberts, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2015, pp. 50 – 51, 272 – 273, 300 – 301 2. Roberts, T., letter to Major Bertodano, 20 November 1924, Tom Roberts biographical file, Art Gallery of New South Wales Library, Sydney, quoted in ibid., p. 300 3. Roberts, T., quoted in ‘Artist and Humorist. Return of Mr. Tom Roberts’, Register, Adelaide, 17 February 1923, p. 13
DAVID THOMAS
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ROBERT KLIPPEL 34 (1920 – 2001) No. 113, METAL CONSTRUCTION, 1961 brazed and welded steel 67.5 cm height estimate :
PROVENANCE Richard and Joan Crebbin Collection, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist Mrs Joan Crebbin, Sydney EXHIBITED [Robert Klippel], Little Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 4 – 25 June 1961 (partial label attached to base) Exhibition of Sculptures by Robert Klippel, Clune Galleries, Sydney, December 1962, cat. 19 Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 1976 (partial label attached to base) Robert Klippel: a retrospective exhibition of sculpture and works on paper, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 15 September – 25 October 1987, cat. 49 Robert Klippel: a tribute exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 9 August– 13 October 2002 LITERATURE Hinder, M., ‘Australian Sculpture’ in Symmonds, M., Portley, C. and Phillips, R., (eds.), The Visual Arts, Jacaranda, Brisbane, 1972, p. 169 (illus.) Gleeson, J., Robert Klippel, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, pp. 231, 232, 466 (illus. pl. 118) Edwards, D., Robert Klippel, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, pp. 103, 247 (illus.) Edwards, D., Robert Klippel: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculptures, (CD-ROM) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, No. 113 (illus.)
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$50,000 – 70,000
Opus 113 takes up again the exclusive use of machine parts. It, too, is a rich and rewarding work, almost a companion piece to Opus 101 and, like it, a translation in which the new material is used in a kind of construction developed to make maximum use of a different order of handmade forms. Gleeson, J., Robert Klippel, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, p. 231
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ROSALIE GASCOIGNE 35 (1917 – 1999) INTERIOR, 1989 split soft drink crates and linoleum on plywood 60.0 x 43.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Rosalie Gascoigne / 1989 / INTERIOR estimate :
$45,000 – 65,000
PROVENANCE Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Greenaway Gallery at Fifth Australian Contemporary Art Fair (ACAF 5), Melbourne, 2 – 6 October 1996
‘Gascoigne’s use of modernist strategies, her simple but complex means of construction – those of fragmentation, re-assemblage, repetition, tessellation and compression – effect an ordering and accentuation which is also poetic in its workings … She experiences, selects and creates, using a relatively narrow range of materials in order to present the work to us resonating with a virtually endless allusive power. Her results are spectacular, exquisite distillations and extractions, grounded in her personalised experience of the land’.1 With her training in the formal discipline of Ikebana complementing her intuitive understanding of the nature of materials, her deep attachment to her environment and later interest in modern art, Rosalie Gascoigne remains one of Australia’s most revered assemblage artists. Bespeaking a staunchness and scrupulous eye, her works are artful and refined, yet always maintain a close connection with the outside world, powerfully evoking remembered feelings or memories in relationship to the landscape; they are ‘instances of emotion recollected in tranquility’ to quote a phrase of Wordsworth’s which was so dear to her. Although inextricably linked in their inspiration and materials to her physical surroundings on the outskirts of Canberra, Gascoigne’s achievements nevertheless encapsulate a larger, more intangible sense of place that is, paradoxically, ‘both nowhere and everywhere at once’. 2 Having eschewed the use of iconography, she favors rather allusion and suggestion to capture the timeless ‘spirit’ of the landscape so that her art ‘may speak for itself’, awakening ‘… associations that lie buried beneath the surface of consciousness; inviting a higher degree of sensitivity and attentiveness to the world around us’. 3 Occupying that space between ‘the world and the world of art’,4 Interior, 1989 is an impressive example of Gascoigne’s assemblages, particularly as it features two of her most celebrated materials – the shimmering
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yellow and black wooden Schweppes soft-drink crates alongside discarded, sun-baked sheets of linoleum. Executed the same year as the monumental Monaro, 1989 (Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth) and All That Jazz, 1989 (Private collection) – both of which were included in the artist’s groundbreaking exhibition at Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney, also held in 1989 – indeed the work embodies Gascoigne at her finest. Although categorically denying any connection to domesticity implied by the use of humble household linoleum, her suggestive title here together with the imaginative manipulation of materials to evoke the design of a decorative Oriental rug, no doubt alludes to the domestic domain – and more broadly, our desire to tame and transform our surrounding environment. Such connotations are arguably echoed further in the artist’s choice of patterned lino which unmistakably recalls the innovative ‘dot paintings’ pioneered by the Papunya Tula artists of the Western Desert region in the ‘interior’ of Australia – thus perhaps linking the work to others such as Inland Sea, 1986 with its themes of colonisation and navigation of the country’s mythic centre. Like the best of her art, Interior thus functions both ‘allusively’ as a rich repository of memories and associations, and ‘illusively’ as a purely abstract form of art – transcending both the material of its construction and the landscape with its emphatic frontality, use of the grid, and formal interest in qualities of colour, texture and repetition. For indeed, as Gascoigne herself reiterates, ultimately such works are about ‘the pleasures of the eye’, with her manipulations of natural and semiindustrial debris to be appreciated simply as objects of aesthetic delight. Like the materials themselves, beauty is a quality that is easily and thoughtlessly discarded; as John McDonald muses, ‘When we value things for their perceived usefulness, we overlook a more fundamental necessity. Life is impoverished by the inability to recognise beauty in even the most humble guise’. 5 1. Edwards, D., Rosalie Gascoigne: Materials as Landscape, Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1998, p. 11 2. Cameron, D., What is Contemporary Art?, exhibition catalogue, Rooseum, Malmo, Sweden, c.1989, p. 18 3. McDonald, J., ‘Introduction’, MacDonald, V., Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, Sydney, 1998, p. 7 4. Edwards, op. cit., p. 15 5. McDonald, op. cit., p. 7
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CLEMENT MEADMORE 36 (1929 – 2005) VERGE, 1970 painted steel 61.5 x 124.0 x 87.0 cm edition: 1/4 signed, dated, numbered and inscribed with title on base: Verge 1/4 / Meadmore 1971 estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York Private collection, New York Heritage Auctions, Dallas, Texas, USA, 23 May 2017, lot 77060 Private collection, Sydney
with the clear-cut edges and smooth surfaces, the blunt ends are the chief means by which his sculptures 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
EXHIBITED Clement Meadmore, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, 6 – 13 March 1971 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, another example)
Verge, 1970, is in every way a classic example of Meadmore’s sculpture. The work is book ended with its two square sections, the sculptural equivalent of what is known in jazz as a ‘head’, the chorus with which a piece both begins and ends. Between the heads, an improvisation on the theme takes place, and Meadmore’s theme is the tubular steel sections and the ways in which they are continually reinterpreted. By introducing a simple twist, bend or cut, Meadmore brings a heave of emotion or a flurry of character to an otherwise inert material. In Verge, the artist limits himself to one sweeping gesture and in a perilous moment the work is complete, pivoting at the centre of the movement.
RELATED WORK Verge, 1970, painted steel, 16.6 x 36.0 x 24.0 ft, Empire State Art Collection, Albany, New York
‘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 the expectation that Australian artists should be working in an Australian idiom was inhibiting his development. He therefore yearned to be near the post war artistic capital of the world and with good reason – America liked Meadmore, suddenly he was hip and accolades and major 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 lofty claims and 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 the elegant curves and the emotional interludes of Meadmore’s work would not have been seen as ‘legit’ by the minimalists and therefore disqualified him from the line-up. But it was the minimalists’ predilection for closed form sculpture which provided a lasting legacy for Meadmore and from 1966 onwards, he worked within a narrow range of forms and materials to create a remarkably even body of work. Eric Gibson has written extensively on the artist, and talks about the artist’s choice of square, tubular metal to create his forms: ‘coupled
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An important player in Meadmore’s career was the Australian Max Hutchinson, who opened an eponymous gallery in New York in 1970. Hutchinson had founded Gallery A in Melbourne in 1959 with Meadmore as the founding director. A trailblazer for the Avant Garde art in Australia, Hutchinson soon outgrew the local scene and, like Meadmore before him, moved to New York. The Max Hutchinson Gallery became an important venue in which Meadmore’s art was brought to the attention of the local audience. The artist went on to have 26 solo exhibitions across America between 1970 and 1980, including three at the Max Hutchinson Gallery, where Verge, was originally purchased. For all their cool lines and formal concerns Meadmore sculptures remain upbeat, even funky. He was a jazz fan; he played the drums and loved to jam with other hip-cats. The image of Meadmore the jazz drummer, the jammer comes to mind, the base drum keeping the back beat on the stand as the musicians improvise around him. The be-bop, the tempo, the groove, it’s all there, and man – it would have been way too much for the minimalists. 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
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INGE KING 37 (1915 – 2016) UNFOLDING FORM (MAQUETTE), c.1962 painted steel 138.0 cm height estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney
of the early 1960s, but also because it is the last remaining example of this construction. Its related work, the larger Unfolding Form, was unfortunately destroyed by bushfires in the Adelaide Hills in 1984.1 Standing at a mere 12cm taller than this maquette, Unfolding Form was installed en plein air, atop a naturally formed boulder.
LITERATURE Grishin, S., The Art of Inge King Sculptor, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014, p. 367
Inspired by the work of her Melburnian peer, Lenton Parr, Inge King took up welding in 1959. Facing not insignificant public hostility to sculpture as well as a local cultural climate sceptical about abstract art, King nevertheless used this new skill to translate the liberated gestures of Abstract Expressionism into three dimensions. Edward Lucie-Smith, in his survey of modern sculpture, was careful to note that this new expressionist style was executed by sculptors with greater difficulty than it had been by painters. 2 As her welding skills developed, King sought out techniques beyond her primary need to join multiple planes of sheet metal, and instead looked for ways of creating visually interesting texture. Unfolding Form (Maquette) exemplifies this achievement, in spite of its marked restriction of formal means. Balancing vertical and horizontal tension, the visibility of each plane of Unfolding Form (Maquette) relies on the contrast between smooth cut surface and raised beads of molten steel, lying along the edges of each sheet and in the recesses between them. It is through these surprising embellishments and juxtapositions that we feel the presence of the late artist – having left clear traces of her hand burnt into the metal with a fierce oxy-acetylene flame.
RELATED WORK Unfolding Form, 1962, steel painted black, 152.4 cm height, formerly private collection, Adelaide, illus. in Grishin, S., The Art of Inge King Sculptor, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014, p. 94
Inge King, an émigré artist from central Europe, was so moved by the power of the Australian landscape that she sought to create sculptural works expressing her experience of this new place, resistant to and reflective of the heat and light that characterises the land. Unfolding Form, (Maquette), c.1962 belongs to an important series of the artist’s non-representational welded assemblages which is characterised by the careful placement of two-dimensional planes to create tension and movement. Taking their visual cues from the prevailing idiom of contemporary constructed sculpture that was pure geometry and gestural expressionism, these works are reminiscent of those by artists such as Lynn Chadwick and Clement Meadmore, particularly his early planar constructions. Within King’s larger oeuvre, the series of planar forms lies between more organic early assemblages and the volumetric explorations of her Boulder series. Clustered around a central vertical axis, the tightly integrated planes of Unfolding Form (Maquette) seem to do just that – unfold. Unfurling progressively like an accordion, the flat sheets of cut metal are arranged on a base to provide a myriad of disparate viewpoints. The unequal size and height of each plane creates an expanded arena in which to explore the play of light and shadow, producing effects of spatial enclosure and dissection. For King, an artist who remarkably found early public endorsement for monumental works, the creation of maquettes was central to her practice and these now account for a large proportion of her works in private collections. This version of Unfolding Form is significant, not only because it is among the last of her planar works
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1. Grishin, S., Inge King Sculptor, Macmillan Publishing, Melbourne, 2014, p. 367 2. Lucie-Smith, E., Sculpture since 1945, Phaidon, Oxford, 1987, p. 44
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INGE KING 38 (1915 – 2016) STELLAR WHEEL, 2010 stainless steel 71.5 cm height (including base) signed with initials at base: IK estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Adelaide, acquired directly from the artist in 2011 LITERATURE Grishin, S., The Art of Inge King Sculptor, 2014, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 348, 359, 360 (illus.), 380
In brilliant contrast to Inge King’s expressive and brooding early assemblages (see lot 37), Stellar Wheel, 2010 glimmers with a futuristic presence. An example of King’s final Celestial Rings series, Stellar Wheel is the product of the convergence of many different lines of inquiry in her oeuvre: the circular form, process-driven art making and expressions inspired by new discoveries in science and technology. Created late in life, many of these works reused elements and compositional structures from earlier sculptures. Stellar Wheel itself is closely related to an unpatinated bronze sculpture from 2002 called Capriccio. Both feature flat segments of a circle, arranged in a fragmented mandala radiating from a central void. It was with youthful exuberance that King harnessed her excitement about the dawn of a new century, and the technological progress that would accompany this transition. She translated her excitement into monumental works featuring sacred geometry from which emanated a spiritual energy, describing the series as ’very positive … life affirming works’.1 Recalling her early wall sculptures, the mechanical precision of King’s approach allowed her to explore the inherent qualities of her chosen medium – steel. King chose to use stainless steel for her sculptures of celestial bodies, transforming it into sleek and shiny planes that would convey a movement and lightness in direct contrast to the heavy immobility of their physical reality. ’I use stainless steel to create lightness and floating movement’, she explained. 2 The scintillating scoured surface of these steel planes (an effect created with an angle-grinder) evokes the swirling gases and matter of the universe. These surface striations also allowed for a greater range of reflective effects, incorporating the viewer into the artwork, but crucially, also encouraging them to move around it. These seams and marks are the only evidence of human intervention in this construction, functioning in a similar way to the molten beads of steel that clustered along the edges of her structures in the 1960s. The circular form had been a constant source of artistic inspiration for King since at least the 1970s. With increasingly reduced formal means, King created assemblages that were easily translated into monumental size. The energy that radiates from these works resides in the geometric tension between centrifugal and centripetal forces. The idea of movement, of rotational and cyclical rhythm, is alluded to in King’s title for this work, Stellar Wheel. The angular, interlocking design of each segment of the circular form marries contemporary machine aesthetic with designs reminiscent of ancient Celtic culture. In conjunction with a cosmic theme, the circular form comes to represent the dynamic and demiurgic nature of the universe, echoing the long-lasting presence Inge King created for herself in the landscape of Australian art. 1. The artist quoted in Hurlston, D., and Eckett, J., Constellation, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2014 2. The artist quoted in Grishin, S., Inge King Sculptor, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2014, p. 260
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BRONWYN OLIVER 39 (1959 – 2006) BLUE MOON, 1990 copper and lead 60.0 cm height estimate :
$35,000 – 45,000
PROVENANCE Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Bronwyn Oliver, Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne, 9 September – 8 October 1992 The Sculpture of Bronwyn Oliver, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 19 November 2016 – 5 February 2017 LITERATURE Fink, H., Bronwyn Oliver, Strange Things, Piper Press, Sydney, 2017, pp. 72 (illus.), 77 (illus. with the artist), 219
Encrusted with a crystalline patina, Blue Moon, 1990 has the aura of an ancient relic retrieved from the watery depths of the ocean floor. Was Oliver playing on the enduring symbiotic relationship between the moon and the sea, or perhaps there is something futuristic and sinister in the tightly wound copper coils and protruding claws of this crescent? The instinct to grapple with such poetic associations is human, and the result of a carefully laid trap that Bronwyn Oliver, as Ariadne, has woven for her audience. Blue Moon was the final work Oliver completed during her 6-month Power Bequest Studio residency in Paris, at the Cité Internationale des Arts, from November 1989 to June 1990.1 Bearing the patinated hallmarks of her early explorations into woven wired forms, Blue Moon absorbs and emanates energy. Its forms are twisted, swaddled and moulded by Oliver’s obsessive creative energy, and in turn, its ancient form radiates an ethereal and cosmic aura. There is a sublime contradiction in the shadows that are cast from this construction. The light that the moon radiates is not its own, but merely a reflection of the sun’s energy. However, this moon casts only a shadow. Furthermore, a blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month, yet this sculpture has a crescent shaped form more like a waxing or waning gibbous moon. In using the word ‘blue’ in the title, the sculptor instead draws attention to the work’s patina, while eliciting notions of rarity and preciousness in the viewer’s mind.
