Painting of the Week
Geoffrey Proud (b.1946)
Focus On Tim Storrier
Tim Storrier (b.1949)
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
The Night Line / Comet 2009
Acrylic on canvas
61.5 x 122.5 cm
no.11150At the age of nineteen in 1968,
Tim Storrier was the youngest ever recipient of the Sulman Prize, an award also conferred on him in 1984. He studied graphic design at the National Art School, Sydney, and has travelled extensively to the USA, Europe, China and the Middle East. His study tours to Egypt and Central Australia conveyed to him the vastness of the landscape and remote civilisations. The 'Burning Rope' series began as a site-specific installation in Central Australia and portrays a line of fire invisibly suspended between two points, mirroring the horizon line in the distance.
Storrier is interested in the spiritual significance of reduced landscapes, the ephemeral gestures left by human interaction with nature and fire as representation of both devastation and renewal. There is a tension in his work between beauty and decay: his evocative use of texture and colour in the atmospheric effects at daybreak and dusk, are counterbalanced by destructive or gruesome elements like fire, snakes and slabs of meat.
Desert
Oil on board
104 x 140cm
signed 'Storrier' lower right
no.10151
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
Baggage Roll and Iron 1984
Mixed media
82.5 x 133.5cm
no.3524
Tim Storrier’s Baggage Roll and Iron 1984 is a mixed media collage produced during his visit to Giza, Egypt. The early 1980s were an important turning point for
Storrier as in 1983 he held his first international solo exhibition to critical acclaim at London’s Fischer Fine Art Gallery. In 1984 he travelled to Egypt to develop a series of commissioned works and found a new strengthened focus in the still life, which would form the basis of his art practice during this period.
Baggage Roll and Iron builds upon the appearance and conceptional notions present in his early 1980s ‘Surveyor’ series as the familiar combination of constructed and found objects are painstakingly arranged on the paper. In
Baggage Roll and Iron Storrier continues his interest in the tension between the Australian masculine of mythology and the ‘feminine’ craftsmanship of the ‘made weathered’ objects as well as the dichotomy between the landscape as untamed ground and Australia as mapped and colonised.
Baggage Roll and Iron is an important moment in
Storrier’s career and was uniquely produced in Giza.
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
Mandalay
Collagraph 1/70
58.5 x 112.5cm (image)
70 x 120.5cm (paper)
no.11142
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
Night Run 2007
Collagraph 51/70
57 x 112.5cm
Signed 'Storrier' LR, titled, date
no.9411
This collagraph is made by building up multiple colour layers in the print, using several wooden plates. Next the ink is applied to the plate using a series of hard or soft rollers, for various effects, in a process called relief printing, where the design is raised up on the surface of the block. The ink plate and paper are then rolled through the press. A variable is adjusting the amount of pressure in the press to get different effects. During the printing process, if the image requires it, some areas are wiped back to provide a soft edge or tonal variation. There can be as many as eighty colours and up to eight plates for each edition. There are generally three stages of printing, working from the lightest colours to the darkest. At each stage the areas inked up on each plate are carved away, this is referred to as reduction printing.
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
Towards an Innuendo of Impermanence 1981
Photograph
59.5 x 50cm
no.9779
Tim Storrier (b. 1949)
Still Life 1987
Lithograph 93/100
56.5 x 76cm (paper size)
dated, titled & signed 'Still Life Storrier 1987' lower right
edition number lower left
Commissioned by the New South Wales Cancer Council for its
Bicentennial Collection: A Portfolio of Australian artists
no.7718
Important Australian Abstract Paintings
Ann Thomson (b.1933)
Ann Thomson (b.1933)
Transmition
Oil on linen
122 x 153cm
no.10705
Dick Watkins (b.1937)
Dick Watkins (b.1937)
Ulysses 1989
Oil on canvas
167 x 244 cm
no.9733
A pioneer of Australian abstract painting,
Dick Watkins is represented in many Australian public collections, such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, as well as in many regional, private and corporate art collections.
Dick Watkins was at the forefront of artists exhibiting and promoting abstraction at Sydney’s Central Street Gallery from 1966-69. At this time, many of Australia’s expatriate artists living and working in London returned to Sydney and the creation of Central Street Gallery aimed to show Australia the exciting range of new artistic styles including Pop, Colour-field, Hard-edge, Minimalism and Conceptual art that were happening internationally.
Watkins has been included in important group exhibitions, such as in 1968, The Field, held at the National Gallery of Victoria. A retrospective exhibition of
Watkin’s work was held in 1989 at the Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery and in 1993 the National Gallery of Australia held the exhibition
Dick Watkins in context: an Exhibition from the collection of the National Gallery.
