SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER by Deutscher and Hackett

AUCTION • SYDNEY • 14 SEPTEMBER 2022 SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER

www.deutscherandhackett.com • info@deutscherandhackett.com melbourne viewing sydney viewing sydney auction a bsentee/telephone bids l ive online bidding WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2022 7:00 pm 36 gosbell paddington,st nsw telephone: 02 9287 0600 THURSDAY 1 – SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 105 commercial road south yarra, vic telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00 am – 6:00 pm THURSDAY 8 – TUESDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 36 gosbell telephone:paddington,streetnsw029287 0600 11:00 am – 6:00 pm email bids to: info@deutscherandhackett.com telephone: 02 9287 0600 fax: 02 9287 www.deutscherandhackett.com/watch-live-auction0611

1 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN + INTERNATIONAL ART AUCTION • SYDNEY • 14 SEPTEMBER 2022 SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER, MELBOURNELots1–4

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Joan and Peter Clemenger’s passion for art and generous philanthropy to the arts over many decades is all the more remarkable given that neither came from families with an interest in visiting galleries and collecting. This is something they developed together as a couple, and it has been one of the hallmarks of their extraordinary lifelong partnership. However, rather than focus exclusively on developing their own collection, the Clemengers made the visionary – and at the time, ground-breaking – decision to share their love of art and the enrichment it gave them, through philanthropy, and particularly through their support of the National Gallery of Victoria, a relationship that now extends over 40 years.

The Clemengers’ art collection started modestly, with an eight by six-inch Ray Crooke painting that was bought from gallerist Barry Stern for £25. This was followed by a group of small paintings by Thomas Gleghorn; a Lawrence Daws for $5; a Fred Williams work on paper, bought from Rudy Komon Gallery for $190, and then a small John Olsen purchased when Peter had ‘had about three sherries… and was feeling fairly relaxed’. Driven by personal response rather than by fashion or art world ‘favourites’, the couple lived with their growing collection and rarely sold works: ‘We’ve not had a plan’, admits Peter, ‘we are just happy with what we’ve got’. 3 Their first significant acquisition was an Arthur Boyd ‘Wimmera’ painting from Melbourne’s Australian Galleries, which was $1,600 – quite a jump from the price of earlier purchases, and quite a stretch for the young couple at the time. As this sale attests, several important works followed including Fred Williams’ sublime masterpiece, Lysterfield Landscape , 1968 – 69, and

SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER, MELBOURNE

Joan and Peter met when Joan was working in the Collins Street studio of acclaimed Melbourne fashion and advertising photographer Athol Shmith, and the pair married in 1956. Peter had started working in advertising at the age of 16 and joined his father in establishing Clemenger Advertising just two years later. Today, Clemenger BBDO is the largest agency group in Australia. Not long after their marriage, Joan attended a Christie’s art appreciation course, which she loved. Visits to Melbourne’s small clutch of commercial galleries ensued, with Joan coming to know gallerists such as Joseph Brown, Max Hutchinson, Georges Mora, Anne Purves and Sweeney Reed.1 As Peter’s advertising business grew and he was increasingly required to travel overseas for work, their knowledge of art correspondingly expanded to include international modern and contemporary artists and dealers. In a story that has since become family lore, Joan once arrived at the reception of New York’s Chase Manhattan Bank and requested to see the Bank’s art collection. Such was Joan’s courage, determination, and bravura, that no further questions were asked, and she was subsequently taken on a private tour by David Rockefeller (1915 – 2017), the Bank’s chairman and chief executive at the time. As Jason Smith has so aptly described Joan: ‘She had a twinkle in her eye, a ready smile, and a fabulous laugh. But when she spoke, she meant business.’

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The price for works was capped at $5,000 to ensure that the fund was truly benefiting artists at the beginning of their professional careers, and to enable the purchase of a greater number of works. It is telling that many of the artists whose work was acquired through this fund – including David Rosetzky, Ricky Swallow and Louise Weaver, to name but a few, are now some of our most celebrated contemporary artists. Given the benefits they derived from travel, and from seeing the world’s best museums, Joan and Peter also established the Clemenger Travel Grant – an application-based program that enabled the professional development of the Gallery’s curators, conservators, and other professional staff. I was fortunate to be a recipient of this grant and can vouch for the life- and career-boosting benefits of the five-week trip I was able to undertake, visiting museums and colleagues across the UK and North America. The grant has now been running for close to 20 years.

A major donation by the Clemengers to the NGV in 1991 was the impetus for the establishment of what was to become known as the Clemenger Contemporary Art Prize, a series of six triennial exhibitions (running from 1993 to 2009) which celebrated the contribution of Indigenous and non-Indigenous mid-career and senior contemporary Australian artists. Having had the pleasure of working on two iterations of this Prize in 2006 and 2009 as Curator of Contemporary Art, I came to understand and appreciate the Clemengers’ deep commitment to Australian art and artists, their generosity of spirit, and their extensive knowledge. This unique and important series was a collaboration between the Gallery’s curators and Joan and Peter, with the development of each exhibition unfolding over several years. Peter’s keen eye was largely tuned to management of the budget and to the exhibition collateral, signage, and promotion; with Joan acting, in each iteration, as one of Prize’s three judges. It did not stop there. In 1999, Joan made a commitment to build upon the important legacy of the Gallery’s G H Michell (1976 – 1987) and Margaret Stewart Endowments (1987 – 1997), which supported the acquisition of emerging Australian artists working in all media. Thus, the Joan Clemenger Endowment was born. Over the course of the Endowment’s four-year term, Joan was closely involved in the acquisition process, visiting galleries with the curators, and attending Acquisitions Meetings.