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This sculpture, like a great number of Oliver’s works, conveys the idea of metamorphosis. With titles such as Comet, Hatchery, Husk and Survivor, the sculptures from this period adopted forms that expressed these liminal states of being, often echoing protective shells and cocoons. Many of these woven creations were constructed around a central wooden or paper armature that would later be burnt away. Copper wire, when wound in coils like the ones that bind the structure of this irregular crescent, is also used to conduct electricity, endowing Blue Moon with an energy that is undeniably modern. Whilst in Paris, Oliver was contacted by Graeme Sturgeon, an authority on Australian sculpture, who was in the process of compiling a survey of contemporary Australian sculptors and their work. Oliver’s answers to his questions provide vital insight into her mindset and ambitions at this point in her career. In describing her most successful works, she remarked that with a perfect combination of concept, medium and execution, the sculpture would ’sing’, and using a ’poetry of association’, would transcend conventional markers of time and space. 2 The transcendental and universal quality of Oliver’s sculptures relies on the enduring power of her organic shapes. While Oliver denied any clear naturalistic inspiration in her work, her manipulation of materials inevitably brought her to the circular, spiral and crescent forms that are so prevalent in the natural world. The impetus that drove her work was ontological, coming directly from the materials themselves and the structures they could come to embody. However, Oliver was offended by critics’ tendency to associate her work with women’s craft, 3 hoping instead that her work sat somewhere between the organic and the artisanal. Despite her unwavering commitment and dedication to her sculptures, Oliver’s forms are imperfect, bearing the traces of her creative effort. But as Oliver conceded, ’evidence of the struggle – that’s what makes it human’.4 1. Fink, H., Bronwyn Oliver – Strange Things, Paper Press, Sydney, 2017, p. 80 2. Sturgeon, G., Contemporary Australian Sculpture, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1991, p. 73 – 74 3. The artist cited in Fink, H., op. cit., p. 72 ‘I feel that references to the craft aspect of my work trivialises my intentions. The craft of making is only important in the service of an idea’. 4. op. cit., p. 64
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STANISLAUS RAPOTEC 40 (1913 – 1997) CIRCLE MOVEMENT, 1973 synthetic polymer paint on composition board 137.0 x 137.0 cm signed, dated, and inscribed verso: S. Rapotec / Sydney, Jan. 1973 signed twice and dated on frame verso: S. Rapotec / S. Rapotec 1973 estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 March 1982, lot 525 Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne
Displaying perfect radial symmetry, Stanislaus Rapotec’s Circle Movement, 1973 is a rare expression of pure geometric abstraction within the artist’s oeuvre. Its confident and powerful composition reflects Rapotec’s unfaltering commitment to the concept and its subsequent execution. It is almost without parallel among the artist’s calligraphic gestural compositions, with which he won the 1961 Blake Prize for Religious Art. Circle Movement, however, still retains the ‘virility, drama and passion’1 that critics saw within his earlier work.
EXHIBITED Modern Australian Painting, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, 3 – 26 May 2001, cat. 52 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
Hailed foremost as a gestural and textural abstractionist, Rapotec was instrumental in revising public hostility towards non-representational painting after the 1950s. Rapotec’s recent immigration from Eastern Europe was an advantage in Australia – despite being largely self-taught, he brought with him a considerable understanding of Tachiste paintings being created on the continent. He was consequently driven by a similar desire to make an aesthetic product of the physical act of painting. Circle Movement is no exception to this approach, featuring a strong linear central motif with slightly irregular borders that reflect Rapotec’s origin as a gestural abstractionist. Despite its simple geometric composition, Circle Movement is not an example of modernist hard-edge abstraction, incorporating a delicate pink halo along the innermost and outermost edges of its central motif. The softly graduated edges of this pink interposition may recall, for contemporary audiences, the optical effects of Ugo Rondinone’s vibrant circle paintings. However, in Circle Movement, the emphasis is not on the central black ring, but instead on its relationship with the perfect square of its canvas support. This is a spatial interest he shared with abstractionists in New York, particularly Jasper Johns with his iconic target paintings of the late 1950s and Kenneth Noland’s circle paintings of the 1960s. The tension between these geometric figures is reinforced in Rapotec’s composition through a strong tonal contrast between the black motif and its clean, white support. Through the harmonious relationship between the positive and negative elements of its composition, Circle Movement encourages quiet reflection and meditation. While circular forms were present in Rapotec’s paintings throughout his career, they were executed with a strong gestural and calligraphic quality. His expressive approach was primarily used to convey universal themes of spirituality and eternity, creation and destruction. Although formally very different to Rapotec’s earlier paintings of organic and celestial bodies, such as Spring, 1968 in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Circle Movement nevertheless displays a similar spiritual quality. Conveying the swirling movement of a form with no beginning and no end, Circle Movement has the power to mesmerise the viewer into a meditative state. 1. Thomas, L. ‘Stanislaus Rapotec’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 8., no. 2, 1970, p. 131
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LARRY BELL 41 born 1939, American CUBE #20, 2005 glass coated with Inconel on a plexiglass base 51.0 x 51.0 x 51.0 cm 117.5 x 51.0 x 51.0 cm (including base) estimate :
$65,000 – 85,000
PROVENANCE Annandale Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED LARRY BELL, Cubes and Works on Canvas, Annandale Galleries, Sydney in association with Bernard Jacobson, London, 17 May – 3 June 2006 (illus. on exhibition catalogue cover)
Shimmering with competing silvery-blue reflections, Cube #20, 2005 is a brilliant late example of Larry Bell’s trademark glass constructions. These cubes, executed with slightly larger dimensions than their 1960s predecessors, each display a controlled handling of vacuum-coated, iridescent Inconel, a nickel-chrome alloy deposited on each surface in layers only a micron thick. A cigar-smoking maverick artist, Bell has spent the last fifty years creating artworks that explore perception. Using panes of glass to bend the reflective and refractive properties of light, his sculptural interventions present and then withdraw from view what physically lies before us. Bell aptly describes the range of effects he creates as similar those produced by the iridescence of a layer of gasoline floating on a pool of water.1 The delicate blue hues of Cube #20 change in parallel with minor alterations to the angles of illumination and view, creating an artwork that is in constant symbiotic response to both its environment and its viewer. Informed by the contrast between Los Angeles’ burgeoning industrial aesthetic and the vast expanses of sky that surrounded its metropolis, Larry Bell’s sculptures have been associated with the Minimal, Conceptual and Light and Space movements. Whilst elements of these movements can be found in Bell’s art, particularly in his iconic Cube works, the artist paid little attention to the theoretical discussions about art. He preferred to focus, with dogged commitment, on his own investigations. 2 A strong link was nevertheless created between Bell, his teacher Robert Irwin, the pioneering installation artist, and the generation of process-based artists that followed them both. Bell shared with his fellow artists working in Venice, Southern California in the 60s and 70s a strong desire to incorporate cutting edge industrial and technological innovation into their creative process. The process became, in turn, an integral part of their artwork. The visually stimulating works produced by these young artists embodied the ultra-cool West Coast aesthetic of the late 20th century. Making light, the most elusive of physical properties, his primary medium, Bell’s work was deeply set into the early framework of participatory art, incorporating the viewer and the wider installation context into the artwork itself. Sculpture has an inherent materiality that requires the object to inhabit our physical reality. Bell takes this quality one step further, using light as an intangible bridge between the sculpture and the viewer, allowing the artwork to transcend its physical confines. 1. The artist cited in Gregory, B., foreword to exhibition catalogue LARRY BELL, Cubes and Works on Canvas, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, 2006 2. ‘ Our Last Hurrah: Larry Bell’, In the Make, January 2015, accessed online 16 March 2018 (http://inthemake.com/our-last-hurrah-larry-bell/)
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CHUN KWANG YOUNG 42 born 1944, Korean AGGREGATION 03 – S139A, 2003 Korean mulberry paper, polystyrene foam and string on board 101.0 x 81.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title in Hanja and English verso: Chun, Kwang-Young / AGGREGATION 03 – S139A / … / – 03 KY Chun estimate :
$18,000 – 24,000
PROVENANCE Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Chun, Kwang-Young Recent Works, Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sydney, 5 September – 18 November 2003
Creating an impression of flooding light through his dextrous manipulation of three-dimensional forms and the relative density of the printed text of their wrapping, Aggregation 03-S139A, 2003 is a masterful example of Chun’s signature artworks. Revered as one of Korea’s most important contemporary artists, Chun’s reputation has been built upon a single fertile idea sustained over twenty years of continued practice – a unique means of conveying elements of the human condition in a formally abstract syntax, infused with a profound respect for his own cultural heritage. Chun uses thousands of triangular polystyrene prisms each wrapped in Korean mulberry paper, arranging them into vast and complex configurations. The prisms become the atoms that form Chun’s sculptural and topographical reliefs, each titled Aggregation. By highlighting the subtle differences between size, tone and density of the blocks, Chun can create effects of light, texture and even movement – effects which are most apparent when the work is viewed from a distance. For Chun, each unique carved and wrapped prism is representative of a unit of information, that, when collated (or aggregated) en masse, can be used as a metaphor for human collaboration and conflict. When viewed holistically, the prisms move as one in vast tides against one another and in opposition to the outside world. Chun spent many years in the U.S. training as an Abstract Expressionist painter, and used this understanding of gesture and dynamic composition to create these works bristling with energy, at times even exploding out of the confines of their bas relief and spherical forms. Looking to the wrapped frame of this work, it is evident that even the ‘all-over’ theory of abstract expressionism found its way into Chun’s Aggregations.
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Reaching far beyond their formal qualities, the power of Chun’s Aggregations is inseparable from their cultural significance. In many interviews given throughout his career, Chun has told the foundation story of his practice – where he channelled his frustration and disappointment with American consumerism into the realisation of his own culturally authentic mode of expression. This oft-told story is based on a childhood memory of visiting a Chinese herbalist, who had hanging from the ceiling of his pharmacy a myriad of packaged herbs each wrapped in mulberry paper and emblazoned with wishes of good health in Chinese script. It was the memory of these packages which inspired the creation of Chun’s triangular prisms. The hanji paper that Chun uses, created from the inner bark of the mulberry tree, is renowned in Asia for its durability and versatility. One cannot underestimate its ubiquity in Korean culture. It was indispensable for the printing of academic and artistic texts, and was even used, when laminated with rice starch, for food preservation and as an architectural building material. For Chun, the significance of this material in his artwork was threefold: it heralded a return to traditional artisanal methods of creation, it linked his art to his own personal cultural heritage, and nostalgically connected his artworks to the wealth of human experience that had preceded him. The hanji paper used in Chun’s Aggregations is second-hand, torn from the pages of old Korean and Chinese publications hoarded by the artist. It has become, for the artist, an extension of the lives of the hundreds of people who have come into contact with these sheets: ’For me, old paper has a life, a history ... In a way, I’m wrapping the stories of people’s lives’.1 1. The artist quoted in Kloesnikov-Jessop, S., ‘Korean Artist Turns Old Mulberry Paper Into Modern Art’, The New York Times, New York, 14 August 2006, accessed online 16 March 2018 (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/arts/design/14chun.html)
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BRONWYN OLIVER 43 (1959 – 2006) CLUSTER, 2002 copper 22.0 cm diameter PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2002 estimate :
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$25,000 – 35,000
EXHIBITED Bronwyn Oliver, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 21 November – 12 December 2002 LITERATURE Fink, H., Bronwyn Oliver, Strange Things, Piper Press, Sydney, 2017, pp. 164 (illus.), 220
ALEX SETON 44 born 1977 THAT EXPLAINS THE DEAD BIRDS, 2006 white marble and steel 80.0 x 38.0 x 50.0 cm signed on back rest: A. Seton estimate :
$20,000 – 30,000
PROVENANCE Maunsell Wickes Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Sculpture 2006, Maunsell Wickes Gallery, Sydney, 12 – 28 January 2006
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DEL KATHRYN BARTON 45 born 1972 SATELLITE FADE-OUT 8, 2011 synthetic polymer paint, gouache, watercolour and ink on polyester canvas 160.0 x 140.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title lower centre: satellite face-out #8 / del kathryn barton / - 2011 signed, titled and inscribed on stretcher bar verso: del kathryn barton / - 2011 - / title - satellite fade-out / #8 / ... estimate :
$100,000 – 140,000
PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2011 EXHIBITED Del Kathryn Barton, satellite fade-out, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 14 July – 6 August 2011, cat. 11
‘I have a face, but a face is not what I am. Behind me lies a mind, which you do not see but which looks out on you. This face, which you see but I do not, is a medium I own to express something of what I am. Or so it seems till I turn to the mirror’.1 With their grand scale, restricted palette and meticulous patterning, Del Kathryn Barton’s acclaimed ‘satellite fade-out’ series of fantastical, feathered females from another world is arguably among her most impressive to date. Departing from the ambiguous figure and nature compositions of previous years, the artist consciously embarked upon this group of courtly women as an opportunity to explore individual variants within a serial format. Strongly reminiscent of the stiff, imperious females of Renaissance portraiture (specifically, the work of Italian mannerist painter Bronzino) in their upright regal carriage, high intelligent forehead and stern demeanour, Barton’s sitters also share affinities with the highly decorative art of Gustav Klimt in the positioning of their hands and shape of their hair (more mane than coiffure), while the large watery eyes and use of bright colour unmistakably evoke the illustrations of Japanese manga comics. For all their sisterly resemblances which suggest a family or tribe, however, each remains distinctly different with her own indelible personality: one appears pensive, another more anxious, yet another ecstatic as her head is tilted and eyes averted.
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Their eyes blinded with liquid colour, these ‘visionaries’ look both inward and outward – voyaging beyond the mundane towards knowledge of a more cosmic or alien realm, as implied by the galaxies of minute dots constituting the ‘satellite fade-out’ of the paintings’ backgrounds. Consistent with this ‘otherworldliness’, each is feathered, signaling, as Julie Ewington astutely observes, that ‘they are in some unspecified way mythological creatures, as wingedness is always a sign of past or potential transformation, and of the possibility of moving from one world or state to another’. 2 For Barton, moreover, the feather motif inextricably links the series with her exquisite suite of works inspired by Oscar Wilde’s beautiful fairytale, ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ – suggesting ‘... a shiver, movement in wings, a sense of movement, pleasure, adornments less for the other and more for the self, for the pleasure of being embodied’. 3 It intrigues her to imagine what the feathers would look like if they started moving – growing beyond what is comfortable. Far removed from the labyrinthine dream world of her ‘Girl’ series, the protagonist in satellite fade-out 8, 2011 is mature, empowered, imperial. Described by the artist as ‘her companions in a proportional sense’,4 indeed these queenly women bear more in common with Barton›s monumental portrait of Cate Blanchett and her children mother (a portrait of Cate), 2009, which was selected as a finalist for the Archibald Prize 2009. Like the actress, arguably the most influential woman working in the arts in Australia today, the grand dames from this unspecified race are depicted absorbed in creation of their own face – bearing a majestic aloofness, they are simultaneously posed and poised, female and feminine, powerful and beautiful. 1. Bell, J., Introduction to 500 Self-Portraits, Phaidon Press, London, 2004, p. 5 2. Ewington, J., Del Kathryn Barton, Piper Press, Sydney, 2014, p. 67 3. Barton, quoted in ibid., p. 68 4. ibid.
