GALLERY NEWS 27 JANUARY 2010: Leonard French, Garry Shead, Ray Crooke, Brett Whiteley

83 Moncur Street Woollahra NSW 2025
tel: 02 9362 0297 fax: 02 9362 0318
email: art@evabreuerartdealer.com.au

website: www.evabreuerartdealer.com.au

Important Australian Paintings

Leonard French (b.1928)

Leonard French (b.1928)
Winter Fountain c.1987-93
enamel and gold leaf on hessian on composition board
122 x 137 cm
Signed: l.r. 'French'
Provenance: Private collection Perth
no.11197

Throughout his career as an artist Leonard French has held true to the philosophy of art at the service of the common man. His works frequently depict epic stories, such as the Iliad, the Odyssey and events from the Bible. These stories allow him a platform to explore universal themes, most frequently the struggle and spiritual journey of a hero. His highly individual and distinctive works reveal a plethora of influences, from Byzantine mosaics (his symmetry and precision), to Gothic (bright colours outlined in black), Romanesque architecture (squat, solid figures) Cubism and the work of Léger to name but a few. This work, Winter Fountain, exemplifies all these elements. The two figures in the work – one black, one white and both with distinctive rounded heads, first began appearing in French’s work in the late 1980’s. Like many facets of French’s work they appear to be highly symbolic, but with the exact meaning intended by the artist obscured. Other works with these figures include The Release (in the collection of the Bendigo Art Gallery), Duet and The Tightrope (both in private collections.)

French's work is represented at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, all state galleries, most regional galleries and is also included in many major international collections, including the MoMA, New York. French also completed numerous monumental commissions in Australia, the most famous being the glass ceiling in the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria.

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Garry Shead (b.1942)

Garry Shead (b.1942)
Dancer c.1998
Oil on board
59 x 43 cm
Signed 'Shead' lower left
Provenance: Private collection Sydney
no.11134

As Sasha Grishin describes the series: “Throughout the series the constant recurring motif is that of the fully clad male dancer, usually shown in an evening suit and occasionally appearing slightly awkward and uncertain of himself, accompanied by a nude, or an almost nude female dancer. On one very basic level there is the aspect of voyeuristic erotic wish-fulfillment, drawing on the surrealist strategy of undressing the woman with the male gaze that had been so effectively employed by Renne Magrite. Shead’s female dancers are of great sensuous beauty and lyrical charm. There is a hint of a more metaphysical dimension of this dance, relating it to the dance of life as interpreted by artists like Edvard Munch. The Dance is performed on an allegorical stage like the arena of life, sometimes with an awareness of an audience and sometimes under the harsh glow of the spotlights. In most of the ‘Dance Sequence’ paintings there is an indication of an open door in the background, at times shown as the source of light, but in all instances the door way is a path for escape. Shead achieves in this series of paintings a great lyricism in the paint surface, a warm sensuousness through which the female flesh glows in a rich radiance. Increasingly these intimate interior settings allude to ambiguous and seductive dream-like reality where ideas and interpretations float free from gravity and verbal associations."

Reference: Grishin S, Garry Shead and The Erotic Muse, Craftsman House, 2001 p.166.

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Ray Crooke (b.1922)

Ray Crooke (b. 1922)
Villagers Relaxing
oil on canvas
75 x 61cm
signed lower left 'R. Crooke'
Provenance: Private collection Sydney
no.11049

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Brett Whiteley (1939-1992)

Brett Whiteley (1939-1992)
The Luxembourg Gardens (glimpse) (detail)
Pen and Ink on Paper
55.5 x 75 cm
Initialed 'BW' lower right
Illustrated: Brett Whiteley: Paris Regarde de Côté, Australian Galleries, 1990, Plate 41.
Provenance: Australian Galleries
Private collection Melbourne since 1992
no.11042

The Luxembourg Gardens (glimpse) is part of a series of works on paper which Whiteley produced in Paris between June and July of 1989. Whiteley had rented an apartment on the Rue de Tournon and produced one work a day for 60 days. These are regarde de cote (sidelong glances), which Whiteley saw as the answer to creating images of the city which were not cliché. "millions of pictures have been painted – how to find a new vision is the challenge. What one is after is a high-octane visual poetic journalism, brief, essential and above all fresh. This can best be achieved by drawing, and not the heavy métier of oil paint." Offered for the first time since it was acquired from the Paris Regarde de Coté exhibition this is a superb example of Whiteley's masterful draughtsmanship.