Jeffrey Smart’s Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984. Significantly, the Clemengers enjoyed a warm and enduring relationship with both artists: Joan and Lyn Williams were particularly close, often working together in their philanthropic pursuits at the NGV, while the Clemengers would often stay with Jeffrey Smart when travelling in Italy and share a regular correspondence. Indeed, Joan and Peter travelled specially to Sydney to see Smart’s Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984 as soon as it was finished, and bought it immediately, while still unframed. 4

After the end of the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Joan and Peter’s support of acquisitions at the NGV broadened to include international contemporary art, but equally, they have also been quietly involved in the purchase of works across other collecting areas for decades. After Joan’s death in early 2022, Peter has continued the couple’s commitment to the NGV, ensuring that Joan’s legacy as a benefactor, art lover, and friend to artists continues through his involvement. Yet the Clemengers’ benefaction is by no means exclusive, and alongside their incredible support of the NGV they fostered long term relationships with a range of arts organisations. Peter was a patron of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the pair are Lifetime Patrons of the Melbourne Theatre Company, and through the Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust (established in 2001) they support the Australian Ballet to bring international artists and companies to Australia to tour. Searching for a major tourism and reinvigoration project for Melbourne in the early 1990s, Peter established (and funded) the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and ran the organisation for nine years. It has since become one of the world’s top food and wine events and celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Joan is a Fellow of Heide Museum of Modern Art and was central to the fundraising efforts that enabled the Museum to develop the 2012 exhibition Louise Bourgeois: Late Works and was also a supporter of a host of organisations ranging from Orchestra Victoria to Big Brother Big Sister and Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. The Clemenger Trust has also funded medical research through its support of, amongst other organisations, the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria, the Centre for Eye Research Australia, the Peter McCallum Cancer Foundation and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and has helped address the needs of vulnerable children, young people and families through its substantial support of Anglicare. 5 In 2015 Joan and Peter Clemenger scored a rare ‘double’ in the Australia Day Honours, each becoming Officers of the Order (AO) for their support of the visual and performing arts and for their philanthropic work. Peter’s response to this very public recognition was characteristically low-key: ‘I got a letter telling me about the award and thought that’s nice…Then I opened another letter and found Joan had the same. That was wonderful.’

The author is grateful to Veronica Angelatos for the notes she took during her interview with Peter Clemenger at his Melbourne home on 26 May 2022, which have informed this piece.

6. Money L., ‘Australia Day Honours: Ad Legend Clemenger and Wife Score The “Double”’, The Sydney Morning Herald , 23 January 2015, https://www.smh. com.au/national/australia-day-honours-ad-legend-clemenger-and-wife-score-the-double-20150123-12wu6a.htm l, accessed 23 July 2022

KELLY GELLATLY

3. Kevin Childs, ‘Portrait of a Patron’, Flight Deck , May 1993, p. 21 in ‘EXHIBITION: JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER TRIENNIAL EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN ART 1996 PART 1: APR 1993 – DEC 1994’, NGV RMU File G1111, accessed 29 June 2022 4 op. cit., p. 22

5. ‘Advertising Legend Peter Clemenger and Wife Joan Both Awarded AO in Australia Day Honours’, 26 January 2015, https://campaignbrief.com/ad-legendpeter-clemenger-and/?utm_source=pocket_mylist , accessed 23 July 2022

2. Jason Smith, speech notes for Joan Clemenger AO, Memorial Service, 5 April 2022. Jason Smith, also a Curator of Contemporary Art at the NGV from 1997 to 2007, worked on the 1999, 2003 and 2006 iterations of the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award.

1. Joseph Brown (1918 – 2009) opened Joseph Brown Gallery at 5 Collins Street, close to Athol Shmith’s studio, in 1967. Max Hutchinson (1925 – 1999) was the founding director of Gallery A; Georges Mora (1913 – 1992) was the director of Tolarno Galleries; Anne Purves was the director, with husband Tam, of Australian Galleries, and Sweeney Reed (1945 – 1979) was the Director of Strines Gallery, and later, Sweeney Reed Gallery.

EXHIBITED Autumn Exhibition , Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 5 – 20 April 1979, cat. 157 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Self Portrait’)

LITERATURE Sutherland, K., Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné , Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, cat. 117.77, vol. 3, p. 445 (illus.), vol. 7, p. 407 RELATED WORKS Self – Portrait in the Studio , 1976, oil, collage, hair on canvas, 200.5 x 259.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, winner of the 1976 Archibald Prize Self – Portrait after a Haircut at 36 , 1976, pen and ink and hair on paper, 100.0 x 75.0 cm, private collection, Melbourne, sold Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 15 July 2020, lot 23 Self Portrait with Real Hair, 1977, ink and hair on paper, 76.0 x 51.0 cm, whereabouts unknown 1BRETT WHITELEY (1939 – 1992) SELF – PORTRAIT, 1977 oil and hair on canvas 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower right: brett whiteley ESTIMATE: $280,000 – 350,000

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PROVENANCE

Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 1977 Joan Clemenger AO and Peter Clemenger AO, Melbourne, acquired from the above in April 1979

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The present Self-portrait , 1977 sits squarely between his two Archibald Prize winners: Self-portrait in the studio, 1976, and Art, life and the other thing , 1978 (both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales) In the former, Whiteley’s face appears in a hand-held mirror, as one small feature on a large, luxuriant ground of deep blue. The work is an anthology of Whiteley motifs, including the view of Sydney Harbour from a window, a reclining nude, an armchair, and a piece of blueand-white china. The room is a veritable salon hang of the artist’s sculptures and drawings. The dominant impression is one of ‘luxe, c alme et volupté’, in the manner of Henri Matisse, whose painting, The Red Studio, 1911, was Whiteley’s chief source of inspiration.

The young Whiteley duplicates the three-quarter turn of the head, the painter’s sullen – or soulful – gaze which holds the viewer’s eye. Throughout his career, Whiteley would return again and again to the self-portrait, as a form of self-examination and self-dramatisation.

