100 Highlights from the CBUS COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN ART

100 Highlights from the

C BUS C OL L EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT AUCTION • MELBOURNE • 27 JULY 2022

EVERY MASTERPIECE NEEDS A

S I G N AT U R E

The Signature is a masterfully crafted and truly remarkable wine. But it would not be complete without the signature of an individual who has contributed greatly to the life and soul of Yalumba. Who will be the next Signatory? Only time will tell.

Embrace the Magnificent Unknown

100 Highlights from the

C BUS C OLL EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT Lots 1 – 100

AUCTION • MELBOURNE • 27 JULY 2022

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MELBOURNE • AUCTION + VIEWING

105 commercial road, south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 • facsimile: 03 9865 6344 info@deutscherandhackett.com

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SYDNEY • VIEWING

36 gosbell street, paddington, new south wales, 2021 telephone: 02 9287 0600 • facsimile: 02 9287 0611 info@deutscherandhackett.com

melbourne auction

sydney viewing

melbourne viewing

absentee/telephone bids

live online bidding

LOTS 1 – 100 WEDNESDAY 27 JULY 7:00 pm 105 commercial road south yarra, vic telephone: 03 9865 6333 TUESDAY 12 – SUNDAY 17 JULY 36 gosbell street paddington, nsw telephone: 02 9287 0600 11:00 am – 6:00 pm THURSDAY 21 – TUESDAY 26 JULY 105 commercial road south yarra, vic telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00 am – 6:00 pm email bids to: info@deutscherandhackett.com telephone: 03 9865 6333 fax: 03 9865 6344 telephone bid form – p. 217 absentee bid form – p. 218 www.deutscherandhackett.com/watch-live-auction

www.deutscherandhackett.com • info@deutscherandhackett.com

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specialists

CHRIS DEUTSCHER executive director — melbourne Chris is a graduate of Melbourne University and has over 40 years art dealing, auction and valuation experience as Director of Deutscher Fine Art and subsequently as co-founder and Executive Director of Deutscher~Menzies. He has extensively advised private, corporate and museum art collections and been responsible for numerous Australian art publications and landmark exhibitions.

He is also an approved valuer under the Cultural Gifts Program.

FIONA HAYWARD senior art specialist After completing a Bachelor of Arts at Monash University, Fiona worked at Niagara Galleries in Melbourne, leaving to join the newly established Melbourne auction rooms of Christie’s in 1990, rising to become an Associate Director. In 2006, Fiona joined Sotheby’s International as a Senior Paintings Specialist and later Deputy Director. In 2009, Sotheby’s International left the Australian auction market and established a franchise agreement with Sotheby’s Australia, where Fiona remained until the end of 2019 as a Senior Specialist in Australian Art. At the end of the franchise agreement with Sotheby’s Australia, Smith & Singer was established where Fiona worked until the end of 2020.

VERONICA ANGELATOS art specialist and senior researcher Veronica has a Master of Arts (Art Curatorship and Museum Management), together with a Bachelor of Arts/Law (Honours) and Diploma of Modern Languages from the University of Melbourne. She has strong curatorial and research expertise, having worked at various art museums including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice and National Gallery of Victoria, and more recently, in the commercial sphere as Senior Art Specialist at Deutscher~Menzies.

She is also the author of numerous articles and publications on Australian and International Art.

CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE head of aboriginal art and senior art specialist Crispin holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts and History) from Monash University.

In 1995, he began working for Sotheby’s Australia, where he became the representative for Aboriginal art in Melbourne. In 2006 Crispin joined Joel Fine Art as head of Aboriginal and Contemporary Art and later was appointed head of the Sydney office. He possesses extensive knowledge of Aboriginal art and has over 20 years experience in the Australian fine art auction market.

CLAIRE KURZMANN head of online sales, gallery manager - melbourne Claire has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) from the University of Melbourne.

She gained several years’ experience working as Gallery Assistant at Metro Gallery, Melbourne, assisting with exhibitions, events and marketing. She has acted as Artist Liaison for the Arts Centre Melbourne, coordinating aspects of artist care and has gained experience as a Studio Assistant for a number of emerging Australian artists.

ROGER McILROY head auctioneer Roger was the Chairman, Managing Director and auctioneer for Christie’s Australia and Asia from 1989 to 2006, having joined the firm in London in 1977. He presided over many significant auctions, including Alan Bond’s Dallhold Collection (1992) and The Harold E. Mertz Collection of Australian Art (2000). Since 2006, Roger has built a highly distinguished art consultancy in Australian and International works of art. Roger will continue to independently operate his privately-owned art dealing and consultancy business alongside his role at Deutscher and Hackett.

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specialists

DAMIAN HACKETT executive director — sydney Damian has over 30 years experience in public and commercial galleries and the fine art auction market. After completing a BA (Visual Arts) at the University of New England, he was Assistant Director of the Gold Coast City Art Gallery and in 1993 joined Rex Irwin Art Dealer, a leading commercial gallery in Sydney. In 2001, Damian moved into the fine art auction market as Head of Australian and International art for Phillips de Pury and Luxembourg, and from 2002 – 2006 was National Director of Deutscher~Menzies.

HENRY MULHOLLAND senior art specialist Henry Mulholland is a graduate of the National Art School in Sydney, and has had a successful career as an exhibiting artist. Since 2000, Henry has also been a regular art critic on ABC Radio 702. He was artistic advisor to the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust Basil Sellers Sculpture Project, and since 2007 a regular feature of Sculpture by the Sea, leading tours for corporate stakeholders and conducting artist talks in Sydney, Tasmania and New Zealand. Prior to joining Deutscher & Hackett, Henry’s fine art consultancy provided a range of services, with a particular focus on collection management and acquiring artworks for clients on the secondary market.

LUCIE REEVES-SMITH contemporary art specialist and gallery manager – sydney Lucie completed her studies in Belgium, obtaining Masters of Arts in Art History (Modern and Contemporary Art), together with a Bachelors of Art History, Archaeology and Musicology from the Université Catholique de Louvain. Since returning to Australia in 2014, she has gained sound experience in cataloguing, research and arts writing through various roles with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and with private art advisory firms Tutela Capital and LoveArt International.

ALEX CRESWICK head of finance With a Bachelor of Business Accounting at RMIT, Alex has almost 25 years experience within financial management roles. He has spent much of his early years within the corporate sector with companies such as IBM, Macquarie Bank and ANZ. With a strong passion for the arts more recently he was the Financial Controller for Ross Mollison Group, a leading provider of marketing services to the performing arts.

ELLA PERROTTET registrar Ella has a Bachelor of Fine Art (Visual Art) from Monash University and studied in both Melbourne and Italy. From 2014, Ella worked at Leonard Joel, Melbourne as an Art Assistant, researcher, writer and auctioneer, where she developed a particular interest in Australian women artists. She is currently studying a Masters of Business (Arts and Cultural Management) at Deakin University with a focus on collection management and research.

SCOTT LIVESEY auctioneer Scott Livesey began his career in fine art with Leonard Joel Auctions from 1988 to 1994 before moving to Sotheby’s Australia in 1994, as auctioneer and specialist in Australian Art. Scott founded his eponymous gallery in 2000, which represents both emerging and established contemporary Australian artists, and includes a regular exhibition program of indigenous Art. Along with running his contemporary art gallery, Scott has been an auctioneer for Deutscher and Hackett since 2010.

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specialists for this auction

Chris Deutscher 0411 350 150 Damian Hackett 0422 811 034 Henry Mulholland 0424 487 738 Fiona Hayward 0417 957 590 Crispin Gutteridge 0411 883 052 Lucie Reeves-Smith 0401 177 007 Veronica Angelatos 0409 963 094 AUCTIONEERS Roger McIlroy Scott Livesey ADMINISTRATION AND ACCOUNTS Alex Creswick (Melbourne) 03 9865 6333 Lucie Reeves-Smith (Sydney) 02 9287 0600 ABSENTEE AND TELEPHONE BIDS Eliza Burton 03 9865 6333 SHIPPING Ella Perrottet 03 9865 6333 CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Eliza Burton 03 9865 6333

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contents preface

page

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introduction

page

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lots 1 – 100

page

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prospective buyers and sellers guide

page

210

conditions of auction and sale

page

212

catalogue subscription form

page

215

attendee pre-registration form

page

216

telephone bid form

page

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absentee bid form

page

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index

page

231

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C BUS C OLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN A RT

100 Highlights from the

C BUS C OL L EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT P R E FA C E For 40 years, the Cbus Collection of Australian Art made valuable and much-loved Australian works of art accessible to Cbus members and the Australian public.

This Collection was a unique collaboration between Cbus and well-known figures in the art world, notably renowned Australian art advisor and collector Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, who saw that Australian art was under-valued and shared a vision to invest in part of Australia’s cultural history.

Advised by Dr Brown, the Collection was built up in the 1990s and early 2000s. Over 300 works were acquired and loaned to Australian regional galleries.

We thank our partners in managing this Collection, led by the Latrobe Regional Gallery, and all the many regional galleries that have lovingly displayed these works over the years.

Cbus is proud of its heritage and past decisions to invest in cultural history, and we are thankful to have had the opportunity to be custodians of such an extraordinary collection of Australia’s colonial, traditional, modern, contemporary and Aboriginal art over the past 40 years. Cbus pays tribute to our past trustees for their vision in establishing this Collection.

Cbus’ decision to auction this Collection now affords a wonderful opportunity for Australia’s art community, collectors and investors.

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C BUS C OL L EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT Established in 1992, the Cbus (then BUS) Collection of Australian Art emerged following an approach to the industry superannuation fund by legendary artworld figures, Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE and Professor Bernard Smith at the end of the 1980s. Their concern was that in the then economic environment, Australian art was significantly undervalued with the result that overseas collectors were buying major works which they believed should remain in Australia. Accordingly, acquiring a Collection not only offered sound investment potential but importantly, would contribute to the preservation of Australia’s artistic heritage. After lengthy discussions and consideration of art as a long-term investment, in 1990 the Trustee Board decided to invest in Indigenous, colonial and representative art of the twentieth century. By 2007, the Collection had closed to new acquisitions.

Demonstrating a remarkable gesture of faith in the cultural as well as fiscal value of Australian art, the Cbus patronage was informed by the keen eye and extraordinary connoisseurship of Dr Brown as sole art advisor.

Strategically optimising the number of artists included by generally limiting representation to a single work (although certain artists have been acquired in greater depth to offer a more comprehensive view), the Collection features major works by most of the greats of Australian art history, from Colonial artists William Piguenit and Eugene Von Guérard to Impressionists Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin; modernists including Margaret Preston, Clarice Beckett and Dorrit Black; classic moderns including Russell Drysdale, Fred Williams and Sidney Nolan and more contemporary figures including Jeffrey Smart, John Olsen and Rosalie Gascoigne. Indigenous artists from remote communities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory are also represented, such as Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, Anatjari Tjakamarra, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi and Pansy Napangardi.

A passionate advocate for equality of access to arts and culture, Dr Brown made it a condition of his involvement in the Cbus Collection that the works be loaned to selected regional galleries for an indefinite period. As a result, a fascinating quality of the Collection has been its dispersed location across several regional galleries in eastern Australia, with most of the works permanently accessible to audiences who do not have the same cultural opportunities as available in large metropolitan areas – specifically, Latrobe Regional Gallery (responsible for managing the whole Collection), and public galleries in Wollongong, Newcastle, Geelong, Broken Hill, Bendigo, Gippsland, and the Mornington Peninsula, as well as the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania.

Over the years, the Collection has been featured in several dedicated travelling exhibitions organised by the Latrobe Regional Gallery including A New World (2009), which was accompanied by a sumptuous hardcover publication showcasing the Collection; Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection (2012), and Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art (2014). Selected works from the Collection have also been included in many major exhibitions and retrospectives on individual artists, and in 1991, Cbus acquired all the works from the important exhibition of Papunya Tula artists, Friendly Country – Friendly People which toured south-eastern Australia during 1991 – 1992.

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Brian Dunlop (1938 – 2009) Portrait of Dr Joseph Brown, 1991 Commissioned by Cbus in 1991 © Brian Dunlop/Copyright Agency 2022

Deutscher + Hackett is honoured to be afforded the opportunity to present the prestigious Cbus Collection for sale. Representing 160 years of Australia’s rich cultural history, from the colonial era through to contemporary, the Cbus Collection will be offered through the current live auction in Melbourne on 27 July 2022 featuring a selection of 100 Highlights, and the following three dedicated online auctions scheduled throughout August 2022: PART II: Modern + Contemporary Art from the Cbus Collection of Important Australian Art Online Thursday 4 – Tuesday 9 August, closing 7 pm PART III: Traditional + Modern Art from the Cbus Collection of Important Australian Art Thursday 11 – Tuesday 16 August, closing 7 pm PART IV: Indigenous Art from the Cbus Collection of Important Australian Art Thursday 18 – Tuesday 23 August, closing 7 pm

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100 Highlights from the

C BUS C OL L EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT

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EUGENE VON GUÉRARD (1811 – 1901) ON THE AMERICKAN CREEK NEAR WOLLONGONG, c.1859 – 61 oil on academy board 18.0 x 23.0 cm signed lower right: Guérard inscribed with title verso: On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong [sic.]/ N. S. W. bears framers’ label verso: Reeves & Sons, London bears inscription on frame verso: Bought by Lady Clarke / 1970 from / Hans Heysen Collection / Malvern Town Hall …

ESTIMATE: $80,000 – 120,000 PROVENANCE Hans Heysen, Adelaide The Hans Heysen Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 18 – 19 June 1970, lot 102 (as ‘On the Amerikan Creek, near Wollongong’) Lady Clarke, Melbourne Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2000, lot 55 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Figures & Landscapes: Curated works from The Cbus Collection of Australian Art and the Latrobe Regional Gallery Permanent Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Bruce, C., Comstock, E., and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor, Sydney, 1982, cat. 54, p. 212 (as ‘[American Creek near Wollongong, c.1860]’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 24 (illus.) 236 RELATED WORK Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, New South Wales, 1860, oil on canvas, 51.2 x 85.5 cm, in the collection of Wollongong Art Gallery, New South Wales Figtree on American Creek near Wollongong, 1861, oil on canvas, 83.7 x 66.1 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

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Eugene von Guérard [Sunset in New South Wales], 1865 oil on canvas 99.1 x 119.4 cm State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Eugene von Guérard’s On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong, c.1859 – 61 is one of a group of important works inspired by the artist’s December 1859 sketching expedition to the Illawarra region of New South Wales.1 In the lush subtropical rainforest that thrived with the protection of the Illawarra escarpment in this humid coastal region 80 kilometres south of Sydney, the artist immersed himself in Alexander von Humboldt’s ‘grand theatre of tropical nature.’2 In Humboldt’s hugely influential publications the ground-breaking natural scientist had urged artists to travel to the new worlds to capture ‘the true image of the varied forms of nature … in the humid mountain valleys of the tropical world.’3 ‘Nowhere does she [nature] more deeply impress us with a sense of her greatness,’ he wrote, ‘nowhere does she speak to us more forcibly than in the tropical world.’4 In travelling into the Illawarra von Guérard followed in the footsteps of a succession of European botanists, notably Alan Cunningham, and artists, including Augustus Earle, Conrad Martens, George French Angas and, in 1859, Joseph Selleny, the Austrian artist who travelled on the Novara expedition artist with an eminent geologist, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, with whom von Guérard shared a professional association.

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Von Guérard’s close associate, Ferdinand von Mueller, had undertaken Humboldt-focused research there only a few years before the artist set out on his expedition.5 Of the six days von Guérard spent in the Wollongong region, Wednesday 7 December, 1859, the day the sketches associated with the present work were created, was the day of most intense activity. As the artist hacked his way through dense tropical vegetation on the American Creek – named for the Canadian cedar getters who made camp there in the 1840s – he produced ten drawings, eight in his sketchbook and two on larger sheets. And on that one highly productive day, he sketched the subjects for three of his Illawarra canvases: A Figtree on the American Creek, near Wollongong, NSW, 1861 (Art Gallery of New South Wales); Sunset, New South Wales, 1865 and On the Americkan Creek near Woolongong (both in the State Library of New South Wales).

Like Sunset, New South Wales, von Guérard’s On the Americkan Creek is a composite of two drawings. By combining aspects of the view taken from two slightly different vantage points, he was able to place the waterfall in the centre of the composition and depict the towering palms

Eugene von Guérard Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, New South Wales, 1860 oil on canvas 51.2 x 85.5 cm Collection of Wollongong Art Gallery, New South Wales Purchased with assistance from the Wollongong Gallery Society, NSW Office of the Minister for the Arts, Public subscription, 1984

– for Humboldt ‘the loftiest and most stately of all vegetable forms’ – behind it, their forms dramatically silhouetted against a fiery sunset.6 He framed his view of this dark and secluded pocket of the rainforest with a vine-covered fig-tree (one of Humboldt’s privileged subjects), and emphasized its inaccessibility with a foreground of water, rocks and a fern-covered log. The viewer’s attention is led upwards, from the light reflected on the water, to the sun directly above it, and to Humboldt’s revered ‘tall and slender’ palms with their crowns of ‘shining, fan-like, or pinnated leaves.’7 The composition is further unified by the fierce red of the tropical sunset which spreads through the work, suffusing the clouds and higher vegetation with colour, and reaching down to the depths of the forest floor.

In keeping with Humboldt’s requirements of the artist, von Guérard portrayed individual species – the cabbage tree palms (Livistona Australis), the Moreton Bay Fig Ficus macrophylla, its trunk wrapped in vines and the epiphytic bird’s nest ferns (Asplenium nidus) – with botanical accuracy, in their natural groupings and in their environmental context. He also responded as an artist, the unruly vigour of tropical growth expressed in the energy of his brushwork. His experience of the

‘greatness’ of the tropical world on that particular day is captured in the tiny – just visible – figure seated on a rock to the left of the waterfall.

On the Americkan Creek, like Cabbage Tree Forest, American Creek, New South Wales (Wollongong Art Gallery), is a record of a now largely lost passage of rainforest portrayed by one of the greatest, most environmentally aware and technically sophisticated painters of the Australian landscape. Owned by the artist Hans Heysen for many years, before passing to Lady Clarke, it has a distinguished provenance.

1. See Ruth Pullin, Eugene von Guérard: The Artist as Traveller, Ballarat Art Gallery, Ballarat, 2018, pp. 155 – 162 2. Humboldt, Alexander von, Views of Nature, or Contemplations on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation, trans. Mrs Sabine, Longmans & J. Murray, London, 1849, p. 229. (first published in German,1808) 3. Humboldt, Alexander von, Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, v.2, trans. E. C. Otté. Henry G. Bohn, London, 1849, p. 452 4. Humboldtt, Views of Nature, 1849, op.cit., p. 154 5. Letter, F. Mueller to J. Foster, 10 March 1854 cited in Pullin, R. Eugene von Guérard: Nature Revealed, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, p. 157 6. Humboldt, Views of Nature, 1849, op.cit., p 223 7. Ibid.

DR RUTH PULLIN

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EUGENE VON GUÉRARD

2

(1811 – 1901) WEST BROOK, JUNE 29, 1831, c.1860 oil on academy board 28.5 x 35.0 cm signed with initials lower right: E. v. G. inscribed with title lower centre: West brook. June 29. 1831.

ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Mr and Mrs Frank Lewis, Melbourne, acquired c.1965 Clune Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in October 1972 Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 May 1975, lot 859 Private collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 50 (dated c.1870) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Eugen Von Guerard. An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints, Clune Galleries, Sydney, October 1972, cat. 1 (as ‘Westbrook’) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 on long term loan to Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania (label attached verso) LITERATURE Bruce, C., Comstock, E., and McDonald, F., Eugene von Guérard: A German Romantic in the Antipodes, Alister Taylor, Sydney, 1982, cat. 59, p. 213 (as ‘Westbrook’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 236

This beautifully realised work is one of the most intriguing and enigmatic of Eugene von Guérard’s entire career. Both the inscription, ‘West brook.

June 29. 1831,’ and the architectural style of the house suggest an English subject. However, in 1831 von Guérard was far from England: the nineteen-year-old had just embarked on his artistic training in Rome under the Italian landscape painter, Giambattista Bassi. Although he passed through London en route to Australia in August 1852 and spent the last decade of his life there, this work cannot be linked with either period.

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Von Guérard’s use of the English form of ‘June’ indicates that West Brook was painted after he arrived in the English-speaking colony of Victoria, probably to fulfil a patron’s desire for an image of ‘home.’ Many in the colony would have shared the feelings of von Guérard’s close friend, the art critic James Smith, who wrote movingly and in explicit detail of his memories of his childhood home in the village of Loose in Kent.1 Von Guérard and Smith certainly shared their memories of Europe – the artist painted an Italian subject for Smith in 1859 – and while it is tempting to imagine that this work depicts Smith’s childhood home, and ‘Westbrook,’ a house that still stands in Loose, this is not supported by the visual evidence. 2 West Brook, June, 29, 1831, c.1860 with its reference to a specific date, seemingly alludes to a time and place of deep personal significance for its unknown patron, and to a particular memory encapsulated in the cameo of the children playing with their dog, watched over by a couple returning from their toil in the fields visible beyond the house. Perhaps working from a verbal description or sketches provided to him, von Guérard depicted the portico, paned windows, attic and chimney pots of the stone house in meticulous detail; the firs and larches that surround the house were informed by studies in his German sketchbooks. Less typical of England are the barren peaks that rise in the distance: modelled in a palette of dusty pinks with violet shadows they are more akin to the mountains found in the artist’s Australian works, for example, A View from Mt Franklin towards Mount Kooroocheang and the Pyrenees, c.1864.

