Looking Abroad

Discovering international works of art amongst Australian collections is always an exciting experience. Our country’s history of immigration has brought onto Australian shores some highly collectible and important artworks, in addition to those collectors who have acquired while abroad.

Our cover lot is the first important painting by Vietnamese modernist, Vu Cao Dam, to come to market in Australia. Acquired by the current owner while travelling in New York in the late 1970s from the esteemed Wally Findlay Galleries, the painting Le Cavalier 1978 (lot 19) highlights the richness and delicacy of Vietnamese painting, infused with the principles of modern art prevalent at the time in Europe. After visiting France in the 1930s, Vu Cao Dam never returned home to Vietnam but retained his cultural heritage through the subjects he painted. His friend and neighbour, Marc Chagall, undoubtedly had an influence on his painting style. Vu Cao Dam’s paintings are now highly sought after by collectors in South East Asia and around the world.

In the early 1930s, at around the same time that Vu Cao Dam was setting foot in Paris, the British artist and printmaker Cyril Power was producing one of his most iconic linocuts, The Tube Station c.1932 (lot 13). After establishing the Grosvenor School of Art in London with Claude Flight in the 1920s, Power began to form his printmaking practice in the ensuing years. As his practice developed, his interest in speed and metropolitan life transpired onto his medium. The Tube Station captures the rapid pace of London’s underground railway system, with Power’s recognisable fluid and sweeping forms indicating the strength at which the train moves through the vortex of the underground tunnel. The Tube Station encapsulates the spirit of the interwar period, a time of rapid urbanisation and social change. This important edition was acquired in England by the photographer, Gwendolyn Morris, before its inheritance to her descendents in South Australia.

These two important international works of art will be presented in our June Fine Art auction alongside other important Australian and International works of art.

Olivia Fuller | Head of Art

PROVENANCE:

Private collection, Melbourne

Thence by descent

$5,000-8,000

2

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 27 November 1989, lot 267

Private collection, Melbourne

Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 8 August 2004, lot 79 (label verso)

Private collection, Melbourne

The Estate of the above

$15,000-25,000

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent

EXHIBITIONS:

E. P. Fox Exhibition, Melbourne, May 1925, cat. no. 49 (label verso)

LITERATURE:

Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox His Life and Art, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, p. 237, cat. no. U281

$12,000-18,000

Lakescene oil on board certified by Daryl Lindsay, then Director, National Gallery of Victoria and Co-Trustee of The Rupert Bunny Estate (label verso) 19 x 21.5cm

PROVENANCE:

Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label verso) Private collection, Queensland $4,000-6,000

HANS HEYSEN (1877-1968)

Rialto, Venice 1902 watercolour,

21.5

PROVENANCE:

Private collection, Victoria $4,000-6,000

WILL ASHTON (1881-1963)

Luxembourg

PROVENANCE:

Quigley & Bonython Antiques, Adelaide 1979

Private collection, South Australia $4,000-6,000

PROVENANCE:

Eastgate

EXHIBITIONS:

Robert

$2,500-4,000

9

CELIA PERCEVAL (born 1949)

10

PETER WEGNER (born 1953)

Enamel

PROVENANCE:

Anthea Polson Gallery, Queensland (label verso) Private collection, Queensland $5,000-6,000

PROVENANCE:

Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label verso) Private collection, Melbourne $15,000-20,000

PETER MCINTYRE (New Zealander, 1910-1995)

King Country and Woolshed c.1975 oil on board

51.5 x 75cm

PROVENANCE:

John Leech Gallery, Auckland 2001 (accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and original purchase invoice)

Private collection, Melbourne

The Estate of the above $20,000-30,000