The second painting has a completely different tone. An unconventional triptych, it consists of a small, coloured photo of Whiteley’s face; a distorted full-length portrait of him drawing a copy of Dobell’s Joshua Smith, the controversial Archibald winner of 1943; and a panel that features a screaming baboon in handcuffs, staring helplessly at a hand offering a hypodermic. It was a daring, overt reference to a drug habit that many of Whiteley’s admirers expected to cut short his career. In little more than two years Whiteley had moved from a languorous vision of the studio to a sensational, confessional self-portrait set against a pale, terracotta ground. The absorbing detail of the first painting has disappeared, as the artist withdraws into his own head. Whiteley’s biographer, Ashleigh Wilson, describes the work as ‘a confronting depiction of the panic and desperation of drug addiction. Brett said he had wanted it to scare him straight.’1

BrettLeft: Whiteley Self portrait in the studio, 1976 oil, collage, hair on canvas 200.5 x 259.0 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Brett Whiteley was never shy when it came to measuring himself against the masters. At the age of 16, while boarding at Scots College in Bathurst, he came across a book on Vincent Van Gogh and painted a self-portrait in emulation of the famously misunderstood Dutchman. At 16 we are all misunderstood and ready to identify with Van Gogh, but few teenagers could have created such an accomplished homage.

BrettOpposite:Whiteley Art, life and the other thing , 1978 oil, photograph and mixed media on board triptych: left panel 91.9 x 79.6 x 7.8 cm; centre panel 211.8 x 130.0 x 8.5 cm; right panel 31.2 x 31.2 x 7.3 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

It was, at the very least, a way of exposing his own dark obsessions to the widest possible audience and the full glare of publicity. As it turned out, he could be neither scared nor shamed into giving up heroin. Self-portrait represents a far less theatrical attempt at self-reflection. Whiteley looks out at us directly, with none of the emotional address of his early ‘Van Gogh’ style portrait, none of the mock decadence of 1976, or the drug-fuelled angst of 1978. His expression is completely blank, as if he wanted only to pause and take stock of himself. A handful of his own curly, reddish hair glued to the picture signifies a desire to explore a higher kind of realism, as if mere paint on canvas were insufficient to the task.

It might be argued that the hair is an affectation Whiteley used too frequently for comfort. It features in all three self-portraits from 1976 – 78, acting as a signature or trademark. No other Australian artist had such a wild, woolly set of curls. No other artist left traces of his own locks on so many canvases. One suspects a touch of trichophilia – a fetishising of hair with vague sexual overtones. A bald psychiatrist, Dr. Charles Berg, wrote an entire book in the subject, The Unconscious Significance of Hair (1951). 2

In explaining his use of collage, which often saw him adding photographs or objects to a canvas, Whiteley said he did it ‘when I feel the need to describe in the focus of the painting something that requires infinite realism, a realism so absolute that no amount of painstaking brush strokes can accurately describe it.’3

JOHN M cDONALD

Brett Whiteley - Portrait 2, 1975 photographer: Greg Weight Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program.

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1. Wilson, A., Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing , Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2016, p. 272

John McDonald is art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and film critic for the Australian Financial Review www.johnmcdonald.net.au

3. Brett Whiteley quoted in McGrath, S., Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney, 1979, p. 219

Opposite: Brett Whiteley working on ‘Self portrait in the studio’ 1977, October 1976 photographer: Robert Walker National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

One could be cynical about these additions, seeing them as pictorial short cuts that saved a lot of time and effort, but it’s entirely plausible Whiteley was motivated solely by inner necessity – or at least, his own, idiosyncratic version of the concept. Kandinsky had a complex, theoretical understanding of the term, involving the artist’s personality, the context of their times, and the harmonious nature of a composition.4 For Whiteley it was more like a compulsion to break the imaginary rules of painting, to be spontaneous and transgressive – and to be recognised for these revolutionary gestures. The urge was bound up with a self-conscious sense of his own genius. Wilson quotes a letter the artist addressed to his mother, in January 1979, in which he writes of ‘the realization of the deep responsibility I have to my talent, to share it with my fellow Australians… with the world… I am fighting the biggest struggle of my life at the moment. I am trying to become a great man.’5

In retrospect, Whiteley’s life and work during the 1970s when he was widely perceived as Australia’s leading artist, may be seen as a time of great personal conflict. He was aware of the harm he was doing to himself with his drug addiction, but worried that giving it up might impair his creativity. He believed he had a gift he needed to share with everyone but couldn’t escape his habitual self-centredness. Having attained the height of success, he realised that from this pinnacle the only way is down. In the midst of such inner turmoil, Self-portrait is a remarkably straight work – a still point in a stormy decade. It shows Whiteley looking at himself intently in the mirror and recording exactly what he sees. We’re not looking at a would-be genius or a sinful penitent. It’s not the dark, edgy image of a celebrity, but the portrait of an artist.

2. Berg, C., The Unconscious Significance of Hair, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1951

4. Kandinsky, Wassily, On the Spiritual in Art , 1910 5. Wilson, op. cit., p. 277

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Jeffrey Smart Retrospective , Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 27 August 1999 – 6 August 2000, cat. 44, and touring to the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (label attached verso)

LITERATURE Johnston, S., ‘Living in the pasta’, Tatler, London, September 1984, vol. 279, no. 8, p. 142 O’Grady, D., ’The Smart perspective’, The Age , Melbourne, 19 October 1984, p. 11 (illus.) O’Grady, D., ‘Smart Art in from Italy’, The Sydney Morning Herald , Sydney, 27 October 1984, p. 44 Lynn, E., ‘Rich content but what does it mean?’, The Weekend Australian Magazine , 17 – 18 November 1984, p. 16 Smith, M., ‘Moved by man’s violent environment’, The Bulletin with Newsweek, Sydney, vol. 106, no. 5444, 27 November 1984, pp. 88, 89 (illus.) Quartermaine, P., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s Brave New World’, Art and Australia , Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 1985, pp. 65, 66 (illus.) Beeby, R., ‘Kicked off by the light’, The Age , Melbourne, 29 April 1986, p. 14 Harris, S., ‘Smart Work – Expatriate having the last Laugh’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, May 1986, pp. 16 – 17 (illus.) 2JEFFREY SMART (1921 – 2013) PORTRAIT OF GERMAINE GREER, 1984 oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 96.0 x 120.0 cm signed lower left: JEFFREY SMART