VERONICA ANGELATOS
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GORDON BENNETT 46 (1955 – 2014) CAMOUFLAGE #6, 2003 synthetic polymer paint on linen 182.5 x 152.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: G Bennett 29 Feb 2003 / “CAMOUFAGE [sic] #6 / … estimate :
$40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney (stamped verso) Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Figure/Ground (Zero), Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 17 July – 9 August 2003, cat. 10 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Disobedience, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, 8 September – 15 October 2005 LITERATURE Hill, P., ‘Zero Hour’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 2 August 2003 McLean, I., ‘Camouflage’, Figure/Ground (Zero) exhibition catalogue, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 17 July – 9 August 2003 RELATED WORK Camouflage #7, 2003, acrylic on linen, 182.5 x 152 cm, in the collection of the Australian National University, Canberra Camouflage #8, 2003, acrylic on linen, 182.5 x 152 cm, in the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra
History painting was once considered the most noble of all genres of painting, revered in the 17th century foremost for its ability to document and record for posterity both the events of the past and those of the artist’s lifetime. Gordon Bennett was a painter of history and histories. As a critically and politically engaged artist, Bennett articulated alternative historical narratives of Australia and of contemporary world events, creating provocative works that placed identity politics front and centre. Camouflage #6, 2003 comes from a series of reportage paintings that most clearly displayed Bennett’s brief international focus. Catalysed by political and social anxiety following the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, the series comprises portraits of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in army fatigues and of anonymous soldiers wearing gas-masks, their features uniformly mottled and obscured with an overlay of camouflage and decorative patterns. Shown to critical acclaim in the Figure/Ground (Zero) exhibition at Sherman Galleries, Sydney, the Camouflage works are important historical documents, distilling the artistic and socio-political zeitgeist
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of the years immediately after the turn of the twentieth century. Created at the height of international paranoia over the existence of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, the Camouflage works appropriated a propaganda portrait of Hussein that had been widely distributed by Western media outlets, at a time when the dictator was still in hiding. The confronting impact of these works has inevitably been altered by historical perspective and our knowledge of the subsequent chain of events since they were created. Heavily distorting and masking the features of his subjects with military apparel and abstract patterns, Bennett comments on the ambiguity and subterfuge of political rhetoric around the casus belli of the War on Terror. Ian Mclean, in his essay for the Figure/ Ground (Zero) catalogue, links Bennett’s criticism of political rhetoric to the artist’s long-standing concern with Australian post-colonial perception of indigenous peoples, creating parallels between global and local terror.1 The artist, in a 2003 interview with Bill Wright, explained that the works were about ’colonial dominance’. 2 Bennett was a quintessentially post-modern painter. His works employed a unique syntax that mined the vast contemporary visual landscape – appropriating historical works of art and images from mass media –as well as incorporating iconography that was purely the artist’s own. In these works Bennett applies bright colours to the American Woodland military camouflage pattern (used by the US Army from 1981 – 2005) and to devotional Turkish Ogival designs used in Koranic decoration 3 to progressively render the once iconic image of the dictator increasingly abstract – in Camouflage #6 only a silhouette remains. Reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s last self-portrait, Camouflage Self-Portrait, 1986, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bennett’s Camouflage works created a ’veil’ for the dictator, shrouding the figure in secrecy, and as McLean notes, dehumanising his ubiquitous image with the ‘iconoclastic retribution of defeat’.4 1. McLean, I., Camouflage, Figure/Ground (Zero), exhibition catalogue, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 17 July – 9 August 2003 2. The artist in conversation with Bill Wright, cited in Gellatly, K., Gordon Bennett, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007, p. 105 3. Stanhope, Z., ‘Response and Riposte in the Art of Gordon Bennett and Peter Robinson’, Gordon Bennett and Peter Robinson: Three Colours, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 26 April – 4 June 2005 4. McLean, I., ibid.
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH
© The Estate of Gordon Bennett, managed by John Citizen Arts Pty Ltd
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DALE FRANK 47 born 1959 SULPHUR CREEK PENGUIN, 2000 – 05 varnish on synthetic polymer paint on canvas 200.0 x 200.0 cm signed and dated twice verso: Dale Frank / 2000/2005 estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso, as ‘Jonathan Schaech, 2000’) Art Galleries Schubert, Queensland (label attached verso) Private collection, Queensland, acquired from the above in 2005
Dale Frank’s ultra-reflective and stunningly evocative chromatic canvases challenge our expectations of what painting is, or should be. Unperturbed by recent theory or passing fashion, Frank’s brilliance lies in his ability to create a contemplative and transformative space. In the mid-90s, Frank began utilising vitreous paints and varnishes, experimenting with the myriad physical possibilities that the medium unlocked. The performative nature of the materials, undoubtedly appealing to the artist’s origins as a performance artist in the 1970s, enabled Frank to engage with the viewer on a purely visceral level. In the tradition of Rothko, Frank demands full participation of the viewer, abandoning the customary role of artist as creator and audience as passive observer. The vast reflective canvas, adorned with explosive colour and lustrous varnish imposes itself on the spectator, who is actively enticed into its pictorial space. The gaze is reversed, as the glossy surface adopts the viewer as its own subject, embodying the artist’s notion of the painting as a dynamic living entity. Despite appearances, the organic and marbled rivulets of colour are far from accidental. Frank’s magnificently loose applications of colour are in fact a careful orchestration of paint poured onto the canvas. Glistening streams of pigmented varnish are poured onto the horizontal painting, coalescing and solidifying, as the artist manipulates the bleeds of paint by means of wooden blocks and wedges placed underneath the canvas. Possessing a studied understanding of his materials, Frank reveals, ’It is a totally hands on and cerebral way of painting. The process can take up to twenty-four hours where I have to be permanently standing over the painting, constantly considering every minute aspect.’1 Frank’s painting titles, an apt insight into his acerbic and iconoclastic worldview, are employed for poetic affect. While they bear no tangible connection to the works themselves, they feed into the lyricism of his visual language. These outrageously specific titles, such as Sulphur Creek Penguin, 2000 – 05 allude to neither a real nor imagined subject, yet they act as psychological triggers, encouraging the viewer to reject the search for allegory, and instead to merely delight in the pleasure and power of looking. 1. The artist cited in Crawford, A., ‘Dale Frank’, Art & Australia, vol. 42, no. 2, Sydney, 2004, p. 214
MELISSA HELLARD
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99
SHAUN GLADWELL 48 born 1972 BREAKLESS, CANBERRA #1, 9/4/05 7:47 AM, 2005 lambda durst print 31.5 x 50.0 cm edition: P.P. 1 aside from an edition of 7 signed, dated and inscribed verso: ‘MMV Breakless Canberra’ (run) Shaun Gladwell P/ P. 1. 2005. PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED MMVBREAKLESS SESSIONS - Shaun Gladwell, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 30 June – 23 July 2005, cat. 2 (another example) estimate :
$2,500 – 3,500
SHAUN GLADWELL 49 born 1972 WOOLLOOMOOLOO NIGHTS (HER HAIR), 2005 lambda durst print 35.0 x 35.0 cm edition: A.P. aside from an edition of 5 signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: “Her Hair” Shaun Gladwell A/P 2005 PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED MMVBREAKLESS SESSIONS – Shaun Gladwell, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 30 June – 23 July 2005, cat. 16 (another example) estimate :
100
$3,000 – 5,000
LITERATURE Murray – Cree, L., Twenty Sherman Galleries 1986 – 2006, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 2006, pp. 110 – 111 (illus., another example) RELATED WORK Breakless, Canberra, #1, 9/4/05 7:47 AM, 2005, Lamda Durst print, 70.0 x 100.0 cm, in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, Canberra
DEL KATHRYN BARTON 50 born 1972 DAWN, 2009 synthetic polymer paint, gouache, watercolour and pen and ink on canvas 85.5 x 63.5 cm signed and dated lower left: 2009 del kathryn barton inscribed with title lower right: – dawn – estimate :
$20,000 – 30,000
PROVENANCE Kaliman Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Del Kathryn Barton, the stars eat your body, Kaliman Gallery, Sydney, 27 November – 19 December 2009 LITERATURE Ewington, J., Del Kathryn Barton, Piper Press, Sydney, 2014, p. 67 (illus.)
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ANATJARI TJAKAMARRA 51 (c.1930 – 1992) MEN’S CEREMONY, 1972 synthetic polymer powder paint on composition board 97.0 x 60.5 cm estimate :
$60,000 – 80,000
PROVENANCE Painted in Papunya, Northern Territory John Longley Snr, Melbourne, acquired in 1972 Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne RELATED WORK Men’s Ceremony, 1971, synthetic polymer powder paint on composition board, 45.0 x 46.0 cm, formerly in the collection of Geoffrey Bardon, Papunya and The Laverty Collection, Sydney, illus. in Bardon, G., and Bardon, J., Papunya: A Place Made After the Story – The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, painting 354, p. 398 Big Pintupi Ceremonial Occasion, 1972, 70.5 x 35.5 cm, formerly in the collection of Tony Norton and Jann Williams, illus. in Bardon, G., and Bardon, J., Papunya: A Place Made After the Story – The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, painting 356, p. 394 (illus.) 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. Information is available at http://arts.gov.au/movable or by contacting the Cultural Property Section: movable.heritage@arts.gov.au. Attention is drawn to clauses pertaining to export in Section 3 of the D+H prospective buyers and sellers guide: www.deutscherandhackett.com/content/buying-and-selling
Described by Geoffrey Bardon as a man of wistful temperament, ‘slightly built with a particularly calm and gentle manner … very attentive and interested in what was going on but saying nothing’,1 Anatjari Tjakamarra was among the first of the Western Desert men to commence painting at Papunya in the Spring of 1971. Bardon recognised early that he was a painter of particular ability and by 1972 he had provided him with fine sable brushes that complemented his very fine line work. Anatjari occupied a particular place under the curved corrugated iron roof of the Nissen Hut that was the Men’s Painting Room. A place that ‘buzzed with excitement as men of high standing came together to paint a constellation of sites distributed across a broad band of country’ 2 and where Anatjari was able to observe the creative rush, individual styles and varied traditions that flourished in the early months of 1972.
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Anatjari and his family were amongst the last of the desert dwellers to be moved off their lands by the ‘Pintupi Patrols’ and relocated to Papunya in mid-1966. These last arrivals became fringe dwellers, resistant to assimilation and consequently the least acculturated of the Papunya settlement, renowned for their uninterrupted deep cultural links and ritual authority. With the resurgence of interest in traditional culture which occurred in the late 1960s, the new Pintupi arrivals began to receive recognition as senior figures within the Papunya community. According to historian Dick Kimber, Anatjari was a ritually very correct, conservative man, with a great concern for country and the key influences on his work related to secret-sacred men’s activities. 3 The current work, Men’s Ceremony, 1972, was most likely painted in May – June 1972, and illustrates a major men’s ceremony at an unidentified site in the artist’s homelands, far to the west of Papunya in the Gibson Desert, Western Australia. Painted on a matte black ground, a ceremonial site dominates the centre of the painting with space created in the composition by the careful separation of sites and related sacred objects, all of which are depicted in fine detail. The entire work is bordered by two rows of bullroarers and ceremonial objects of varying designs and importance, including some of a sacred nature which are wrapped in string for concealment. The painting has a reflected symmetry with elements mirrored either side of a centreline defined by two string crosses. This compositional characteristic and the inclusion of a pair of painted ceremonial figures highlights the influence of Anmatyerre artist, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa. Despite coming from different cultural backgrounds, Anatjari’s art was heavily influenced by Kaapa and as John Kean noted, ‘Anatjari adopted Kaapa’s sparse background and shared his capacity for graphic precision, punctilious attention to detail and both artists express a similar meticulous sensibility’.4 From the variety of designs found depicted on the objects in this painting, it is possible that multiple stories are being recorded, but the final result is a work that re-traces and re-affirms the artist’s relationship with the land, its people and their mythologies. 1. Bardon, G., and Bardon, J., Papunya, A Place made after the Story, The Miegunyah Press, Victoria, 2009, p. 71 2. Kean J., ‘Framing Papunya Painting: Form, Style and Representation, 1971–72’ in Scholes L. (ed.), Tjungunutja: From Having Come Together, Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory, Darwin, 2017, p. 192 3. Johnson, V., Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, IAD Press, 2008, p. 7 4. Kean, J., in Scholes, L. (ed.), op. cit., p. 179
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
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EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE 52 (c.1910 – 1996) AWELYE, 1995 synthetic polymer paint on linen 153.0 x 92.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, and Delmore Gallery cat. 095I057 estimate :
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, via Alice Springs The Delmore Collection, Alice Springs Private collection, Canberra EXHIBITED Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Delmore Gallery, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney, 14 December – 21 December 2007 (illus. in exhibition invitation) This painting is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Delmore Gallery.