Von Guérard conveyed a sense of the evidently happy memories that were the genesis of this painting in the warmth of his palette and the similarly warm late afternoon light that washes over this bucolic scene.

Every blade of grass, every wildflower and every leaf on every tree is individuated in rich strokes of pigment and, as is typical of his best works, becomes part of a unified and harmonious composition.

1. James Smith, Private Diary, 10 March 1863. Smith Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, MS 212; James Smith , ‘An English Village Fifty Years Ago’, Argus, 19 April 1879 2. Eugene von Guérard Temple of Apollo and Lake Avernus, 1859, oil on millboard, 27.8 x 35.6 cm, collection of the Art Gallery of Ballarat DR RUTH PULLIN

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CONRAD MARTENS

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(1801 – 1878) TAHLEE, PORT STEPHENS, NSW, 1841 or 1842 oil on canvas 33.5 x 48.0 cm signed lower right: C Martens inscribed verso: from Phillip P. King / Sep 1849 ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 80,000

PROVENANCE Philip Parker King, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist Thomas Bridgeman Lethbridge, Esq., a gift from the above in 1849 Thence by descent Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1985 Christie’s, Melbourne, 9 April 1991, lot 226 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Autumn Exhibition 1979, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 5 – 20 April 1979, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue and frontispiece) Australian Art: 1820s – 1980s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 19 May – 3 June 1988, cat. 12 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 1 The Reading Room, The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE de Vries – Evans, S., Conrad Martens on the Beagle and in Australia, Pandanus Press, Brisbane, 1993, p. 105 (as ‘Tahlee from the Water’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 23 (illus.), 226

In 1841, Conrad Martens travelled north from Sydney to Newcastle and Port Stephens, seeking fresh scenery, new commissions and to visit Captain Phillip Parker King, noted hydrographer and recently appointed commissioner of the pastoral Australian Agricultural Company. Pencil sketches that Martens drew during this visit (now held in the State Library of New South Wales) informed two paintings commissioned

by King of Tahlee, the elegant sandstone commissioner’s residence, comfortably situated above Nelson Bay at Port Stephens.1 As was usual

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in his practice, Martens manipulated atmospheric conditions as a compositional device; in this oil painting, the dark and shadowed native vegetation and storm clouds in the right half of the composition are interrupted by the vertical boat mast, while the sweep of the illuminated sail leads the eye towards the buildings, and the sunlit, cleared land and jetty at left. 2 The King family had proven generous supporters of Martens. When the travelling artist had first arrived in Sydney in April 1835, he carried a letter of introduction from Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle, to King, the previous captain of that now-famous ship, upon which Marten had served as expedition artist, together with the young Charles Darwin and King’s son, midshipman Phillip Gidley King junior. FitzRoy’s warm letter and King’s subsequent friendship and patronage were critical to Marten’s professional success in Sydney. During his long career, Martens produced an extensive body of watercolours, oil paintings, drawings, sketches and lithographs capturing the sparkling waters of Port Jackson’s numerous bays; picturesque views of Australian environments seen during his travels from the Illawarra to the Darling Downs; and numerous local and rural residences, including those of the Kings, their relatives the Macarthurs, and other leading figures of the colony’s burgeoning civil community and squattocracy.

King served as commissioner from 1839 – 49 and was the last in that position to reside at Tahlee; the original house was destroyed by fire in 1860. Martens continued to paint regularly for the Kings, including to record the funeral flotilla of by-then Rear Admiral King across Sydney Harbour upon his death in 1856. 3 1. Martens recorded painting Tahlee from the water (Dec 1841) and Tahlee from the Island (May 1842) for King. In 1855, he painted a View of Tahlee for Reverend R. King. He also recorded four other views of the house: two commissioned in 1841 (Mrs Dumaresq); one in 1842 (J.W. White) and one purchased by ‘Wilshire Esq’ (possibly the artist William Pitt Wilshire) from the Fine Arts Society exhibition in Sydney in 1849. See Conrad Martens, Account of Pictures Painted at Sydney N. S. Wales, SLNSW DLMS 142. For a compilation of his 1841 sketches, see https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2012/01/23/conrad-martens-in-newcastle-and-the-hunter (accessed 4 June 2022) 2. In another version from the same vantage point, the sailing boat is replaced with a rowing boat; see Conrad Martens, Tahlee House, Port Stephens, NSW, sold Sotheby’s, Sydney, 4 Dec. 1994, lot. 25 3. Thirteen paintings commissioned by King, three by Mrs King (including two of her husband’s funeral: SLNSW ML 994, private collection), plus more by other relatives are recorded by Martens in his Account, SLNSW DLMS 142.

ALISA BUNBURY

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S. T. GILL

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(1818 – 1880) VIEW OF ADELAIDE FROM BELAIR ROAD, c.1860 watercolour on paper 36.5 x 69.0 cm (sight) signed with initials lower left: S.T.G bears inscription on old label verso: Mrs E.M. Vidura / … / Adelaide Plains from Mt Lofty / Ranges / by S. T. Gill.

ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Mrs E M Vidura, Melbourne (inscribed on label verso) Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 30 July 1990, lot 136 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 1 August 1990 EXHIBITED Selected Australian Works of Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, 11 – 29 May 1981, cat. 6 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 2 (as c.1845) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 18, no. 3, Autumn 1981, p. 214 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 22 (illus.), 219

S.T. Gill is often remembered as the quintessential artist of the Australian goldfields, capturing with his deft line the tension, boredom, humour, celebration and desperation of that tumultuous period. However, he is less frequently remembered as an early documenter of life in the new colony of South Australia, where he lived for twelve years prior to the discovery of gold. The young Samuel Thomas – then twenty-one – arrived with his parents and siblings in December 1839, only three years after Adelaide was founded on the lands of the Kaurna people. Having received training in Plymouth and London, within three months Gill was

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advertising his artistic availability. In his advertisement he proclaimed his willingness to capture ‘correct likenesses’ of individuals, horses, dogs, local scenery and residences ‘sketched and… suited for home conveyance’, to record and inform distant family and friends of life in Australia.1 In addition to these genres, Gill travelled to townships around the colony, undertaking commissions including recording the early copper and silver mining industries, and participating in exploratory travels. By the mid-1840s, his lively art was being displayed in Britain to entice immigrants and investment, and appeared increasingly in printed formats, furthering his growing reputation.

This imposing watercolour is among the largest of Gill’s paintings, the wide sheet allowing him to depict the expansive view from the Mt Lofty Ranges, looking north to the distant city of Adelaide. We see Gill’s attention to detail in feathery leaves and textured bark of the gum trees that frame the steep descent, down which the plodding cattle disappear.

The vibrant colours of the men’s shirts contrast with the pastel colours beyond, the changing tones of the sun-lit and cloud-shaded expanse of the plains below leading to the silver-lined horizon of the waters of the St Vincent Gulf. Gill often did not date his paintings; instead, his initialled signature evolved over the years. 2 The flourishing tail of the G seen here suggests that this watercolour was painted after he had departed South Australia for Victoria in 1852, and thus would have been based upon sketches that he took with him. Its size may indicate that it was done by commission, as with his series depicting Prospect House, Adelaide, 1850 which are of a similarly grand scale. 3 An earlier, looser watercolour Adelaide Plains from the road to Government Farm, 1842, shows a different aspect of the winding road to Belair, formerly the site of the government farm and the governor’s summer residence, and now the Belair National Park.4 1.

South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register, 7 March 1840, p. 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article27441257 2. See R. Appleyard, B. Fargher and R. Radford, S.T. Gill: The South Australian Years 1838 – 1852, AGSA, 1986, Appendix B: Signatures and dating 3. Gill’s four views of Prospect House are in the Art Gallery of South Australia (O.1345, O.1346, O.1348, O.1349) 4. Gill, Adelaide Plains from the road to Government Farm, 1842, SLNSW, DG V*/Sp Coll/Gill/18.

ALISA BUNBURY

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WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT (1836 – 1914) “WHEN THE GLOW IS IN THE WEST”, LANE COVE FROM ABOVE THE BRIDGE, 1893 oil on canvas 76.0 x 127.0 cm signed and dated lower right: W.C. PIGUENIT / 1893 ESTIMATE: $100,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE James R Lawson, Sydney, 25 October 1911 Private collection Christie’s, Sydney, 6 October 1976, lot 291 (as ‘A River, New South Wales’) Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne Danuta and Ted Rogowski, Melbourne The Rogowski Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 February 1998, lot 43 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Art Society of New South Wales 15th Exhibition, York Street, Sydney, September 1894, cat. 309 Selected Australian Works of Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, 24 October – 4 November 1983, cat. 17 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘A Coastal River, New South Wales’) W.C. Piguenit, 1836–1914: retrospective, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 16 December 1992 – 14 February 1993 and touring, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 March – 2 April 1993; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 13 May – 4 July 1993, cat. 36 (label attached verso) Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘The Piguenit Exhibition’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 23 October 1911, p. 10 (as ‘When the Glow is in the West’) Johannes, C., and Brown, A., W.C. Piguenit, 1836 – 1914: retrospective, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1992, cat. 36, pp. 58 (illus., as ‘Lane Cove from above the Bridge’), 65 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 14, 17, 28 (illus.), 230

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5

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William Charles Piguenit A winter evening, Lane Cove, 1888 oil on canvas 76.4 × 128.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

‘I often look down the estuary of Lane Cove, near our house, and am struck with the blueness of the landscape. The trees, at a distance of only half a mile, are a rich purplish blue, set in a blue environment which gives a dreamy blue indefiniteness to the whole landscape, which is often intensified in the early mornings.’1 No matter how commanding the scenery beyond might be – often towering mountains or sweeping vistas – few of William Charles Piguenit’s landscapes fail to contain expanses of water: streams, rivers, lakes, even floodwaters, reflective of their surroundings, the atmospheric weather and the changing times of day. A favourite topic in the 1880s and 1890s were the waters, tidal mudflats, mangroves and gumtree-lined banks of Lane Cove River, Turrumburra to its Gamaragal owners, an estuary and tributary of the Parramatta River, north-west of Sydney’s centre. From 1882 until his death in 1914, Hobart-born Piguenit lived with his family in Hunters Hill, a short stroll from the river and its meandering flow became familiar both to him, and to his receptive audience.

Piguenit painted the river from a variety of locations, from Onions Point on the eastern tip of the peninsula, to Buffalo Creek and further

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upstream. However, his views of the river often centred around Fig Tree Bridge, near his house. 2 An iron truss swing bridge completed in 1885, it was the first bridge to cross Lane Cove River, and one of a series of bridges that allowed road traffic to traverse from the south and north shores of Port Jackson. Thus, it also permitted Piguenit to explore the river’s banks on foot, and many of his paintings are titled in relation to this important structure – above, below, or near. In one view, he painted the bridge cutting across the river, a rare inclusion by Piguenit of the built environment and its impact upon the landscapes he so loved. 3 More typically he incorporated gentle reminders of human presence: a rowing boat, or a larger sailing boat in the distance; figures on the riverbank; cattle or the occasional house. Sparsely inhabited until well into the twentieth century, the Lane Cove valley was nevertheless impacted, with early timber felling, and then noxious tanneries, dairies and orchards benefitting from its waters and proximity to Sydney’s markets.

None of this is evident in this panoramic painting, Lane Cove from above the bridge, 1893.4 There is no sign of human activity and, unusually, Piguenit included a group of kangaroos, haloed by the last rays of the setting sun, as the only observers of this tranquil, almost mesmeric

William Charles Piguenit An Autumn Sunset, Lane Cove River, N. S. Wales, c.1910 oil on canvas 46.0 x 76.5 cm Private collection

scene. 5 One likes to think that Piguenit did indeed come across kangaroos still living in the bushland at that time.6 This painting is an exemplar of Piguenit’s peaceful river scenes, which also included the Derwent, Huon, Nepean and Murray. The luminous expanse of the water leads our eyes to the purple hills, while the light clouds similarly direct our attention to the horizon. The eucalypts on the opposite bank are in shadow, while the right bank catches the golden raking light, its proximity to the viewer enhanced by the details of the textured multicoloured rocks, gnarled bark and the zigzags of the drooping branches.

The original title of this painting may have been When the glow is in the west, exhibited the year after this was painted and about which a later reviewer wrote that ‘the exquisitely painted surface of the river that shines like a mirror will be especially admired’.7 Despite the high acclaim and numerous accolades with which Piguenit’s evocative landscapes were received during the latter nineteenth century, his subsequent reputation has been overshadowed by those of contemporaries such as Louis Buvelot and the young guns of the Australian Impressionists whose landscapes were pastoral rather than sublime. But Piguenit warrants ongoing recognition for his fascination with atmospheric effects (particularly light upon water) and his

determination to reveal the grandeur of remote landscapes of Tasmania and New South Wales to an urban audience. Indeed, many of the regions he painted are tourist highlights today, such as Lake St Clair and Lake Pedder. Fortuitously much of the upper Lane Cove River has been protected from development and is now enjoyed by visitors to the Lane Cove National Park.

1. Piguenit to Legge, 1896, quoted in Legge, W.V., W.C. Piguenit: An Appreciation of a Tasmanian Artist, Passmore, Launceston, 1922, p. 8 2. Saintonge, 42 Avenue Road, Hunters Hill. Piguenit never married and lived with his parents, sisters and their husbands throughout his life. The current Figtree Bridge was built in 1963.

3.

The Lane Cove River, undated, oil on canvas, sold Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 2 May 2000, lot. 54 4. Piguenit often titled his works ‘Lane Cove’ rather than ‘Lane Cover River’.

5. A trio of kangaroos was also included in his monochromatic oil painting The King William Range, Tasmania, 1891 (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery), but such wildfire is otherwise rare. See Backhouse, S., Brown, T. and Johannes, C., A Passion for Nature: William Charles Piguenit, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 2012, illus. p. 94 6. In complete and awful contrast, in 1885 Piguenit discovered the decomposing body of a murdered woman while walking with his dog near Lane Cove Road.

Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 January 1885, p. 13; see https://trove.nla. gov.au/newspaper/article/71022653 (accessed 12 June 2022) 7. ‘The Piguenit exhibition’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 October 1911, p. 10; see https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15283292 (accessed 12 June 2022) ALISA BUNBURY

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WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT

6

(1836 – 1914) MOUNT WELLINGTON FROM NEW TOWN BAY, c.1898 oil on canvas 30.5 x 45.0 cm signed lower left: W C PIGUENIT bears inscription on label verso: William Charles Piguenit / MOUNT WELLINGTON FROM / NEW TOWN BAY / c. 1898 ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 6 April 1987, lot 52A (as ‘Mount Wellington from New Town Bay, Tasmania’) Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 28 July 1991, lot 17 Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 68 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 on long term loan to the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Tasmania LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 14, 230 RELATED WORK Mount Wellington from New Town Bay, 1879, oil on canvas, 47.3 x 70.3 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

The towering presence of kunanyi, Mount Wellington, above the waters of timtumili minanya, the Derwent River, had always been a rich source of subject matter for colonial artists, including John Glover, John Skinner Prout, Knud Bull, Henry Gritten and Eugene von Guérard. Unlike these earlier artists, however, William Charles Piguenit had been born in Hobart and spent over half of his long life in kunanyi’s shadow. It is not surprising that some of his earliest displayed works of art – lithographs prepared with his cousin and later brother-in-law, Alfred Randall – depict this mountain.1 Its dominant presence was a forerunner to the impressive geological formations that Piguenit travelled to in remote areas of Tasmania and in New South Wales, which formed the subject matter upon which his critical and commercial success was based.

Throughout his artistic career, Piguenit painted kunanyi from a variety of locations, as he was later to do of Turrumburra, Lane Cover River, near his house in Sydney (see lot 5). A number of these paintings, such as Mount Wellington from Kangaroo Bay, Tasmania, 1884 (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) are expansive views from the eastern banks of the river towards the distant township. In contrast, this smaller work is a more concentrated and intimate depiction, looking along the inlet of New Town Bay towards the rolling foothills. The purple, morninghazed folds of the mountain here suggest an element of protection rather than domination, the autumnal colours lining the shore evidence of introduced trees and established gardens, settlement rather than wilderness. The vibrant points of colours of the trio of children playing in the tidal mudflats and aboard the boats focus the eye at the point where the horizontal and vertical strokes of the watery reflections meet. 2 Piguenit often varied the brushstrokes in his oil paintings: sometimes immaculately smooth, at other times textural to convey turbulent weather conditions or vegetation. The freedom of application and freshness of colours in this painting are notable within his oeuvre of often-sombre scenes of awe-inspiring grandeur and dramatic environs.

1. These 1870 prints are now rare: examples are held in the Crowther Library, Libraries Tasmania, Hobart. Although Piguenit’s later art was widely reproduced, he did not continue with lithography as an artistic medium.

2. The freedom of Piguenit’s brushstrokes in this painting contrast with another New Town Bay view dated 1879 in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria which is surprisingly static in composition and style. Comparing the two, however, does show that Piguenit took liberties with the accuracy of his locations for aesthetic effect.

ALISA BUNBURY

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FREDERICK McCUBBIN

7

(1855 – 1917) THE HILLSIDE, MACEDON, 1904 oil on canvas 51.0 x 76.5 cm signed and dated lower left: F McCubbin. / 1904 bears inscription with title on backing verso: HILLSIDE, MACEDON CAT NO 12 ESTIMATE: $150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Danuta and Ted Rogowski, Melbourne The Rogowski Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 February 1998, lot 39 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED probably: Mr Fred McCubbin’s Exhibition of Australian Paintings, Upper Athanaeum Hall, Melbourne, 22 April 1904 Selected Australian Works of Art, Lauraine Diggins Gallery, Melbourne, May 1984, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) A Happy Life: Frederick Mccubbin’s Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991 and touring, cat. 12 (bears inscription on backing board verso) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Geelong Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Notes. Mr McCubbin’s Exhibition of Paintings’, The Age, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p. 8 Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 21, no. 3, autumn 1984, p. 285 (illus.)

Clark, J., A Happy Life, Frederick McCubbin’s Small Paintings and Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, cat. 12, pp. 17 (illus.), 21 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 32 (illus.), 226

We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David’s research and writing in this catalogue entry.

When Frederick McCubbin moved to Macedon in 1901 he entered upon, as his son Alexander later wrote, ‘the most fertile and vigorous period of his life.’1 Some of his best and most popular works soon followed including his masterpiece, The Pioneer, 1904, ‘an established favourite’ within a short time of its acquisition in 1906 by the National Gallery of Victoria through the Felton Bequest. 2 When Childhood Fancies, 1905

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(private collection) was first exhibited, the art critic for The Age wrote enthusiastically, ‘McCubbin has never painted a more happily inspired picture.’ 3 And in Lost, 1907, (National Gallery of Victoria), another gem from this period, both the narrative and the early morning light filtering through the Macedon bush captured the public’s imagination.

McCubbin devoted himself enthusiastically to the subjects around him – ‘The bush up our way looks more charming than ever’, McCubbin wrote to his friend Tom Roberts in 1904. ‘Pictures everywhere.’4 As the gifted interpreter of the secluded glade, he delighted in capturing the play of light in the subtlest of colours, of lyrical moments of childhood and the heroic endeavours of the early settlers of Victoria, the triptych format as much in veneration of the bush itself as of the pioneers.

Signif ic antly, Mc Cubbin name d their family Mac e don home ‘Fontainebleau’ after the forest in France, neighbouring the village of Barbizon and its school of plein air painters, and especially McCubbin’s favourite, Corot. Devoting himself to painting in the open air, he even dug a trench in the ground so that he could reach the canvas tops of The Pioneer. Now in the middle years of his art, his style became broader and vision fresher in response to painting out-of-doors directly from the motif, encapsulated in the present Hillside, Macedon, 1904. The smoothly painted, tight style of earlier years gives way to the freer, textured brushstroke and palette knife – transitions which are clearly visible in the comparison of Macedon landscapes such as A Bush Scene, 1903 (Art Gallery of Ballarat), with two works closely related to the present, namely The Clearing, Mount Macedon, c.1904 and Sunny Glade.5 In these later paintings, the brushstrokes are applied with such verve that they seem to dance in spontaneous response to the scene.

As with Sylvan Glade, Macedon, 1906 (Bendigo Art Gallery), the focus of attention has now moved from the figure to capturing the enchanting play of light, and the atmospheric qualities of his beloved bush at Mount Macedon. Indeed, as The Age writer remarked his review of McCubbin’s solo exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne in 1904, ‘The Hillside, Macedon, is a fine rendering of the radiant atmosphere of the mountains; the composition has a fine diversity, and the foreground, in its harmony of tone, is a delightful piece of colour… in what is one of the most notable of the one-man shows that have been in Melbourne.’6 1. McCubbin, A., ‘Biographical Sketch of the Life of Frederick McCubbin’, in MacDonald, J., The Art of Frederick McCubbin, Lothian, Melbourne, 1916, p. 65 2. ‘Mr. McCubbin’s Exhibition of Pictures’, The Age, Melbourne, 17 May 1907 3. ‘Exhibition of Arts and Crafts’, The Age, 20 November 1905, p. 5 4.