McKew, M., ‘Lunch with Maxine McKew’, The Bulletin , Sydney, 7 September 1999, pp. 54 – 56

James, R., Jeffrey Smart: The Question of Portraiture , Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2009, pp. 17, 18 (illus.), 19 Blackhouse, M., ‘Animate Objects’, The Age , Melbourne, 28 February 2009, pp. 2 (illus.), 12, 13 Allen, C., ‘About Face’, The Australian , Sydney, 21 March 2009, pp. 18 – 19 Hart, D., and Edwards, R., Jeffrey Smart , National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2021, pp. 113 (illus.), 128, 163

PROVENANCE

ESTIMATE: $1,000,000 – 1,500,000 Shmith, M., ’Taking pleasure in being Smart’, The Age , Melbourne, 3 October 1987, p. 12 Hogan, J., The Jack Manton Exhibition 1989: recent works by twelve Australian artists , Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1989, pp. 25 (illus.), 26 McDonald, J., Jeffrey Smart. Paintings of the 70s and 80s , Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, cat. 280, pl. 34, pp. 37, 122, 123 (illus.), 155, 161

Jeffrey Smart , Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 21 April – 12 May 1986, cat. 1 The Jack Manton Exhibition 1989: recent works by twelve Australian artists , Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 12 July – 27 August 1989 (label attached verso)

Pearce, B., Jeffrey Smart, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, pl. 179, pp. 178, 179 (illus.), 232 (illus.)

EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart: Recent Paintings , Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 6 – 24 November 1984, cat. 10

Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Joan Clemenger AO and Peter Clemenger AO, Melbourne, acquired from the above in November 1984

About Face: Aspects of Australian Portraiture c.1770 – 1993 , National Portrait Gallery, Old Parliament House, Canberra, 31 March – 14 August 1994

Jeffrey Smart: The Question of Portraiture , Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 March – 13 April 2009, cat. 51

Loxley, A., and Horton, W., About Face: Aspects of Australian Portraiture c.1770 – 1993 , National Portrait Gallery, Old Parliament House, Canberra, 1994 (illus. front cover) Grishin, S., ‘Lovely, subversive show for first Portrait Gallery’, The Canberra Times , Canberra, 9 April 1994, p. 47 Capon, E., Jeffrey Smart Retrospective , Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1999, cat. 68, pp. 166 (illus.), 211 Hawley, J., ‘Who’s that man?’, Sydney Morning Herald , Sydney, 7 August 1999, pp. 16–21 (illus.)

Capon, E., Jeffrey Smart Drawings and Studies 1942 – 2001 , Australian Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2001, pp. 122 – 123 (illus.)

Jeffrey Smart , National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 11 December 2021 – 15 May 2022

RELATED WORKS Drawing I for Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984, pencil and watercolour on paper, 23.0 x 17.5 cm, private collection Drawing II for Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984, pencil and watercolour on paper, 17.5 x 23.0 cm, private collection Head study 1984 for Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984 , pencil on paper, 17.5 x 23.0 cm, private collection Study for Portrait of Germaine Greer (with stand–in), 1984 , synthetic polymer paint and oil on Fabriano paper, 37.5 x 46.5 cm, in the collection of R. Corporation, Melbourne

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We are grateful to Stephen Rogers, Archivist for the Estate of Jeffrey Smart, and Ermes De Zan for their invaluable assistance with this catalogue entry.

The most provocative feature of the painting is the large letter ‘R.’ spray-painted on the wall behind the sitter. Because it takes up more space in the picture than Greer herself, one might imagine there is some hidden meaning. If so, it’s likely to remain concealed for all eternity, as Smart repeatedly told interviewers that the R. was merely ‘a lovely bit of graffiti’ he saw on a wall and sketched for future reference. He also recounted how the filmmaker, Bruce Beresford, believed the R. stood for ‘ratbag’, although the charge was firmly denied.1Itwastypical of Smart to create a distraction or a puzzle within a painting that might never be resolved. His usual tactic, when asked to explain the significance of a motif was to say it was all a matter of scale, or something the picture ‘required.’ Although he was a figurative painter, Smart continually drew attention to the formal or abstract elements within a composition. It was, one suspects, a way of combatting the idea that abstract art was somehow more advanced or progressive. Smart’s paintings, although filled with distinct, recognisable forms, could be as mysterious as any self-conscious

Jeffreyabstraction.Smart

Drawing I for Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984 pencil and watercolour on paper 23.0 x 17.5 cm Private collection © The Estate of Jeffrey Smart Jeffrey Smart Head study 1984 for Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984 pencil on paper 17.5 x 23.0 cm Private collection © The Estate of Jeffrey Smart

It is a testimony to the public perception of Germaine Greer that viewers are surprised Jeffrey Smart has made her seem so prim, so demure. Surely, the outspoken author of The Female Eunuch (1970) should be shown making some provocative gesture, staring challengingly at the viewer. Instead, Smart has portrayed the 45-yearold Greer sitting stiffly on a chair, as if posing for a snapshot. She wears a long blue skirt and an equally conservative top. She clutches her leather handbag with both hands. She seems mildly amused to find herself in this predicament.

Finally, there were the ‘unnamed’ portraits, in which actual people were included anonymously in more typical paintings. Smart’s longterm partner, Ermes De Zan, appears again and again, and the artist himself enjoys an occasional sneaky cameo, notably in Morning, Yarragon Siding, 1983 – 84 (formerly in the Holmes à Court collection, Perth), hiding behind a newspaper. Although he would paint – and identify – famous people, such as Giorgio Morandi or Alma Mahler, Smart also included many unidentified images of celebrities copied from newspapers or magazines. According to Stephen Rogers, the list includes Charles De Gaulle, Queen Elizabeth II, Pablo Picasso and even Marilyn Monroe. Smart was not a natural portraitist and admitted he often had difficulty getting a likeness. He believed it was a gift certain artists possessed. Even some ‘quite bad artists’4 had the knack of capturing a striking likeness, but for him it was always a struggle. He tells us Germaine Greer said the portrait ‘was not in the least like her,’ 5 but that’s debatable. The uptight body language may be the most controversial aspect because Greer is the kind of personality who never takes a backward step, showing little concern as to who she might offend. The woman in this picture who sits with arms and legs pressed together, holding her handbag as if it were a life preserver, is not that self-confident, abrasive character.