$60,000 – 80,000
In his essay ‘Kngwarreye, Woman abstract Painter’,1 art historian Terry Smith recalls watching a video of Emily Kngwarreye in the process of painting Big Yam Dreaming (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) in July 1995. Revealing much about her painting technique, the video records Emily seated on the wide verandah at Delmore Downs Homestead working on the large black primed canvas, starting at one end and steadily working her way across the surface. In contrast to almost all other desert painters, Emily made no attempt to generate a repetitive pattern and rather, her method of mark making was to paint individual strokes – often starting from the edge of the canvas and moving in toward the centre as far as her reach extended – then sweep back and apply a third line that linked the first and second. This intimate process was related to the subject of her painting, the meandering nature of the rhizomatic roots of the Anooralya yam plant mirroring Emily’s lines which randomly spread across the canvas, intersecting, overlaying and crossing in a series of gestural strokes. Emily Kame Kngwarreye began painting on canvas in late 1988 and quickly emerged as one of Australia’s most sought-after painters. Renowned for her strength and certainty of hand, she developed a free-flowing style of painting based on the distinctive linear pattern of the underground roots of the yam plant (Vigna Lanceolata). This design, and myriad variations upon it, would either dissolve into fields of rich colour achieved through layers of painted dots, or as with this later painting, stand alone and become the graphic centrepiece of the work. Awelye, was painted in September 1995 and is exemplary of Emily’s later style of painting. Reductive in the use of Emily’s lexicon with a palette limited to red, white and pink brush strokes drawn upon a black ground, the work exudes energy and the sweeping lines express a movement that leads the eye across all parts of the canvas. It is the gesture, the way that the paint has been applied that dominates this painting. The lyrical marks created by the expressive movement of the artist’s outstretched arm reveal the physical relationship between the artist and the canvas, lending the painting a human scale while at the same time describing a broad stretch of her country. ‘This is a striking instance of body and country becoming one, … a woman drawing her country with her body’s reach’. 2 1. Smith, T., ‘Kngwarreye woman abstract painter’, in Isaacs, J. et al., Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 36 2. ibid., p. 32
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
104
105
EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE 53 (c.1910 – 1996) EMU ALL OVER, 1990 synthetic polymer paint on linen 150.0 x 121.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, and Delmore Gallery cat. 0L07 estimate :
$80,000 – 120,000
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Delmore Gallery, via Alice Springs Thomas Vroom Collection, Amsterdam LITERATURE Isaacs, J., Smith, T., Ryan, J., Holt, D., and Holt, J., Emily Kame Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pl. 10, p. 53 (illus.) RELATED WORK Emu Story, 1990, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, illus. in Isaacs, J., Smith, T., Ryan, J., Holt, D., and Holt, J., Emily Kame Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pl. 2, p. 45 After the Rain, 1990, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, illus. in Neale, M., Emily Kame Kngwarreye: Alhalkere, Paintings from Utopia, Macmillan Publishers, Melbourne, 1998, pl. 53, cat. 36, p. 86 and Neale, M. (ed.), Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, National Museum of Australia Press, 2008, cat. D-14, p. 126
‘All the paintings of Emily Kngwarreye, so spectacular and diverse in style, express a central theme – that of her identification with the earth and land itself: Anmatyerre country, the country of the yam and the emu’.1 Emily Kngwarreye’s paintings are complex and vibrant visions of her country (Alhalkere) and women’s ceremonies (Awelye). Despite finding artistic recognition late in life, her practice had been developing for many years and was fundamental to her role as a senior Anmatyerre woman, painting women’s bodies and objects for ritual and ceremonies. It was this knowledge and history that informed her work and which the detailed surface of Emu All Over, 1990 brings together in a shimmering example. Emu all Over is a significant early work, replete with a full complement of the artist’s stylistic elements. Painted on a black ground, the underlying tracery of dusky pink lines of the meandering roots of the yam below ground and the tracks of the travelling emu above, are covered by layers of green, ochre and pink dots representing the surrounding seeds, flowers and leaves. Fundamentally, this work represents the relationship between the emu and country. Beneath the soil the bush potato (anatye) is ready for digging, while above, there is a flurry of movement as the male emu moves across the landscape feeding on the various seeds. Responsible for caring for the eggs and vulnerable hatchlings, the emu eats and regurgitates seeds onto the ground for his chicks to eat, keeping them close by and lessening the likelihood of them falling prey to predators. It was during the 1990s that Emily Kngwarreye emerged as one of Australia’s leading contemporary painters, the demand for her work unprecedented as international and local collectors and museums clamoured to obtain an ‘Emily’. In the years until her death in 1996, Kngwarreye was hailed as ‘an outstanding abstract painter, certainly among the best Australian artists, arguably among the best of her time’. 2 Although she had little contact with the outside world for most of her life, she produced a body of work which radically altered the way in which we view and appreciate modern Aboriginal art. 1. Isaacs, J., ‘Anmatyerre Woman’, in Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 12 2. Smith, T., ‘Kngwarreye Woman Abstract Painter’, in Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 24
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
106
107
WARLIMPIRRNGA TJAPALTJARRI 54 born c.1959 MAW MAW YNTJIPI, 1999 synthetic polymer paint on linen 183.0 x 152.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Papunya Tula Artists cat. WT991127 estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Painted at Kintore in 1999 Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Private collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 31 July 2006, lot 119 Private collection, Sydney
In his essay on Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri for the No Boundaries exhibition catalogue, Luke Scholes writes, (Warlimpirrnga) ‘creates epic, barbed renderings that shimmer and gleam with the potency of the objects from which they are drawn: Pearl Shells and kurkitiji (shields)’.1 Central to these renderings are the interlocking key designs that relate to the mythical Tingari and which are found engraved onto Pintupi ritual and domestic objects. The painting offered here, Maw Maw Yntjipi, 1999, is a captivating interpretation of the landscape that Warlimpirringa criss-crossed in the early part of his life. A swamp and soakage water site south of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), the country visually warps and folds across the surface of the canvas in imitation of the topography of the desert. Waves of sand ridges and dunes are rendered as though viewed in the changing light of the desert, an effect enhanced by the variously-coloured underpainting. Designs constructed of parallel meandering lines and zigzags echo those found incised on wunda shields and pearl shells, a nod to his importance as a maparntjarra or traditional healer and keeper of knowledge. Warlimpirrnga first came to public attention as part of a small family group who created a media sensation when, in 1984, they walked into the Pintupi community of Kiwirrkura. The family up to that time had been living a traditional life to the west of Wilkinkarra at the northern end of the Gibson Desert, and although they had not experienced any direct contact with European Australians, they knew of their presence. Three years later in 1987, he commenced painting for Papunya Tula Artists under the guidance of his close relative George Tjungurrayi. The following year, a mere four years after his arrival at Kiwirrkura, Warlimpirrnga’s first solo exhibition of eleven paintings at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne was purchased in its entirety by Nellie Castan and her late husband Ron, and later donated to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Over the past two decades, Warlimpirrnga has become widely acknowledged as one of Australia’s major contemporary artists and his work, described by Scholes as both muscular and gentle, 2 reflects his confidence in painting the country around Wilkinkarra for which he shares custodial responsibilities. His work is held by local and international museums and has been shown in significant survey exhibitions including dOCUMENTA 13, held in Kassel Germany in 2012, where Warlimpirrnga, was invited to participate and exhibit his paintings alongside the best examples of contemporary art from across the globe. 1. Scholes, L., ‘Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri: Powerful presence in person and in paint,’ in Skerritt, H., ed. et al, No Boundaries: Australian Aboriginal Contemporary Abstract Painting, Prestel Verlag, Munich-London-New York, 2014, p. 136. 2. ibid.
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE
108
109
NINGURA NAPURRULA 55 born c.1938 TJUNTULPUL, 2004 synthetic polymer paint on linen 183.0 x 153.0 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Papunya Tula Artists cat. NN0410002 estimate :
110
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Private collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 20 July 2009, lot 126 Private collection, Melbourne
EUBENA NAMPITJINPA 56 (c.1921 – 2013) KURRA, 2003 synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen 149.5 x 100.5 cm bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Warlayirti Artists cat. 533/03 estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills Suzanne O’Connell, Queensland Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above in 2004 EXHIBITED Balgo 4-04: new paintings from the Kutjungka region, Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, Western Australia, April 2004, cat. 15 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Warlayirti artists, Balgo Hills.
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ISAAC WHITEHEAD 57 (1819 – 1881) OCEAN BEACH, SORRENTO, 1876 oil on canvas 80.0 x 108.0 cm signed and dated lower right: I Whitehead 1876 estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 28 April 1976, lot 402 Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED The Sixth Exhibition of the Victorian Academy of Arts, Victorian Academy of Arts, Melbourne, 1876, cat. 62 (as ‘Ocean Beach’) Sixth Annual Exhibition of Works of Colonial Art, New South Wales Academy of Art, Sydney, 1877, cat. 31 (as ‘Ocean Beach, Sorento [sic] Bay, Victoria’) Exposition Universelle de Paris, Paris, 1878, first group, class 1, cat. 7 19th & 20th Century Australian Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 1 May – 7 June 1996, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) (label attached verso) LITERATURE ‘Victorian Academy of Arts’, Argus, Melbourne, 10 April 1876, p. 7 Thomas, D., Australian Art in the 1870s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1976, p. 46 Sheen, P., ‘Whitehead, Isaac’, in Kerr, J., The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 857
Isaac Whitehead, like his great contemporary Eugene von Guérard, was much admired for his masterly paintings of the sublime in nature. In 1875, the year before our painting, he was singled out, after Von Guérard and Louis Buvelot, as: ‘Another aspirant for fame as a delineator of Australian scenery is Mr. Isaac Whitehead, who during the last three or four years, has made wonderful progress, and may now be said to be most successful in reproducing upon canvas the distinctive features of the scenery he portrays’.1 A grand painting from that year, In the Sassafras Valley, Victoria, is now in the M. J. M. Carter Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Another, of similarly imposing dimensions, Fernshaw, 1880, is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. While Whitehead and von Guérard shared a romantic view of nature, transforming the topographical view into a celebration of grandeur, the latter’s attention to detail was outstripped by Whitehead’s botanical accuracy in the rendering of the different species of fern and gum. They also differed in the warmer tones and brighter touches of sunlight Whitehead introduced into the depths of his forests, banishing shades of that colonial melancholia that lingered in the work of others. In achieving this, Whitehead combined the best of von Guérard with the more settled atmosphere of Buvelot to create his own, unique image of Australia. Significantly, when Whitehead and von Guérard showed two paintings each at the Exposition Universelle de Paris of 1878, it was Whitehead who was awarded a silver medal. His winning works were Ocean Beach, Sorrento, 1876 (our painting on offer), and Fernshaw, Victoria. Dublin-born Whitehead settled in Melbourne with his family in about 1858. He soon came to prominence as the colony’s leading picture framer; his superbly worked golden frames featuring native plants are still seen today on the paintings of his leading contemporaries. A foundation member of and regular exhibitor with the Victorian Academy of Arts, he also participated successfully in the Melbourne Internationals of 1879 and 1880. Prior to its Paris showing, Ocean Beach, Sorrento was seen by an admiring Melbourne public in the Victorian Academy’s annual exhibition of 1876, and again in Sydney at the New South Wales Academy of Art of 1877. Although Whitehead’s paintings show him chiefly occupied with scenic landscapes, an early sketchbook from his days in Ireland reveals an interest in coastal views as well. 2 This is supported by another seascape, Wilson’s Promontory, seen in the Victorian Academy’s annual exhibition of 1878, the price of £31.10.0 indicating it was a substantial work. In Ocean Beach, Sorrento Whitehead combined his gifted eye for detail and the spectacular with an understanding of the moods of the sea and sky. The storm blowing up is echoed in and embraced by the curves of the land. The air is salt-laden, as, driven by the wind, the scrub moves in harmony with the sweep of clouds and white-capped waves. The minute scale of the figures, cradled in the arms of the shore and along its path, speaks of the awe-inspiring majesty of nature. 1. Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition, 1875: Preparatory to the Philadelphia Exhibition, 1876, official catalogue of exhibits, Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition, printed for the Commissioners by M’carron, Bird & Co, Melbourne, 1875, p. 208 2. Sheen, op. cit., p. 856
DAVID THOMAS
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JOSEPH BACKLER 58 (c.1813 – 1895) VIEW OF GOULBURN, 1846 oil on canvas 80.0 x 100.0 cm estimate :
$30,000 – 40,000
PROVENANCE Probably: Hugh Bonython, Adelaide Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED On loan to the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1987 (label attached verso, owner: Mr W. Rice)
If the eighteen-year-old Londoner, Joseph Backler, caught and convicted for passing forged cheques, had not had his death sentence commuted to transportation for life, Australian art, especially portraiture, would have been much poorer. A prolific painter, Backler, had to go through further privations, including nine years at Port Macquarie, place of secondary punishment, before receiving his ticket of leave. On the good side were his landscapes of the settlement, including St. Thomas’ Church, Port Macquarie (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney), as well as marriage to Margaret Magner in that same church in 1842. Back in Sydney, he remained there until we learn from an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald of 30 August 1845 that he was in Goulburn offering his services as a portrait painter.1 Contact is given in the name of ‘J. Sinclair’ Goulburn. Today, a portrait of James Sinclair by Backler is also in the collection of the Mitchell Library. The presence of an artist in Goulburn in 1846 aroused considerable interest. Even more so two, the Sydney Morning Herald reporting on the activities of Backler and a ‘…Mr. Ellis, who has recently come amongst us’. 2 Both painted views of Goulburn, that of Backler’s arousing much comment. Believing our painting to be the same, the newspaper reported that his landscape was ‘much admired’; but raised the matter of the railway line to Sydney, much talked about at the time. Mr Backler has: … given us the benefit of railways by introducing a locomotive with its train, steaming along: but being too much in advance of the times, and the gentleman for whom it was painted wishing a correct representation of the town as it is, the locomotive is to be put hors de combat, which will no doubt give satisfaction to the croskers: it was painted, however, before Mr. Woore’s report appeared, but he and the artist seem both to have been of one mind as to the whereabouts the terminus should be at this end. 3
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Thomas Woore was a leading pastoralist near Goulburn. When the colonial government refused to have a survey undertaken for the proposed railway, Woore had possible routes investigated at his own expense. The results were reported to a meeting in Sydney in August, much in time with Backler’s painting. The subsequent government wranglings and failure of the venture became part of history, as has the painting. The topographical spread of the town is picturesquely arranged with towering gums to frame the composition, historic Georgian buildings positioned in their best view. The ‘unrivalled’ Goulburn Hotel, opened by Nathan Mandelson in 1846, is prominent in white, two-storied splendour. Mandelson had substantial interests in the same company proposed for the construction of the private railway, meetings being held in the hotel’s ballroom. Prominent among the other buildings is the Anglican Church of St. Saviour, designed by the Sydney architect, James Hume. Crowned by a square western tower, it was built of red brick in 1840 to a characteristic English design. Replaced in 1874 by the present Gothicstyled cathedral designed by Edmund Blacket, the church’s bricks were reused in the cathedral’s floor. From Goulburn, Backler went forward to other towns, painting landscapes of Bathurst c.1847 and Tenterfield 1861, and many other portraits.4 1. ‘Goulburn’, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 1845, p. 1 2. ‘Goulburn. Fine Arts’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 1 September 1846, p. 2 3. ibid. The French phrase ‘hors de combat’ translates as ‘out of the fight’ 4. (View of Bathurst from Victoria Cottage Farm), c.1847, oil on canvas mounted on composition board, 55 x 88.5 cm, in the collection of the Mitchell Library (ML973), State Library of New South Wales, Sydney; (View of Tenterfield), 1861, oil on canvas, 66.5 x 89 cm, private collection
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S.T. GILL 59 (1818 – 1880) MOUNT REMARKABLE, STONY CREEK, c.1865 watercolour on paper 41.0 x 67.0 cm signed with initials lower left: S.T G estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED On loan to the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1987 (label attached verso, owner: Mr W. Rice) RELATED WORK Stony Creek, Mount Remarkable Survey, from the fall, watercolour on paper, 26.3 x 39.2 cm, in the collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, illus. in Appleyard, R., Fargher, B, and Radford, R., S.T. Gill: The South Australian Years 1839–1852, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1986, p. 21
In the winter of 1846, Samuel Thomas Gill and his friend John Ainsworth Horrocks left Adelaide, Horrocks in search of pastoral land north-west of Mount Arden and Gill ‘for the purpose of filling his note book’.1 The expedition included a camel dubbed ‘Harry’, the first used on such a venture, but unfortunately tied up with its tragic ending through the death of Horrocks by misadventure. Gill’s diary, published in the South Australian Gazette on 10 October 1846, and his numerous sketches taken on the spot provide a fascinating record of what he saw and what transpired. Back in Adelaide, he applied himself to working these sketches into finished watercolours. By January, they were ready for exhibition, the South Australian Register reporting on being favoured with a view of the works: … depicting the most remarkable scenes met with by the expedition under the conduct of the late Mr Horrocks. The series comprises no less than thirty-three-views, the execution of which, as faithful transcripts of nature and in some instances of a territory untrodden by white men, reflects much credit on the talented artist. 2
Some represented the furthest point reached by the party. Others related to Horrocks accident, the ‘inhospitable and desolate appearance’ of the country, and again others to contact, friendly and otherwise, with the Aboriginal people. In its conclusion, the South Australian Register announced that; ‘This interesting series of pictures is to be raffled for in the course of a few days’. 3 Today, the major holdings of these watercolours of the Horrocks expedition are in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the National Library of Australia, Canberra. A number of sepia wash images were also sold by Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne on 28 November 2012, lot 37. A circular version of our watercolour on offer is in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, titled Fall Near Mt. Remarkable, Flinders Ranges, S. A., c.1846. The nature of its composition gives a more concentrated view on the falls and group of Aboriginal figures at its foot. There are several other related watercolour subjects of Mount Remarkable, the waterfall and Stony Creek, all in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, as detailed in the above. The Mount Remarkable area appealed to Gill, his original studies being made during early August 1846 when Horrocks’ party camped at White’s Station on the Rocky River, north of Wirrabara.4 The presence of Aboriginal figures in Gill’s landscapes and their later frequent appearance in his pictures indicates a growing interest beyond everyday curiosity. While Interview with Blacks before Attack, Horrocks Expedition, South Australia, c.1865 – 70 (Art Gallery of South Australia) recorded a less friendly encounter, our Mount Remarkable, Stony Creek, c.1865 shows a family group, completely at home within their rather picturesquely presented environment. As a maker of pictures, Gill, like his contemporaries, often made further versions of those which proved most popular. The style and larger size of Mount Remarkable, Stony Creek suggests that it might have been painted years later in Melbourne from one of his sketches of 1846. 1. South Australian Register, Adelaide, 4 July 1864, p. 2, quoted in Grishin, S., S. T. Gill & His Audiences, National Library of Australia in association with the State Library of Victoria, Canberra and Melbourne, 2015, p. 48 2. ‘The Arts in South Australia’, South Australian, Adelaide, 5 January 1847, p. 6 3. ibid. 4. Appleyard, R., Fargher, B., and Radford, R., S. T. Gill: The South Australian Years 1839–1852, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1986, p. 89. Mount Remarkable is in the Southern Flinders Ranges, the waterfall on Stony Creek flowing into the Baroota Dam.