L etters to Tom Roberts, vol. II, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, A2479, 7 November 1904 5. For The Clearing, Mount Macedon, c.1904, see Deutscher + Hackett, Melbourne, 8 December 2021, lot 9, and for Sunny Glade, see Sotheby’s, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 13 6. ‘Art Notes. Mr McCubbin’s Exhibition of Paintings’, The Age, Melbourne, 22 April 1904, p. 8 (as ‘The Hillside, Macedon’)

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ARTHUR STREETON (1867 – 1943) BALMAIN AND LEICHHARDT, FROM HOLTERMANN’S TOWER, c.1921 oil on wood panel 16.5 x 66.0 cm signed lower right: A STREETON. inscribed verso: OUTHWAITE / … / DEC 1 / No 1 ESTIMATE: $250,000 – 350,000

PROVENANCE Edward Walter Outhwaite, Melbourne, by 1935 (inscribed verso) Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne Christie’s, Melbourne, 18 April 1994, lot 46 (as ‘Balmain and Leichardt’ [sic.])

Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 24 November 1998, lot 30 (as ‘Balmain and Leichhardt’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 25 November 1998 EXHIBITED Streeton’s Show of the Sunlit Suburbs of Sydney, Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 31 October – 5 November 1921, cat. 1 (as ‘Balmain and Leichardt [sic.], from Haltermann’s [sic.] Tower’) Arthur Streeton: Blue and Gold, Carrick Hill, Adelaide, 25 October 2017 – 25 February 2018 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Colquhoun, A., ‘Sydney Harbour on Canvas. Charm of Arthur Streeton’, The Herald, Melbourne, 31 October 1921, p. 7 (as ‘Balmain and Leichhardt, from Halterman’s Tower’ [sic.])

‘Mr Streeton’s Pictures’, The Argus, Melbourne, 1 November 1921, p. 4 (as ‘Balmain and Leichhardt, from Halterman’s Tower’[sic.]) probably: Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Melbourne, 1935, cat. 765 (as ‘Panel, Balmain and Leichhardt’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 44 – 45 (illus.), 232

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8

35

ARTHUR STREETON (1867 – 1943) BALMAIN AND LEICHHARDT, FROM HOLTERMANN’S TOWER, c.1921

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37

Charles Bayliss and Bernard Otto Holtermann Panorama of Sydney and the Harbour, New South Wales, 1875 photograph Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Arthur Streeton first visited Sydney in 1890. Enthralled by the sparkling blue harbour and surrounding landscape, he later wrote to Theodore Fink in Melbourne, declaring ‘Sydney is an artist’s city – glorious’.1 Residing there for most of the following six years, he painted at various locations including Coogee, Manly, Curlew Camp – where he lived for a time on the shores of Little Sirius Cove – as well as recording views of the burgeoning, bustling city and nearby Circular Quay. He was captivated by the ocean, describing it in a letter to Tom Roberts as, ‘a big wonder… a great miracle’, which was ‘hard to comprehend… like death & sleep’ 2, and it was a central focus of many paintings of the time, typically coloured vivid ‘Streeton blue’ and reflecting clear skies above. Streeton’s paintings became so synonymous with the harbour that in 1900, only a decade after his first visit, The Bulletin claimed that he, rather than Captain Arthur Phillip, had ‘discovered’ Sydney Harbour. 3 The lure of the harbour city remained strong and although Streeton lived overseas between 1897 and 1920, and was based in Melbourne upon his return, he visited Sydney on more than eleven occasions between 1906 and 1937.4 Returning to Australia in February 1920, he went to Sydney two months later, explaining to a Daily Telegraph journalist, ‘Every time I get back, Sydney looks finer… Even with all the new buildings… I want to do one fine thing of Sydney… The point of view is the difficulty – the elevation.’ 5 Streeton found the elevation he wanted in 1921, producing a number of paintings which depicted aspects of the city and surrounds viewed from high vantage points, including some of the new buildings which had been constructed during his absence.

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Golden Bay, Sydney, 1921 (private collection), for example, was painted from the top of Cliveden, a twelve-storey commercial building in Bridge Street, which was built in 1915. Focussing on rooftops and the architectural detail of familiar buildings including the Lands Department building with its clock and copper top in the foreground, a glimpse of Farm Cove to the left, this painting exemplifies the Sydney which Streeton later described in glowing terms, ‘…her architecture towers up in golden brown stone, and the scarf or belt blowing about her waist is the magic blue harbour’.6 Most likely also painted during this trip, Balmain and Leichhardt, from Holtermann’s Tower, c.1921, saw Streeton working from the tower of a grand Victorian mansion built in 1874 by Bernard Otto Holtermann in Lavender Bay on Sydney’s North Shore. A stained-glass window in the tower depicted the master of the house with the huge gold nugget that was the source of his fortune. Discovered near Hill End in 1871 and weighing in at 630 pounds (286 kilograms), it was said to be the world’s largest specimen of reef gold.7 Alongside his political pursuits, Holtermann was involved in early photographic activities, and working with Charles Bayliss, produced a remarkable panorama of Sydney from the tower using a large-format camera with a long-range lens.

It is reasonable to assume that Streeton knew about the ‘Holtermann panorama’ and perhaps, had even seen it, and access to the tower must have been arranged through the Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), which had acquired the building in the late 1880s following Holtermann’s death.

Holtermann mansion, North Sydney, 1875 Glass photonegative State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Bernard Otto Holtermann Standing Beside the Holtermann Nugget, the Largest Continuous Gold Specimen Ever Found, c.1874 – 76 Glass photonegative State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

The outlook from the tower, 27 meters above ground, afforded Streeton a spectacular view of Sydney, taking in its distinctive geography and the sinuous juxtaposition of land and sea, looking across Berry’s Bay in the foreground, towards Balls Head reserve and Waverton, with Leichhardt in the distance. Combining a wide panoramic view with carefully painted details of boats in the water and gantries, the painting adopts the wide format of earlier views such as Circular Quay, 1893 and At Coogee, 1895 (both in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria) which emphasised the horizon line and were sometimes painted on draper’s boards. 8 Streeton showed a selection of the paintings made in Sydney in his 1921 exhibition at the Athenaeum Hall in Melbourne, which was alliteratively titled Streeton’s Show of the Sunlit Suburbs of Sydney. The Argus critic was full of praise, highlighting his ability to convincingly depict great distances and writing that ‘Mr. Streeton is noted for his rendering of [Sydney Harbour], and he presents a series of panoramic views well up to the standard of beauty that he has set himself to achieve. What he puts down is full of great charm of colour, handled with masterly ease.’ 9 Drawing particular comment, this painting was described as an ‘atmospheric study [in which]… these qualities of colour and facile brushwork are given full play with admirable results.’10

1. Streeton to Theodore Fink, September 1891, cited in Mimmocchi, D., ‘An Artist’s City: Streeton in Sydney’ in Tunnicliffe, W., Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2020, p. 90 2. Streeton to Tom Roberts, cited in Eagle, M., ‘Streeton in the City of Laughing Loveliness’, Lane, T., Australian Impressionism, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007, p. 207 3. See Bonyhady, T., The Colonial Earth, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2002, p. 327 4. Hutchison, H., ‘The Golden City’ in Tunnicliffe, op. cit., p. 282 5. Streeton cited in ‘To paint Sydney: Arthur Streeton returns’, Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 20 April 1920, p. 5, cited in Hutchison, ibid., p. 283 6. Streeton, A., ‘Beauty of Sydney: the city’s architecture’, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December 1936, p. 13, op. cit., p. 282 6. Burke, K., ‘Holtermann, Bernhardt Otto (1838 – 1885)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/ biography/holtermann-berhardt-otto-3787/text5989, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 2 June 2022 7. See Hutchison, op. cit., p. 282 8. ‘Mr Streeton’s Pictures’, The Argus, Sydney, Melbourne, 1 November 1921, p. 4 9. Ibid.

KIRSTY GRANT

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TOM ROBERTS

9

(1856 – 1931) PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL, 1909 oil on canvas 50.5 x 38.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Tom Roberts. / 9.

ESTIMATE: $100,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, London, 10 June 1986, lot 214A (as ‘Portrait of a Girl’) John Schaeffer, Sydney Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 10 August 1998, lot 79 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 August 1998 EXHIBITED Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria 4 August – 2 December 2012 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Cotter, J., Tom Roberts & The Art of Portraiture, Thames and Hudson, Melbourne, 2015, fig. 6.35, pp. 313, 315 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 34 (illus.), 231

Tom Roberts was a skilled painter of people, able to capture the mood and character of his subjects, in addition to accurately describing their physical likeness. Portraiture makes up more than a third of his painted oeuvre, and while his motivation was sometimes practical – as he once explained to a friend, ‘Portraits pay, …my boy’1 – he was also attuned to its potential historical significance. A leading portrait painter of the late nineteenth century, Roberts’ sitters included prominent public and political figures, the most well-known being Sir Henry Parkes, whose 1892 portrait was hung at the Royal Academy, London the following year, and is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Roberts also painted friends and family – note, for example, his various

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portraits of his wife, Lillie, or Arthur Streeton – his familiarity with these subjects imbuing their portraits with palpable personality and a strong sense of intimacy.

Some of Roberts’ most striking portraits depict female subjects and, as Helen Topliss has noted, portraits such as Madame Pfund, c.1887 (National Gallery of Victoria) and Eileen, 1892 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), reveal his love of female personalities and companionship, as well as his aesthetic response to the decorative elements of women’s dress. 2 This translated to female children too, with memorable portraits including Blue Eyes and Brown, 1887 and Lily Sterling, c.1888 (both National Gallery of Victoria), the latter a charming depiction of a friend’s young daughter. Roberts had worked in a photographic studio as a young man and the experience he gained there posing sitters and putting them at ease no doubt helped in this context. 3 In this 1909 portrait, the young subject looks pensively beyond the painting edge, the silhouette of her profile carefully delineated against a pale background and dominated by the mass of wavy auburn hair. Her youthful complexion is painted with great delicacy and a remarkable sense of realism, pale skin illuminated by soft touches of pink on her cheek and lips, and warm brown eyes. Roberts delights in depicting texture – skin, hair, the fabric of her dress – and the overall feeling of softness in this work recalls another portrait of young sitters, Elizabeth and Carmen Pinschof, 1900 (National Gallery of Victoria), which was drawn in pastel. A beautiful painting, this work typifies what A. G. Stevens described as Roberts’ very particular ‘instinct of accuracy which makes good likenesses, and an instinct of art that makes charming likenesses.’4 1 Roberts quoted in Taylor, G., Those Were the Days, Sydney, 1918, p. 100, cited in Topliss, H., Tom Roberts 1856-1931, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985, p. 20 2. Topliss, H., ‘Portraiture and Nationalism’ in Radford, R., Tom Roberts, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1996, p. 154 3 Lane, T., Entry on Lily Stirling, c.1888 in Tom Roberts, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2015, p. 176 4. Stevens, A. G. cited in Gray, A., ‘Harmonic Arrangements: Tom Roberts’ Painting’, ibid., p. 43 KIRSTY GRANT

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DAVID DAVIES

10

(1864 – 1939) MOONRISE, c.1894 oil on academy board 24.0 x 45.5 cm inscribed indistinctly verso: … VIE …

ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Dr W.R.D. Griffiths, Victoria Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 13 November 1990, lot 264 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 19 November 1990 EXHIBITED Moonrise, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, December 1973 – January 1974, cat. 9 David Davies 1864 – 1939, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 11 September – 11 November 1984; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 4 December 1984 – 6 January 1985; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1 February – 10 March 1985, cat. 16 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 5 (as ‘(Pink) Moonrise’) Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2013 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Sparks, C., David Davies 1864 – 1939, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 1984, pl. 16, p. 37 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 29 (illus.), 216 RELATED WORK Moonrise, 1894, oil on canvas, 119.8 x 150.4 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

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A leading figure of Australian Impressionism, David Davies studied at the Ballarat School of Mines and the National Gallery Schools under Frederick McCubbin and G.F. Folingsby. A period of travel followed whereby Davies studied at the Académie Julian in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens, before moving on to St Ives in Cornwall to join the plein-air painting artists’ colony. It was this influential period of study and outdoor painting in Europe which distinguished Davies’ work from that of his Heidelberg School colleagues.

Returning to Australia in 1893 and settling in Templestowe in Victoria, Davies spent the next three years painting his celebrated Moonlight series of nocturnes depicting tonal landscapes near his studio at dusk and dawn. In Moonrise, c.1894 Davies captures the liminal nature of the moon, caught between lightness and darkness, over the paddocks of sparse Australian grassland and tufts of scrub.

Chief examples of Davies’ Moonlight series are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

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RUPERT BUNNY (1864 – 1947) STUDY FOR ENDORMIES, c.1904 oil on canvas 46.0 x 76.5 cm signed lower right: Rupert C w Bunny ESTIMATE: $120,000 – 160,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Whitford and Hughes, London John Schaeffer, Sydney Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 10 August 1998, lot 83 (as ‘Asleep’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 September 1998 EXHIBITED Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 33 (illus.) 214 Thomas, D., The Life and Art of Rupert Bunny, A Catalogue Raisonné in Two Volumes, Thames & Hudson, Melbourne, 2017, volume 1: p. 16, volume 2: cat. O216, p. 35 (as ‘Asleep’) RELATED WORK Endormies, oil on canvas, 130.6 x 200.5 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

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11

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Rupert Bunny Endormies, c.1904 oil on canvas 130.6 × 200.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas

One of Bunny’s most beautiful and accomplished works, Endormies

AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David’s research and writing in

was painted at the height of his career. It was subsequently purchased

this catalogue entry.

in 1911 for 500 guineas through the Felton Bequest from the artist’s exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne – an exhibition

At the turn of the twentieth century, celebrated expatriate artist Rupert

described by William Moore as ‘the best one-man show of figure

Bunny notably shifted focus from the biblical and mythological subjects

paintings that has been held in Australia.’1 Earlier in 1904, Bunny

which had established his reputation, towards portraiture, landscapes

had exhibited Endormies at the London Royal Academy, and in 1905

and images of elegant women at leisure. An exquisite, engaging example of this latter genre, Study for Endormies, c.1904 features the artist’s wife Jeanne resting, fan in hand and wearing a soft, flowing gown.

Significantly, the work was conceived in preparation for one of the artist’s most universally acclaimed and admired works, Endormies, c.1904, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. Featuring the same figure located in an idyllic lakeside scene, in the company of a female friend and surrounded by swans and flowers, the masterpiece is a vision of beauty and sensuality.

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his Aprés le bain, c.1904 was shown at the Salon d’Automne, Paris – from where it and another of his paintings were purchased for the Jeu de Paume, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris (now the Musée d’Orsay), making Bunny the first Australian artist to have works acquired by the French government. Indeed, reviewing the 1905 Salon exhibition art critic Arsène Alexandre from Le Figaro observed, ‘It is an exhibition of Australian painter Rupert Bunny whose art the Parisian public has been applauding for a long time. But never before has this magnificent artist manifested himself in masterpieces so outstanding in terms of colour, drawing, composition, significance and imagination…’2

Rupert Bunny, Après le bain, 1904 oil on canvas 191.7 x 171.4 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Not surprisingly, Endormies attracted much critical acclaim. Henri Fritz,

delicately-coloured complexion may be admired in Endormies and its

writing on the 1905 exhibition at the New Salon, referred to Bunny’s

attendant study on offer here, which show Jeanne Bunny in the fullness

two portraits of women, ‘…But I prefer another picture by this gifted

of perfection. In the present work, which is followed very closely in

artist (whose art relates itself, in my mind, to that of the fine Venetian

the final version, there is the same lyrical use of colour and sensuous

painters), entitled Fallen Asleep [Endormies]: two beautiful women

modelling, although arguably the play of light and handling of the paint

lying by a pool that glitters beneath the full glory of spring, while on

here is more vivacious – thus imbuing the scene with a greater feeling

it some swans are displaying their graceful forms.’3 One of these two

of immediacy and intimacy.

beautiful women was of course the artist’s wife Jeanne, who was his favourite model and appeared in many of his paintings both before and following their marriage in 1902. Jeanne Heloise Morel was born in Paris in 1871 and was a fellow student with Bunny in the art classes of Jean-Paul Laurens. ‘Madame Bunny is French, and is adorable’, wrote

1. Moore, W., ‘A Painter of Beautiful Women. The Remarkable Record of Rupert Bunny’, Life, 1 September 1911, p. 250 2. Arsène Alexandre, ‘Le Salon d’Automne’, Le Figaro, 17 Dec 1905 3. Fritz, H., ‘Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts’, Studio, vol. 85, 1905, p. 122 4. Vandorian, ‘A Visit to Rupert Bunny’, Home, vol. 3, no. 4, 1 December 1922, p. 30.

5. Reddin, C., Rupert Bunny Himself: His Final Years, self-published, Melbourne, 1987, p. 154

one Australian journalist, ‘She is the soul of Rupert Bunny’s art.’4 In his many portraits of her, she appears as extremely elegant, of medium height, with lustrous black hair and a slight retroussé nose. Violet eyes added to her ravishing beauty, Bunny himself described her as having ‘the most beautiful mouth I have ever seen!’5 All this, as well as her

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TUDOR ST GEORGE TUCKER

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(1862 – 1906) OUR TENT AT SWANAGE, DORSETSHIRE, c.1903 oil on canvas 50.5 x 76.5 cm bears inscription on old label verso: Our Tent At Swanage … / For Dr Wilkinson/In Remembrance Of/Tudor St G. Tucker ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Captain Charlton Nassau Tucker and Mrs Harriet Tucker, United Kingdom, the artist’s parents Dr William Cleland Wilkinson, Melbourne, a gift from the above Thence by descent Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 November 1999, lot 35 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17 – 18, 31 (illus.), 235

We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David’s research and writing in this catalogue entry.

When Tudor St George Tucker returned to Melbourne in 1892 after studying at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts, he brought with him new ideas fresh from Paris and a painting technique that was much admired. His contemporaries saw his work as belonging

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‘to the modern French school, whose principal tenets are an insistence on atmospheric effect, a preference for neutral colour and an absence of detail. Nature is regarded from afar off, when outline becomes indistinguishable and merges into colour.’1 Establishing the Melbourne Art School with E. Phillips Fox, together with summer schools at Charterisville, he exerted a wide influence that extended beyond the circle of his students to include established artists such as Frederick McCubbin. Moreover, the School placed an emphasis on painting en plein air, the summer term being devoted to outdoor sketching in the country or seaside, with special attention paid to colour. During this time, Tucker also became noted for his portraits, especially of young women, while his landscapes such as A Study of Sunlight, c.1892; Early Dawn, c.1893, and Springtime, c.1893 showed more than a casual Impressionist interest in nature.

Aspects of impressionism are included in Our Tent at Swanage, Dorsetshire, c.1903 in the informality of the brushwork, vivid colour, and the practice of working in the open direct from nature. There is also the Impressionists’ love of informality, spontaneity of the composition and selection of scenes of leisure and interest in contemporary life. Like many of his contemporaries in Europe and Australia, Tucker was attracted to the seaside – subject of summer pastimes by the sea was much in fashion in European society at this time. Depicting the Dorset coast in Southern England where the artist often retreated during his final years to bolster his failing health, the painting was exhibited in 1903, and most likely featured in his final exhibition, Sea and Sunlight, 1906.