Firstly, the self-portraits, which came along every five to ten years, as Smart monitored his aging visage, perhaps taking his cue from fearless self-portraitists such as Rembrandt, or even Fred Williams, who once said ‘if you can’t paint a portrait then your art is in trouble.’3 It’s the kind of thing that serious artists do. Next came the ‘named’ portraits, beginning with David Malouf in 1980, followed by Germaine Greer (1984), then Margaret Olley (1994), Clive James (1991 – 92), Ermes de Zan (2006) and Bruce Beresford (2009). Both Malouf and Greer were neighbours in Tuscany when Smart painted their portraits. The Olley and James portraits caused him a good deal of time and effort, requiring numerous sketches and oil studies. None of these paintings are simple ‘head and shoulder’ studies. In each instance Smart tried to include the subject within a carefully thought-out composition.

In the book, Jeffrey Smart: Drawings and Studies 1942 – 2001 (2001), Smart provides an engaging commentary on three drawings associated with the portrait. After he had finished a pencil study of Greer’s face, she was unwilling to spend any further time posing, so Smart used a friend as a body double.

Jeffrey Smart Self Portrait at Papini’s , 1984 – 85 oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 85.0 x 115.0 cm Private collection

This extended even to the portraits, a small but important body of work that has begun to attract a surprising amount of attention. Smart’s archivist, Stephen Rogers, lists three distinct varieties. 2

‘Rosemary Roche, from Rome, was an agreeable and compliant model…’ he writes, ‘Germaine was not a particularly co-operative model when she initially posed. Perhaps she thought modelling was a waste of her time. She forcibly complained when she saw the finished painting, that she never used a handbag and never sat with her knees together.’6

Nevertheless, Smart would deny any critical intentions with his portraits of either James or Greer. On the contrary, he insisted that Greer’s small essay from 1983 was his favourite piece of writing devoted to his work. In his autobiography, Not Quite Straight (1996), he describes her as ‘beautiful, intelligent, and wonderfully vivacious.’ 9

In the early 1980s, Smart and Greer were very close. They dined at each other’s Tuscan homes and mixed in the same circles. They even travelled to Australia together, when Greer was given two firstclass air tickets, and asked Smart if he’d like to accompany her. It may have been on that trip, or the one after, that Smart noticed the wall that appears in the Greer portrait. Believe it or not, it belongs to the Members’ Pavilion at the Melbourne Cricket Ground! This helps decode the word half glimpsed at the top left on the picture and leaves us dumbstruck that Germaine Greer and ‘members’ should appear in the same painting.

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Smart’s reminiscence sounds suspiciously like an example of l‘esprit de l’escalier, anyone who knew him would agree this is exactly the kind of thing he would say.

When Greer complained the work was not like her, Smart says that he told her: ‘it will be soon’, self-consciously echoing Picasso’s famous comment about his Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1905 – 06 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).7

Greer would not be the only sitter Smart quietly cut down to size. Clive James came in for even more drastic treatment in a portrait in which he is roughly the size of a mouse – a monumental putdown for such a massive ego. One major difference was that James pursued Smart to paint his portrait, whereas Greer was indifferent to the idea. Had the artist followed his first instincts Clive might have fared even worse, being immortalised as a dirty old man in an overcoat waiting at a bus stop. In comparison, to echo the economist, E.F. Schumacher, small is beautiful.

To be precise, these are Picasso’s words, as recalled by Stein in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933): ‘everybody says that she does not look like it but that does not make any difference, she will, he said.’ Although8

Why did Smart paint Greer holding a handbag she swears she never possessed? Was he playfully portraying her as a middle-aged bourgeoise? Adding a stereotypical ‘feminine’ touch to a feminist icon? Germaine Greer with her pet cat , London 1980s photographer: Homer Sykes Cover of the first Paladin paperback edition of The Female Eunuch (1970) by Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer’s stone house in Montanare di Cortona, between the medieval town of Cortona in Tuscany and the border of Umbria, c.1979 – 94 University of Melbourne Archives, Germaine Greer collection, Pianelli, Italy, 2014.0054.00428

It’s conceivable that Smart was implying Greer’s self-confidence might be only skin-deep, but if there’s a gentle whiff of satire, it was not the primary motivation behind the portrait. Ermes De Zan recalls that Smart began with the idea for a composition, then said that he needed a figure. Greer was at hand and was duly asked to pose. In time, Smart would become more conscious of the exaggerated status enjoyed by portraits, but it’s a peculiar fact that he viewed his sitters primarily as objects rather than personalities.10

Of all Smart’s ‘named’ portraits, David Malouf believes the Germaine Greer picture comes closest to capturing a sense of the sitter’s personality.12 It may require the insight of one intimately acquainted with both parties to make this distinction (at least one contemporary reviewer felt that Greer’s eyes betrayed ‘an obvious vulnerability’13), but there can be no doubt about Greer’s objecthood within the composition. Her blue dress forms part of sequence of primary colours between two doors painted in dazzling tones of red and yellow. These colours are irresistibly suggestive of Mondrian.

This is so different from everything we stereotypically look for in a portrait that it sounds brutal, almost heretical. We think of a successful portrait as a likeness that reveals something fundamental about the sitter, providing a window onto their soul. But Smart was less concerned with the inner life of his subjects than the way they might strike an equilibrium with other elements in the painting. His subjects were objects. ‘You don’t just put a face on canvas,’ he told journalist, Desmond O’Grady in 1984, ‘you make a design.’11

Greer’s white blouse quite literally blends in with the creamy-white wall, as Smart has artfully declined to provide a contour for her left shoulder (a touch of finesse he loved to point out). The thin-framed wooden chair rhymes with the graffitied R., while the strip of grey across the bottom of the picture heightens the impact of the colours in the same way that a mauve-grey sky, or a strip of asphalt, might add intensity to the reds and yellows of an urban landscape.