Dick Watkins lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Influences from cubism, pop art, Picasso and the American abstract expressionists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and Willem De Kooning, can be seen in the above work.
Stan Rapotec (1913-1997)
Stan Rapotec (1913-1997)
Untitled 1960
Oil on board
75 x 100 cm
Illustrated: Bojic, Z., Stanislav Rapotec, a Barbarogenius in Australian art,
Andrejevic Endowment 2007, picture b/w 1, page 142.
no. 5876
Stanislaus Rapotec was one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism in Australia. He is represented in the Australian National Gallery, all state galleries, many regional galleries as well as many other important public collections both in Australia and overseas including the Australian Embassy, Paris, Vatican Gallery of Modern Religious Art, Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris.
Rapotec has been the recipient of many awards including the 1961 Blake Prize.
In Untitled 1960 the bold and energetic brushstrokes swirl and explode across the board, masterfully capturing the artists physical and emotional gestures.
Alun Leach-Jones (b.1937)
Alun Leach-Jones (b.1937)
Instrument for a Solitary Navigator No. 11 1994
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
137 x 117 cm
no. 9740
Born in the UK in 1937,
Leach-Jones works can be found in many international and national public collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The British Museum, London; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Parliament House Collection, Canberra; and Art Bank, Sydney. As well as many regional art Galleries, university collections and Private collections throughout Australia, U.S.A., U.K., Switzerland, Wales and New Zealand.
Leach-Jones moved to Sydney in 1960 where he now resides and works.
Leach-Jones has had over seventy solo exhibitions and was elected an Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London.
Carl Plate (1909 - 1997)
Carl Plate (1909 - 1977)
Third Edge 1961
Oil on board
181 x 121 cm
Signed 'Carl Plate '61' lower left
Signed and inscribed with title, verso:
'EDGE/CARL PLATE'
Exhibited: Sydney, Royal Agricultural Show
no. 8138
Plate’s Third Edge 1961 is a monumental painting which exemplifies the immediacy found in the very best paintings of this period.
Carl Plate was born in Perth and studied at the National Art School in Sydney. He then travelled and studied abroad before returning to Sydney in 1940, where he had a remarkable influence on local artists through the establishment of his famous Notanda Gallery in Rowe Street, Sydney. He was a highly gifted painter who moved from figurative abstraction in the 50’s to pure abstraction during the 1960s and 70s.
Plate has won prizes such as the McCaughey Prize in 1968 and the Aubusson Tapestry Prize in 1967. Plate is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, all state galleries, regional galleries in NSW as well as institutions in London, New York, Paris and important corporate and private collections in Australia.
Sale Section
Garry Shead (b.1942)
Garry Shead (b.1942)
Untitled 3 / VII 1976
Ink and watercolour on paper
36 x 26cm
no.6293
Untitled 3 / VII 1976 is a wonderful example of
Shead’s skill with watercolour. The repeated curve within the vertical composition and the delicate, translucent tones give the subject a sense of weightlessness. This painting is influenced by Picasso’s Vollard Suite.
Jean Sutherland (1902-1978)
Jean Sutherland (1902-1978)
Asters in a White Vase c.1927
Oil on canvas
56 x 41cm
no.3146
Jean Sutherland is represented in the National Gallery of Victoria as well as many important collections throughout Australia. Sutherland was the recipient of many awards including the 1923 National Gallery of Victoria Travelling Art Scholarship.
Sali Herman (1898-1993)
Sali Herman (1898-1993)
English Wedding 1953-58
Oil on canvas
46 x 61cm
Signed 'S Herman 53/58' lower right
Provenance: Queensland Art Gallery
no.7179
Sali Herman is recognised as one of Australia's most important painters. His work is held in all Australian State galleries, the National Gallery of Australia, and many regional galleries and other public collections. A major retrospective of his work toured Australia in 1981.
Sali Herman has been the recipient of many coveted awards including the Wynne prize in 1944, 1962 and 1965, and the Sulman prize in 1946 and 1948.
English Wedding 1953-58 exemplifies the strength and individuality for which
Sali Herman is celebrated. There is a modelled texture to the surface of the painting. Layers of colour have been worked over each other in order to create a sense of energy and depth.
Featured Graphic
John Olsen (b.1928)
John Olsen (b.1928)
Lily Pond
Etching 29/30
17 x 15cm (plate size)
38 x 29cm (sheet size)
no.11034
John Olsen (b.1928)
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