1. ‘Mr Tudor Tucker’, Table Talk, Melbourne, 5 July 1895, p. 7

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EMANUEL PHILLIPS FOX (1865 – 1915) REPOS, c.1909 – 11 oil on canvas 98.5 x 71.0 cm signed lower left: E Phillips Fox signed and inscribed with title on artist’s label verso: R [illeg.] E. Phillips Fox/ £ 20 bears inscription verso: Charles Bush / coll / BUSH ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 80,000

PROVENANCE Charles Bush, Melbourne (inscribed verso) Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 August 1994, lot 63 (as ‘Le Repos (Resting)’) Private collection, Perth Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 1 May 2002, lot 68 (as ‘Le Repose’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Possibly: Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, (New Salon), Grand Palais, Paris, 16 April – 30 June 1911, cat. 529 Possibly: 30e Exposition de la Société Internationale de Peinture & Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6 – 31 December 1912, cat. 48 Possibly: Catalogue of Pictures by E. Phillips Fox, Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 17 June – 4 July 1913, cat. 27 (as ‘Repose’) Possibly: Pictures by E. Phillips Fox, The Royal Art Society, Sydney, 13 – 28 October 1913, cat. 23 (as ‘Repose’) Australian Art/ Colonial to Contemporary, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, May – June 1995, cat. 29 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) E. Phillips Fox & Ethel Carrick, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 13 November – 6 December 1997, cat. 19 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 24) Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne 1995, cat. 343 de Vries, S., Ethel Carrick Fox: Travels and Triumphs of a Post-Impressionist, Pandanus Press, Brisbane, 1997, p. 64 (illus., as ‘Repose (Le Repos)’, c.1911) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 35 (illus.), 219 (as ‘Le Repose’) RELATED WORK Nude, 1909 – 1911, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 60.3cm, in the collection of The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Resting, c.1910 – 1911, oil on canvas, 65.0 x 81.3 cm, in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

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13

51

Pierre Bonnard Siesta (La Sieste), 1900 oil on canvas 109.0 × 132.0 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Emanuel Phillips Fox married English born Ethel Carrick in 1905, after meeting her at the artists’ colony of St Ives in Cornwall. Carrick had studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and had clear artistic aspirations, as well as a strong independent streak, and Fox had undertaken his training at Melbourne’s National Gallery School, alongside Rupert Bunny and Frederick McCubbin. Together the couple shared a rich, creative life, supporting each other in their respective artistic endeavours and ambitions. As newlyweds they moved to Paris, living in a studio apartment at the Cité Fleurie in Montparnasse, described by Carrick as ‘quite a cosmopolitan little colony of hardworking artists … thirty different nationalities being represented.’1 Colour and the varied effects of light were central to Fox’s art. Indeed, as Lionel Lindsay recalled, ‘He once told me that he no longer saw anything except as a colour-sensation… His gamut of greens is extraordinary fine and varied, and the purity of his colour still holds the sunlight imprisoned in the pigment.’2 While he had been trained in an academic style, Fox always enjoyed the freedom of working outdoors, and the influence

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of French Impressionism – particularly as articulated by Renoir and Monet, whose work was easily accessible during Fox’s years in Paris – encouraged this, feeding in to what has been described as his natural ‘inclination towards colour, light and optical experience.’3 The example of the French intimiste painters, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, was also significant. Focussing on the figure in intimate domestic settings, their paintings are quiet and contemplative in a manner which is almost timeless. Bonnard’s moody Siesta, 1900, acquired through the Felton Bequest by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1949, is a relevant comparison, sharing with Fox’s Repos, c.1909 – 11, both its subject – a naked woman alone in her boudoir – and an interest in the depiction of interior details and decoration. While the painterly representation of pattern is a primary element of Siesta, Fox limits the decorative details of his work to the upholstery of the chaise longue on which the figure reclines. A pattern of vertical blue and white stripes interspersed with delicate pink and floral motifs is just visible beneath the draped white sheet, and a glimpse of this same

Emanuel Phillips Fox Resting, c.1910 – 11 oil on canvas 65.0 x 81.3cm Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

textile can also be seen in the closely related work, Resting, c.1910 – 11 (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art). A single slipper, discarded by the model, rests on a band of soft green carpet in the foreground, but apart from these elements, the palette is restrained and limited to pale shades of cream, grey and white. This airy colouring allows Fox to focus on the representation of light and shade, and his skill is on full display in the shadows and bright highlights of the crumpled sheet, and the reflections that illuminate the window’s blinds.

Most prominent in this picture, however, is the nude who reclines comfortably, arms raised and hands clasped above her head. Although not overtly erotic, Fox’s depiction of the female figure is deliberately sensuous in its physicality, as well as the intimacy of the scene. The nude became an important aspect of Fox’s oeuvre during these years and as Ruth Zubans has noted, the lack of self-consciousness which characterised his approach to the theme could only have occurred in France.4 It was a genre that featured in exhibitions at the Salon and this, no doubt, also influenced Fox in his choice of subject matter,

success in this context representing a significant achievement. When Fox was made an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts for Al Fresco, c.1904 (Art Gallery of South Australia), it both enhanced his status in Australia, as well as securing him a respected place among his international peers.5 Repos was shown at the New Salon at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1911, and in 1912 at the Exposition de la Société Internationale de Peinture & Sculpture. Fox took the painting to Australia when he returned the following year, showing it in exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, and it was here that it later found its first owner, a fellow artist, the painter Charles Bush.

1. Carrick Fox quoted in Goddard, A., ‘An Artistic Marriage’ in Art, Love & Life: Ethel Carrick and E Phillips Fox, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2011, p. 18 2. Lindsay, L., ‘E. Phillips Fox’, Art in Australia, series 1, number 5, 1918 quoted in Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1994, p. 1 3. Zubans, ibid., p. 3 4. Zubans, R., E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 155 5. Ibid., p. 125 KIRSTY GRANT

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ELIOTH GRUNER

14

(1882 – 1939) ROLLING HILLS, YASS, 1929 oil on canvas 41.0 x 46.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed lower left: To Mr. & Mrs. Wallace /an appreciation / from ELIoth GRUNER / 1929 ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Mr and Mrs Wallace, New South Wales Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 2 – 3 November 1988, lot 105 (as ‘Rolling Hill, Yass’) Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Melbourne (label attached verso) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 October 1990 EXHIBITED Exhibition of Australian Paintings, Earl Gallery, Geelong, n.d., cat. 21 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Early Australian Paintings, Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Melbourne, 11 – 30 September 1990, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 17 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 Nov 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 Figures and Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 14 (illus.), 220 RELATED WORK Rolling Hills Near Yass, 1929, oil on canvas, 51.4 x 61.2 cm, in the collection of Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Gift of the Queensland Art Fund 1931

The paintings created by Elioth Gruner of the Ngunnawal lands around Yass in the mid-west of New South Wales are amongst his most celebrated. As curator Deborah Clarke notes, these images marked ‘the high point of his progression towards creating modern landscape.’1 The major work from the sequence, On the Murrumbidgee, 1929 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), shows the sinuous river of the title winding through the hills and valleys with such immediacy that it is little surprise that the painting was awarded the Wynne Prize, Gruner’s fourth such win. 2 Rolling Hills, 1929, is more intimate and focusses on one bend of the Murrumbidgee with a further glimpse of the water continuing above after negotiating a horseshoe bend that lies out of sight to the left. This is the preliminary plein air study that Gruner executed on site before painting the slightly larger Rolling Hills near Yass, now in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery. Giving an ‘almost aerial view of steep dry rocky slopes that appear to be carved out of the landscape’, 3 Rolling Hills provides a clear illustration of Gruner’s assured technique as he captures a scene contrasting the sloping lands cleared for sheep with the surviving trees gathered at the lower fringe. Others grow scattered elsewhere on the denuded flanks, whilst dead trunks emerge from the water’s edge. Above is a blustery sky full of shifting clouds and the sense of a fresh country day is palpable.

The 1920s had been a testing period for Gruner during which his art adopted elements of modernism’s flattened space and focus on design resulting from his encounter in London with the artist Sir William Orpen who was openly critical of the Australian’s work. His modest adoption of these more contemporary techniques led to further criticism from his former colleagues, particularly Norman Lindsay, who detested all modern art. Gruner was, by temperament, a loner and this hostility and self-doubt led to him having a breakdown in 1927 triggered further by alcoholism and depression. One step towards his recovery was the purchase of a Model A Ford in which he began to travel widely, vastly improving his outlook and sense of purpose. Gruner first visited the Yass region in 1928 and revisited repeatedly in subsequent years, depicting ‘the ancient hills as broad simple masses pushed up from the river valley and arranged in undulating rhythms across the picture plane.’4 1. Clark, D., Elioth Gruner: Texture of light, Canberra Museum and Gallery, ACT, 2014, p. 12 2. Gruner won the Wynne Prize a record seven times: 1916, 1919, 1921, 1929, 1934, 1936 and 1937 3. Clark, ibid.

4. ibid.

ANDREW GAYNOR

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55

ELIOTH GRUNER

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(1882 – 1939) FIELD, 1917 oil on canvas on compressed card 28.5 x 37.0 cm signed and dated lower left: E GRUNER / 1917 ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 247 (as ‘Fields’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 8 May 1991 EXHIBITED Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 Figures and Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 41 (illus.), 220 RELATED WORK Spring Morning, 1917, oil on cardboard on canvas, 40.0 x 29.1 cm, in the collection of the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales

Field, 1917 was executed en plein air at a farm owned by James Innes at Emu Plains, near the Nepean River on the lands of the Darug people.

Set on ‘rising land in the shadow of the Blue Mountains’,1 Gruner stayed on the property in a small hut, sleeping on its floor, ‘wrapped up in chaff bags to keep the chill out of his blood, (and watching) for those clear, colourless dawns to arrive, with a palette set to a key that would paint the unpaintable, light itself.’ 2 In a letter to Hans Heysen in 1918, Gruner exclaimed that ‘I simply must work on the spot or be absolutely in touch with it.’ 3 One measure of Gruner’s early success was his triumph in the Wynne Prize of 1916 with Morning light, 1915, his first of seven such awards.

He had originally studied at Julian Ashton’s art school (later teaching there) and in 1915, explored Max Meldrum’s tonalist theories, the legacy of which may be seen in Morning light. In Field, however, Gruner breaks from the smooth ambiguity of Meldrum and applies his paint in distinct, impastoed strokes to capture the lushness of the grassy field, the fences that bisect it, and the deep viridian green of the shadows.

The sense of immediacy is heightened by patches of bare canvas left exposed in these areas, with the whole surmounted by the blue of the distant mountains and a sky whose windy turbulence is evocatively implied by energetic strokes of swirling pigment.

1. Clark, D., Elioth Gruner: Texture of light, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, 2014, p. 24 2. Lindsay, N., ‘Foreword’, Elioth Gruner: twenty-four reproductions in colour from original oil paintings, Shepherd Press, Sydney, 1947, n.p.

3. Elioth Gruner, letter to Hans Heysen, 1918, cited in Pearce, B., Elioth Gruner, 1882-1939, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1983, p. 8 ANDREW GAYNOR

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57

PENLEIGH BOYD

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(1890 – 1923) JAMISON VALLEY, BLUE MOUNTAINS, 1922 oil on canvas 31.0 x 56.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Penleigh Boyd / 22 ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Possibly: Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne Dr. Arthur Whiteside, Hobart Christie’s, Sydney, 24 September 1969, lot 35 (as ‘The Blue Mountains’) Private collection Christie’s, Sydney, 14 November 1988, lot 116 (as ‘Jamieson [sic.] Valley’) Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 8 April 1990, lot 38 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Oil Paintings of Sydney Harbour by Penleigh Boyd, Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 14 – 25 August 1922, cat. 22 (as ‘Jamieson [sic.] Valley, Blue Mountains’) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 14 (as ‘Jamieson [sic.] Valley’) A New World, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 May – 30 August 2009 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Notes’, The Age, Melbourne, 15 August 1922, p. 12 (as ‘Jamieson [sic.] Valley’) ‘Mr Boyd’s Painting’, The Argus, Melbourne, 15 August 1922, p. 12 (as ‘Jamieson [sic.] Valley, Blue Mountains’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 47 (illus.), 214

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Penleigh Boyd’s favourite painting sites included the River Yarra and Portsea on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria; and Sydney Harbour, the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains in New South Wales. As a colourist he was unrivalled, as attested by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne acquiring through the Felton Bequest that symphony of golden wattle, The Breath of Spring, 1919 the same year as it was painted. The rich New South Wales’ output of these years is also seen today in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra with its numerous holdings of Boyd’s paintings from this period – The Blue Mountains, c.1922 and Early Morning, Watson’s Bay, 1922 being fine examples.

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GEORGE WASHINGTON LAMBERT

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(1873 – 1930) THE DEAD TREE, COLDSTREAM, 1926 oil on wood panel 34.0 x 42.0 cm signed and dated lower right: G W LAMBERT / (1926) signed and inscribed with title verso: “The Dead Tree”/ (sketch) / Painted at Dame Nellies / Place – Combe [sic.] – Coldstream / G W Lambert ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Amy Lambert, London Harold Desbrowe Annear, Melbourne (inscribed verso) Artlovers Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 258 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 17 September 1990 EXHIBITED A Group of Contemporary Painters, Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney, November 1928 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1931. The 163rd, Royal Academy, London, 1931, cat. 721 Commemorative exhibition of works by late members, Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 7 January – 11 March 1933, cat. 259 Artlovers Gallery, Sydney, January 1959, cat. 7 (as ‘Landscape: The Fallen Tree’) Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2013 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Exhibitions: Contemporary Painters’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 29 November 1928, p. 15 Gray, A., George Lambert 1873–1930: Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings in Public Collections, Bonamy Press, Perth, Sotheby’s Australia and Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1996, cat. P426, p. 122 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 52 (illus.), 223

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Having spent his teenage years in Australia, George Washington Lambert returned to Europe with family in 1900, aged twenty-seven. Following two years studying in Paris, 1901 – 1902, where he developed a close friendship with fellow expatriate artist Hugh Ramsay, Lambert moved to London where he lived and worked for almost two decades.

From the family’s Chelsea residence, celebrity guests including the eminent soprano, Nellie Melba, and actress, Ellen Terry, were regularly entertained. After returning to Australia in November 1921, Nellie Melba invited Lambert ‘to her delightful country place’, Coombe Cottage at Coldstream, near Lilydale, Victoria where he found that ‘she was really too nice for words, robbing me of any thought of her being a hussy or a vicious spoiling. She wants me to do small jobs for her – a drawing & a painting. She really is nice to me and understanding’.1 He visited Melba again in 1926, and completed several small landscapes, including The dead tree, Coldstream, 1926.

1. Gray, A., George W. Lambert Retrospective: Heroes & Icons, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, p. 27

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HANS HEYSEN

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(1877 – 1968) WHITE GUMS, 1926 watercolour on paper on compressed card 33.0 x 40.5 cm signed and dated lower right: HANS HEYSEN / 1926 signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: “White Gums”/ Hans Heysen – / Ambleside / Sth Aust. 1926 ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 14 August 1990, lot 275 (as’ Two Horses Grazing Amongst the Gums’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 20 August 1990 EXHIBITED Possibly: Exhibition of Paintings by Hans Heysen, Fine Art Society’s Gallery, Melbourne, 18 November – 27 November 1929, cat. 15 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 221

Born in Germany, Hans Heysen arrived in Australia as a young child in 1883. Showing artistic talent from an early age, he studied at the Norwood Art School and the Adelaide School of Design, selling his first work at the age of sixteen. In 1899, Heysen was funded to travel to Europe to study, and spent the following four years primarily in France and Italy painting and studying. Returning to Adelaide in 1903, he was struck by the intensity of the Australian light and character of the landscape and began to paint bush scenes, particularly the gnarled forms and delicate colouring of gum trees. Following several successful exhibitions, Heysen purchased a property in Hahndorf outside Adelaide to be surrounded by the landscape he loved to paint.

The watercolour White Gums, 1926 is a classic Hans Heysen. Presenting many of his favourite themes, especially the well-earned rest after a day’s hard toil, his gums are forever noble and the bountiful landscape is filled with the interplay of sparkling sunlight and restful shadows. For good measure, he adds his leitmotif of seated man and resting animals (in this watercolour, draught horses) enjoying a break from work within the protective shield of broad trunked trees. The grandeur of the scene is heightened by depicting the gums from a lower viewpoint, figures of man and beast diminutive by comparison. Enabled by his intense observation and magnificent draughtsmanship, the work captures the ‘truth’ of Heysen’s vision’, combined with poetic insight and clarity of expression.

Entering his golden age, Heysen’s watercolours of the 1920s are among his finest. Watercolours won him the Wynne prizes for 1920, 1922 and 1924 – The Toilers, The Quarry and Afternoon in Autumn respectively.

The oil painting The Farmyard, Frosty Morning won the award for 1926, making up four among his nine Wynne prizes. The Toilers remained in Heysen’s personal collection until bequeathed to the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1968, while The Quarry and Afternoon in Autumn had been earlier snapped up by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and The Farmyard, Frosty Morning was formerly part of the collection of Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax, Sydney.

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LINDSAY BERNARD HALL

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(1859 – 1935) IN THE STUDIO, c.1924 oil on canvas 105.5 x 81.0 cm signed lower right: B. Hall signed and inscribed with title on label verso: In the Studio / L. Bernard Hall. / Melbourne bears inscription on plaque: ‘IN THE STUDIO’ framer’s label attached verso: John Thallon, Melbourne ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000 PROVENANCE National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1924, exchanged for The Studio Party in 1926 The artist, Melbourne Thence by descent The artist’s daughter Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above c.1975 Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 21 August 2000, lot 81 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Exhibition of Paintings by L. Bernard Hall, Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 25 October – 15 November 1927, cat. 43 Exhibition of Paintings by L. Bernard Hall, Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, 6 – 16 August 1930, cat. 43 Exhibition of Paintings by the late Lindsay Bernard Hall, Block Gallery, Melbourne, 24 August 1971, cat. 22 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Art Exhibitions: Mr Hall’s Paintings’, The Argus, Melbourne, 18 October 1927, p. 20 Sun News Pictorial, Melbourne, 18 October 1927, p. 22 ‘Art Notes: A Varied Exhibition’, The Age, Melbourne, 18 October 1927, p. 7 Taylor, A., Perils of the studio: inside the artistic affairs of bohemian Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 145 (incorrectly cited as ‘fig. 136’), 147 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 51 (illus.), 220 Rankin, G., L. Bernard Hall: the man the art world forgot, Newsouth Publishing, Newsouth, Sydney, 2013, pl. 4 (illus.)

RELATED WORK The Studio Party, 1926, oil on canvas, 146.2 x 115.6 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

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Lindsay Bernard Hall was the Director and Painting Instructor at the National Gallery School in Melbourne for an incredible forty-three years from 1892. He also occupied the position of Director of Paintings at the National Gallery of Victoria. His teaching partnership with Drawing Master Frederick McCubbin (until the latter’s death in 1917) provided a stimulating and enriching environment that produced many of Australia’s most notable artists from the next generations. Hall’s own style was unavowedly academic, based on his training in Antwerp, London and, particularly, the Munich academy. Before arriving in Australia, he exhibited at the Royal Academy and New English Art Club, and with the Royal British Artists.

During his tenure at the Gallery School, Hall maintained a studio on the southern side of the State Library of Victoria building (which also housed the School and Art Gallery). Dominated by a large arched window, seen to great effect in In the studio, c.1924, the room dazzled visitors with its ‘bronzes, the antique chairs, the cosy settees in a half-light, (and) the hanging draperies, (which gave) it a delicious sense of Eastern languor.’1 Hall used his colleague Septimus Power, who had a studio in nearby Grosvenor Chambers, as the central model, with Hall’s wife Grace acting as the artist’s subject, and two of their children occupying the large settee at the rear.

1. ‘Art notes: round the studios’, The Age, 26 June 1925, p. 12 ANDREW GAYNOR

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MARGARET PRESTON (1875 – 1963) FLOWERS IN JUG, c.1929 hand-coloured woodcut 28.0 x 20.5 cm (image) 33.3 x 24.8 cm (sheet) signed lower right below image: Margaret Preston edition of 125 ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 56 (as ‘Mixed Blooms in a Black Jug’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991 EXHIBITED Bloomin’ Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, December 2002 – May 2003 Australian Collection Focus: Colour, Rhythm, Design - wood & lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 March – 11 July 2010 (another example) In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Morning, Noon and Light, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Ure Smith, S., & Gellert, L. (eds.), Margaret Preston: Recent Paintings, Art & Australia, Sydney, 1929, pl. 6 (illus., as ‘Jug of Flowers’, another example) Cashman, K., Margaret Preston in Mosman, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney, 2002 Butler, R., The Prints of Margaret Preston: a catalogue raisonné, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2006, cat. 137, pp. 152, 153 (illus., another example) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 230 (illus.)

Campbell, H., Colour, Rhythm, design: wood and lino cuts of the 20s & 30s, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2010, p. 11 (illus.)

RELATED WORK Other examples of this print are held in the public collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

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20

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MARGARET PRESTON (1875 – 1963) COASTAL GUMS, 1929 also known as AUSTRALIAN GUM BLOSSOM oil on canvas 46.5 x 46.0 cm signed and dated lower left: Margaret Preston / 1929 inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: australian gum blossom ESTIMATE: $180,000 – 240,000

PROVENANCE Lady Stevenson, United Kingdom Thence by descent Doris Zinkeisen, United Kingdom Lord Alastair McAlpine, Western Australia, acquired from the above in 1991 The Bishop House Collection, Phillips Auctioneers, Sydney, 12 August 1999, lot 460 Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, lot 61 (as ‘Australian Gum Blossoms’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Margaret Preston, Grosvenor Galleries, Sydney, 7 – 31 August 1929, cat. 27 A Selection of Important 20th Century Australian and New Zealand Paintings, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney, 6 – 31 October 1999 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, n.p.)

Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Butler, R., The Prints of Margaret Preston: A Catalogue Raisonné, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1987, p. 311 Margaret Preston Catalogue Raisonné of paintings, monotypes and ceramics, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005, CD–ROM compiled by Mimmocchi, D., with Edwards, D., and Peel, R., cat. 1929.33 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 12 (illus.), 15, 54 (illus.), 230

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21

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Margaret Preston Double hibiscus, 1929 oil on canvas mounted on hardboard 58.8 x 45.7 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

In 1926, Margaret Preston was chosen for a special edition of Art in Australia dedicated to her art and ideas, only the second local artist to be so honoured.1 The Editorial provocatively declared that ‘(a)ll vital artists have enemies. Where they fail to inspire delight they instil terror. Margaret Preston is the natural enemy of the dull.’ Appreciative articles by Professor Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and Thea Proctor were also included, with the former noting that her work, like all notable modern painting, ‘seeks a design which is and appears constructed.’2 Proctor went further, claiming her colleague to be ‘a distinguished and original artist … with abundant vitality, unerring taste in selection, the intellectual gift of invention and an emotional colour sense which amounts to genius.’3 Preston was quickly becoming the most prominent voice for modernist art in Australia through her teaching and by her increasingly stimulating essays, the first of which had appeared in The home magazine in 1923 where she asked – and then answered – the question, ‘When is a work modern? When it represents the age it is painted in.’4 Two years later in Art in Australia, she provided a cover illustration and an accompanying illustrated essay detailing what she saw as the decorative design possibilities of Indigenous art.5 Ultimately, Preston contributed twenty-seven articles to Art in Australia and The home, as well as writing for other publications, paving the way for a generation of local modernist artists.