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NICHOLAS CHEVALIER 60
(1828 – 1902, Russian) PORTRAIT OF MISS WINIFRED HUDSON AS A YOUNG GIRL, SEATED AT A PIANO, HER DOLL NEARBY, 1888 oil on canvas 122.0 x 91.5 cm signed and dated lower left: Nicholas Chevalier 1888 inscribed on stretcher bar verso: Completed from sketches on my 60th birthday / Painted in Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne. / N. Chevalier / by sea to R.M. Hudson. / Departure port of Melbourne estimate :
$40,000 – 50,000
PROVENANCE Commissioned by Ralph M. Hudson Thence by descent Major Paul I.C. Payne, United Kingdom Tennants Auctioneers, Leyburn, United Kingdom, 19 November 2009, lot 1031 Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Nicholas Chevalier: Australian Odyssey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 17 September – 13 November 2011; Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria, 26 November 2011 – 12 February 2012, cat. 173 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)
Cosmopolitan, exceedingly handsome, an engaging conversationalist, Nicholas Chevalier was a singularly talented person. Brilliant linguist and gifted musician, he was noted for his works in watercolour and oil. In 1864, his large landscape, The Buffalo Ranges, was given the £200 acquisitive prize by the recently founded National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, thereby becoming the first painting of an Australian subject to enter the Gallery’s collection. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Chevalier studied painting in Lausanne and architecture in Munich. Moving to London in 1851, his diversity of interests led to exhibiting at the Royal Academy, illustrating books and designing the setting for the Koh-i-Noor diamond. By 1855, changing family fortunes saw him in Melbourne and then the Bendigo goldfields. Back in Melbourne, he soon became a very popular cartoonist with the newly founded Punch. Marrying Caroline Wilkie, a relation of Sir David Wilkie, they settled in Melbourne, where their home became a centre for the cultivated, gifted and witty. From designing decorations for the Victorian state visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, to eventually joining the Duke on board H.M.S. Galatea on tour of the Pacific Islands and the East, Chevalier eventually returned to London. Numerous royal commissions flowed from Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family, while Chevalier played second
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violin to the Duke in the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society. Exhibiting at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy, he continued a particular connection with Australia through his appointment, in 1882, as London advisor to the then named National Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In the Antipodes, Chevalier had travelled extensively in Victoria, Australia and New Zealand, sometimes with scientific expeditions and his leading contemporary Eugene von Guérard. A foundation member of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts, Chevalier exhibited numerous landscapes in their annual expeditions, but very few portraits. The year 1860 was most unusual. While it included The Yarra above Yarra Bend and the Burke and Wills history piece, Memorandum of the Start of the Exploring Expedition 1860, now in the M. J. M. Carter Collection, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, it also featured the equestrian Portrait of Master George Holmes, (son of the owner of the Yarra Bend painting mentioned previously), together with Portrait of the Artist, (gifted years later to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), and Portrait of a Boy. Commencing with the grant of £200 Chevalier received from the Otago Provincial Council in 1865 to paint the scenic beauties of the area, through sketching, travelling and exhibiting widely, Chevalier maintained a strong connection with New Zealand. He likewise exhibited New Zealand subjects at the Royal Academy, London, in the years 1884 to 1886. Finally, he sent three works to the New Zealand and South Sea Exhibition at Dunedin in 1889–90. While speculation surrounds a New Zealand connection with Portrait of Miss Winifred Hudson as a Young Girl, Seated at a Piano, Her Doll Nearby, 1888, it can be observed confidently that Chevalier painted this charming Victorian piece in his sixtieth year. Miss Hudson hatted and dressed in her lace-edged fineries, her favourite doll for company, Chevalier equips the scene with visual delights, contrasting polished wood with Oriental rug, the aspidistra, symbol of Victorian middle class standing, proudly holding up its corner. DAVID THOMAS
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MARGARET OLLEY 61 (1923 – 2011) RUDBECKIAS WITH CANE BASKET, c.1981 – 82 oil on composition board 76.0 x 106.5 cm signed lower left: Olley estimate :
$55,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Solander Gallery, Canberra Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 17 (as ‘Still Life with Flowers and Fruit’) Savill Galleries, Sydney, 2004 Private collection, Canberra EXHIBITED Margaret Olley, Solander Gallery, Canberra, 17 March – 18 April 1982, cat. 3
Unswayed by the tide of late Modernism, Margaret Olley was forever steadfastly devoted to the humble still life. As observed by Olley’s dear friend Edmund Capon, ’Still-lifes and interiors are her métier, and Margaret Olley is a part of that tradition, from Vermeer in the seventeenth century to Morandi in the twentieth century – two of her most admired artists – which finds inspiration, beauty and a rich spirit of humanity in the most familiar of subject matter.’1 Painted just after the artist returned from a sojourn to Asia, United States and the United Kingdom in 1981, during which she eagerly attended exhibitions by Henri Matisse and Giorgio Morandi, Rudbeckias with Cane Basket, c.1981 – 82 is a prime example of Olley’s masterful manipulation of light and space. The warm summer sunlight, casting long shadows across the kilim covered table surface, contributes to an ostensibly prosaic composition in Rudbeckias with Cane Basket. However, this ambience conceals a carefully considered orchestration of space. Arranged and rearranged like props in a theatre set, the objects in Olley’s paintings are meticulously placed and, in time, became as familiar to viewers as they were to the artist herself. The two-handled pot, cane basket and kilim rug are all recurring ‘characters’ on her stage, imbued with the stories and memories of her colourful life. The striking Rudbeckias set against the familiar green walls of her kitchen pay homage to her beloved European tradition of nature morte painting in a delicately constructed mise en scène. As Barry Pearce elucidates in the Art Gallery of New South Wales retrospective publication, there is more to Olley’s paintings than a mere still-life – we are invited into her personal domain: ’Darkness and light, fertility and decay, space and time, tragedy and comedy, solitude, camaraderie; all the things we know and imagine about life and humanity can be gathered at her table within the rooms of her world’. 2 The artist endlessly found magic in the unremarkable, revelling in the beauty and warmth of her Paddington terrace home. The balance and harmony found in Rudbeckias with Cane Basket reflects the very essence of the artist’s own domestic existence. As her close friend, Barry Humphries poeticised: The rugs, the jugs, congealing cups of tea The Chinese screen and old Matisse’s prints, Cosier and richer than the QVB Is Olley’s kitchen with its glows and glints. 3 1. Capon, E., quoted in Pearce, B., Margaret Olley, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 7.b 2. Pearce, B., Margaret Olley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997, p. 21 3. Humphries, B., ‘Ode to Olley’ in Alderton, S., Margaret Olley: Home, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, 2012, p. 17
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JOHN COBURN 62 (1925 – 2006) TREE OF LIFE VI, 1975 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 152.0 x 152.5 cm signed lower right: Coburn signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: TREE OF LIFE VI / JOHN COBURN / SYDNEY 1975 estimate :
$45,000 – 65,000
PROVENANCE John Marsden AM, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Central Mandala – The Private Collection of John Marsden, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, New South Wales, 15 March – 14 April 1996 On long-term loan to the Campbelltown Arts Centre, New South Wales from 2012
Throughout the 1970s the overarching theme of John Coburn’s work was his religious faith. In fact given the colour and exuberance of his works from this period, they could be considered to be amongst his most vibrant and theatrical works. The paintings are often highlighted with gold or silver paint which imbues them with a precious quality and in some ways, endows the paintings with a sense of the holy. The works are often symmetric in composition, reflecting the art and architecture of Christian places of worship. As well as his faith, Coburn drew upon nature for his inspiration. Tree of Life, 1975, is a quintessential example of the artist’s celebration of his beliefs, incorporating stylised ecumenical symbolism as the central subject of the work. Within this painting the artist merges two forces; the artist as creator and a higher force as the creator of all things. Alan Rozen sums this up simply, ‘He is constantly aware of the abstraction of a feeling for beauty and achieves his aims by a union of this feeling and beliefs in religion and nature. This then presents a twofold approach by Coburn to his work: first, he wants to produce something that is beautiful and pleasing to look at and, secondly, on a more profound level, he wants to relate his religion to nature, and nature to his religious beliefs.’1 While abstract painting in Sydney from the mid-1970s on, had very much been a lyrical affair, Coburn’s direct application of opaque paint and his personal repertoire of forms became the staple of the artist’s mature style. His broad primordial forms, with their slabs of secondary colour, must have come as a cool antidote to the wristy arabesques of the likes of Passmore, Olsen, Johnson and Whiteley. Robert Hughes made this prescient observation in a review of an early Coburn exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney, ‘Coburn is unlike any other significant Australian non-figurative painter in that his works are deadpan, unmarked by the evidence of struggle which gives other abstracts their peculiar intensity … It may all look effortless and inevitable, as though the problems of painting had given way to those of assembling a jigsaw puzzle. His intuition does not, it seems, unfold itself during the final creative act; everything is thought out beforehand’. 2 What he may have lacked in lyricism he compensated for through his astute instinct for colour and design. John Coburn’s popularity has endured and continues to grow steadily as the years pass. Through his many solo exhibitions, important commissions and prestigious awards he has well and truly cemented his place in the canon of Australian painting. 1 Rozen, A., The Art of John Coburn, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1979, p. 10 2 Hughes, R., ‘Coburn Jigsaws’, Nation, Sydney, 19 November 1960
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JOHN OLSEN 63 born 1928 FROG TREMBLING ON A LOTUS LEAF, c.1995 watercolour, gouache and pastel on paper 96.0 x 100.0 cm signed and inscribed with title lower left: Frog Trembling / on / a Lotus Leaf / John Olsen estimate :
$50,000 – 70,000
PROVENANCE Olsen Carr Art Dealers, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1995
‘The urge for life is a staggering thing and we just ought to take notice … There is such fecundity in this universe called a lily pond.’1 Upon the invitation of film-makers Ken Duncan and Robert Raymond, and esteemed naturalist Vince Serventy, John Olsen first ventured to the Australian interior in the early 1970s to participate in the ‘Wild Australia’ film series commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Immediately awestruck by the incredible diversity of the various ecosystems he encountered during the journey, Olsen thus began his enduring fascination with observing and painting the teeming life of rainforests, wetlands, estuaries and lily ponds – stimulated not only by individual species, but a sense of the whole, pulsating mass, ‘a carnival of life’. Indeed, Olsen’s sheer wonderment at the miracle of mother nature and her life-affirming properties is especially palpable in his reflections upon travelling to Lake Eyre in 1974 where he witnessed the arid, salt-encrusted plains of the South Australian desert erupting into life following the extraordinary floods of 1973 (only the second such occurrence since white settlement); ‘… I draw studies of insects, animals and birds that will eventually be realised as prints and watercolours. My devotion to Chinese art and philosophy finds a fulfilment in this experience. Nothing too small or too strange should escape my attention – an insect’s wing, the leap of a frog, the flight pattern of dragonflies. They all induce poetic rapture’. 2 Equally too, Olsen became acutely aware of the vast cycle of death that ensued when the water receded – thus reiterating his Taoist belief in the total interconnectedness of all living forms and heralding a new spirituality in his art.
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Over the subsequent two decades, Olsen would continue his devotion to this burgeoning water world with repeated visits to Lake Eyre and North Queensland providing the impetus for some of his most lyrical interpretations of the Australian landscape. Encouraging the viewer to appreciate the relationship between the tiny and the vast, the microcosm and the macrocosm, Frog Trembling on a Lotus Leaf, c.1995 is an enchanting example of such works on the subject from his mature period. Now confronted with the realities of old age, significantly Olsen does not abandon hope in the redemptive, life-enhancing possibilities of nature; to the contrary, he embraces the principle of ecological integration and its capacity to enliven the spirit. As he poignantly mused in 1993, ‘A search for completeness and ecstasy so lacking in our time. Probably will fail … Examination of different frogs, some sleek and streamlined with delicate fingers. Tiny tree frogs that hang from wet leaves, green on top and yellow underbelly, with spongy pads on feet and hands’. 3 Employing his signature motif of the frog, Olsen captures the essential energy and agility of these harbingers of life as eloquently as ever – all the while bathing the work in broad washes of sea-greens and opalescent blues to evoke the stunning, jewel-like richness of this fragile universe he so revered. 1. The artist quoted in Hart, D., John Olsen, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1991, p. 123 2. The artist quoted in Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997, p. 116 3. ibid., pp. 307 – 08
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MICHAEL JOHNSON 64 born 1938 FLORES TWO, 1997 oil on linen 183.0 x 152.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title on frame verso: “FLORES TWO” 1997 oil Michael Johnson … PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney estimate :
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$25,000 – 35,000
EXHIBITED Michael Johnson, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 4 – 27 September 1997, cat. 7 On loan to the University of Technology, Sydney, 2010 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Pearce, B., Michael Johnson, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2004, cat. 55, pp. 96 (illus.), 200 McDonald, J., ‘Dreaming in Colour’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 13 September 1997 (illus.)