12. De Zan op. cit.

2. Stephen Rogers, email correspondence with the author, 4 July 2022 3 Lyn Williams, in conversation with the author.

4. Interview with the author, in preparation for the documentary, Smart’s Labyrinth (1994). Not published. 5. Ibid. 6. Smart, J. et al., Jeffrey Smart: Drawings and Studies 1942 – 2001, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 2001, p. 122 7. Ibid. 8. Stein, G., The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , 1933, chapter 2. 9. Smart, J., Not Quite Straight. A Memoir, Random House, 1996, p. 420 10 Ermes De Zan, in conversation with the author 11. O’Grady, D., ‘Smart art – in from Italy’, Sydney Morning Herald , 7 October 1984, p. 44

Opposite: Jeffrey Smart in Italy, 1990 photographer: Robert Walker Art Gallery of New South Wales Archive, Sydney © Estate of Robert Walker

A more reassuring association might be with the Italian Renaissance masters that Smart admired. The ‘stillness’ he found in Piero della Francesca was the guiding principle for his own work. Like Piero, Uccello, and their peers, Smart built his paintings upon a rigorous, underlying geometry. It’s this precise structure that gives his pictures a sense of underlying ‘rightness’ that may be felt by viewers who have no inclination for analysing the planes and angles. For such viewers the major reference to the Renaissance to be found in this portrait is that Smart has invested the fearsome Germaine Greer with the smile of the Mona Lisa 1. McKew, M., ‘Lunch with Maxine McKew: Jeffrey Smart’, The Bulletin , 7 September 1999

strangest stories attached to the portrait comes from January 2000, when Smart received a long, handwritten letter from a 19-year-old student in Bath, who had undertaken an elaborate analysis of the painting from a postcard. Not feeling inclined to respond to this lengthy, misguided hypothesis, he passed the letter on to Stephen Rogers, who replied on his behalf.15 Another letter followed, wondering whether the portrait might have been painted in Ethiopia, where Greer had recently visited. Within a month, this same student had turned up at Greer’s home on Essex, was initially invited in, but became ‘troublesome’ and had to be removed by the police. The next day she returned and launched a full-scale assault on Greer that resulted in the writer being held captive for hours in her own home. The portrait, to which the stalker had attributed all kinds of mystical significa nce, had acted as a catalyst for this incident. It’s a bizarre reminder of the power of images, even such sedate, carefully composed ones as those produced by Jeffrey Smart.16

14. De Zan, op. cit. 15. Stephen Rogers, in conversation with the author. 16. JohnJOHNhttp://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0004/np000427.htmMcDONALDMcDonaldisartcriticforthe Sydney Morning Herald and film critic for the Australian Financial Review. He is also the author of Jeffrey Smart: the paintings of the ’70s and ’80s, Craftsman House, (1990) www.johnmcdonald.net.au

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13. Margaret Smith, ‘Moved by man’s violent environment’, The Bulletin , 27 November 1984

Smart was so pleased with the painting that, according to De Zan, it inspired Self-Portrait at Papini’s, 1984 – 85 (private collection), in which the artist stands against a wall, between blue and green doors.14 Both paintings would be acquired by the same prescient collector, from successive exhibitions. When Australia’s new National Portrait Gallery was opened in the old Parliament House, Canberra, on 31 March 1994, the Portrait of Germaine Greer, 1984 which had been borrowed for the occasion, would feature on the cover of the Onecatalogue.ofthe

20 COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER PROVENANCE Estate of the artist Marlborough Fine Art, London Joan Clemenger AO and Peter Clemenger AO, Melbourne, acquired from the above in October 1996 EXHIBITED Fred Williams (1927 – 1982), Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1 November – 2 December 1995, cat. 4 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) LITERATURE McCaughey, P., Fred Williams , Murdoch Books, Sydney, 1996, pl. 66, pp. 152, 155 (illus.), 184 (as ‘Lysterfield Landscape, 1967 68’) 3FRED WILLIAMS (1927 – 1982) LYSTERFIELD LANDSCAPE, 1968 – 69 oil on canvas 183.0 x 154.0 cm signed lower right: Fred Williams. ESTIMATE: $1,600,000 – 2,000,000

If Fred Williams’ You Yangs paintings from 1962 were to secure his reputation as Au stralia’s preeminent landscape artist, the work which ended the decade gave us a painter of perpetual inventiveness – one never prepared to settle into a stylistic cul-de-sac as a consequence of strong critical acclaim. A masterpiece from the zenith of Williams’ career, Lysterfield Landscape , 1968 – 69 eloquently attests to this legacy as one of the most visionary painters of his time – a unique artist unable to be placed within any moveme nt or singular ‘school’ of thinking. With the firming of his reputation the sixties became a particular marker for Williams. Later it came to be regarded as his essential decade – a familiar art historical characteristic – the wish to settle on a defining period and to see other work as foregrounding or following it, a period which becomes an enduring reference point. The Heidelberg School pa inters between 1885 – 95 are an obvious example, Sidney Nolan too in the 194 0s. A familiar Williams quote states, ‘I see things in terms of paint , all else is ir relevant’; this is certainly true but requires a fuller explanation. Williams’ sharpness of observation and alertness to subtle inflections defined his pictorial syntax. Despite descriptions of him making much out of the drabness of the bush, Williams didn’t see ordinariness. He was happiest on location, and equally so in the studio, where a reflective and considered setting allowed his intellectual disposition to take over: ‘…the knowledge that a painting must be conscious of itself, aware of its own nature and its own vocabulary, conscious of its own coding process.’1 Fred Williams Lysterfield triptych, 1967 - 68 oil on canvas on three panels 152.5 x 427.5 cm (overall) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