Originally hailing from Adelaide, she undertook training at the National Galler y School in Melbourne from 1893, subsequently studying

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at academies in Germany and Paris, with her thorough understanding of Japanese print techniques further enhancing her world view. In late 1927, she travelled through parts of Indigenous Australia and the inspirations she discovered there came together powerfully in her paintings and wood-block prints from then on. Her stated ambition was to find a truly national art for this country that fused elements of European, Asian and, particularly, Indigenous art without which, she believed, the local variant of modernism would remain a pale imitation of overseas influence. Key works from 1927, such as Implement blue (Art Gallery of New South Wales), Still life (location unknown), and Banksia (National Gallery of Australia), as well as Aboriginal flowers, 1928 (Art Gallery of South Australia), all feature the pronounced ‘machine-cubist’ influence of Fernand Léger, with native flowers and domestic implements arranged against deliberately angled and flattened backgrounds. It is a vital and forward-looking collection of imagery that divided local audiences; conversely, they are all now recognised as masterworks in Australian art history.

In early 1929, Preston arranged to have her first solo exhibition of paintings and woodcuts at the new Grosvenor Galleries in Sydney, and demonstrated both her commitment and discipline by working ‘from nine to five for eight months’ in the lead-up.6

Margaret Preston Aboriginal flowers, 1928 oil on canvas 53.6 x 45.8 cm Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

She was known for her aphorisms (‘pithy statements’), one of which

the vibrant pink-red blossoms radiate in a continuous orbit

was ‘Why there are so many tables of still life in modern paintings is

from higher to lower, counterbalanced by the sharp angle of

because they are really laboratory tables on which aesthetic problems

the mirrored tray and the triangular void behind them, both

can be solved.’7 With this comment in mind, the diversity of settings,

executed in stark black-and-white. Small details such as the

blooms and arrangements in the exhibition was truly staggering. Some,

black outline to the flowers in the highest bunch and that to the

such as this lot, Coastal gums, 1929, extended her forensic study of

lower right, the contrasting green of the buds, and the warm

angular backgrounds as seen in the earlier ‘machine-cubist’ paintings,

violet tonal areas all add evidence to the attention she paid to

whilst other of the still-lifes were set on tablecloths against brick walls,

the composition. There is nothing extraneous or haphazard, and

offset by domestic objects, some including glimpses of landscape

seen as a whole, this painting underscore’s Professor Radcliffe-

outside the adjacent windows. The list of prominent buyers included

Brown’s earlier observation that Coastal gums is a ‘constructed’,

the Governor’s wife, Lady Edith de Chair (who also opened the show),

modern image – emphatically not a passive one.

and the noted obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Constance D’Arcy, as well as Preston’s artworld colleagues Adrian Feint and Basil Burdett.

1.

Art in Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, 3rd series no.22, 1 December 1926. The previous artist was Hans Heysen

Yet despite such support, local newspaper critics remained unmoved

2. Radcliffe-Brown, A., ‘Margaret Preston and transition’, in Art in Australia, ibid., n.p.

and, in most cases, confused.

3. Proctor, T., ‘An artist’s appreciation of Margaret Preston’, in Art in Australia, ibid.

In Coastal gums, the blooms belong to Corymbia ficifolia, a tree native to a

5. Preston, M., ‘The Indigenous art of Australia’, Art in Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney 3rd series, no. 11, 1 March 1925, n.p.

4. Preston, M., ‘Why I became a convert to modern art’, The home, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 4, no. 2, 1 June 1923, p. 20

small area of south-coastal Western Australia, but which is now one of the most widely planted around the world in tropical and sub-tropical zones.

6. North, I., et al., The art of Margaret Preston, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1980, p. 64

Apart from its aesthetic qualities, Preston’s arrangement highlights her

7. ‘Aphorism 46’, in Gellert, L., and Ure Smith, S., (eds.), Margaret Preston: recent paintings 1929, Art in Australia, Sydney, 1929, n.p.

allied interest in pure mathematics through her ‘meticulous detailing of

8. Edwards, D., Mimmocchi, D., and Peel, R., Margaret Preston, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005, p. 127

the complex and mathematically precise patterns of growth.’ Standing 8

in a ceramic vase possibly made by her close friend Glady Reynell,

ANDREW GAYNOR

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CLARICE BECKETT

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(1887 – 1935) BEACH SCENE, c.1932 – 33 oil on canvas 35.0 x 45.0 cm signed lower left: C. Beckett ESTIMATE: $80,000 – 120,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, Melbourne Christie’s, Melbourne, 9 April 1991, lot 177 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 22 April 1991 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 19 A Century of Australian Art, Gosford Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 14 April – 28 July 2000 A New World, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 May – 30 August 2009 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 The Ordinary Instant, Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 22 July – 11 September 2016 Clarice Beckett: The Present Moment, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 27 February – 23 May 2021 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales (label attached verso) LITERATURE Lock, T., Clarice Beckett: The Present Moment, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2021, pp. 149 (illus.), 195 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 57 (illus.), 238 (as ‘Landscape and orchard’)

In Beach scene, c.1932 – 33, Clarice Beckett gives us a perfect and familiar scene of Melbourne bayside leisure as played out in the shallows of Port Phillip Bay. These mostly calm waters provide a languid experience for swimmers, and for children who find their own teasures as they investigate the waters and nearby rock pools. Beckett lived nearby and was an avid bather, taking a dip every morning before returning to the necessary domestic duties that were now, in the early 1930s, making major intrusions on her ability to find time for painting.

Beckett was at the forefront of Australian modernism in these years, in spite being almost forgotten in the decades after her death; thankfully, the forensic research done since the early 1970s by gallerist-historian Rosalind Hollinrake has seen this neglect overturned. Beckett’s art was based on rigorous training at the National Gallery School and followed by nine months with the ‘Tonalist’ painter Max Meldrum. There is a softness inherent in paintings which adhere to Meldrum’s theories as the emphasis is placed on tone and proportion, underscored by a rejection of preliminary sketching and hard lines. Beckett’s genius was to take these ideas further and the comprehensive exhibition Clarice Beckett: The present moment held at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2021 opened many people’s eyes to her achievement in this regard. Beckett’s bayside paintings such as Beach scene possess an intimate modesty where no single figure appears to be posing or even inferring anything greater than a personal absorption in their own private activities. It is Beckett’s paint application, composition and technique that she wished to be at the forefront, as much as the subject itself; she sought to ‘give a sincere and truthful representation of a portion of the beauty of Nature, and to show the charm of light and shade.’1 Beckett’s paintings are evocative, poetic ruminations on the world around her, and companion works to Beach scene include Sandringham beach, c.1933, and Yachts in the Bay, c.1933 (both in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia); and Beach scene, 1932, The red sunshade, 1932, and Bathing boxes, Brighton, 1933 (all in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia).

1. Beckett, (catalogue entry), Twenty Melbourne painters: 6th annual exhibition, Atheneum Gallery, Melbourne, 1924 ANDREW GAYNOR

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EVELINE SYME

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(1888 – 1961) TUSCAN LANDSCAPE, c.1930 verso: SIENA oil on canvas 52.0 x 66.5 cm signed lower left: E. W SYME ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE The Estate of the Artist, Melbourne Jim Alexander Gallery, Melbourne Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1991 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 27 February 1991 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 20 (as ‘Landscape and orchard’) Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 48 (illus.), 232 RELATED WORK Tuscan Landscape, c.1930, oil on canvas, in the collection of University College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne

Well-heeled, well-travelled and well connected to influential members of avant-garde art in London and Paris, Australian artist Eveline Syme held a key position in the development and dissemination of Modernist art in the Antipodes. Alongside her life-long friend and artistic peer Ethel Spowers, Syme travelled to Europe to broaden and continue her education. In 1922 they studied at La Grande Chaumière in Paris under Symbolist painter Maurice Denis, followed by a period of at the Grosvenor School of Art led by eccentric British printmaker Claude Flight and finally, Syme alone returned to studies in Paris October 1929 at the school of Cubist French painters André Lhote and Albert Gleizes.

While Spowers came home to Melbourne in the winter of 1929, Eveline Syme travelled on alone through Italy and Belgium, before returning herself in April 1930.

Having read Classics at Cambridge and most likely been exposed to Cyril Power’s medieval modernist illustrations, Eveline Syme had an interest in classical architecture and appreciation for history that is reflected in

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the works that she created during her travels.1 Staying for a brief period in the medieval Italian town of Siena, Syme found a significant source of artistic inspiration in its architecture and the rolling Tuscan hills of the surrounding countryside. In addition to several watercolours and oil paintings, Syme produced six linocuts of various Tuscan scenes, examples of which are held in many state and national galleries. Tuscan Landscape, c.1930 is an exceptional double-sided painting, with striking similarities to the compositions of key linocuts: The Outskirts of Siena, 1930 – 31 and The Lily Tower, Siena, 1930. The Sienese cityscape verso bears the narrow vertical composition and restricted four-tone colour palette that would form the basis of The Lily Tower.

Within this highly stylised pastoral scene, Syme has created in Tuscan Landscape an energetic and modern aesthetic by incorporating elements from her Symbolist, Cubist and Futurist studies. Like her Grosvenor School peer, Adelaidean Dorrit Black, Syme was very receptive to Lhote’s insistence on traditional geometry founded on the section d’or and Jay Hambidge’s system of dynamic symmetry, which was similarly based on classical ratios. Tuscan Landscape is carefully constructed according to the golden points of a rectangle, in which the centre of the picture contains the most concentrated area of patterning.

The alternating cadence of tiered diagonal hills, brightly patterned and dotted with flowering fruit trees, endows the idyllic scene with a decorative rhythm. Syme has merged the elements of the pastoral landscape into imbricated planes and populated her scene with jagged forms heavily outlined. The sky above has radiating bands of colour painted with the square end of the brush (a technique also used by Roy de Maistre and Grace Cossington Smith) and is overlaid with whimsical flat-bottomed billowing clouds, which also feature in Syme’s linocuts of the same period.

Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers, and Eveline Syme, shared a social standing and affluence that enabled them to travel abroad to, as scholar and curator Tracey Lock aptly qualified, ‘cultivate their commitment to what was then a radical aesthetic in Australian Art’. 2 1. Samuel, G. (ed.), Cutting Edge. Modernist British Printmaking, Bloomsbury, London, 2019, p. 50 and Coppel, S., ‘Syme, Eveline Winifred (1888–1961)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/syme-evelinewinifred-11814/text21139, accessed online 2 June 2022 2. Lock, T., cited in Samuel G., ibid, p. 68 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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DORRIT BLACK

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(1891 – 1951) FARMHOUSE, MT. TORRENS, c.1944 oil on canvas on compressed card 24.5 x 24.5 cm signed lower left: Dorrit Black.

ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Old Clarendon Gallery, Adelaide Private collection, Adelaide Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 1 May 2002, lot 56 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Possibly: Exhibition by Group 9, Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, opened 2 November 1944 (as ‘The Farmhouse’) Possibly: Exhibition of Oils, Watercolours, Pastels and Linocut Prints by Dorrit Black, R.S.A Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 25 October – 3 November 1945, cat. 25 (as ‘The Farmhouse’ dated 1943) on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Possibly: Fuller, H. E., ‘Exhibition by “Group 9”: Novel Features in Works’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 2 November 1944, p. 6 (as ‘The Farmhouse’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 66 (illus.), 213

Dorrit Black was one of a handful of intrepid Australian women who ventured overseas in the 1930s to complete and broaden their artistic training in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Black, along with her peers Anne Dangar, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme studied at the pioneering schools of Albert Gleizes and André Lhote in Paris and at the Grosvenor School, where they studied experimental lino-cutting under Claude Flight. Although Black, Spowers and Syme all reached international acclaim with their achievements in this democratic and radical medium, they nevertheless returned to Australia and mostly continued their artistic practice in the traditional forms of oil on canvas and works on paper. Dorrit Black, an Adelaidean, returned to the southern state and achieved broader success than her peers as an

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exhibiting society painter, a teacher of landscape painting (with Jeffrey Smart being a notable, and impressionable pupil) and a strong advocate for artistic pursuits and social affairs, until her untimely passing after a road accident in 1951.

In 1939, Dorrit Black, aged 48, purchased her own home in the suburban fringes of Adelaide after decades of living with, and providing primary care for, her ailing mother. Her new house was carefully arranged to suit her artistic pursuits, and a large south-facing window gave the artist direct views on to the hills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, where she had spent significant time as a child. Her paintings from this time reflected Black’s newfound self-sufficiency and confidence, becoming more realist and personal. 1 Farmhouse, Mount Torrens is one such work, humble in size and documentary in subject matter, it reflects a war-time austerity and Black’s socialist fervour in the home-effort.

Based in the foothill township of Mount Torrens, whose prosperity and construction had dwindled some twenty years earlier, Black has painted an anonymous portrait of a countrywoman and her humble relationship with the vibrantly green land. Discreetly benign, this rural scene of a woman absorbed in her handcraft sitting on the porch a house has the quiet discipline and dignity of Black’s earlier works of wartime labouring scenes and activities of local patriotic organisations (for example The Cloth Cutters, c.1940 – 42, private collection). Still using the dynamic diagonal compositional techniques, flattened picture plane, simple geometric foundations and colour theory of Lhote and Flight, Farmhouse, Mount Torrens conceals its complexity with a childlike stylisation. This work, most probably included in Dorrit Black’s one-woman survey show at the Royal South Australian Art Society’s exhibition hall in 1945, demonstrates Black’s final determination to express the realities of nature and ordinary people without sentimentality and undue lyricism. 2 A reporter from The Advertiser noted in print a year earlier that Black’s works ‘retain her love of plain uncompromising lines and colour. And her best is perhaps The Farmhouse.’3 1. Lock-Weir, T., Dorrit Black. Unseen Forces, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014, p. 112 2. North, I., The Art of Dorrit Black, Macmillan and Art Gallery of South Australia, 1979, Melbourne, p. 98 3. Fuller, H. E., ‘Exhibition by “Group 9”: Novel Features in Works’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 2 November 1944, p. 6 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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FREDA ROBERTSHAW

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(1916 – 1997) PURPLE STILL LIFE, c.1940 oil on composition board 53.0 x 45.5 cm signed lower left: F ROBERTSHAW bears inscription on tape verso: PURPLE STILL LIFE / c. 1940 / $8000 / FREDA ROBERTSHAW ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Roland and Beatrice Instone, Sydney Thence by descent Estate of Beatrice Instone, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 236 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991 EXHIBITED Bloomin’ Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, December 2002 – May 2003 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 64 (illus.), 231

Freda Robertshaw is not a name with wide recognition, yet she is responsible for two undeniable masterworks in Australian art history.

These are her still-striking Standing self-portrait, c.1944 (Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, Perth), the first known nude self -portrait by a woman in this country; and Australian beach pattern, 1940 (Collection of Joy Chambers-Grundy and Reg Grundy AC, OBE) – her female-centric take on Charles Meere’s own Australian beach pattern, 1938 – 40 (Art Gallery of New South Wales). Both were executed whilst working as Meere’s studio assistant where she was trained in his personalised neoclassicist technique. In spite of her absolute mastery of his style (indeed, some of her paintings have been mistaken as his), Robertshaw’s own preference was for a less idealised approach favouring still-lifes and landscapes. Purple still life, c.1940, is an excellent example of these and shares close affinities with Spring flowers, 1940s (National Gallery of Victoria).

Originally trained at East Sydney Technical College from 1932 under such teachers as Rayner Hoff, Meere, and Herbert Badham, her fellow students included Barbara Tribe and the now-notorious Rosaleen Norton. In many ways, Purple still life is a painting which jostles deliberately between Meere’s rigidity and a looser, more expressive tone imparted by the pronounced gestural brushwork of the central flowers (purple Lilac). The scene is domestic, with the gridded pattern of the curtains at upper left acting as a counterpoint to the organic forms below, augmented by the unusual placement of a woven shopping bag enveloping the ceramic pot. In a possible nod to Meere, Robertshaw includes a beautifully delineated magnolia lying at the base just above her own stylised signature, further indicating that Purple still life is a painting which straddles two extremes in the artist’s practice.

Robertshaw was a regular finalist in the Sulman Prize and, apart from those listed above, examples of her work may also be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Benalla Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

ANDREW GAYNOR

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WILLIAM DOBELL

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(1899 – 1970) THE CART, c.1936 oil on wood panel 29.5 x 35.5 cm bears inscription on plaque attached verso: “The Cart” / William Dobell bears inscription with title on frame verso: The Cart ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Walter and Hedy Magnus, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist (bears inscription verso) Thence by descent Michael Magnus, Sydney, son of the above, from 1954 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney (inscribed verso, stock no. 23) Southern Cross Galleries, Melbourne (partial label attached verso) Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 9 November 1999, lot 180 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 11 November 1999 EXHIBITED on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 59 (illus.), 217

The cart, c.1936, belongs to suite of paintings of worker’s vehicles that Dobell observed from the window of his studio in Pimlico in the heart of Cockney London. He had travelled to England in 1929 (having won the £500 Society of Artists’ travelling scholarship) and studied for a short time at the Slade School of Fine Art whilst taking private lessons from Sir William Orpen. He then travelled twice to Europe for short journeys absorbing the works of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velásquez and others before returning to London to continue painting. After a few years of frugal living, ‘poverty brought him to the dingiest bed-sitting rooms of Pimlico and Bayswater.’1 Dobell always carried a sketch book

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with him but hated people observing him at work so when the New Zealand artist Fred Coventry offered his colleague the use of his studio whilst away, Dobell found a perfect first-floor vantage point from which to observe the passing parade. This comprised ‘charladies, ‘nippies’ (housemaids), gossiping cockney women, traders with horse-drawn carts, women cleaning front steps and many others’ 2 whom he was able to sketch and paint without interruption.

During these years, Dobell’s images oscillated between a crystalline realism and a semi-expressionist style which became more prominent in his paintings from the 1940s onwards. The cart belongs to the former category and he was no doubt drawn to the accidental composition of diagonals caused by the bicycles, plank and cart, contrasting with exclamation point of the shovel, the tangle of rope, and the circular forms of the wheels. It is, as described by his biographer James Gleeson, a scene where ‘the commonplace [becomes] unique; [Dobell] sees the ugly and paints it as though it was beautiful.’ 3 The cart is a view of a now vanished London street life that even Mr Parkes (and son) would appreciate. In related works such as The dust cart, The dirt cart and The baker’s cart, Dobell distorts his subjects with busy brushwork but in The cart, he remains true to the original scene in a manner akin to his other London masterworks such as Boy at the basin, 1932, and A street in Pimlico, 1937 (both Art Gallery of New South Wales), and Billy Frost, 1932 (National Gallery of Australia). Dobell returned to Australia with The cart in 1939 where the painting was subsequently purchased by the expansive restauranteur Walter Magnus, whose own portrait by Dobell, Chez Walter, 1945 (National Gallery of Australia) is another highlight from the artist’s oeuvre.

1. Gleeson, J., William Dobell, Thames and Hudson, London, 1964, pp. 37 – 38 2. Donaldson, E., William Dobell: an artist’s life, Exisle Publishing, NSW, 2010, p. 45 3. Gleeson, J., ibid., p. 30 ANDREW GAYNOR

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ROY DE MAISTRE

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(1894 – 1968) STILL LIFE STUDY IN GREY GREEN, 1952 oil on cardboard 53.5 x 63.5 cm signed lower right: R de Maistre bears inscription on label verso: 4 ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 315 (as ‘Still Life, Green Grey’) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991 EXHIBITED Roy de Maistre: A Retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings 1917 – 1960, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, May – June 1960, cat. 89 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 24 (as ‘Still life, green grey, c.1940’) One, Two, See: Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 81 (illus.), 217 RELATED WORK Still Life, Grey Green, 1952, oil on canvas, 59.2 x 79.0 cm, private collection, formerly in the collection of Sir John Rothenstein, London

Roy de Maistre moved into his London studio at 13 Ecclestone Street, Belgravia in 1937 and began creating a private domain likened by some to Aladdin’s cave. Situated on the top floor of a three-storey building, the long wide room was also part of the artist’s living quarters, dominated by a sofa made by Francis Bacon in 1929, and with windows covered by muslin casting a diffused light throughout. Paintings from all stages of his career occupied walls and easels, or leant in profusion against the walls, and a fascinating array of treasures and curios were displayed carefully on shelves and tables. Inevitably, many of these objects became components within his increasingly complex still-lifes, particularly those from the 1950s, all distinguished by de Maistre’s idiosyncratic form of decorative cubism.

Still life study in grey green, 1952 features a distinctive two-sphered glass lamp from his collection which appears in at least five other paintings from the decade including The lace maker’s lamp, c.1953 (Scottish National Gallery) and Studio table, c.1955 (Art Gallery of Western Australia). As the title implies, Still life study in grey green is one of a sequence of paintings that begins with the relatively straightforward Still life with quinces, c.1953 (private collection, and currently dated c.1953), and culminating with the ghostly Still life, grey - green, 1952 (private collection). Painted towards the end of the year when quinces appear at market, the first work features the bowl of the fruit augmented by a pipe and darning ‘mushroom’ set in front of a faux chest of drawers crafted by de Maistre from cardboard and painted with a cross hatched pattern.1 In Still life study in grey green, the quinces remain but the other objects have been replaced with the lacemaker’s lamp. Always drawn to design and technical challenges, de Maistre focusses on the myriad reflections within the spheres then contrasts that complexity with a simplified, leaf-like variant of the original decoration on the faux drawers. Amidst the otherwise muted grey-green palette, the quinces’ vibrant yellow is repeated within the lamp, and is also used to highlight the angled objects to the left, whilst the artist’s pronounced brushwork further animates the painting’s directional forces.