TIM MAGUIRE 65 born 1958 2000D07, 2000 oil and digitally printed ink on canvas 130.0 x 130.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Maguire ‘00 / 2000D07 estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 26 August 2015, lot 15 Private collection, Melbourne Tim Maguire is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
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WILLIAM ROBINSON 66 born 1936 RAINFOREST WITH BOWER AND FIGURE, 1990 oil on canvas 76.5 x 102.0 cm signed and dated lower right: William Robinson 1990 inscribed with title verso: RAINFOREST WITH BOWER AND FIGURE estimate :
PROVENANCE Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney Private collection Eva Breuer Art Dealer, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, New South Wales
$40,000 – 60,000
By 1989 William Robinson already had one Archibald Prize to his name. At the time, Robinson was exhibiting at Sydney’s Ray Hughes Gallery whose stable of artists pursued the annual Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes as a pack. Robinson, Keith Looby and Davida Allen had each won the prize in recent years, so it was with some justification that Ray Hughes’ sense of entitlement led these artists to believe the prize should be awarded to one of them – every year. Robinson, being the most critically and commercially successful artist amongst the Ray Hughes stable, was the leader of the pack. In 1989 the judges whittled the hundreds of Archibald entries down to two paintings; Brian Westwood’s portrait of The Australian newspaper’s art critic Elwyn Lynn and Bill Robinson’s Self Portrait with Goose Feathers. Alas, Robinson would have to wait until 1995 to claim his second Archibald win, the judges awarding the 1989 prize to Westwood’s portrait. ‘Westwood by a goose feather’ read The Sydney Morning Herald’s headline. All was not lost and the following year Robinson shunned the Archibald and focussed on the Wynne Prize for landscape painting instead. He won with a major landscape and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney purchased the winning painting for their permanent collection. At the exhibition opening following the announcement of Robinson’s win the Ray Hughes pack arrived at the gallery in a mini bus emblazoned with a banner which read ‘Better Wynne than Lynn’. Today, almost thirty years later, Robinson’s self-portrait wearing his bright yellow raincoat while plucking a goose, is remembered by many as the actual winner of the 1989 Archibald Prize. In Rain Forest with Bower and Figure, 1990, painted in the months following the cut and thrust of the Archibald prize, we see the artist still sporting his yellow rain coat while quietly observing a bower of the so named bird. The Satin Bowerbird collects bright blue detritus and arranges these items around a delicately constructed grass arch, which forms the heart of the bower. The male bird is totally obsessed with creating the bower and great care goes into its presentation. Then after many hours, days and weeks of posing and posturing in attempts to lure a mate, it happens. The female enters and it is over in a flash, the male then abandoning his bower and allowing nature to reclaim it. In this painting we see the artist surrounded by the landscape, perhaps a little battle weary. Cloistered in the security of his familiar misty forest and a world away from the glare of the Archibald circus, the artist’s consideration of the bower causes him to reflect on the lure of the prize. The enormous effort that the bird puts into creating the bower, which in the end delivers just a moment’s rich reward, seems to parallel Robinson’s own experience of seeking bright and shiny things – such as art prizes. HENRY MULHOLLAND
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GARRY SHEAD 67 born 1942 THE BLACK SWAN OF TRESPASS, 2003 (ERN MALLEY SERIES) oil on composition board 63.0 x 46.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Garry Shead 03 inscribed with title and date on frame verso: THE BLACK SWAN OF TRESPASS (2003) estimate :
PROVENANCE Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Garry Shead, The Apotheosis of Ern Malley, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, 26 November – 20 December 2003
$38,000 – 46,000
Having first read the Ern Malley sequence The Darkening Ecliptic in 1961 when only nineteen, Garry Shead’s interest in the story was re-awakened in the mid 1990s when a friend made a gift of a full set of the Angry Penguin journals. What ensued for Shead was an obsession which was to result in a suite of paintings, ceramic vessels and prints along with a number of publications. Described by Sasha Grishin as ‘a general philosophical exploration of the idea that a creative person in this material world is almost inevitably a sacrifice’,1 the characters here in The Black Swan of Trespass represent the full cast of the Malley affair. Central to the composition is Ern, crowned with the poet’s laurels and doe-eyed in his posture of the surrogate Christ. An alternate reading suggests that the figure is Max Harris, twenty-two year old editor of the Angry Penguins, victim of the hoax itself and set to be crucified by public opinion. To the right are James McAuley and Harold Stewart in their army uniforms, agents of the Malley affair which was ultimately to become their creative legacy. Also present, in this painting from the cycle as she is in almost every work by Shead, is the figure of the muse. At once Malley’s girlfriend Lois and Mary Magdalene to the Malley Christ, the muse is also a portrait of Shead’s wife Judith. The Black Swan of Trespass takes its title from Durer: Innsbruck, 1495, the first poem in the Ern Malley sequence. The poem itself laments: I had read in books that art is not easy But no one warned that the mind repeats In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still The black swan of trespass on alien waters. As noted by Sasha Grishin at his opening speech for the 2003 exhibition at Greenaway Galleries, ‘Shead is an artist who subscribes to what is now an unfashionable theory that the artist is a medium who surrenders to his Muse. Although he is an exquisite technician who has spent forty years mastering the skills of the old masters, in the final analysis, as he notes in his journal “Ern Malley emerges from the blank page”’. 1. McDonald, J., ‘The Eternal Ern’, Quadrant Magazine, issue six, 2009
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CHARLES BLACKMAN 68 born 1928 FLOWERS IN THE RED VASE, 1973 oil on canvas 174.0 x 138.0 cm signed and dated upper right: BLACKMAN 73 estimate :
$60,000 – 90,000
PROVENANCE Savill Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Perth EXHIBITED Charles Blackman, Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo, 12 – 22 September 1973, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Possibly: South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, March 1974 Intimate Reflections, Charles Blackman, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 13 March – 12 April 1997, cat. 28 (as ‘Still Life: Vase of Flowers Placed on a Stool’)
The art of floral still life painting has been a constant within Australian art for over two centuries, whether as watercolours in colonial journals or the more formal expressions painted in oil on canvas. The country’s most notable artists have practiced its form, each imbuing their images with their own aesthetic, be that the Surrealist undercurrents favoured by Adrien Feint, the indigenous-inspired nationalism championed by Margaret Preston or the neon coloured updates by Howard Arkley, based in turn on 1950s versions by John Brack. In Charles Blackman’s still lifes, such as Flowers in the Red Vase, 1973, the blooms appear like stills taken from a dream, hesitant even furtive visions which nonetheless burn with strange light emanating from within and from without. Blackman painted flowers from his earliest married days, images which evolved ‘as a result of living near the flower farms at Tamborine, and the close proximity to gardens and bouquets … at (his mother-in-law) Mrs Patterson’s home, where the Blackmans were staying and working’.1 Subsequently, individual blooms appear in his Schoolgirls series of 1952 – 53; floral bouquets and gardens dominate many of his landmark Alice in Wonderland paintings; and the ‘Young Girls with Flowers’ sequence bracketed the decade before the family moved to London. Blackman would later say that ‘I think with the original sort of thing with the flowers, what emerged was that in relation to them, human beings start to do certain kinds of things. They were always in relation to them in a particular kind of mood; that is, the flowers evoked the people, in a
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certain kind of gentility, or substance, or reverence, or sensitivity’ 2 Also informing many of these works was the fact that as his wife Barbara became increasingly blind, the bright colours of flowers being some of her last remembered visions, their floral perfume became more acute as her sense of smell developed in inverse proportion. The fading of vision also informs Blackman’s use of strong colour in his paintings which seems to burst from otherwise fuzzy edges and indeterminate space, hence the use by commentators of ‘dreamlike’ as an expression to describe his oeuvre. In 1972, Blackman purchased 100 acres on the Macdonald River at St Albans, where he built a simple cottage and studio. Always disciplined and productive, he soon began preparing for a series of exhibitions including one in Japan the following year, the result of an invitation from Fuji Television in Tokyo, which operated an influential gallery devoted to introducing painters from overseas. Blackman presented 28 paintings anchored around a small group based on the tumultuous lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Continuing his fascination with flowers, he also included the monumental paintings Hour of a thousand flowers and Rock pool, destined to be made into tapestries, as well as Flowers in the Red Vase and its blue vase, horizontal companion. The Blackmans spent three weeks in Japan with the artist being interviewed about the exhibition on television. The show also made strong sales with three works being sold to a Japanese gallery of twentieth century art. 3 1. Shapcott, T., Focus on Charles Blackman, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1967, p. 37 2. Shapcott, T., op cit., p. 36 3. See: Moore, F. St. J., Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 25
ANDREW GAYNOR
133
ROBERT KLIPPEL 69 (1920 – 2001) No. 960 (AGNSW No. 1208), 1998 wood assemblage on table 140.0 cm height signed with initials, dated and numbered on side: RK 960 98 estimate :
134
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Sydney Thence by descent Andrew Klippel, Sydney Company collection, United Kingdom LITERATURE Edwards, D., Robert Klippel: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculptures, (CD-ROM) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, cat. 960 (illus.)
ROBERT KLIPPEL 70 (1920 – 2001) No. 859 (B), 1988 cast 2005 bronze 50.5 cm height edition: A.P. aside from an edition of 3 signed with initials, numbered and inscribed with title at base: R.K. #859 A.P. Crawford’s Casting foundry mark stamped on base estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Robert Klippel: bronze sculptures, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney, 4 April – 2 May 2009 (another example) RELATED WORK No. 859, 1988, balsa wood assemblage, 50.7 cm, collection of Andrew Klippel, Sydney, in Edwards, D., Robert Klippel: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculptures, (CD-ROM) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, cat. 859 (illus.)
135
JOHN NICHOLSON 71 born 1970 STREAM, 2006 plastic housed in opaque acrylic (diptych) 55.5 x 82.0 x 9.5 cm (each) signed and dated verso: John Nicholson / 2006 estimate :
136
$5,000 – 8,000 (2)
PROVENANCE Neon Parc Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Anomalies in the Bandwidth, Neon Parc Gallery in association with Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne, 1 – 25 November 2006
HOWARD TAYLOR 72 (1918 – 2001) CHARCOAL EMBLEM, c.1963 sculpted, burnt and treated wood on linen backing in artist’s painted timber window frame 9.5 x 24.5 cm (wood object) 42.5 x 55.5 cm (overall) inscribed with title verso: 11 ‘CHARCOAL EMBLEM’ estimate :
$5,000 – 8,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Perth, acquired directly from the artist in 1982 EXHIBITED Possibly: Howard Taylor – Paintings, Drawings, Reliefs, Skinner Galleries, Perth, 2 – 7 December 1963 Howard Taylor Drawing – Painting – Sculpture, Old Court House Art Centre, Busselton, Western Australia, 1 – 20 March 1982
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EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 11 September – 3 October 2001, Melbourne; 13 October – 4 November 2001, cat. 184 (label attached verso)
JEFFREY SMART 73 (1921 – 2013) Drawing II 1993 for FLORENCE STATION CARPARK, 1993 – 94 pencil on paper 45.0 x 56.0 cm signed lower left in image: Jeffrey Smart signed lower right below image: Jeffrey Smart. PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2001 estimate :
138
$25,000 – 35,000
LITERATURE Capon, E., et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Art publishing, Melbourne, 2001, cat. 184, pp. 155 (illus.), 200 RELATED WORK Florence Station carpark, 1993 – 94, oil on canvas, 49.0 x 61.0 cm, private collection, illus. in Capon, E., et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Art publishing, Melbourne, 2001, fig. 55, p. 154 Drawing I 1993 for Florence Station carpark, 1993 – 94, pencil on paper, 17.0 x 22.5 cm, illus. in Capon, E., et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawing and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Art publishing, Melbourne, 2001, cat. 183, p. 155
CHARLES BLACKMAN 74 born 1928 PLAYGROUND, 1964 oil on canvas on composition board 47.0 x 70.0 cm signed and dated lower right: BLACKMAN 1964 NOV estimate
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Mrs V. MacAllister, Sydney Christie’s, Sydney, 22 October 1975, lot 488 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED The Macquarie University Library, Sydney (as stated in Christie’s auction catalogue)
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LLOYD REES 75 (1895 – 1988) GERRINGONG HEADLAND, 1977 watercolour, pencil and charcoal on paper 33.0 x 55.0 cm signed and dated lower right: L REES 77 bears inscription on frame verso: NO 5 GERRINGONG HEADLAND estimate :
140
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Lister Gallery, Perth Private collection, Perth
PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Mr and Mrs Proud, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Tasmania
LLOYD REES 76 (1895 – 1988) THE VILLAGE OF NORTH RYDE, 1947 – 69 oil on board 40.0 x 50.0 cm signed lower right: L REES signed and inscribed with title verso: THE VILLAGE OF NORTH RYDE / LLOYD REES / … bears inscription on Macquarie Galleries label verso: Rees / Summer Morning estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
EXHIBITED Early Contemporaries, Prouds Gallery, Sydney, 6 May 1970, cat. 36 LITERATURE The Australian Artist, Victorian Artists Society, Melbourne, July 1947 (illus.) Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1972, cat. O111 Rees, L., The Small Treasures of a Lifetime, Collins Books, Sydney, 1984, p. 145 (illus., study)
141
JOHN PERCEVAL 77 (1923 – 2000) JONAH AND THE WHALE, 1952 forty hand painted and glazed ceramic tiles inset into wooden table top 51.0 x 82.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John Perceval / 1952 signed, dated and inscribed with title on old label verso: Jonah & / The Whale / Perceval ‘52 estimate :
142
$18,000 – 24,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 28 April 1976, lot 532 Private collection, Melbourne Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Modern Australian Paintings 1989, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, 20 June – 7 July 1989, cat. 18 (illus.)
ARTHUR BOYD 78 (1920 – 1999) NEBUCHADNEZZAR BLIND ON A STARRY NIGHT WITH LION’S HEAD, c.1972 oil on composition board 20.0 x 25.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Pro Hart, New South Wales, a gift from the artist Deutscher~Menzies, Brisbane, 22 February 2006, lot 3 Private collection, United Kingdom RELATED WORK Nebuchadnezzar Blind on a Starry Night with Lion’s Head, 1966 – 68, private collection, Melbourne, illus. in Gleeson, J., Modern Painters, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1971, pl. 30, p. 89 and Hoff, U., Art of Arthur Boyd, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986, pl. 90, p. 59
143
WILLEM DE KOONING 79 (1904 – 1997, Dutch/American) UNTITLED: QUATRE LITHOGRAPHIES, 1986 one of a suite of four colour lithographs 71.5 x 62.8 cm edition: 81/100 signed, dated and numbered below image published by Editions de la Difference, Paris estimate :
144
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Annandale Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney
© The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS/Copyright Agency, 2018
FRANCIS BACON 80 (1909 – 1992, British) TRIPTYCH 1974–77, 1981 colour etching and aquatint 3 panels printed on one sheet 38.5 x 29.5 cm (each panel) 38.5 x 93.5 cm (overall image) edition: A.P. 12/15 aside from the edition of 99 published by Polígrafa, Barcelona, 1981 signed and numbered below image estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above 5 September 1984 RELATED WORK Triptych 1974 – 77, oil, pastel and Letraset on canvas, in three parts - each: 198.0 x 147.5 cm, The Lewis Collection, United Kingdom, on long term loan to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
145
PHILIP WOLFHAGEN 81 born 1963 UNTITLED (LANDSCAPE STUDY NO. 5), 1994 oil and beeswax on canvas 36.0 x 45.0 cm signed with initial and dated lower right: W94 signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Philip WOLFHAGEN Untitled (landscape Study No. 5) 1994 PROVENANCE Sherman Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1994 EXHIBITED Philip Wolfhagen – Passages, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 29 June – 30 July 1994, cat. 9 estimate :
$6,000 – 9,000
EUAN MACLEOD 82 born 1956 PORTHOLE, 2005 oil on canvas 38.0 x 51.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: PORTHOLE / EUAN MACLEOD / 2005 inscribed verso: 05 5 27 PROVENANCE Niagara Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Queensland Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 26 August 2009, lot 82 Private collection, Sydney estimate :
146
$2,000 – 3,000
PETER GODWIN 83 born 1953 SHELL, HARPSICHORD AND EASEL, 2009 tempera on canvas on board 108.0 x 122.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Godwin / “shell, harpsichord and easel” / 11 – 1 - 09 estimate :
$15,000 – 25,000
PROVENANCE Defiance Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Peter Godwin, Nevill Keating McIlroy, London, 17 June – 10 July 2009, cat. 9 (as ‘Shell, Harpsichord & Easel II’) Peter Godwin: Studio Paintings, Defiance Gallery, Sydney, 30 September – 24 October 2009
147
WILL ASHTON 84 (1881 – 1963) MOSMAN BAY, 1951 oil on composition board 37.0 x 44.5 cm signed and dated lower left: WILL ASHTON.1951. estimate :
148
$18,000 – 24,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, New South Wales, a gift from the artist in 1957
JAMES JACKSON 85 (1882 – 1975) BERRY’S BAY, SYDNEY HARBOUR, 1910 oil on canvas on board 59.5 x 59.5 cm signed and dated lower right: JAMES R. JACKSON. / ‘10 estimate :
$18,000 – 24,000
PROVENANCE Private collection Lawsons, Sydney, 18 September 1984, lot 30 (as ‘A View of Sydney Harbour’) Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 29 October 1987, lot 197 (as ‘Sydney Harbour’) Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 21 November 1995, lot 253 (as ‘Sydney Harbour’) Private collection, Canberra LITERATURE Jackson, J., James R Jackson: Art Was His Life, Bay Books, Sydney, 1991, pl. 11, p. 25 (illus.)