Reference: Brett Whiteley's introduction to: Brett Whiteley: Paris Regarde De Côté, Australian Galleries, 1990.

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John Coburn (1925-2006)

John Coburn (1925 - 2006)
Central Desert Painting
Oil on canvas
183 x 244cm
no.10080

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Elisabeth Kruger (b.1955)

Elisabeth Kruger (b.1955)
Cirque 2008
oil on linen
122.5 x 153cm
no.10884

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Ken Whisson (b.1927)

Ken Whisson (b.1927)
A Day in the Country 1967
Oil on board
73 x 102cm
Signed 'WHISSON' upper left
Inscribed verso "A DAY IN THE COUNTRY" / A DAY IN THE COUNTRY / CLEAR AND COLD / "THE FOXES ON THE HILLS BARKED CLEAR AND COLD"
Provenance: Watters Gallery, Sydney; Esa Jaske Gallery, Sudney
Exhibited: Ken Whisson: Paintings 1957-1985, Broken Hill City Art Gallery, New South Wales, 1985 (cat. 13)
Reference: Ken Whisson Paintings 1947-1999, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 2001, p. 120, cat. 19 (illustration p. 35)
Ken Whisson: Paintings 1957-1985, Broken Hill City Art Gallery, New South Wales, 1985, p. 50, cat. 13 (illustration p. 31)
no.7991

Ken Whisson is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, all state galleries, many regional galleries, as well as many other important public collections in Australia and overseas. He has been the recipient of many awards including the 1979 John McCaughey Memorial Art Prize.

Ken Whisson's highly individual form of painting is often derived from and stimulated by memory and intuition. John MacDonald explains that Whisson is "asking the viewer to see with the eye of the mind rather than expecting a perfect match between the object and it's representation." In A Day in the Country, Whisson pushes the paint around his canvases at oblique and obscure angles, creating opposing red, green yellow and blue shapes and forms which echo a figure or a chair a dog or a boat. The resulting painting is fluid and dynamic.

Illustrated: McDonald. J., et al, Ken Whisson Paintings 1947 - 1999, Niagara Publishing, 2001, p.35.

Visit our web site to view other important Australian paintings


Roland Wakelin (1887-1971)

Roland Wakelin (1887-1971)
Terrace Houses Double Bay 1963
Oil on board
45 x 64 cm
Signed 'R.Wakelin 63' bottom left
no.11144

Provenance:
Private collection, Melbourne
Private collection, Sydney

Exhibited:
Toorak Art Gallery (label attached verso) - On loan from Mr P English
Geelong Art Gallery (label attached verso)
Roland Wakelin Retrospective Art Gallery of NSW 8 - 30 April 1967 cat no.87
Roland Wakelin: Master of Colour, A Newcastle Regional Gallery Touring exhibition, 2002
Toured to Newcastle City Art Gallery 10-13 May 1967

Illustrated:
Roland Wakelin: Master of Colour, A Newcastle Regional Gallery Touring exhibition, 2002

Visit our web site to view other paintings by Roland Wakelin


Patrick Hockey (1948-1992)

Patrick Hockey (1948-1992)
Untitled 1975
oil on board
44 x 44 cm
signed 'Hockey 75' lower left
provenance: private collection Sydney
no.9656

Patrick Hockey is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, all state galleries, many regional galleries as well as many other important public collections both in Australia and internationally.