1. Johnson, H., Roy de Maistre: the English years, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, p. 169 ANDREW GAYNOR

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RUSSELL DRYSDALE (1912 – 1981) THE FOSSICKER, 1949 oil on canvas 40.5 x 56.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Russell Drysdale 49 ESTIMATE: $300,000 – 400,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Mrs Ivan Lewis, New South Wales, acquired from the above in 1949 Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Dr D.R. Sheumack, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1964 Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 22 November 1998, lot 282 (as ‘The Fossickers’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Russell Drysdale, 1948 /1949, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 23 March – 4 April 1949, cat. 8 The D. R. Sheumack Collection of Australian Paintings, S. H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 17 May – 12 June 1983, cat. 27 Russell Drysdale Paintings 1940–1972, S. H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery, Sydney, 14 June – 21 July 1985, cat. 26 The Artists of Hill End, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 July – 17 September 1995, and touring, cat. 23 (label attached verso) The Modern Landscape 1940 –1965, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 10 March – 3 May 1998 Russell Drysdale: Defining the Modern Landscape, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 9 October 2013 – 9 February 2014 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Big Crowd at Drysdale Exhibition’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 24 March 1949, p. 9 Klepac, L., The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, pl. 96, pp. 280 (illus.), 367 Christie, R., and Miller, J., (eds.), The D. R. Sheumack Collection. Eighty Years of Australian Painting, Sotheby’s Australia, Sydney, 1988, cat. 102, n.p. (illus.)

Wilson, G., The Artists of Hill End, The Beagle Press and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1995, pl. 23, pp. 45, 50 (illus.), 118 Fox, P., The Modern Landscape 1940 – 1965, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Victoria, 1998, pp. 6 (illus.), 8 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 17, 77 (illus.), 218 Heathcote, C., Russell Drysdale: Defining the Modern Landscape, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2013, pp. 22 (illus.), 23, 85

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Russell Drysdale Road with rocks, 1949 oil on canvas 66.6 x 102.0 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

‘When a vision becomes as widespread throughout society as Drysdale’s has in contemporary Australia, it is hard to believe that it has not always been there. It is now difficult to view Australian landscape without an echo of Drysdale’s images. His vision has become an integral part of the world in which we live.’1 Alongside renowned painters including Arthur Streeton and Fred Williams, Russell Drysdale is an artist whose imagery has become synonymous with Australia, instantly recognisable and powerfully evocative. Drysdale might easily have followed in his father’s footsteps however, and established a career working on the land, had it not been for eye surgery in 1932 and a fortuitous meeting with Julian Smith – ‘that strange and brilliant mixture of surgeon, artist and photographer’. 2 Smith was impressed by drawings Drysdale made while recuperating and showed them to Daryl Lindsay – artist and later, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria – who recalled that they ‘showed a curious sensitivity and a sharp observation.’3 The young Drysdale ‘liked Lindsay because he had had the same sort of life that I had led… He had been a jackeroo [sic.] and a station manager and we could talk about horses and sheep.’4 A subsequent introduction to George Bell, the influential modernist artist and respected teacher, sealed Drysdale’s fate and in 1935 he enrolled in formal art studies at the Shore-Bell School in Melbourne.

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Drysdale’s first solo exhibition at Melbourne’s Riddell Galleries in 1938 was well received, the Herald critic observing that he was a ‘natural painter savouring to the full the exciting discovery of paint.’5 His artistic trajectory continued to rise and in 1941, in addition to being represented in an exhibition of Australian art which toured America and Canada, Monday Morning, 1938 was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1942, both the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales purchased paintings for their permanent collections, and the Art Gallery of South Australia followed suit the next year.

Early paintings such as Man Feeding His Dogs, 1941 (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art) clearly show the feeling and familiarity that Drysdale had for rural subjects, as well as his ability to express this in paint. A commission in 1944 to accompany writer Keith Newman through western New South Wales and record the devastating effects of the drought for the Sydney Morning Herald, added another dimension.

This experience expanded Drysdale’s visual repertoire with images and motifs which depicted the country in such an extreme state that it appeared surreal and otherworldly. In subsequent paintings, a palette of rich ochres and black echo the parched landscape, while the dead trees, animal carcasses and remnants of human habitation provide graphic reminders of its harshness. As Newman wrote, ‘The dust-laden

Russell Drysdale The Rabbiters, 1947 oil on canvas 77.0 x 102.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

air plays eerie tricks with light. The sky appears leaden… crossed by great bands of black, red and grey… The sun is entirely obscured, or shows like a wan full moon. Dead trees… loom through the hot murk in a variety of fantastic shapes as though they died in agony beneath the axe or tortured by thirst as the wind below the soil from their roots…

Worse than the skeletons of animals are the skeletons of homes.’

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The impact of this drought-stricken landscape was profound and continued to influence Drysdale’s imagery for years to come. Similarly influential was Hill End, a once prosperous gold mining town northwest of Bathurst, which he first visited with fellow artist, Donald Friend, in 1947. As Friend recorded in his diary, the town was ‘an old ruined village living on the memory of its former fifty thousand inhabitants and fabulous tales of gold strikes. Now there are only a handful of rather sordid, jovial mad peasants who live by fossicking and rabbiting.’7 Working from sketches and the many photographs he took, Drysdale found imagery and atmosphere in Hill End. The latter in particular feeds into the quiet emptiness that characterises many of his paintings – think for example of the now iconic 1947 work, The Rabbiters (National Gallery of Victoria). The Fossicker, 1949 exemplifies this feeling, the monumentality of the ancient rocky forms towering over a lone figure, signaling nature’s grandeur and strength. Drysdale’s technique of

building up the painting with various layers of scumbling and glazing creates a rich patina, adding to the visual drama of the scene which contrasts bright sunlight with areas of deep shadow.

The Fossicker was first shown in Drysdale’s 1949 solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, alongside eleven other paintings including portraits of friends and fellow artists, Margaret Olley and Donald Friend.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the opening was a lively affair, ‘crowded out… by artists and others… [and] celebrated with a sherry party at noon.’ 8 It was also an immediate success and ‘Before one o’clock a red seal was on every picture available for sale.’ 9 1. Klepac, L., Russell Drysdale, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, p. 105 2. Joseph Burke cited in Klepac, ibid., p. 15 3. Ibid.

4. Drysdale interviewed by Geoffrey Dutton, cited in Eagle, M. and Minchin, J., The George Bell School: Students, Friends, Influences, Deutscher Art Publications, Melbourne and Resolution Press, Sydney, 1981, p. 91 5. Burdett, B., Herald, Melbourne, 27 April 1938, cited in Klepac, Russell Drysdale, Murdoch Books, Millers Point, 2009, p. 54 6. Newman, K., ‘An artist’s journey into Australia’s “lost world”’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 1944, p. 5 cited in Smith, G., Russell Drysdale 1912 – 81, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1997, p. 84 7. Friend, D., diary entry, 22 August 1947, cited in Klepac, L., op. cit., p. 89 8. Big Crowd at Drysdale Exhibition’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 24 March 1949, p. 9 9. Ibid.

KIRSTY GRANT

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LLOYD REES

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(1895 – 1988) SPRING AFTERNOON, WERRI BEACH, c.1948 oil on canvas on board 30.0 x 44.0 cm signed lower left: L REES bears inscription verso: SPRING AFTERNOON WERRI / BEACH LLOYD REES ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Possibly: Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 6 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Possibly: 1948 Northwood Group Show, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 5 – 17 May 1948, cat. 16 (as ‘Afternoon Light’) Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Possibly: Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1972, cat. O112 (as ‘Afternoon Light’, in the collection of Mr and Mrs A. P. Henchman) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 74 (illus.), 231

Lloyd Rees’ reputation as a consummate draughtsman overshadowed his subtle and steady work as painter from the 1920s. But from the mid-1940s his paintings were met with fulsome accolades. This was the decade when he secured a reputation with work borne out of painting en plein air and a deep understanding of art history.

Spring afternoon, Werri Beach, c.1948 was painted not long after Lloyd Rees painted his celebrated Road to Berry, 1947 (Art Gallery of New South Wales).1 Both works are relatively small but they belong to a period when his classically modern landscapes attracted the admiration of artists, critical opinion, public galleries and serious collectors alike.

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The wellspring for Rees’ art was drawing which began as a student at the Brisbane Technical College in 1910. The ink drawings of Brisbane, especially its architecture, have the character of old master grandeur – light and dark shadows which romantically elevate his keen observation of local subjects. In 1917, he was in Sydney and the formative heady days of modernism where he formed friendships with some of the leading exponents. And by 1923, Rees was travelling to Europe where he was drawn to the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, J.M.W. Turner, Titian and Claude Lorrain amongst many, although plein-airism and Italian classicism clearly had the most enduring effect.

John Olsen was effusive in recalling Rees’ landscapes, while the sweeps, curves and volumes remained with Brett Whiteley’s visual imagination throughout his career – and indeed, during the mid-80s he made a pen and brush ink drawing as a tribute to Road to Berry. 2 Unsurprisingly Whiteley extended Rees’ observation that, ‘subconsciously I’ve felt the hills have made me think of the feminine form – rhythm associated with figure and landscape.’3 Spring Afternoon, Werri Beach retains the voluminous characteristics of Road to Berry but with an indebted nod to Corot and Italian classicism.

Rees wasn’t interested in the outback or colloquial landscapes of any ‘type’ of pictorial Australianness. Rather his paintings have a serenity, a knowingness and affection for various locations within easy reach, from two hours south of Sydney and Kiama, Berry, Werri and Gerringong or northwest and inland to Orange and Bathurst. He admired French Barbizon School painting where a particular location might offer perpetual inspiration. Spring Afternoon, Werri Beach reminds us that scale and significance are never mutually exclusive from each other.

1. Road to Berry, 1947, oil on canvas on paperboard (Art Gallery of New South Wales) 2. Brett Whiteley, Lloyd Rees: ‘The road to Berry’ 1985, pen and black ink, brush and black ink, wash, gouache on cream laid paper (Art Gallery of New South Wales) 3. Rees, cited in Free, R., Lloyd Rees, Lansdowne Australian Art Library, Melbourne, 1972, p. 51 DOUG HALL AM

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GODFREY MILLER

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(1893 – 1964) TREES IN QUARRY, c.1952 – 56 oil, pen and ink on canvas 44.0 x 59.5 cm signed lower right: Godfrey Miller [indistinct] ESTIMATE: $150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Harold E. Mertz, Texas, USA Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, gift from the above in 1972 (label attached verso) The Harold E Mertz Collection of Australian Art, Christie’s, Melbourne, 28 June 2000, lot 65 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Godfrey Miller, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 7 – 19 August 1957, cat. 6 Godfrey Miller Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 June – 17 July 1959, cat. 14 Godfrey Miller Memorial Exhibition, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 16 February – 27 March 1965, cat. 11 The Mertz Collection of Contemporary Australian Painting, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 10 March – 11 April 1966, cat. 58 The Australian Painters 1964 – 66: Contemporary Australian Painting from the Mertz Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 10 March – 16 April 1967, pl. 21, cat. 72 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 65) on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1979 – c.1987 Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 March – 5 May 1996; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 15 May – 17 June 1996, cat. 61 (label attached verso) One, Two, See: Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales

LITERATURE Henshaw, J., Godfrey Miller, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1965, n.p., pl. 18 (illus.)

Gleeson, J., Masterpieces of Australian Painting, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, pl. 47A (illus.), p. 125 Gleeson, J., Modern Painters 1931–1970, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1971, pl. 21, pp. 3, 32 (illus.), 85, 86 Edwards, D., Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, pl. 61, pp. 69 (illus.), 75, 123 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 84 (illus.), 227 RELATED WORK Trees in Quarry, 1961 – 63, pen and ink and oil on canvas, 80.5 x 92.0 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Godfrey Miller in his studio, Young Street Sydney, 1950 photographer: Kerry Dundas Art Gallery of New South Wales Archive, Sydney

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Godfrey Miller Trees in moonlight, 1955–57 oil, pen and ink on canvas on wood 62.5 x 85.7cm Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

Godfrey Miller’s idiosyncratic temperament marks him as something of a contradiction in modern Australian painting. He eschewed his inherited wealth, the value placed on material existence, much about the art world and its conduct. He preferred his own privacy to the company of others. In return, the Australian art world came to regard his final decade as perhaps his finest. Miller had his first commercial exhibition in 1957, a Retrospective Exhibition in 1959 and, following his death in 1964, was included in a major exhibition of the Mertz Collection of Contemporary Australian Painting in Australia and Washington DC, with Masterpieces of Australian Painting published in 1969. Notably, on each occasion the work on offer, Trees in Quarry, c.1952 – 56, was included.

In 1961, the Tate Gallery purchased Triptych with Figures, c.1944 – 50 from the landmark show, Recent Australian Painting held at Whitechapel Gallery, London over June – July that year.

Miller’s work is usually cited as belonging to a generation of mid-20th century Sydney-based artists that gave Australian modernism its confident expression of semi-abstract and non-figurative painting.

Artists such as Grace Crowley, Ralph Balson and John Passmore were part of a superb ensemble, but comparisons with Passmore, whose overt debt to Cézanne is strong, are tenuous. While both Passmore and Miller shared an intellectual debt to Cézanne, their stylistic manifestations reveal distinct differences from each other. Indeed, Fairweather is a more accurate comparison, as their shared interest in esoteric and non-western philosophy shaped their art in mutually unique ways. Like

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Fairweather, Miller’s art unambiguously stands alone – he is unable to be categorised as belonging to a school or movement.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Miller wanted to become an architect.

The War interrupted a promising momentum and, aged 21, he enlisted as an army private in 1914. He was off to Egypt, then Gallipoli where he was wounded, shell-shocked, and returned to Egypt. He visited Memphis and Sakkara and saw the immaculate formal clarity of Egyptian architecture, painting and sculpture. By 1916 he had been discharged and was back in New Zealand as a student at the Dunedin School of Art. Episodic moments tended to characterise and influence Miller’s intellectual personality and career. He visited the Philippines, Japan, China and Hong Kong in 1919. In the twenties in Melbourne and nearby Warrandyte, his paintings were small, figurative, intimate and using a tonal range of exquisite subtlety. By the end of the decade, he was in London as a student at the Slade School of Fine Art where smaller scale paintings in heightened soft tones mark this period.

Two exhibitions in 1936 further refined and consolidated his outlook.

Miller visited Paris on three separate occasions to see a Cézanne retrospective at the Grand Palais. In London he saw the large and vast International Exhibition of Chinese Art, held at the Royal Academy of the Arts from November 1935 – March 1936.

Godfrey Miller Blue Unity, 1954–55 oil on canvas 69.8 x 88.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Cézanne encounter provides a telling prelude to Trees in Quarry.

The quarries at Bibémus, east of Aix-en-Provence, is where Cézanne first painted in 1895. The planar geometry, his tessellated brushwork and lineal accents are works of a distilled pictorial unity. But with Miller the idea of unity was not one of solely harmonised composition. Unity itself became the representation of the connectedness of everything, and had a philosophical underpinning.

Miller’s keen interest in mathematics, Cézanne and philosophy never diminished.1 Nothing in Miller’s work sits as isolated from its whole: no one aspect of image development supersedes another. The idea of unity, especially in non-Western thinking and culture, of interconnected relationships became an all-pervasive preoccupation. It was not only as a particular compositional understanding, but also as an expression of ideas which reinforced his art. Philosophy was central to Miller, in life and art – he had read Kandinsky’s influential text Concerning the Spiritual in Art. 2 With its rich complexity we find in Trees in Quarry a mature and masterful encapsulation of Miller’s intelligently steadfast pursuits. The geometric lattice arrangement of ruled straight-line ink drawing is a familiar device.

Orchestrations of withheld colour and half tones flicker and settle across a meticulously worked surface of chromatic lozenges and other shapes.

No element or detail is resolutely held in place to become contained and immutable. Miller often worked on paintings for years and he regarded much of his work as incomplete. It was a considered and perpetually transient working method – as though a final resolution was a daunting prospect. In Trees in Quarry, ‘borders are everywhere, but these are borders which do not confine, as that which moves beyond things is also within them… yet radiate beyond Miller’s compositional boundary.’3 The edge is especially important as it does not seek to frame and contain but alludes to a progression and extension beyond what is seen.

Trees in Quarry remains one Miller’s most admired paintings within his lifetime and beyond. A carefully modulated density and weighting of sublime refinement reminds us that logic and mysticism might coexist as unity.

1. Wookey Edwards, A., ‘Godfrey Miller and Mathematics’ in Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, pp. 111 – 113 2. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy from 1935 – 39, joined the Anthroposophical Society, Sydney in 1939, and joined the Krishnamurti movement in 1955.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published in 1910 was a seminal text discussing spiritual revolution and the importance, amongst many things, of abstraction and its relationship with music.

3. Edwards, D., Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 12 DOUG HALL AM

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SIDNEY NOLAN (1917 – 1992) CROSSING THE RIVER, 1964 oil on composition board 122.0 x 152.5 cm signed with initial lower right: N signed and dated lower left: 30 oct 1964 / nolan signed and inscribed verso: nolan / Not for Sale / Private Collection / to Sydney ESTIMATE: $600,000 – 800,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, United Kingdom, by 1967 Waddington Galleries Ltd, London (label attached verso, stock no. B20807, as ‘Crossing the River’) Private collection, United Kingdom Christie’s, Melbourne, 23 November 1998, lot 122 (as ‘River’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED possibly: Sidney Nolan Retrospective Exhibition, Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston Upon Hull, United Kingdom, 8 – 20 September 1970, cat. 40 (What’s so funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 22 June – 25 August 2013 Imagining Ned, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 28 March – 28 June 2015 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Geelong Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Lynn, E., Sidney Nolan – Myth and Imagery, Macmillan, London & Melbourne, 1967, pl. 52, pp. 15, 54, 81 (illus., as ‘River’) Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 105 (illus.), 228 RELATED WORK Policeman floating in the river, 1964, oil on hardboard, 152.0 x 122.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Kelly and policeman, 1964, oil on hardboard, 152.0 x 122.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

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Sidney Nolan Policeman Floating in the River, 1964 oil on hardboard 152.0 x 122.0 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © The Sidney Nolan Trust. All rights reserved, DACS/Copyright Agency

The Ned Kelly paintings from 1964 are amongst Sidney Nolan’s most psychologically penetrative with their mixture of tragedy, dreamlike narrative and autobiography. The saga of Kelly’s life and death loomed large in Nolan’s imagination to the point that he became a form of spiritual doppelgänger. The artist’s colleague Albert Tucker addressed letters to him starting ‘Dear Ned’, and, as the English critic and broadcaster Eric Newton noted, ‘Nolan knows, as well as Hogarth did, how to create a character in visual terms, place him in his environment, surround him with adventures and follow him, like the hero of an epic, from torture to triumph and from triumph to death.’1 Whilst Kelly and his companions appear at numerous points in Nolan’s career, it is generally agreed that there were three main sequences. The first was painted between 1945 and 1947 at the Melbourne farmhouse ‘Heide’ with his patron Sunday Reed as collaborator. This group remains his best known, with its irreverent folk-art depiction inspired by ‘Kelly’s own words, and Rousseau, and sunlight’2 as it follows the narrative cycle of the Kelly Gang to its destruction in 1880. The second, from the mid-1950s, is more sombre, a direct result of Nolan’s encounters with droughts in Western Queensland and a damaged European landscape that still bore the scars of World War Two. Nolan would later reflect that ‘(t)he

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concept of the hero [had] been doomed by the European experience – from Nietzsche onwards, culminating in Hitler.’3 For the first time, Kelly struggles through the landscape bearing visible wounds and, in places, is transformed by Nolan into a universal ‘man of sorrows.’ The third sequence, of which Crossing the River, 1964, is a significant example, was created over a three-month period towards the end of that year.

The trajectory of Nolan’s paintings from 1964 began as a direct consequence of his visit to Antarctica in the middle of January that year.

In February, he re-visited the Wimmera region of north-west Victoria in the company of critic Robert Hughes, then travelled by car from Sydney to Adelaide with Russell Drysdale and Hal Missingham to attend the Festival of Arts in Adelaide where a major exhibition of his African paintings from the previous year was being held at Bonython Galleries.

In April, he returned to England and three months later was reported to be embarking on ‘an exciting new venture. In his Putney studio he is painting a series of forty pictures, each four feet square, of the scenes he saw in the Antarctic earlier this year.’4 Whilst defined by the artist’s use of oil colours mixed with Rowney’s new gel medium and applied with squeegees, these haunting images of the frozen, hostile environment

Sidney Nolan Policeman and Ned Kelly, 1964 oil on hardboard 152.0 x 122.0 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © The Sidney Nolan Trust. All rights reserved, DACS/Copyright Agency

were also augmented by swathes of thick paint applied with brushes of varying scale, and it is this latter approach which distinguishes Crossing the River and its companions. Coincidentally, the original Kelly series were exhibited at QANTAS House in Piccadilly that June to wide acclaim, before touring to Edinburgh and Paris. These works were still owned by John and Sunday Reed and, despite his continuing estrangement from the pair, Nolan saw the exhibition, with the re-exposure after nearly two decades providing further impetus for Nolan to revisit the theme.