149
LOUIS BUVELOT 86 (1814 – 1888) THE WASHERWOMAN, c.1875 oil on canvas on board 30.0 x 45.0 cm signed with initials lower left: LB estimate :
150
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Christie’s, Sydney, 6 October 1971, lot 235 Private collection, Sydney
WALTER WITHERS 87 (1854 – 1914) LANDSCAPE, BOX HILL, VICTORIA, c.1895 oil on canvas on board 55.0 x 65.5 cm signed lower left: Walter Withers estimate :
$25,000 – 35,000
PROVENANCE Artarmon Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1971
151
S.T. GILL 88 (1818 – 1880) TIMBER SPLITTERS, 1865 watercolour on paper 17.0 x 24.5 cm signed with initials lower left: S.T G inscribed with title lower right: Timber Splitters inscribed verso: Austral [sic] Book estimate :
152
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 24 May 1978, lot 84 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Adelaide Festival of Arts, Adelaide, 4 March 1976, cat. 51 RELATED WORK Timber Splitters, colour lithograph, illus. in The Australian Sketchbook, Hamel & Ferguson, Melbourne, 1865
ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE ALEXANDER GILBERT (1815 – 1889) SCENE AT THE DIGGINGS, MOUNT ALEXANDER, 1852 watercolour, ink and pencil on paper 23.5 x 33.5 cm signed and dated lower right: ‘S’ or ‘G’ Gilbert 1852 PROVENANCE Private collection, Victoria EXHIBITED Impression of Colour: Colour in Australian Art, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 18 August – 29 September 2012, cat. 3 (illus. in exhibition catalogue as ‘George Alexander Gilbert, (Panning for Gold on the Australian Goldfields, Mt Alexander Victoria), 1852’) (label attached verso) estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
89
LITERATURE Morris, A., ‘Gold !; An extraordinary colonial image’, Australiana, The Australiana Society, Sydney, vol. 34, no. 1, February 2012, pp. 4 – 13 (illus. front cover and p. 4) Morris, A., ‘Native Police Corps’, Australiana, The Australiana Society, Sydney, vol. 34, no. 2, May 2012, pp. 4 – 9 (illus., p. 4) RELATED WORK John Skinner Prout, Alluvial Gold Washing, Mt. Alexander goldfields, Victoria, c.1852, watercolour on card, 26.4 x 39.8 cm, National Library of Australia, Canberra John Skinner Prout, Scene at the Diggings – Mount Alexander, engraving, illus. in A voyage to Australia, and a Visit to the Gold Fields: Illustrated with Six Engravings, from sketches made on the Spot., Edwin Prout, London, 1852 S. Bradshaw, ‘Alluvial Gold Washing’, in Booth, E.C., Australia: illustrated with Drawings by Skinner Prout, N. Chevalier etc., Virtue and Co. Ltd., London, 1873, opp. p. 54
153
POLYDORE JEAN CHARLES PAUQUET 90 (1800 – 1879, French) LYRE MAGNIFIQUE, 1835 watercolour on paper 23.5 x 15.0 cm inscribed with title below image: g n g. P Lyre magnifique 1/4 bears inscription above image: 14 / 56 PROVENANCE Private collection, USA Private collection, Adelaide estimate :
154
$8,000 – 12,000
RELATED WORK Lyre Magnifique, hand-coloured engraving illus. in Lemaire, C.L., Pauquet, H. and P., Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux Exotiques, Paquet and Debure, Paris, 1836, pl. 56 Hippolyte (1797–1871) and Polydore Pauquet (1800–1879) painted watercolours and engraved plates for the publication Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux Exotiques, published in 8 volumes in royal octavo format in Paris, 1836, containing 80 handcoloured engravings. This work is a preparatory watercolour for the hand-coloured engraving of the same title [image in reverse].
FREDERICK GARLING 91 (1806 – 1873) THE A.S.N. CO. STEAMSHIP CAWARRA, CAPTN CHATFIELD, OFF NOBBYS, NEWCASTLE IN THE GALE OF 12TH JULY 1866 watercolour on paper 30.5 x 48.0 cm inscribed with title below image: The A. S. N. Co Steamship CAWARRA Captn Chatfield off Nobbys Newcastle in the Gale of 12th July 1866 estimate :
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Lawsons, Sydney, 7 April 2017, lot 137 Private collection, Sydney
155
NORMAN LINDSAY 92 (1879 – 1969) ENTER THE DUKE, 1924 etching, drypoint and engraving 32.5 x 26.0 cm edition: 14/28 signed, dated, numbered and inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 19 November 1971, lot 222 Private collection, Victoria LITERATURE Bloomfield, L., The Complete Etchings of Norman Lindsay, Odana Editions and Josef Lebovic Gallery Sydney, 1998, cat. 259, p. 271 (illus., another example) estimate :
$2,000 – 3,000
NORMAN LINDSAY 93 (1879 – 1969) JULIA FRISK AND MR BRISK, 1928 etching 25.0 x 22.0 cm edition: 39/55 signed, dated, numbered and inscribed with title below image PROVENANCE Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 16 April 1991, lot G129 Private collection, Victoria LITERATURE Bloomfield, L., The Complete Etchings of Norman Lindsay, Odana Editions and Josef Lebovic Gallery Sydney, 1998, cat. 305, p. 317 (illus., another example) estimate :
156
$2,000 – 3,000
PROVENANCE Christie’s, Sydney, 14 November 1988, lot 149 Private collection, Sydney
NORMAN LINDSAY 94 (1879 – 1969) THE GREEN PARROT, c.1939 oil on canvas 51.0 x 33.5 cm signed upper right: Norman Lindsay bears inscription verso: THE GREEN PARROT estimate :
$20,000 – 30,000
LITERATURE Bloomfield, L., Norman Lindsay Oil Paintings 1889–1969, Odana Editions, New South Wales, 2006, p. 118 (illus.) RELATED WORK Iris, c.1938, oil on canvas, 56.0 x 43.5, private collection, illus. in Norman Lindsay Oil Paintings 1889–1969, Odana Editions, New South Wales, 2006, p. 117
157
ETHEL CARRICK FOX 95 (1872 – 1952) ARAB MARKET, 1911 hand-coloured lithograph 25.5 x 36.5 cm (image) signed and numbered below image: 8/25 Carrick Fox PROVENANCE Sir William Ashton, Sydney Private collection, New South Wales, a gift from the above in 1957 estimate :
$4,000 – 6,000
ETHEL SPOWERS 96 (1890 – 1947) UP THE PINE TREE, 1927 watercolour and pencil on paper 27.5 x 26.0 cm signed and dated lower left in image: E.L. SPOWERS - 1927 PROVENANCE Private collection, New South Wales, acquired 1927 Thence by descent Private collection, New South Wales EXHIBITED An Exhibition of Wood-cuts and Water-colours by Ethel Spowers, The New Gallery, Melbourne, 2 – 13 August 1927, cat. 20 estimate :
158
$8,000 – 12,000
NORA HEYSEN 97 (1911 – 2003) SPRING BUNCH, 1947 oil on canvas 47.0 x 39.5 cm signed lower right: Nora Heysen estimate :
$16,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne
159
ALBERT NAMATJIRA 98 (1902 – 1959) MOUNT SONDER VIEWED FROM GLEN HELEN, NORTHERN TERRITORY, c.1945 watercolour on paper 22.0 x 35.0 cm signed lower right: ALBERT NAMATJIRA estimate :
160
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE McMurray Galleries, New Zealand Private collection, New South Wales Thence by descent Private collection, New South Wales
CLIFTON PUGH 99 (1924 – 1990) THE GREY WOMBAT, 1955 oil on composition board 66.0 x 74.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Clifton / SEP 55’ bears inscription verso: WOMBAT / CLIFTON PUGH / COTTLES BRIDGE / VICTORIA estimate :
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Mrs Brian Johnstone, Brisbane The Johnstone Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above in 1974 EXHIBITED Clifton Pugh, The Johnstone Galleries, Brisbane, 16 – 28 May 1956, cat. 14 LITERATURE Macainsh, N., Clifton Pugh, Georgian House, Melbourne, 1962, p. 12
161
PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 26 August 1997, lot 22 (as ‘Children Watching Me Paint, Fitzroy, c.1948’) Private collection, Melbourne
DANILA VASSILIEFF 100 (1897 – 1958) GIRL AND BOY WATCHING ME PAINT, 1949 oil on composition board 45.5 x 42.0 cm signed upper right: Vassilieff estimate :
162
$8,000 – 12,000
EXHIBITED Paintings and Sculpture, a joint exhibition with Elizabeth Vassilieff, Tye’s Gallery, Melbourne, April 1949 Oil Paintings by Danila Vassilieff, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, November 1978, cat. 64 LITERATURE Moore, F. St J., Vassilieff and His Art, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2012, cat. p264, p. 156
MICHAEL SHANNON 101 (1927 – 1993) BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION, 1957 oil on composition board 72.0 x 34.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Shannon 57 inscribed with title verso: Building Under Construction / ADELAIDE / MACQUARIE PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection Australian Galleries, Melbourne Elizabeth Summons, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Michael Shannon, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 12 – 22 March 1958, cat. 9 estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
163
RAY CROOKE 102 (1922 – 2015) ISLANDERS oil on canvas on board 61.0 x 76.0 cm signed lower left: R Crooke estimate :
164
$8,000 – 12,000
PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne
ROBERT JUNIPER 103 (1929 – 2012) JOHN GRAY’S PLACE, 1979 oil on canvas on board 91.5 x 114.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Juniper / 79 bears inscription with title verso: JOHN GRAY’S PLACE estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Lister Gallery, Perth Private collection, Perth, acquired from the above in 1979 EXHIBITED Robert Juniper: Recent Paintings, Lister Gallery as part of Festival of Perth, Perth, February – March 1979
165
HELEN OGILVIE 104 (1902 – 1993) WALBUNDRIE HOTEL NSW, BAR ENTRANCE, 1969 tempera on board 15.0 x 19.0 cm signed and dated lower right: H. OGILVIE ‘69 inscribed with title on artist’s label verso: “Walbundrie Hotel N.S.W / Bar Entrance / … PROVENANCE Private collection, Sydney Private collection, United Kingdom, a gift from the above, c.2000 Thence by descent Private collection, United Kingdom estimate :
$2,500 – 3,500
JON MOLVIG 105 (1923 – 1970) BRANCH OF A TREE, 1955 oil and gouache on composition board 114.0 x 55.0 cm signed and dated upper left: Molvig 55 inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: BRANCH OF A TREE PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne estimate :
166
$5,000 – 7,000
ARTHUR BOYD 106 (1920 – 1999) PORTRAIT OF BERNARD SMITH, 1978 oil on canvas on plywood 92.0 x 71.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd inscribed lower left: Bernard estimate :
$15,000 – 20,000
PROVENANCE Bernard Smith, Melbourne, a gift from the artist Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne
167
CHARLES BLACKMAN 107 born 1928 NUDE AND LILY POND, c.1969 – 70 oil on canvas 96.0 x 68.5 cm signed lower right: CHARLES BLACKMAN estimate :
168
$12,000 – 18,000
PROVENANCE The collection of Barbara Blackman AO EXHIBITED Charles Blackman, Fuji Television Gallery, Tokyo, 12 – 22 September 1973
BRETT WHITELEY 108 (1939 – 1992) BACK 2, 1981 colour lithograph edition: 25/30 97.0 x 63.0 cm signed and numbered below image PROVENANCE Dempsters Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Summer Exhibition, Dempsters Gallery, Melbourne, 29 November – 24 December 1986 (illus. in exhibition invitation) LITERATURE Brett Whiteley: The Graphics 1961 – 1992, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 1995, cat. 64, pp. 71 (illus. another example), 113 estimate :
$10,000 – 15,000
CHARLES BLACKMAN 109 born 1928 THE BATHERS watercolour and ink on eight sheets of paper 12.0 x 20.0 cm (each) three sheets signed: BLACKMAN two sheets signed with initials and inscribed: CB 2.8 two sheets signed with initials: CB bears inscription on label verso: Composite - Bathers PROVENANCE Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney estimate :
$6,000 – 8,000 (8)
169
RUSSELL DRYSDALE 110 (1912 – 1981) STUDY FOR PORTRAIT OF DONALD FRIEND, 1943 pencil on paper 25.5 x 22.5 cm signed and inscribed lower right: Donald Friend - Russell Drysdale PROVENANCE The Estate of the late James O. Fairfax AC, New South Wales RELATED WORK Portrait of Donald Friend, 1943, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 39.4 cm, collection of The National Trust of Australia, Retford Park, New South Wales (gift of Mr James Fairfax AC) estimate :
$2,500 – 3,500
WILLIAM DOBELL 111 (1899 – 1970) STUDY FOR WANGI BOY, 1948 – 49 pencil on paper 22.5 x 17.5 cm PROVENANCE The Estate of the late James O. Fairfax AC, New South Wales RELATED WORK Wangi Boy, 1948 – 49, oil on board, 65.2 x 106.0 cm, private collection Wangi Boy, 1948 – 49, oil on board, 54.0 x 43.0 cm, private collection estimate :
170
$800 – 1,200
SIDNEY NOLAN 112 (1917 – 1992) BIRD OVER TIN MINE, NORTH QUEENSLAND, 1949 enamel and ink on glass 25.5 x 30.5 cm signed with initial and dated lower right: N. / 49 PROVENANCE Dora Nolan, Melbourne, a gift from the artist Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso, cat. 2702) Private collection, Melbourne estimate :
$6,000 – 9,000
SIDNEY NOLAN 113 (1917 – 1992) LEDA AND SWAN, 1959 fabric dye and crayon on paper 29.0 x 24.0 cm signed lower left: Nolan signed, dated and inscribed verso: 4 Anyone / Green Silk / 48 / 31st. Dec. 1959. / Nolan PROVENANCE Clune Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne estimate :
$4,000 – 6,000
171
ARTHUR STREETON 114 (1867 – 1943) WINDY DAY, SUSSEX watercolour on paper 21.5 x 32.5 cm signed and inscribed lower left: A Streeton / Sussex inscribed verso: Peter Waite / #10 / Windy Day PROVENANCE Peter Waite, Adelaide Harold A.E. Day collection, Tasmania (label attached verso) Christopher Day Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1996 EXHIBITED Winter Collection, Christopher Day Gallery, Sydney, 1996, cat. 13 estimate :
$5,000 – 7,000
ROBERT JOHNSON 115 (1890 – 1964) CAMDEN LANDSCAPE, c.1929 oil on canvas on plywood 38.0 x 46.0 cm signed lower left: Robert Johnson bears inscription on old label verso: Camden Landscape / Robert Johnson / Eastwood / … PROVENANCE Sedon Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Victoria estimate :
172
$1,500 – 2,000
WILL ASHTON 116 (1881 – 1963) STREET SCENE, CAIRO oil on canvas board 38.0 x 28.0 cm signed lower right: WILL ASHTON PROVENANCE Australian Art Auctions, Sydney, 1 July 1996, lot 111 Private collection, Sydney estimate :
$4,000 – 6,000
WILLIAM BECKWITH McINNES 117 (1889 – 1939) THE TOWN GATE, NORTHERN AFRICA oil on canvas on board 26.5 x 28.0 cm signed lower left: W.B. McINNES PROVENANCE Private collection Lawsons, Sydney, 23 July 1996, lot 163 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Australian Artist Abroad 1830 – 1960, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 14 June – 12 July 1990; Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 31 July – 17 August 1990, cat. 30 (as ‘[Steps and archway], c.1911’) estimate :
$2,000 – 3,000
end of sale 173
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 198. If a buyer is classified as a “non-resident” for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met. COLLECTION Lots paid for in full may be collected from Deutscher and Hackett premises the day after the auction occurs but lots paid for by cheque may not be collected until all funds have cleared. Proof of identification is required upon collection and lots not collected within seven days of the sale may incur costs associated with external storage and freight. LOSS OR DAMAGE Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on either the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made, or on collection by the buyer, whichever is earlier. The buyer is therefore encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from the payment due date. TRANSPORT AND SHIPPING Deutscher and Hackett directly offers services including storage, hanging and display, appraisals and valuations, collection management and research and in all instances will endeavour to coordinate or advise upon shipping and handling, insurance, transport, framing and conservation at the request and expense of the client. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept liability for the acts or omissions of contracted third parties. EXPORT Prospective bidders are advised to enquire about export licences — including endangered species licences and cultural heritage permits, where relevant — prior to bidding at auction. Telephone the Cultural Property and Gifts Section, Museums Section, Ministry for the Arts, on 1800 819 461 for further information. The delay or denial of such a licence will not be grounds for a rescission of sale. COPYRIGHT The copyright in the images and illustrations contained in this catalogue may be owned by third parties and used under licence by Deutscher and Hackett. As between Deutscher and Hackett and the buyer, Deutscher and Hackett retains all rights in the images and illustrations. Deutscher and Hackett retains copyright in the text contained in this catalogue. The buyer must not reproduce or otherwise use the images, illustrations or text without prior written consent.
