Large Scale Works in current stockroom

(alphabetically by artist surname)

Pennant Hills

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

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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Pentarus

Category: Large Scale Works Modern

Sydney Ball (1933 - 2017)

Pentarus2007

acrylic on canvas

signed dated and inscribed verso

183 x 210cm

Provenance

The estate of the artist

Exhibited

Sydney Ball: The Colour Paintings 1963 – 2007, Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers Bequest, 8 November 2008 – 25 January 2009; a touring exhibition to McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, 22 February – 26 April 2009; Samstag Museum, South Australia, 11 November 2009 – 19 January 2010

Essay

Pentarus, 2007 captures the artists growing interest in architecture and nature, which he explored during his Structure series from 2005-2010. The perfectly conceived and positioned central geometric form references the artists earlier groundbreaking works from the mid-1960s. Throughout his celebrated career Sydney Ball kept moving forward in his explorations of colour and form and their combined effects upon visual perception.

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Earth V

Category: Australian Large Scale Works Modern Painting

John Coburn (1925-2006)

Earth V1982

oil on canvas

signed lower right

199 x 298.5 cm

Provenance

The Qantas Collection;

Sotheby’s, Important Australian Art, Sydney, 07/05/2007, Lot no. 13;

Private collection, Sydney

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On Hold for a Bigger Collector than You

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

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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Parwalla

Category: Aboriginal Large Scale Works Painting Women

Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi (b. 1947)

Parwalla2008

synthetic polymer paint on linen

inscribed verso: artist's name, size and Warlayirti Artists cat. 134/08

180 x 120cm

Provenance

Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills;

Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne;

Private collection, Melbourne;

Deutscher and Hackett, Part 2: Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne 26 November 2014, Lot 104;

Private collection, Sydney

Essay

This painting depicts Elizabeth Nyumi’s father’s country, Parwalla. It is a large area that fills with water after the wet season and consequently produces an abundance of bush foods. The painting shows a variety of native foods including bush raisin, bush tomato and seeds. Women, shown as U shapes, with their digging sticks and coolamons gathering the foods, are also depicted.

Parwalla is a characteristic example of the work of Nyumi, one of the most-renowned, contemporary female Aboriginal artists. In her maturity as a painter Nyumi initially worked with a thick brush, covering the canvas in emanating lines in muted tones. The white, so pleasing and prevalent in her work, represent spinifex grass. She is an active member in the Balgo community, being a strong law and culture woman.

In 2004 Nyumi was selected for inclusion in the Biennale of Sydney. Her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Artbank, Sydney; the Laverty Collection, Sydney; and the Holmes à Court Collection, Perth.

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Yellow Gibbon

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.

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Waterfall

Category: Contemporary International Large Scale Works

Hiroshi Senju (b. 1958)

Waterfall2018

acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper

paper signed and inscribed "Waterfall, H. Senju, 2018" on reverse

130 x 162cm

Provenance

Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Hong Kong;
Private collection, Sydney

Essay

Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue.

Senju’s work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. The Hiroshi Senju Museum in Karuizawa, Japan, opened in 2011 as a gallery devoted in its entirety to the artist’s work.