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We are familiar with the artist’s rapid gouaches; quickly painted and sharply observed then rested in the mind’s eye as a visual aide-mémoire In the Clemenger Lysterfield we see the gouaches playing the role of second violin in a fully orchestrated masterpiece: it is a rare painting as the few complementary works of such monumental scale from this period are in public collections. Williams kept a mainly unbroken diary, and references to specific works appear infrequently. However this is not the case with Lysterfield . He began the painting in his Upwey studio, and on 12 November 1968 notes: ‘… an early start and I go well. An underpainting of a 6 x 5… ’ The entry includes a small sketch. By the time of the second reference to Lysterfield he and the family had moved to Hawthorn, and again on 7 May 1969 Williams writes, ‘This underpainting is beautifully hard and I work well on it… it goes well with the one in the Commonwealth collection. A good step forward I hope .’ The Commonwealth painting he refers to is the celebrated Lysterfield triptych , 1967 – 68 in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. 2

The ideas and sharp art historical awareness which underpinned his working approach arose from looking at work by artists with distinctive technical ranges, and who often worked in a variety of media. Williams too was comfortable painting while making superb prints, each referencing and supporting the other. While his years in London between 1952 – 56 (including study at the Chelsea School of Art) were to shape his future, his time at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, then tucked at the back of the Gallery’s grand

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Fred Williams Australian Landscape III, 1969 oil on 148.8canvasx198.0 cm Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

Williams’ swiftly executed, wet-loaded brush watercolours from his London years shifted from a muted darkness of the English landscape to translucent C é zannesque half-tones and overlapping soft washes; by 1962 they anticipate a further lightness and subtlety of surfaces which would reach their sophisticated height by the end of the decade. His oil paintings from the late fifties to the end of the sixties are rich in glazes, techniques studied in the collections at the NGV and London’s museums and later in Venice where glaze upon glaze left its mark. In 1963 he and his wife, Lyn, moved to Upwey, a short distance to locations titles with which we are familiar, including Lysterfield, Sherbrooke, Kallista. Awarded the Helena Rubenstein Scholarship in the same year he travelled to Europe a year later. He bought rolls of canvas in London and had them shipped to Australia and painting on board all but Nowended.paintand glazes are pushed into the weave of the canvas as layers of wet on wet and drying paint become a field for immediate impasto calligraphic gestures. In the familiar ochres and browns from the late 50s to the You Yangs paintings, many have found the so-called monotony of the Australian landscape rejuvenated through Williams’ observation, jolting our visual complacency. Williams certainly didn’t see drabness.

The depth of his subdued palette and the use of black and coloured accents were always an evolving part of his work. The landscape which inspired him was not repetitive, let alone uninteresting. Williams’ vision might have shaken many out of their preconceptions of the bush landscape.

Swanston Street entrance, was also influential. Visual encounters were applied to full effect. Corot’s The bent tree (L’Arbre penché) , c.1855 – 60 (National Gallery of Victoria) for example, helped settle the compositional arrangement of works such as Fallen Tree , 1962 and Landscape with bent tree , c.1959 (both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales).

Fred Williams , 1969 photographer: David Moore National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Lisa, Michael, Matthew and Joshua Moore 25

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3. Sam Francis 1923 – 1994, American Abstract expressionist with a long interest in Japan, its art and culture. The Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, holds 160 works – the largest single collection of his work.

4. McGregor, C., In the Making , Thomas Nelson Australia, Melbourne, 1969, p. 107, cited in Hart, D., Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons , National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2011, p. 101 5. Gleeson, J., ‘Scrub and the field of art’, The Sun-Herald , 9 November 1969, p. 115 6. Plant, op. cit. DOUG HALL AM Opposite: Fred Williams photographer: Ernie McLintock © Ernie McLintock

The all-over gestural effects in the mid-60s hold a similar expressive immediacy to that of the important American abstract expressionist, Sam Francis, who he met in London. Williams maintained his interest in American abstraction and later, colourfield formalism. 3 Matisse remained a discreet and enduring exemplar in the use of colour and in Lysterfield we see it personalised, no more so than the simple painted accent, lower centre, where viridian green and orange are juxtaposed. When half tones appear elsewhere other coloured accents invoke the palette and colour combinations of Matisse, including the use of black as a compositional device to settle and hold the minimalist pictorial arrangement. While the painting might appear to us as spontaneous and the result of an inspired moment of realisation, it took many months to reach its complete status. As Williams’ painted marks became more pronounced and the surfaces open and sparse a particular ‘handwriting’ became an emblematic characteristic: no more so than in Lysterfield Landscape . It is a term often applied to describe his works from the mid-60s. Yet it seems colloquially self-effacing. Calligraphy is sometimes used as a catch-all but seldom explored further. While it can be seen as handwriting – or a kind of personal mark making – calligraphy is a more accurate and authoritative description. In Chinese and Japanese culture calligraphy is an art form of the highest aesthetic consequence and meaning: and we should see Williams in the same light. In the photograph by David Moore, Fred Williams , 1969 (National Portrait Gallery), we see the artist working, not at the easel in the background, but on the floor where the method not only evokes a sense of Pollock or Sam Francis, but with its surface flat, it also emulates Chinese and Japanese artists in its physical execution. As a student Williams saw and admired Asian art, then mainly Chinese, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria and later at the British Museum. At the time Williams’ Lysterfield works were painted the writer, Craig McGregor, cited this as a central influence, ‘…Williams thinks the Chinese are the best landscape painters… as he says… “everything is dropping out of the frame, tumbling out Chinese fashio n.’’’4 James Gleeson was also clear in his interpretation of Williams’ masterly complexity, ‘…the sparseness and refinement of the style… restraint a nd sophisticated simplicity… suggest a strong influence from Japan… only if you know the place they hold in his work… can they interpreted as landscapes… his latest attempt to translate the Australian scrub into works of art.’5 As Gleeson suggests, if the horizon line were not such a defining element in Lysterfield Landscape and if we were unaware of Williams’ preoccupation with landscape, calligraphic abstraction is the only possible conclusion viewers might draw. Perhaps this explains in part the international interest in his work. A new generation of Australian abstractionists also admired Williams’ work; Robert Jacks accompanied him on painting excursions to the You Yangs, and Margaret Plant regarded work from this period ‘…to be as contemporary as The Field though more modestly scaled’.6 Lysterfield Landscape is a masterwork where Williams’ is at his most withheld, subtle and sophisticated. Paintings such as Australian Landscape III , 1969 (Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art) and Lysterfield triptych 1967 – 68 (National Gallery of Australia) employ a sequential format with white vertical screen-like separations across a horizontal canvas, where a calligraphic ensemble of painted gestures flit across the surface. The vertical format and scale of Lysterfield Landscape , the sublimely worked surface, considered calligraphic marks and the distinctive high horizon line create both the sensation of the landscape as its source and a work acutely aware of painting’s history across cultures as well as contemporary trends.

