Anooralya III (Wild yam dreaming)
Emily Kame KngwarreyeAnooralya III (Wild yam dreaming) 1995
acrylic paint on Belgian linen
210 x 120cm
Apple with Yellow Flower
Cressida CampbellArc de Triomphe
Brett WhiteleyArc de Triomphe 1984
mixed media on paper
signed with artist’s stamp lower right
63 x 49cm
Provenance
Private Collection, Sydney
Essay
Depicting the busy intersection of roads surrounding the iconic Parisian monument the Arc de Triomphe, this expressive drawing pulsates with energy. Whiteley has collaged the monument itself and surrounded it with bold and gestural strokes of swiftly applied charcoal. This picture predates and precedes the artist’s famous images created several years later following his return to Paris at the age of 50 which culminated in a highly popular exhibition held soon after at the AGNSW.
Artist’s Palette
Sidney NolanProvenance
Sir Sidney Nolan, United Kingdom, until 1992
Lady Nolan, United Kingdom, until 2016
The Estate of Lady Nolan, United Kingdom
At Watsons Bay
Tom RobertsAt Watsons Bay c. 1898
oil on panel
Signed lower left: Tom Roberts, inscribed reverse upper left: To my Darling/ Gwen on her/ 20 Birthday/ from Mother: inscribed reverse lower left: Dec 19 1929, inscribed reverse right: 17044/ 2
8.4 x 19.8cm
Provenance
Mrs Winifred Onslow Dunban, Sydney (prior to 1915); by descent, Gwendolen Onslow Dunban (on her 20th birthday) 1929;
Deutscher Fine Art Exhibition, Melbourne, Nov/Dec 1988 Cat. No. 24, 1989;
Private collection, Sydney since 1988
Exhibited
Exhibition and Sale of Paintings by Tom Roberts, Previous to his leaving Australia, Society of Artists of New South Wales, Vickery’s Chambers, 76 Pitt Street, Sydney 14 November 1900, cat 28, At Watsons Bay, 1 ½ gns.
Essay
The location of this painting is Watsons Bay, specifically Camp Cove. It fits stylistically into a group of Harbour panels (of Circular Quay, Rose Bay, Kirribilli and Sirius Cove) executed by Tom Roberts in the late 1890’s.
A forty year old Tom Roberts married Lillie Williamson in Melbourne in early 1896; in January 1898 their son Caleb was born. After the marriage Roberts left the makeshift Curlew Camp at Sirius Cove, which he had shared with Arthur Streeton and others since coming up from Melbourne in 1891 and took up residence in Paul Street, Balmain. He continued however, to work and teach from a city studio in Pitt Street.
Roberts executed two historical bush-ranging subjects in the mid 1890’s, Bailed Up and In a corner on the Macintyre c1894-95. After 1895 he worked on the large droving theme, A mountain muster (c1897-98) but his small portrait studies and rare (compared with Streeton) Sydney Harbour views on un-primed cedar panel, such as, At Watsons Bay c1898, are arguably the most appealing works he created at the time.
The painting has a charming provenance – it was given to the previous owner by her mother, Winfred Onslow Dunban, on her 20th birthday in 1929.
Australian Flowers
Margaret PrestonAustralian Flowers 1959
charcoal and ink on paper
signed, titled and dated lower right
68 x 80cm
Australian Landscape
Fred WilliamsProvenance
Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Paddington
The Estate of Ray Hughes
Essay
In the late 1960s Fred Williams re-directed his painterly form. Through abstract motifs he transformed the vision of his landscapes to combine a feel for their openness and expansiveness. As identified in Australian Landscape, within the picture plane scattered gestural strokes and dotted markings become suggestive topographical abstractions of trees, rocks and fences one might find in remote, rural areas. Also evident are the active edges of the field where the placement of motifs run off the plane as if to suggest the continued sparseness. Patrick McCaughey identifies the Australian Landscape series as Williams’ “most distinctive” as they encapsulate “so much of his development through the sixties and so much of what was new and important in that decade”, which was most relevantly the colour field movement.(1) Also notable in William’s new artistic direction was his medium. In January 1969 Williams first developed strip gouaches where he divided his sheets into rectangular panels as identified in Australian Landscape. They went on to be a typical pattern for his gouaches in the early years of the 1970s.
(1) Patrick McCaughey, Fred Williams, 1980, Bay Books, New South Wales, p218
Australian Landscape
Fred WilliamsAustralian Landscape #4
Ben QuiltyProvenance
Private collection, Sydney
Essay
Ben Quilty’s captivating painting, Australian Landscape #4, is a masterful example of the artist’s bold, career-defining early works.
Quilty has referred to the paintings of this period as being about young men looking for initiation. He uses Australia as his subject matter and young men for artistic inspiration. This pivotal series investigates the male human’s obsessive, unending love affair with the car. As Germaine Greer has written, ‘Ben Quilty’s car paintings are not a childish obsession. They depict the self-destructive urges that lie at the heart of young men.’1
While masculine in its subject and vigorous manner of execution, the colour palette of Australian Landscape #4 balances the work somewhat with its soft feminine colours of blush pinks and sage greens. Here, vast swathes of paint have been boldly applied with Quilty’s characteristic verve. His love affair with the medium itself is so evident in this magnificent example from the artist’s highly desirable car / ‘landscape’ period.
1 Germaine Greer, ‘School Boy Doodles?’, The Guardian, UK, 26th October 2009
Australian Sydney Harbour
Tom RobertsProvenance
Provenance:
The artist
John Young, Sydney; gift from the above circa 1920s
Macquarie Galleries, Sydney
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above in 1962
Sothebys Australia, Important Australian Art, Melbourne, November 23, 2009, Lot 48
Private collection, Sydney
Literature:
Helen Topliss, Tom Roberts 1856 1931: a catalogue raisonné (2 vols), Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985, vol. 1, p. 88, vol. II, plate 10 (illus.) (as Untitled. Thames Landscape).