Following a short sequence of ‘Burke and Wills’ paintings in August, the initial Kelly appears in mid-October as a close-up of his helmeted head, inclined against an Antarctic sky.5 As the series progresses, the brush marks become more pronounced with a viscosity that at times overwhelms the central characters. The setting is usually on the muddy banks of a watercourse, identified by Nolan as being the Goulbourn River of his youth, painted in rich reds and browns. Under a hazy blue sky, Kelly is reduced to a symbolic silhouette as he encounters policemen, travellers and even his mirrored self. In Policeman floating in the river (Art Gallery of New South Wales), painted three days before Crossing the River, a wounded Kelly sits astride his horse, which drinks from the waters as a helmeted policeman drifts by. In the present work, the helmeted but otherwise naked outlaw climbs a tree near a railway bridge

to observe his grey mare Music as she floats next to a figure wearing a floral-patterned dress and whose head hovers separate to its trunk.

This theme tangentially alludes to the painting Steve Hart dressed as a girl, 1947 (National Gallery of Australia) where the Gang member dons female clothing as a disguise to evade police.6 In contrast to the agitated paint marks defining the land in Crossing the River, Nolan paints the water as a translucent, smooth passage, a contrast which enhances the sense that the floating figure may be a dreamlike vision visible to Kelly alone. On 16 November, Nolan revisited the same theme in Disguise (former Mertz Collection, Texas), only now the semi-naked bushranger is back on his horse as he leans towards a be-frocked and bearded man who wears a straw hat sporting a single red flower.

1. Eric Newton, ‘Review: Art and artists 1964’, The Guardian, London, 23 December 1964 2. Sidney Nolan, cited in Clark, K., McInnes, C., and Robertson, B., Sidney Nolan, Thames and Hudson, London, 1961, p. 30 3. Sidney Nolan, 1964, cited in Spencer, C., ‘Speaking with Sidney Nolan: the Australian heroic dream’, Studio International, no.168, 1964, p. 207 4. Poetry in Paint’, Sunday Telegraph, London, 19 July 1964 5. Another isolated Kelly image is dated 3 August 1964 6. Later re-worked as The disguise, 1955 (Art Gallery of Western Australia) ANDREW GAYNOR

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SIDNEY NOLAN

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(1917 – 1992) CENTRAL AUSTRALIA, 1956 oil and enamel on composition board 91.5 x 122.0 cm signed lower right: N. signed and dated lower left: Nolan. / 1956 signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: nOLAN / 1956 / CENTRAL AUSTRALIA ESTIMATE: $80,000 – 120,000

PROVENANCE Samuel Gorley Putt, London, prior to 1968 (bears inscription verso) Lord and Lady Snow, London Thence by descent Private collection, London Sotheby’s, Sydney, 25 August 2002, lot 50 (as ‘Central Australian Landscape’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Gippsland Regional Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 228

Managing Director of John Fairfax Limited, while the National Gallery of Victoria had purchased Central Australia, 1949 before the exhibition opened. By the end of the viewing, a total of seventeen paintings had been sold.1 As James Gleeson enthused at the time, ‘…Sidney Nolan’s exhibition of central Australian landscapes must be regarded as one of the most important events in the history of Australian painting. It is a superb and overwhelming experience, and it may not be too fanciful to imagine that future art historians will date the birth of a predominantly Australian idiom from this exhibition. He makes us feel the oppressive fascination of these stark unpeopled immensities of wind-worn rock and soil. And through them all runs the central theme of grinding heat, the earth is furnace-coloured under dried-up skies.

Nolan’s technical equipment would seem thin and meagre in other less impassioned or more cautious hands. It achieves power and authority in his own case because it is charged with absolute conviction.’2 Although painted three years after his official ‘desert and drought’ series when Nolan had moved permanently to Europe with London as his base, Central Australia, 1956 still captures perfectly this notion of the vastness and strange beauty of Australia’s desolate interior. Featuring an almost lunar-like landscape patterned with undulating peaks and valleys, and glowing with the richness of intense ochres against a teal

Inspired by his extended explorations of inland Australia by rail and air with his wife Cynthia and daughter Jinx, throughout May – June 1949, Nolan’s Central Australian landscapes remain among his most acclaimed achievements. Incorporating aerial views of desert and mountain ranges, drought-stricken landscapes with dried carcasses, powerful narratives of the ill-fated Burke and Wills’ expedition, and religious iconography placed within an uniquely Antipodean context, the series not only heralded a major breakthrough in Nolan’s painting style, but established his reputation both locally and abroad as one of Australia’s most inventive and influential artists of the twentieth century.

Not surprisingly perhaps, the first exhibition of such paintings at the David Jones Gallery in Sydney in 1950 was a spectacular triumph, both critically and commercially, with nine paintings selling at the opening, including Dry Jungle, 1949 to the National Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Hartz Range, 1950 purchased by Rupert Henderson,

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blue nocturnal sky, the work exudes a reverence for the wild Australian outback in all its immense beauty and terror, layering fear and awe, fact and myth in a manner reminiscent of the great Romantic painters of the nineteenth century such as J.M.W Turner, Constable and Casper David Friedrich. Indeed, notwithstanding its production abroad, the painting still bears a tangible sense of the artist being present and observing with unflinching gaze the power and scale of nature; as Henshaw elucidates, ‘Allusion, suggestion and ever-present fantasy conjured up long after the visual experience has passed, in no way affect Nolan’s astonishing ability to convince the spectator that what he paints is real.’3 1. Smith, G., Sidney Nolan: Desert and Drought, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 25 2. Gleeson, J., ‘Landscapes triumph for Aust. Artist’, Sun, Sydney, 31 March 1950, p. 19 3. Henshaw, J., The Australian, 16 September 1967 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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DANILA VASSILIEFF

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(1897 – 1958) EAST MELBOURNE HILLSIDE, STEEP STREET, c.1930s oil on canvas 35.0 x 49.0 cm signed lower left: Vassilieff ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Private collection, a gift from the artist in 1945 Sotheby’s, Sydney, 14 August 1990, lot 208 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 20 August 1990 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 32 (as ‘Street Scene’) on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 61 (illus.), 236

Born in South Russia in 1897 – the son of a Cossack father and Ukrainian mother – Danila Vassilieff cut an exotic figure in 1930s Melbourne.

His liberated approach to art eschewed formal training and theory, and his belief that the creative act was something direct and physical, as opposed to being driven by aesthetics and intellect, garnered him enthusiastic friends and followers.1 Young artists including Albert Tucker, who described him as the ‘father figure for his generation’, valued his experience and example as a painter who refused to be constrained by rules and tradition. 2 Although Vassilieff’s paintings had their detractors, others regarded them highly, celebrating their vitality and raw expressive power. Writing in response to Vassilieff’s 1938 exhibition at Riddell Galleries, Melbourne, Herald art critic Basil Burdett had a bet each way, acknowledging that ‘His technical shortcomings may outnumber the sores of Lazarus but his pictures are alive.’3 Vance Palmer, who contributed an introduction to the exhibition catalogue, was less ambivalent, declaring: ‘Each of these pictures burns with a strange intensity. Each gives out an excitement from its core, quickening the eyesight and the imagination…

The answer I think must lie in the artist himself. The secret passion that

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has been put into the work, by whatever technical method, comes out again to affect the beholder. Vassilieff has been profoundly moved by life – the commonplace life of back street and country hillside – and so he has the power to move us, too. Perhaps that is the only valid reason why men should either paint or write.’4 Vassilieff painted a range of subjects but is arguably best known for his images of street life which, viewed from our twenty-first century perspective, provide a fascinating and nostalgic glimpse into the past.

Whether he depicts children playing, as in Fitzroy Street Scene, 1937 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), or people posing for a commercial street photographer, as in Smith Street, c.1939 (National Gallery of Australia), Vassilieff captures his working-class subjects directly, with honesty and a palpable sense of empathy. He frequently painted in Fitzroy, Collingwood and East Melbourne, where, as his partner noted at the time, ‘He does not need to go searching for subjects… he often has a chat with the children of the neighbourhood and paints them’.5 The primary focus of this painting is the buildings, single and double-story Victorian terrace houses with their distinctive bluestone foundations, built cheek by jowl along the steep East Melbourne street. Forms are outlined in black paint and the palette is muted and earthy, but Vassilieff’s technique of painting on a white ground in a series of rapid, sketchy strokes – almost like drawing with a paint brush – as well as leaving areas of the ground exposed, imparts a liveliness and sense of luminosity to the image. Basil Burdett perhaps best summed up these street scenes, writing that ‘[Vassilieff’s] pictures of Fitzroy and Surry Hills are almost as racily Australian as an epic of urban life by C. J. Dennis…[his] is the authentic vision of a man of sensibility and power’.6 1. See St. John Moore, F., Vassilieff and His Art, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, p. 42 2

Albert Tucker quoted in Uhl, C., Albert Tucker, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, p. 14

3. Burdett, B., ‘Is Australian Art so Dull, After All?’, Herald, Melbourne, 17 October 1938, p. 11 4. Palmer, V., Introduction to Catalogue, Riddell Galleries, October 1938 quoted in St. John Moore, op.cit., pp. 46 – 47 5. Helen MacDonald, quoted in Herald, Melbourne, 23 February 1938 quoted in St. John Moore, op. cit., p. 43 6. Burdett, B., Herald, Melbourne, 16 September 1937 quoted in St. John Moore, op. cit., p. 40 KIRSTY GRANT

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JOY HESTER

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(1920 – 1960) FACES, c.1948 from THE LOVERS series ink and pastel on paper 47.5 x 34.5 cm (sheet) signed with estate stamp lower left: Joy Hester ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Dr Ross Johnston, Brisbane, acquired from the above, by 1979 Christie’s, Melbourne, 1 May 2000, lot 165 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED A View of Brisbane Collections, Queensland Art Gallery Society, Brisbane, 9 – 25 March 1979 (label attached verso) Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 People are Strange, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 28 November – 8 March 2015 Patricia Piccinini & Joy Hester: Through love …, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 24 November 2018 – 11 March 2019 (label attached verso) Joy Hester: Remember Me, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 28 November 2020 – 14 February 2021, cat. 93 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 75 (illus.), 221 Morgan, K. and Petherbridge, D., Joy Hester: Remember Me, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2020, p. 153 (illus.)

The story of Joy Hester’s life is so complex and familiar that connections are inevitably made between what we know – or imagine we know – of her experiences and feelings, and the images she created. This is especially so of works which focus on the depiction of human relationships and emotion. The dual themes of love and lovers are persistent throughout her oeuvre, but especially from 1947, a year which marked the end of her marriage to Albert Tucker and the beginning of a new relationship with the poet/painter, Gray Smith.

In this work from around 1948, Hester depicts the faces of two figures, painting them quickly in broad brushstrokes of black ink and wash.

They read as opposites: one female and one male, one that is pale in colour, and one that is dark. While the female looks out at the viewer, a hint of a smile on her face, her partner’s gaze is focussed firmly on her.

The overlapping of their faces signals an intimate connection which is reinforced by the presence of a rose, a traditional symbol of romantic love. Indeed, these faces appear to be enclosed within a heart-shaped (although incomplete) outline, a motif Hester used in other works including two closely related examples which share the same title and date, Love (Heart group), c.1949 (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and Gallery at HOTA, Queensland).

Although Hester’s work was unrepresented in any public collection at the time of her premature death in 1960, it is now widely collected, with major holdings in the National Gallery of Australia and Heide Museum of Modern Art. Her art has been the subject of several major posthumous exhibitions and notably, this work was included in the most recent of these, Joy Hester: Remember Me, shown at Heide during 2020.1 1. See Morgan. K. & Petherbridge, D., Joy Hester: Remember Me, exhibition catalogue, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2020, cat. no. 93, illustrated p. 153 KIRSTY GRANT

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103

CHARLES BLACKMAN

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(1928 – 2018) BARBARA, c.1960 oil on cardboard 75.0 x 62.5 cm signed lower left: Blackman ESTIMATE: $45,000 – 65,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 25 August 1998, lot 23 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 98 (illus.), 213

Charles Blackman met his future wife, poet Barbara Patterson in 1948 and after an ‘unofficial’ wedding on Sydney’s Dee Why Beach in 1950, they were legally married in Melbourne in 1951.1 Working as a life model to supplement their income and to enable Blackman to paint full-time, Barbara’s domestic proximity meant that Blackman had a skilled and readily available model at home, and it is not surprising that she became a source of inspiration and a constant presence in his work throughout the 1950s and 60s. However, as Barbara recalled, theirs was not a conventional artist-model relationship: ‘Husband Charles never drew me as posed nude. In the late fifties he was invited to contribute to an exhibition of nude work. He asked if drawing a baby without clothes was eligible.’2 Barbara was declared legally blind in 1950, and as her sight deteriorated, Blackman was increasingly drawn into the world of words and literature by reading aloud to her. Blackman first encountered Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865) as a talking book on Barbara’s new talking

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book machine, resulting in the artist’s celebrated Alice in Wonderland series of 1956 – 57. Full of distortions of scale and physical space, the couple appear in the series as Carroll’s key players, with Barbara as Alice and Charles as the White Rabbit. As Felicity St John Moore has observed: ‘Listening to the story again and again, he was struck by the parallels between the fabulous Alice and the real Barbara, including her distorting body image (their first child was born as the series came to an end) and her increasing spatial disorientation to which they were both then trying to adjust.’3 The images that followed the completion of Blackman’s Alice series comprised paintings of family intimacy and blindness, and of mother and child (the couple’s first son, Auguste, was born in 1957), worked from both formally posed and family photographs. Barbara, c.1960 is a poetic and slightly melancholic portrait, with the subject’s sightless eyes and features obscured by darkness; her shadow implying a sense of psychological separation as it reflects on the wall behind her, seemingly independent from the form of her body. As Blackman explained: ‘My sort of painting isn’t sparked off directly by visual things, although … its point of reference is visual. It’s sparked off by what I feel about something perhaps in a book. And I suppose it’s got to do with the fact that Barbara and I have been related pretty successfully as people, because I go into her world to a degree.’4 Barbara’s isolation from the city beyond the window at which she stands is also made palpable by the painting’s sombre blocks of colour, which sit in stark contrast to her bright yellow top; perhaps signifying the role she plays in the artist’s life and what she brings to his world and art personally and intellectually.

1. St John Moore, F., Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 16 2. Blackman, B., Glass After Glass: Autobiographical Reflections, Penguin Books, Ringwood, 1997, p. 167 3. St John Moore, op. cit., p. 4 4. Ibid.

KELLY GELLATLY

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ALBERT TUCKER

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(1914 – 1999) ANTIPODEAN HEAD (INTRUDER), 1962 oil on composition board 38.0 x 28.0 cm signed and dated upper right: Tucker 62 bears inscription on gallery label verso: “Antipodean Head (Intruder), 1960” ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso, stock no. 26744) Dr & Mrs Allen C. Kelley, North Carolina, USA The Mint Museum of Art, North Carolina, USA, a gift from the above, 1983 (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 21 August 2000, lot 64 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Albert Tucker – Recent Paintings, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 23 October – 9 November 1962, cat. 8 or 27 (as ‘Head’) on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 235

After fleeing Melbourne and the upheavals of the Heide circle in 1947, Albert Tucker spent a fruitful thirteen years in Europe, largely in Paris, with periods of extended travel in Germany and Italy. Supported by a modest stipend from John and Sunday Reed and by his then partner, American Mary Dickson, Tucker lived frugally – for a time living and travelling in a tiny homemade caravan – but was, importantly, able to concentrate solely on his art.

Absorbing and working through a range of influences during this period abroad, Tucker made a decisive return to quintessentially Australian subject matter after a joint exhibition with Sidney Nolan in Rome in 1954 demonstrated his friend’s capacity to make an impact on the international stage while ‘remaining an Australian artist in outlook and subject matter’.1 From this time, Tucker undertook his own exploration

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of the myth of Ned Kelly, the hardship of life in the Australian bush, and the relationship between man and the land. He eventually landed on a powerful new motif – the Antipodean Head – a craggy, scarified, totemic head that dominated the picture plane, and continued to absorb the artist for well over two decades. As he later recalled: ‘Frontier and explorer figures were very real to us, unlike the current generation… and we knew we had an image coming together in the 1940s of an Australian unity, lost since post-war imagination… these works commented on an earlier Australia.’2 Tucker returned home in 1960 on the back of several successes, including having his work exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1957, winning the Australian Women’s Weekly Prize in 1958, and having paintings acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and The Guggenheim in New York. The occasion of his homecoming at the age of 45 was his first major solo exhibition at Melbourne’s newly established Museum of Modern Art of Australia, which subsequently toured nationally.

Tucker’s Antipodean Head (Intruder), 1962 literally embodies the landscape of which he is part, his face a deeply etched and pitted typography of potholes and crevices. Pictured in profile, as characteristic of the series, the figure’s clenched jaw and darkly shadowed eyes speak of a decidedly masculine determination and grit, where man must fight to both tame and survive the harsh Australian bush. As Tucker explained in an interview with artist James Gleeson in 1979: ‘…I was trying to push myself towards other forms because I was sick of my reliance on the crescent form. I didn’t say it in these terms then, but as I would say from this point of time now, there have to be other sources of energy for your work to discover the forms to gel into. I think the energy is there – scratch it, get it moving, and then it gels into its own form. You are just an attendant, a kind of midwife to it.’3 1. Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 10 2. Albert Tucker/David Bilcock, 1997, videotaped interview [unreleased] cited ibid., p. 154 3. James Gleeson Interviews: Albert Tucker [transcript], 2 May 1979, James Gleeson Oral History Collection, National Gallery of Australia, https://nga.gov.au/media/dd/documents/ tucker.pdf, accessed 29 May 2020 KELLY GELLATLY

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ALBERT TUCKER

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(1914 – 1999) PARROTS IN BUSH, c.1973 oil on board 60.5 x 76.0 cm signed lower left: Tucker ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 140 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 2 August 1990 EXHIBITED The Reading Room: The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 102 (illus.), 225

Albert Tucker’s return to Australia in 1960 from an extended time living abroad coincided with a long overdue reassessment and appreciation of his work on home soil, particularly in his hometown of Melbourne.

Key to this was the timing of Richard Haese’s seminal exhibition Rebels and Precursors: Aspects of Painting in Melbourne 1937 – 1947, that was shown at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1962. Haese’s exhibition showcased the work of artists such as Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Sidney Nolan, Danila Vassilieff and Tucker, among others, introducing their work to a new generation of artists, and to a wide public audience. Having come to maturity experiencing the Great Depression and two World Wars, and having long fought for critical recognition and acceptance, Tucker was now regarded as a significant senior artist and truly part of the canon of recent Australian art history.

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In the mid-1950s Tucker was introduced by Italian artist Alberto Burri to polyvinyl acetate (PVA) – a material that was to revolutionise his practice for a time. As he recalled: ‘I met Alberto Burri in 1953 – 54 because he lived not far from me. He spoke English quite well. When I went around his studio … I noticed he had a whole stack of tins – blue cans – of stuff called Vinivyl. He said: ‘It’s marvellous stuff… it does everything that I want it to do…’ He showed me big built-up masses of it which had dried right out. I tested it and you could mortar to an inch thick and if there was a big enough sheet of it, it could still bend, it had this flexibility and leathery toughness to it…’1 PVA allowed Tucker to build up the surface of his works without using masses of oil paint, which was expensive, and importantly, to bind other materials – sand, earth and wood, for example, into the picture plane.

This was transformational, enabling him to bring a tactile sculptural quality to his ‘Antipodean Heads’ and later, to the Australian landscapes that he began to paint after he moved in 1961 to a property in rural Hurstbridge, north-east of Melbourne.

The artist’s new-found immersion in the bush enabled him to capture not only the colour and searing light of the Australian landscape, but also its heat and sounds – we can almost hear the screech of the rosellas as they fly overhead. Settling into this new period of artistic notoriety in mid-life, Tucker clearly relished the experimentation and joy of painting that his bush homeland inspired. As he said: ‘I was still in my stage of being completely overawed by the old-fashioned gum tree.

After thirteen years absence you realise what a unique, prehistoric beast it is. It had all these marvellous qualities. I had a fresh view of it, and so I started painting gum trees when they were extremely unpopular.