Hockey’s Australian ‘Outback Hotel’ series (loosely worked renderings of outback hotels and their patrons) capture the essence of the sun-hardened heart of the land and it’s quintessentially Australian characters.

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Arthur Murch (1902-1989)

Arthur Murch (1902-1989)
Leda and the swan
Oil on board
39.5 x 49.5 cm
no.5186a

Arthur Murch, a Sydney based painter, trained under Dattilo Rubbo and the sculptor Raynor Hoff in the early 1920s. Murch is renowned for his ability to recreate luminosity in paint. He won the NSW Society of Artists Travelling Art Scholarship in 1925 and worked as a studio assistant to George Lambert before travelling throughout Europe in the 1930s. He was appointed Official War Artist in 1942 and won the Archibald prize in 1949. Under Lambert, Murch developed a romantic style of painting. His paintings portray an idyllic version of Australian life, depicting a playful Arcadian seaside existence. Experimenting with colour, pattern and light, Murch developed a distinctive style.

Arthur Murch is represented in the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, and all State and many regional galleries.

Visit our web site to view other important Australian paintings


Jean Appleton (1911-2003)

Jean Appleton (1911 - 2003)
Early Morning Light c.1978
Oil on board
78 x 99 cm
no.5100

Jean Appleton is represented in many state and regional galleries as well as other public collections in Australia and overseas including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She was the recipient of many coveted awards including the inaugural Portia Geach Memorial Prize in 1965.

“Jean Appleton’s practice has always tended to still lifes and landscape, and since the mid-1970s at least she has been almost exclusively involved in painting interiors – works which at one level vary little in the flowers, fruits, furniture, jugs and drapery they utilise – and yet provide, as the still-life genre has traditionally done, endless possibilities for the artist to contemplate reality, experiment visually, and construct a vocabulary of creative expression."

Reference: Simpson, Caroline, Jean Appleton: a lifetime with art, Woollahra, N.S.W, 1998 pp.89

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Brian Dunlop (1938-2009)

Brian Dunlop (1938-2009)
Malatesta Kneeling 1979
oil on canvas
121 x 169cm
no.5599

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Ena Joyce (b.1926)

Ena Joyce (b.1926)
Bathing Sheds Round the Bay c.1958
oil on board
39.5 x 44cm
no.7231

Bathing Sheds Round the Bay c.1958 is a beautiful example of Joyce’s wonderful colour harmonies and sensitive observation of light.

"While teaching at Ballarat I met my future husband. We lived in Melbourne where I often painted round Port Phillip Bay and the areas familiar to Clarice Beckett." Ena Joyce

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Introducing Andrew Paviour

Andrew Paviour
Wedding Reception
oil on canvas
66 x 76 cm
no.11189

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Andrew Paviour
At the Races
oil on canvas
76 x 84 cm

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Contemporary Australian Paintings

Adriane Strampp (b.1960)

Adriane Strampp (b.1960)
Stags 2009
Oil on linen
101.5 x 101.5 cm
no.10650

Visit our website to view other paintings by Adriane Strampp


Christopher McVinish (b.1952)

Christopher McVinish (b.1952)
The Ongoing Moment
oil on canvas
110 x 110cm
no.11196

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Featured Graphic

Fred Williams (1927-1982)

Fred Williams (1927-1982)
Upwey Landscape 1965-1966
etching 16/22
21 x 13cm
signed 'Fred Williams' lower right
no.97355

Fred Williams is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, most state galleries, many regional galleries as well as many other public collections throughout Australia. Upwey Landscape 1965-66, a rare etching of this period, is an example of the unique visual shorthand which Williams devised to capture the beauty of the Australian landscape.

Visit our web site to view other graphics by Fred Williams

Current Exhibition

January
Gallery 1 & 2: Summer Exhibition


Upcoming Exhibitions

February
Gallery 1 & 2: Summer Exhibition

March
Gallery 1: Autumn Exhibition
Gallery 2: Wayne Eager

April
Gallery 1: Autumn Exhibition
Gallery 2: Pam Sackville

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