1. Plant, M., ‘Tribute to Fred Williams’, Art Journal , no. 23, National Gallery of Victoria, May 1982 2. Lyn Williams, conversation with the author, July 2022.

28 COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Joan Clemenger AO and Peter Clemenger AO, Melbourne, acquired from the above in September 1991 EXHIBITED John Brack , Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 7 28 September 1991, cat. 5 4JOHN BRACK (1920 – 1999) POSIES, 1990 oil on canvas 137.0 x 106.5 cm signed and dated lower right: John Brack / 1990 ESTIMATE: $600,000 – 800,000

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John Brack’s motivation for painting remained consistent throughout his career. In 1956, following the National Gallery of Victoria’s purchase of Collins St, 5p.m. , 1955, he wrote to Eric Westbrook, the gallery’s director, explaining, ‘One either has a subject, or one has not… If I choose to paint the life I see around me, it is because I find people more interesting than things.’1 Finding subject matter in his immediate surroundings, Brack satisfied this intense interest in people, and paintings such as The New House , 1953 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and The Bar, 1954 (National Gallery of Victoria) still stand as acute observations of modern Australian life. While the clothing, hairstyles, interiors and other accoutrements of mid-century suburban life imbue these paintings with a strong sense of nostalgia, it is what they reveal about human behaviour and its inevitability, irrespective of the era, that is most compelling. It is this element which also provides the thematic link between Brack’s figurative paintings of the 1950s and 60s and his later works. From the early 1970s on, the human figure disappeared from his paintings almost entirely, replaced by inanimate objects – museum postcards, umbrellas, pencils, playing cards and wooden artists’ manikins, among others – which were combined with various domestic props to construct subtle visual metaphors. As Sasha Grishin wrote, ‘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 one that was local to a broader more universal view. Produced in Brack’s studio, the late paintings were the result of intense preparation and a meticulous technique. He would set up elaborate tableaux, using fishing line and tape to suspend props when necessary, and create a model from which a detailed preparatory drawing was then made. He also used fine brushes and glazes to minimise the appearance of brushstrokes and heighten the sense of pictorial realism in these works, the aim being to engage viewers so that they could focus on the meaning of his imagery rather than being distracted by expressive painterly bravura. 3 A dark, irregular border surrounding these scenes also became a familiar element of the late works. Highlighting the illusionistic John Brack Watching the flowers , 1990 – 91 oil on canvas 137.5 x 107.0 cm Private collection, Melbourne © Helen Brack Opposite: John Brack painting ‘Six Bouquets’, 1991 photographer: David Johns © David Johns

John Brack has long been recognised as a towering figure within twentieth century Australian art, one of the few artists of his generation who addressed the reality of life as it was lived in the cities and the suburbs. As Patrick McCaughey observed however, ‘even if he may look direct, accessible and easy to read… the imagery retains an ambiguous and enigmatic quality. Paintings infer hidden meanings; references just beyond the grasp or consciousness of the viewer.’6 A still life then, is more than just a still life. In Brack’s hands, they ‘offer an alternative route. They give back to painting the richness and ambiguity of metaphor. The paintings and their images stand for m ore than their literal presence.’7 1. Brack to Eric Westbrook, 15 April 1956, National Gallery of Victoria Artist File 2. Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack , Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 140 3. Ibid., p. 132 4. Brack, H., quoted in Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 – 1994, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2000, p. 11 5. Ibid., p. 34 6. McCaughey, P., ‘The Complexity of John Brack’ in Lindsay, R., John Brack , National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 7 7. Ibid., p. 9 KIRSTY Opposite:GRANT

32 COLLECTION OF JOAN AND PETER CLEMENGER nature of painting, as well as Brack’s remarkable skill, it also points to the possib ility of other realities. As Helen Brack observed, ‘The margins here ar e very important, because they are about the dark past, other ages. He was extremely interested in how you can use structure to say what you want to say.’4 Painted in 1990, Posies came towards the end of Brack’s career. He turned seventy that year and would stop painting altogether four years later. Many of the works made at this time show the artist reflecting on his life as well as looking forward. ‘John was getting older, and so he was starting to think of the future – not his future but the future. And when the 1980s came (and it did synchronise with grandchildren coming) there was a realising 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.’ 5 The floral subject and joyous colours of this picture create an air of celebration which is also present in related contemporary paintings such as Watching the Flowers , 1991 and Six Bouquets , 1991 (both private collection). Unlike the floral still-lives Brack had painted during the late 1950s, which depicted cut flowers in vases –carnations, gerberas and solandra – just as you might find them in a midcentury suburban home, the domestic setting here is artificial, carefully constructed like a stage set which deliberately emphasises some details and omits others. Although cool and restrained, the flecked carpet and subdued striped wallpaper of this environment clearly connects to notions of home. More importantly, it also connects to family, a theme which was particularly prominent in Brack’s work during these years. The articulated wooden hands often stand in for people in th ese late paintings and in this image, it is possible to see them as representing Brack and his wife, Helen – th e central pair holding the larger posies – surrounded by their four daughters. The variations between the posies subtly distinguish between the generations – larger bouquets and more varied flowers symbolising the age and experience of the parents, for example – as well as between each individual. In the same way, the similarities between each posy simultaneously reflect the immutable biological connection that unites them. A still life. A family portrait. A floral tribute.

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