Large Scale Works in current stockroom

(alphabetically by artist surname)

Pennant Hills

David Aspden

David Aspden (1935 - 2005)

Pennant Hills1976

acrylic on canvas

157 x 300 cm

Provenance

Private Collection, Sydney

Essay

David Aspden is considered one of Australia’s foremost ‘colour-field’ abstraction painters. Gaining prominence in the 1960s he continued painting up until his death in 2005. Inspired by colour, music and landscape, this monumental painting is one of the finest examples of the artist’s mastery at conveying the relationships between these themes.

The composition is a visual melody that gently shifts as the eye focuses on the changing areas of colour. Similar to the Jazz music he loved, the lyrical approach to his painting is emphasised in Pennant Hills by the energetic gestural marks that dance across the canvas. Aspden worked cleverly with the harmony and collision of colours, conveyed in the subject work with softs hues of cool mauves and purples juxtaposed with warm tones of pinks and reds.

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Untitled

David Aspden

Category: Australian Large Scale Works Modern Painting

David Aspden (1935 - 2005)

Untitled

acrylic on canvas

152 x 122cm

Provenance

Private Collection, Melbourne;

Mossgreen, Sunday 11 October 2015, Lot 284;

Private collection, Sydney

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Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory

Mervyn Bishop

Category: Aboriginal Australian Large Scale Works

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory

Mervyn Bishop (1945)

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil Into Hand Of Traditional Land Owner (Gurindji) Vincent Lingiari (Wattle Creek), Northern Territory1975

digital c-type photograph

signed, dated and titled in ink below and verso

120 x 120cm

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On Hold for a Bigger Collector than You

Danny First

Category: Large Scale Works Mixed Media Sculpture

Danny First ()

On Hold for a Bigger Collector than You2011

Laser-cut recycled plastics

81 x 66 x 183cm

Provenance

Maloney Fine Art, Los Angeles

Essay

Danny First has developed a body of work utilizing reclaimed / recycled materials to create functional benches which incorporate text reflecting First’s droll sense of humour. Whether it is figurative orutilitarian in nature, First’s work is light and unpretentious. Informed by art history and the tradition of creating sculptural forms, First’s sculpture reflects the artist’s optimistic view of life.

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Five Futures

Beth Letain

Category: Contemporary Large Scale Works Women

Beth Letain (b. 1976)

Five Futures2017

oil on canvas

170 x 140cm

Provenance

Pace Gallery, London;

Private Collection, Sydney

Exhibited

Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Los Angeles, US, 25-28 January, 2018

Essay

Berlin-based Canadian artist Beth Letain engages with the history of colour and abstraction. While her works feel minimalist compositionally, they are vivid with strong colour painted on white canvas. Letain’s geometric structures are harmonious and rhythmic, referencing Agnes Martin, Mary Heilmann and the Bauhaus theories of colour. This work is of magnificent scale with lashings of oil and rich pigment, so characteristic of the artist’s style. Her works are simple and enduring.

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Mask

Ben Quilty

Category: Australian Contemporary Large Scale Works Painting

Ben Quilty (b. 1973)

Mask2010

oil on linen

140 x 190cm

Provenance

Private collection, Sydney

Essay

Ben Quilty recalls he conceived this painting as something of a mask – a Captain Cook mask the artist himself could put on to imagine the world through the eyes of the famous 18th century explorer. Having read extensively through Cook’s diaries, Quilty became fascinated by the man’s initial self belief, an attitude that doubtless contributed to him becoming one of maritime history’s most famous navigators, astronomers and sailors. With the passage of time however, Quilty observed violent changes in Cook’s behaviour toward both his crew and the native populations he encountered.

Cook’s bouts of extreme violence, Quilty along with others postulates, was due in large part to debilitating and personality changing gut conditions, the result of chronic disease. In analysing this change the artist states that ‘Mask’ looks at ‘…the good, the bad and the ugly’. The rorschach technique employed is perfect, providing a multiple image which delves into the human psyche, a reflection and investigation of James Cook the man, and his changing psychological states.

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Yellow Gibbon

David Rankin

Category: Australian Large Scale Works Modern Painting

David Rankin (b. 1946)

Yellow Gibbon1972

acrylic on canvas

Exhibited

David Rankin, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, 1972; Charles Nodrum Gallery, 2011; Private Collection,Melbourne

Essay

Note: the ‘Gibbon’ is Gibbon’s Beach, Bundeena, south of Port Hacking, where the artist stayed in the early 1970s.

David Rankin is a New York based Australian artist. Born in Plymouth, England in 1946, he emigrated to Australia in 1948. Interested in the merging of western, eastern and indigenous art, Rankin sees the role of Australian artists as one of authentically and truthfully absorbing those nearby cultures and spiritual beliefs, and integrating these elements into individual works. Throughout the past thirty years, Rankin has held over 100 one-person exhibitions worldwide; he is represented in many of the world’s leading collections and museums.