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The terms and conditions of business set forth below are subject to amendment by verbal or written notice prior to and during the auction and sale. They constitute the entire contractual agreement with the buyer in respect to any lot offered at auction. By bidding at auction in any manner compliant with bidding procedures, the buyer and all bidders agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the terms of the prospective buyers and sellers guide contained in this catalogue, as amended. To the extent that an agent acts on behalf of the buyer, liability for obligations arising from these conditions of business will pass to the buyer. Multiple buyers are jointly and severally liable for obligations arising from this agreement. DEFINITIONS 1.
conditions of auction and sale ALL PARTIES ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE CONDITIONS OF AUCTION AND SALE INCLUDED IN THIS CATALOGUE
Definition of terms: a. The ‘buyer’ refers to the party with the highest accepted bid for any lot at auction and/or such party’s principal where bidding as agent. b. The ‘vendor’ refers to the party consigning property for sale and/or such party’s principal where acting as agent. c. ‘Deutscher and Hackett’ refers to Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd ACN 123 119 022, its subsidiaries, officers, employees and agents. d. The ‘hammer price’ refers to the final bid price (including any GST) accepted by the auctioneer, or in the case of a post-auction sale, the agreed sale price (including any GST). e. The ‘buyer’s premium’ refers to the 22% charge (plus GST) payable by the buyer calculated as a percentage of the hammer price. f. ‘GST’ refers to the goods and services tax imposed by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 as amended. g. The ‘lot’ refers to the item(s) described against any lot number in the catalogue. h. The ‘reserve’ refers to the minimum price (including any GST) the consignor will accept for a lot.
PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS AND DISCLAIMER 2. Agency: Deutscher and Hackett acts as agent for the vendor and the contract of sale for the lot will be between the buyer and the vendor. 3.
Property is sold ‘as is’: To the extent permitted by law: a. no guarantees, warranties or representations are made (express or implied) by Deutscher and Hackett or the vendor in relation to the nature and condition of any lot; and b. Deutscher and Hackett disclaims liability for any misrepresentations, errors or omissions, whether verbal or in writing, in the catalogue or any supplemental material. All factual information provided by the vendor is merely passed on by Deutscher and Hackett from the vendor or other source. Deutscher and Hackett has made no attempt to verify this information. All additional statements of opinion represent the specialist opinions of Deutscher and Hackett employees and should not be relied upon as statements of fact. 4. Responsibility to inspect: Responsibility remains with the buyer to satisfy its, his or her self by inspection and evaluation prior to purchase as to the nature and condition of any property. CONDITIONS AT AUCTION 5. Registration: Bidders must register to bid and obtain a bidder’s paddle prior to the commencement of the auction. Registration requires that bidders provide proof of identity and Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion. 6. Auctioneer’s discretion: Deutscher and Hackett reserves the right to absolute discretion over the conduct of the auction including the regulation of bidding and its increments. This discretion extends to the challenge or rejection of any bid, the right to withdraw any lot and the right to determine the successful bidder or reoffer a lot in the event of a dispute. The prospective buyers and sellers guide details an indicative process for the conduct of auctions. All parties are strongly urged to read the prospective buyers and sellers guide included in this catalogue.
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7. Bidding: Deutscher and Hackett may sell each lot to the highest bidder at auction provided the reserve price has been met or where the net amount accounted to the vendor is at least equivalent to the net amount that would have been achieved for a sale at the reserve price. The fall of the auctioneer’s hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the vendor and the buyer. Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Deutscher and Hackett, the individual physically present at the auction who signals the bid accepts personal liability to pay the purchase price, including the buyer’s premium and all additional fees, taxes and charges. GOODS AND SERVICES TAX 8. Amounts inclusive of GST: Unless otherwise specified, all amounts specified in this section as payable by the buyer, or otherwise used to calculate payment to Deutscher and Hackett, are inclusive of any GST component. Deutscher and Hackett will provide buyers with a tax invoice that meets the requirements of the Australian Taxation Office. 9. Application of GST to buyers: Buyers are required to pay a 10% GST which sum is: a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor (a list of lots consigned by GST Registered Entities is set out on page 198 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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CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTION FORM ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑
Fine Art (Single issue) $45* Aboriginal Art single issue (Single issue) $45* Annual Fine Art Auctions (3 issues) $120* Annual Fine Art & Aboriginal Art Auctions (4 issues) $160*
❑ Tax invoice required
* Price includes G.S.T. postage and handling. Additional $10 per catalogue for international orders
SALE CODE: TUMBLERS SALE NO.: 053 IMPORTANT FINE ART AND INDIGENOUS ART SYDNEY AUCTION 18 APRIL, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 117 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)
Business name
Address
City
Telephone/Home
State
Business/Mobile
Post Code
Fax
Subscription Payment by:
❑ Visa ❑ AMEX ❑ Mastercard
Name on card
Card number
Signature
Expiry date
Date
info@deutscherandhackett.com
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ATTENDEE PRE-REGISTRATION FORM SALE CODE: TUMBLERS SALE NO.: 053 IMPORTANT FINE ART AND INDIGENOUS ART
(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)
Business name
Address
City
Telephone/Mobile
State
Post Code
SYDNEY AUCTION 18 APRIL, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 117 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
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TELEPHONE BID FORM SALE CODE: TUMBLERS SALE NO.: 053 IMPORTANT FINE ART AND INDIGENOUS ART SYDNEY AUCTION 18 APRIL, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 117 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
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: TUMBLERS SALE NO.: 053 IMPORTANT FINE ART AND INDIGENOUS ART
(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)
Billing address (PO Box insufficient)
Address
City
State
Telephone
Facsimile
Business/Mobile
Signature (required)
LOT NO.
Post Code
SYDNEY AUCTION 18 APRIL, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 117 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
INTERNAL USE ONLY
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.
RECEIVED BY
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.
DATE
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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TIME
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
Clive Weston 2009
Jane Ferrari 2010
Robert Hill-Smith 2012
Andrew Murphy 2013
consigning now important australian and international fine art auctions june + august 2018 for appraisals please contact sydney 02 9287 0600 melbourne 03 9865 6333 info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com ROSALIE GASCOIGNE LEDGER, 1992 (detail) split soft drink crates on plywood 81.0 x 43.0 cm EST: $160,000 – 200,000 SOLD for $305,000 (inc. BP) The Gould Collection of Important Australian Art March 2017, Sydney © Rosalie Gascoigne / Licensed by Viscopy, 2018
Experience the largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art collection in the world at the National Gallery of Australia. Free admission | 10.00am – 5.00pm
Discover the intriguing stories behind northern Australia’s unique pearling tradition. Learn how pearls and pearlshell evolve, and hear the stories of the people who have collected and harvested these Saltwater Country treasures.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA
On show until 22 July 2018 | Free
YA W U R U
Visions of Australia
Lacepedes riji, courtesy Aubrey Tigan Galiwa, Mayala Elder.
COLONY
AUSTRALIA 1770 –1861
UNTIL 15 JUL THE IAN POTTER CENTRE: NGV AUSTRALIA BOOK NOW AT NGV.MELBOURNE
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John Glover View of Mills Plains, Van Diemen’s Land 1833 (detail), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1951
A WINDOW ON ITALY MASTERPIECES FROM FLORENCE
International Exhibitions Insurance Program
ANOTHER DIMENSION Benjamin Armstrong SannĂŠ Mestrom Robert Owen Steaphan Paton Marian Tubbs Michelle Ussher
1 April - 15 July 2018
www.mcclellandgallery.com Robert Owen, Model for silence #2. Courtesy of the artist and ARC ONE Gallery.
Exclusive to Adelaide Book now at artgallery.sa.gov.au
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Monet, Cézanne, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir and more.
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image detai: Paul Signac, France, 1863—1935, The red buoy, 1895, oil on canvas, 81.2 x 65 cm; Gift of Pierre Hébert, 1957, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France, photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski
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Michael Cook Court 2014 (detail) no. 7 from the Majority Rule series 2014. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Yvonne Pettengell Bequest, 2014 © Courtesy of the artist
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market leaders
Completing a record year of seasonal and single owner fine art auctions in 2017, Deutscher and Hackett claimed market leadership with auction sales of $37,043,000.
The following pages present numerous highlights experienced throughout 2017 covering a wide and fascinating range of Australian art history.
A highlight of the year was the extraordinary auction of Important Works of Art from the Estate of the late James O. Fairfax AC held in Sydney in August. This prestigious $10m plus auction also launched our elegant new Sydney premises in Paddington, formerly the home of the philanthropic Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation. Two special auctions held earlier in the year featured The Gould Collection of Important Australian Art and Contemporary Australian Art from the Laverty Collection, Part III. A common thread throughout the year was Deutscher and Hackett’s ongoing ability to achieve consistently high auction clearance rates above 80% for the past 5 auctions, with a perfect 100% sales rate for the Fairfax auction.
Deutscher and Hackett’s success as market leader with the sale of major international art in Australia was again confirmed with On Kawara’s JAN.18,1998 fetching $610,000 (inc. BP). Whether you are considering selling or simply curious about the value, our respected and dedicated team, with decades of combined experience valuing and selling high quality works of art to private and public collections, will be delighted to offer you our complimentary appraisal services. We warmly invite you to participate in our upcoming Sydney auction on 18 April 2018.
COPYRIGHT CREDITS Lot 1 Lot 3 Lot 6 Lot 7 Lot 8 Lot 12 Lot 13 Lot 14 Lot 15 Lot 16 Lot 17 Lot 18 Lot 19 Lot 20 Lot 21 Lot 22 Lot 23 Lot 24 Lot 25 Lot 27 Lot 34
Lot 35 Lot 36 Lot 40 Lot 41
© Ben Quilty © Cressida Campbell/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Max Dupain/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Lloyd Rees/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Lloyd Rees/Copyright Agency, 2018 © William Dobell/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Gleeson/O’Keefe Foundation © John de Burgh Perceval/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © courtesy of Wendy Whiteley © Lloyd Rees/Copyright Agency, 2018 © John Olsen/Copyright Agency, 2018 © courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart © courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart © courtesy of Helen Brack © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © courtesy of the artist © Andrew Klippel. Courtesy of The Robert Klippel Estate, represented by Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich. Copyright Agency, 2018 © Rosalie Gascoigne/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Meadmore Sculptures, LLC/ VAGA. Copyright Agency, 2018 © Stanislaus Rapotec/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Larry Bell/Copyright Agency, 2018
LOTS CONSIGNED BY GST REGISTERED ENTITIES Lot 12 Lot 38 Lot 21
WILLIAM DOBELL INGE KING JOHN OLSEN
RESALE ROYALTY Some lots consigned for this sale may be subject to the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2009 (Cth). Any payments due under the obligations of the Act will be paid by the vendor.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Photography: Graham Baring Design: Sevenpoint Design © Published by Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd 2018 978-0-9953817-7-3
198
Lot 44 Lot 45 Lot 46 Lot 47 Lot 48 Lot 49 Lot 50 Lot 51 Lot 52 Lot 53 Lot 54 Lot 55 Lot 56 Lot 61 Lot 62 Lot 63 Lot 64 Lot 65
Lot 67 Lot 68 Lot 69
© courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, Singapore © Del Kathryn Barton © Gordon Bennett, managed by John Citizen Arts Pty Ltd © Dale Frank © Shaun Gladwell. Courtesy the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery © Shaun Gladwell. Courtesy the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery © Del Kathryn Barton © Anatjari Tjakamarra/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Emily Kngwarreye/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Emily Kngwarreye/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Ningura Napurrula/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Eubena Nampitjin/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Margaret Olley Trust and The Olley Project © John Coburn/Copyright Agency, 2018 © John Olsen/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Michael Johnson/Copyright Agency, 2018 © courtesy of Tim Maguire. Tim Maguire is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne. © Garry Shead/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Andrew Klippel. Courtesy of The Robert Klippel Estate, represented by Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich. Copyright Agency, 2018
Lot 70
Lot 71 Lot 73 Lot 74 Lot 75 Lot 76 Lot 77 Lot 78 Lot 79 Lot 8 Lot 8 Lot 92 Lot 93 Lot 94 Lot 97 Lot 98 Lot 101 Lot 102 Lot 103 Lot 106 Lot 107 Lot 108 Lot 109 Lot 111 Lot 112 Lot 113
© Andrew Klippel. Courtesy of The Robert Klippel Estate, represented by Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich. Copyright Agency, 2018 © John Nicholson © courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Lloyd Rees/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Lloyd Rees/Copyright Agency, 2018 © John de Burgh Perceval/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © The Willem de Kooning Foundation/ ARS. Copyright Agency, 2018 © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Philip Wolfhagen/Copyright Agency, 2018 © H.C. & A. Glad © H.C. & A. Glad © H.C. & A. Glad © Nora Heysen/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Namatjira Legacy Trust/Copyright Agency, 2018 © The Estate of Michael Shannon © Ray Crooke/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Juniper Family/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2018 © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2018 © courtesy of Wendy Whiteley © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2018 © William Dobell/Copyright Agency, 2018 © The Sidney Nolan Trust / Bridgeman Images © The Sidney Nolan Trust / Bridgeman Images
index A ASHTON, W.
H 84, 116
HEYSEN, N.
P 97
PAUQUET, P.J.C. PERCEVAL, J.
B
J
PUGH, C.
BACKLER, J.
58
JACKSON, J.
85
BACON, F.
80
JOHNSON, M.
64
45, 50
JOHNSON, R.
115
JUNIPER, R.
103
BARTON, D.K. BECKETT, C.
10
BELL, L.
41
BENNETT, G.
46
BLACKMAN, C. BOYD, A.
15, 68, 74, 107, 109 16, 17, 18, 25, 78, 106
BRACK, J.
24
BUVELOT, L.
86
14, 77 99
Q QUILTY, B.
1
R K KING, I. KLIPPEL, R. KNGWARREYE, EMILY KAME
RAPOTEC, S. 37, 38 34, 69, 70 52, 53
REES, L. ROBERTS, T. ROBINSON, W.
40 7, 8, 20, 75, 76 33 26, 66
S L
C
90
LINDSAY, N.
SETON, A. 92 – 94
SHANNON, M.
44 101
CAMPBELL, C.
3
CHEVALIER, N.
60
M
CHUN, K.Y.
42
MACKENNAL, B.
31
SMITH, G.C.
11
COBURN, J.
62
MACLEOD, E.
82
SPOWERS, E.
96
COOK, W.D.
2
MACQUEEN, K.
5
STORRIER, T.
27
COTTON, O.
4
MAGUIRE, T.
STREETON, A.
114
CROOKE, R.
102
D DE KOONING, W.
79
DE MAISTRE, R.
9
DOBELL, W. DRYSDALE, R. DUPAIN, M.
12, 111
65
McCUBBIN, F.
32
McINNES, W.B.
117
MEADMORE, C.
36
MOLVIG, J.
105
N
110
NAMATJIRA, ALBERT
98
6
NAMPITJIN, EUBENA
56
NAPURRULA, NINGURA
55
NICHOLSON, J.
71
F FOX, E.C.
28, 29, 95
FOX, E.P.
30
FRANK, D.
47
NOLAN, S.
112, 113
OGILVIE, H.
104
GARLING, F.
91
OLIVER, B.
39, 43
GASCOIGNE, R.
35
OLLEY, M.
61
GILBERT, ATTRIBUTED TO G.A.
89
OLSEN, J.
21, 63
59, 88 48, 49
GLEESON, J.
13
GODWIN, P.
83
22, 23, 73
T TAYLOR, H.
72
TJAKAMARRA, ANATJARI
51
TJAPALTJARRI, WARLIMPIRRNGA
54
V 100
W WHITEHEAD, I.
G
GLADWELL, S.
67
SMART, J.
VASSILIEFF, D.
O
GILL, S.T.
SHEAD, G.
57
WHITELEY, B.
19, 108
WITHERS, W.
87
WOLFHAGEN, P.
81
199
200