They were regarded as an academic idea to be avoided at all costs.’2 1. Albert Tucker interview with James Mollison, 1990 quoted in Fry, G., Albert Tucker, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 136 2. James Gleeson Interviews: Albert Tucker [transcript], 2 May 1979, James Gleeson Oral History Collection, National Gallery of Australia, https://nga.gov.au/media/dd/documents/ tucker.pdf, accessed 29 May 2020 KELLY GELLATLY

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ARTHUR BOYD

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(1920 – 1999) SHOALHAVEN RIVERBANK AND LARGE STONES, 1981 oil on canvas 152.5 x 123.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd ESTIMATE: $250,000 – 350,000

PROVENANCE Ivanyi Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1981 Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2002, lot 23 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Figures & Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Hoff, U., The Art of Arthur Boyd, André Deutsche Ltd., London, 1986, pl. 191 (illus.,), pp. 77, 78, 246 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 126 (illus.), 214

‘The natural beauty of the Shoalhaven area caused Boyd to marvel constantly. His paintings are a celebration of grandeur and wonder of Nature. It is to Boyd’s credit that a single landscape can inspire such diversity of work. He gives us the impression that there are infinite possibilities, as long as we train ourselves to see.’1 Eager to rediscover his roots, his ‘Australianism’, after more than a decade abroad, in 1971 Arthur Boyd returned to the country of his birth to take up a Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra. Over the blazing summer of 1971 – 72, Boyd and his wife Yvonne were invited by the Sydney art dealer Frank McDonald to visit Bundanon for the weekend, staying at a home he shared on the south coast of New South Wales with art historian Sandra McGrath and her husband Tony. Here the artist’s joyful rediscovery of the Australian bush with its stark contrasts and clarity of light was nothing short of an epiphany, and thus in 1974, Boyd purchased the nearby property Riversdale on the banks of the Shoalhaven River. Once again the magic

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of the dour, untamed Australian landscape became the impetus for his art, and over the subsequent twenty-five years until his death in 1999, Boyd would dedicate himself almost exclusively to capturing the myriad moods of the Shoalhaven in images that are today imprinted upon the national psyche as some of our most beloved and iconic.

Soul-piercing in its beauty, the Shoalhaven region of fered both refreshing solace for the artist’s world-weary eyes, and endless potential as a subject – ‘the variation in the area with its great deep tones and high keys’ bearing strong affinities with music. As Boyd elaborated, ‘in the desert there is only one note, just one low singing note. In this landscape the tonal range – not tonal in the obvious sense of colour, but the actual fact of the horizon which can vary from very high to low, to infinite, depending on your line of vision – makes it a greater challenge.

It has a knife-edged clarity. Impressionism could never have been born here, but Wagner could easily have composed here. He could not have composed at Port Phillip Bay. In fact,’ he added with characteristic playfulness, ‘I actually think Wagner lived in the Shoalhaven.’2 Wild and primordial, the region differed completely from the ordered English countryside to which he had grown accustomed and thus, a new vision was required to unlock its tangled mysteries. If previously Breughel and Rembrandt had offered inspiration, now Von Guérard, Piguenit and Buvelot became Boyd’s spiritual mentors.

Suffused with warmth and lyricism, Shoalhaven Riverbanks and Large Stones, 1981 is a monumental example of the ‘pure’ Shoalhaven landscapes which – devoid of the mythological creatures and symbolic narrative punctuating versions elsewhere – simply pays homage to the sheer beauty, grandeur and wonder of Nature. Indeed, the work is a poignant reminder of how Boyd, comfortable once more with the eternal diversity of the Australian landscape, ultimately did tame his wilderness: ‘...what was unfamiliar became familiar, what was menacing became friendly, what was awesome became intimate’. 3 1. McKenzie, J., Arthur Boyd at Bundanon, Academy Editions, London, 1994, p. 42 2. Boyd quoted in Pearce, B., Arthur Boyd Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1993, pp. 26 – 27 3. McGrath, S., The Artist and the Shoalhaven, Bay Books, Sydney, 1982, p. 79 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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born 1928 LANDSCAPE HANGING ON TO AN EDGE, 1987 oil on canvas 152.5 x 167.0 cm signed and dated lower left: John Olsen 87 signed, dated and inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: ‘Landscape Hanging on To an Edge’ John Olsen 87 ESTIMATE: $150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 27 November 1989, lot 212 Private collection Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 22 November 1998, lot 293 Private collection Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, lot 19 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Drawn From Life, Olsen Carr Art Dealers, Sydney, 1 October 1997, cat. 1 (as ‘Hanging on the Edge’) on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE McCulloch, A., McCulloch, S., & McCulloch Childs, E., The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2006, p. 746 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 136 (illus.), 228 RELATED WORK Hanging on the Edge, 1987, watercolour, ink and crayon on paper, 189.0 x 99.0 cm, private collection

Located 700 kilometres north of Adelaide, Lake Eyre had first captured Olsen’s imagination in October 1974 when he was invited by the esteemed naturalist, Vince Serventy, to venture to the area which had flooded for only the second time in living memory since white settlement. Known as the ‘Dead Heart’, the arid, salt-encrusted interior of South Australia was suddenly transformed into a teeming inland oasis, ‘a carnival of life’, leaving the artist both awestruck and inspired by the contradictions inherent within such a place – of fullness and emptiness, life and death. As Deborah Hart suggests, ‘Life approached the lake, clinging to its edges; however, the lake itself was a place for contemplation, a vast, engulfing space: The void...’1 And Olsen himself elaborated ‘[t]he lake might be viewed symbolically as an unconscious plughole of Australia, a mental landscape … perhaps nowhere in Australia does one have the feeling of such complete emptiness – covered by a bowl of endless sky with inviting silences, there is, as you stand on the edge of the lake, a feeling that you are standing on the edge of the void.’2

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Olsen was so profoundly affected by his experience at Lake Eyre that henceforward motifs of ‘the void’ and ‘the edge’ would become seminal to his way of interpreting the world, fundamentally influencing his understanding of the intimacy of form and line; ‘...the serene atmosphere and reductive qualities found in many of his works, where the empty spaces are as important as the marks themselves, and to the line probing space, becoming the edge, where things meet, end and begin again.’3 Continuing the imagery of fringe-like life synonymous with his Lake Eyre paintings from 1974 to 1980, Landscape Hanging on to an Edge, 1987 features the landscape viewed from an aerial perspective and presented in a minimalist style, attesting to Olsen’s interest in the Oriental art maxim ‘of stretching emptiness to its limits.’

Significantly, the work was painted amidst the picturesque beauty of Olsen’s bush retreat at Clarendon, South Australia – a joyous and richly fertile period for the artist resulting in exquisitely lyrical works such as Golden Summer, Clarendon, 1983 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and A Road to Clarendon: Autumn, 1985, for which Olsen was awarded the prestigious Wynne Prize for landscape painting in 1985.

Yet, by the time the present work emerged, Olsen’s halcyon days at Clarendon were drawing to a close. In May 1986, Olsen and Noela Hjorth had married in a legal ceremony at ‘The Old Rectory’ in Clarendon, however, by the following year their relationship had become so fraught that in September 1987, they reached the point of no return with Olsen moving to Sydney. Accordingly, Landscape Hanging on to an Edge may be perceived as alluding to the artist living on the edge of a metaphorical desert, or as Olsen expressed it, ‘on the edge of everything that can be difficult.’4 The precarious diagonal line dissecting the canvas is the dividing edge – the tightrope between two spheres of thought, conflicting emotions or contrasting alternatives. Subtly interweaving personal experience within the genre of landscape painting, thus Olsen’s achievements are as much about exploring his own mental landscape as they are about documenting a topographical one; as he poignantly notes, ‘It takes longer to understand a region of the mind than a whole country.’5 1. Hart, D, John Olsen, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1991, p. 135 2. Olsen cited in Olsen, J., and Serventy, V., ‘The Dead Heart Lives’, National Times, 17 – 22 February 1975, p. 31 3. Hart, op. cit., p. 135 4

Olsen cited ibid., p. 182

5

Olsen cited ibid., p. 176

VERONICA ANGELATOS

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FRED WILLIAMS (1927 – 1982) SAPLING FOREST, c.1960 – 62 oil on composition board 121.0 x 89.0 cm signed lower centre: Fred Williams bears inscription verso: 3 [LW003] ESTIMATE: $180,000 – 240,000

PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 4 September 1998 EXHIBITED Art in a Time of Change, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney, 21 January – 9 April 2000 A Century of Australian Art, Gosford Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 14 April – 28 July 2000 Fred Williams and John Nixon - Reducing Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 21 March – 28 June 2015 and touring 3 Perspectives | Mary Tonkin, Fred Williams & Miles Evergood, Burrinja Gallery, Dandenong Ranges Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 15 May – 24 July 2021 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 236 We are grateful to Lyn Williams for her assistance with this catalogue entry.

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40

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Fred Williams Echuca Landscape, 1961 oil on composition board 122.0 x 153.0 cm Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane © Estate of Fred Williams

To claim a painting, or closely connected series of paintings, as career defining can be something of a risky call. However, in Sapling Forest, 1962 and other similar paintings by Fred Williams from the same time, they reach a resolute clarity where former influences and reference points disappear and a distinctly personal and emblematic pictorial arrangement takes hold. Williams’s paintings from the 60s are the most original Australian landscape paintings by any artist of his generation.

After six years in London, which included study at the Chelsea School of Art, Williams returned to Australia in late 1957. Nationalist myth painting carried on and the rise of abstract expressionism had taken hold, especially in Sydney. Later he must have been thankful for not having been invited to join the Antipodeans and to exhibit with them in their one and only exhibition in 1959; he seemingly dodged a doctrinaire and typecasting bullet. What fresh prospects landscape painting might offer was low with expectation. Despite Williams’ unfashionable keenness for landscape, he never hoped to become an art historical repeat of former greatness. Narrative heroism or the landscape as symbolic motif never played a role.

Paintings which immediately precede Sapling Forest similarly use a strong vertical compositional format with top to bottom lines dividing the picture plane. His palette is usually softer and darker using

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carefully modulated half-tones in resonant glazes, as exemplified by Echuca Landscape, 1961 (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art). He had travelled and painted around Echuca a couple of years earlier with Arthur Boyd – paintings and ideas were further developed in the studio. It was a foundation from which the vibrant expression in Sapling Forest followed. It was also the year Williams won the Wynne Prize with Sherbrooke Forest, 1961 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) – an ensemble of vertical lines across glazes of subdued shadowy light.

References to Cézanne and Cubism in works such as The Charcoal Burner, 1959 no longer appeared as an underlying compositional solution, and suggestions of closely observed topographical elements are made minimal or eliminated. But Matisse remained a constant and discreet presence – forms delineated in black and tonal passages broken with coloured accents appear in various iterations.

Williams’ use of glazes is an important and repeating trait – his appreciation of them gleaned through looking at the work from old masters to Corot. It is a deep historical understanding used to contemporary effect; the quickly painted gestures are a characteristic which are emphasised fully in his paintings on board. The expressive surface gestures and textures are as robust and dynamic as Australian abstract expressionist paintings at the time.

Fred Williams Sapling Forest, 1961 oil and tempera on composition board 152.5 x 119.8 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne © Estate of Fred Williams

The textures in Sapling Forest evoke the gnarled surface of the observed

artists Williams greatly admired had settled nearby in later life; Arthur

motif, a mannerist touch which we see for the first time in the early 60s.

‘Williams worked up the textures of these paintings so that they recall in touch the roughness of bark or wood… an almost literal equivalence between the weight and density of paint and the weight and density of the motif.’1

Streeton retired to Olinda in 1938, a fifteen-minute drive north of Upwey,

But as an impenetrable landscape Sapling Forest radiates a dense heat which is emphasised with a rich palette of siennas, ochres and passages of dark dryness. Indeed, the composition, textures and tonal range of Sapling Forest find a close likeness with Williams’ etchings such as Landscape Diptych No. 2, 1962 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), thus demonstrating his works as a painter and printmaker in unison was a regular routine of studio life. Elements of both media can be seen to crossover and refer to each other, where a concurrence of image sharing reaches resolution according to the specialness and demands of each medium.

and Tom Roberts moved to Kallista in 1923. Williams admired aspects of Tom Roberts’ early and late compositions where, in the absence of a horizon line, the scale of trees and their verticality rises to divide the picture plane or seemingly descend from the top of the painting itself as in Bailed Up, 1895 and Sherbrooke Forest, 1924 (both in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales).

In Sapling Forest we find a precursor, a pointer, to work which, by end of the decade, would define his achievements as crucial to any account of 20th century Australian painting – paintings such as Landscape ’69 Triptych, 1969 – 70 (National Gallery of Australia) becoming the refined and minimalist synthesis of Williams’ inventiveness a decade earlier.

1. McCaughey, P., Fred Williams, Bay Books, Sydney, 1980, p. 145 DOUG HALL AM

A particular topography was the wellspring for Williams’ ground-breaking work, with familiar titles frequently including Ferntree Gully, Lysterfield, Upwey, Lilydale, Kallista and Sherbrooke. In 1962, he and his wife, Lyn, moved to Upwey. Sapling Forest is a nearby subject – Sherbrooke. Two

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(1927 – 1982) ECHUCA LANDSCAPE, c.1960 – 62 oil on composition board 89.0 x 72.0 cm signed lower centre: Fred Williams.

ESTIMATE: $80,000 – 120,000

PROVENANCE Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney Private collection Geoff K. Gray, Sydney, 17 November 1976, lot 99 (as ‘Echuca’) Private collection Geoff K. Gray, Sydney, 17 November 1986, lot 99 (as ‘Echuca’) Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 20 August 1996, lot 47 Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 23 November 1999, lot 132 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 25 November 1999 EXHIBITED Fred Williams and John Nixon - Reducing Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 21 March – 28 June 2015 and touring on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 99 (illus.), 237 RELATED WORK Echuca Landscape, 1962, oil and tempera on composition board, 138.8 x 122.2 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Upon returning to Australia in 1957 after studying abroad at the Chelsea School of Art, London and absorbing firsthand the influence of European masters such as Rembrandt, Goya and Cézanne, Fred Williams was confronted anew by the light, scale and harsh beauty of the unique Australian environment. Subsequently dedicating his career to exploring the local landscape, in 1959 he thus embarked upon an excursion with fellow artist, Arthur Boyd, to sketch at Echuca and Sherbrooke Forest which would become the inspiration for his ground-breaking Forest series (1961 – 62). A superb example of the series, Echuca Landscape, c.1960 – 62 is characteristic of his work at this time with

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Williams skilfully evoking the bush through minimal gestures; the forest is reduced to an impressionistic red and gold ground, while thin vertical lines represent a stand of saplings.

As Patrick McCaughey elaborates in his comprehensive tome on the artist, ‘…The story of the Forest series is as much the story of the expansion of Williams expressive powers in landscape painting as of growing, formal mastery. Williams explores two opposing interpretations of the bush; airless, sunless and oppressive on the one hand, and on the other, luminous filled with light and heat… Most of the Forest paintings are worked in warm, earth colours – brilliant ochres, rich browns and siennas, and yellows that almost turn golden at times. After the brooding mysterious image of the forest, these paintings frequently have the shimmer of light and heat. They are vibrant both in colour and touch and celebrate the physical strengths and texture of the bush. From an image of the dark, enclosing forest, Williams opens up the paintings and gives an image of the bush as glowing and light-filled. Williams’ confidence visibly returns as the series proceeds…

During the series Williams would frequently explore seeming contradictions. One group takes the abstract geometry of the sapling trunks and makes a whole work from it. Such paintings show Williams aiming for the bones of the landscape where drawing becomes almost schematic in its austerity and abstractness. Yet even those are warmed by his palette which draws so closely on nature… At the other extreme of the Forest series is a group of works which takes a single image of a tree trunk. Compared with the lightness and delicacy of the geometric paintings, these dense and monumental works emphasise the physical qualities of image and surface alike. Williams worked up the textures of these paintings so that they recall in touch the roughness of bark and wood. He made the whole painting from touch, arguing an almost literal equivalence between the weight and density of paint and the weight and density of the motif. These monolithic images of trunks project a notion of permanence and obduracy, massive forms whose hugeness could only be grasped in fragments. They were products of Williams’ intense scrutiny of his motif as he moved his art into close-up, matching his experience of monumental form and effect in nature with an art of similar resonance and substance...’1 1. McCaughey, P., Fred Williams, Bay Books, Sydney, 1980, pp. 143 – 45

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FRED WILLIAMS (1927 – 1982) SAPLING PANEL V, 1966 oil on canvas 40.5 x 56.0 cm signed upper left: Fred Williams.

ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 90,000

PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Melbourne (label attached verso, cat. LW212) Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 28 August 2002, lot 101 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Fred Williams – Paintings 1959 – 1978, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 4 April – 6 May 2000, cat. 17 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Fred Williams and John Nixon - Reducing Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 21 March – 28 June 2015 and touring on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 237

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42

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(1927 – 1982) LYSTERFIELD LANDSCAPE, c.1968 gouache and watercolour on paper 53.5 x 74.0 cm signed lower centre: Fred Williams.

ESTIMATE: $50,000 – 70,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 261 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991 EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Fred Williams and John Nixon - Reducing Landscapes, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 21 March – 28 June 2015 and touring 3 Perspectives | Mary Tonkin, Fred Williams & Miles Evergood, Burrinja Gallery, Dandenong Ranges Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 15 May – 24 July 2021 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17 (illus.), 237

Fred Williams’ distinctive interpretations of the Australian bush can be read as authoritative exercises in form and gesture, with the barest of markings summarily depicting its unique contours. His rejection of sentimental evocations of the landscape that were so popular with the Heidelberg school allowed a development of an alternative, semiabstract vision of the landscape. In the late 1960s, Williams painted regularly in Lysterfield, an area which was then completely rural and easily reached from his home in Upwey. Its undulating countryside sustained a long creative period in Williams’ work, with varied views in gouache and oil containing many visual links to earlier motifs. Here he produced a distinct series in February 1968, in the immediate aftermath of a devastating bushfire whose path ran right up to artist’s home in Upwey. These powerful works were quite literal in their empty desolation.

Lysterfield Landscape, c.1968 is an expansive, almost birds-eye view of a ravaged landscape, its singed foundations laid bare in uneven washes of ochre and ashy ground. A sweeping arc of paint to in the centre left links this picture to Williams’ other views of Lysterfield, also painted on paper en plein air. The horizon line imperfectly bisects heaven and scorched earth, the grey hazy sky hanging low and quiet. The undergrowth stripped back by the fire, this Lysterfield Landscape leaves only singed and denuded tree trunks, clumped in a central copse at the base of the hill. These features are rendered with casual dots and brush marks supplemented by streaks of fresh local charcoal and textured traces of red madder embers. Of these works, Patrick McCaughey noted in his 1980 monograph: ‘It was as though the country were seen in negative and the fragmentary remains of the bush seen correspondingly with flickering brilliance and clarity, set off against the ground in pure hues’.1 Williams was awestruck by the transformed landscape, its ridges and furrows laid bare by the natural disaster. The personal experience of an environmental disaster on this scale was keenly felt by the artist, his awe feeding directly into a frenzied artistic output which produced masterpieces such as Burnt Landscape, 1968 and After the Fire, 1968 (National Gallery of Australia). The works on paper were painted very rapidly on site, with the artist working very freely and confidently in a rare instance of quick and methodical work, exorcising this traumatic vision and experience wholly onto paper and canvas.

1. McCaughey, P., Fred Williams, Bay Books, Sydney and London, 1980, p. 203 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK

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(1936 – 2015) HILLSIDE, ELLERSTON, 1990 synthetic polymer paint on linen 74.0 x 196.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Delafield Cook 90 ESTIMATE: $150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above, December 1990 EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 148

With their glacial proportions and timeless subject matter, Delafield Cook’s Australian landscapes such as the magnificent Hillside, Ellerston, 1990, eloquently encapsulate the concept of time immemorial. For despite their visual immediacy and apparent fidelity, such landscapes nevertheless appear suspended in time – suffused with a sense of calm and tranquillity that, though reassuring in its contemplation of an eternal space, simultaneously evokes a disquieting undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty through the landscape’s ability to expose our limits and the finitude of our existence.1 The span of a human life pales into insignificance in the face of such an ancient, monumental formation; and indeed, as the artist admits, part of his motivation for fastidiously recording a place springs from ‘acknowledging your mortality’ and ‘attempting to leave something behind after you are gone.’2 Heightening the depiction of reality to such unimaginable degree to reveal the ‘essence’ of his subjects, thus Delafield Cook highlights the surreal within the real, inviting us to contemplate that which lies beyond our perception – the basic human quest for an underlying universal truth that transcends time or locality.

Both Delafield Cook’s affinity for the Australian landscape and his consummate skill in capturing its essential character with an intensity that is unparalleled in Australian art is all the more remarkable when one considers that such paintings – which he created almost exclusively

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from the late 1970s onwards – were produced entirely from his studio in London. Relocating to London in 1958 after what had been intended as a short trip became a second home, significantly Delafield Cook would spend part of every year for the last three decades of his life travelling back to his country of origin to reconnect and undertake long journeys into the landscape, before then returning to his studio abroad to recreate his vision. Paradoxically perhaps, such distance only enhanced the power of his iconic landscapes, allowing the artist to pursue ‘…the pure idea of land filtered through memory, in which all voices and activities are silenced, and the spirit of the earth can peacefully emerge.’3 An intriguing, mysterious image, Hillside, Elllerston offers a recreation of the eponymous landscape in the upper Hunter Valley region of New South Wales that is so utterly still and elemental, it seems beyond time. Notwithstanding its ostensible neutrality or stark emptiness, the landscape is informed by exquisitely rendered incidents while the vast amplitude of the hillside is conveyed through the painting’s panoramic scale; as Delafield Cook suggests, ‘…it brings in this element of having to turn your head to take in the picture which fills the field of vision, like being there.’4 Simultaneously infinite in its detail and infinite in its expanse, the work thus fathoms an Australian ‘sublime’ that is boundless and majestic in the manner of David Casper Friedrich and the eighteenth-century Romantics Delafield Cook so admired. Inspiring awe and reverence, the classical harmony and stillness implies that the forces of the cosmos have here aligned – that there is a divine order amidst the chaos of nature.5 Bereft of any apparent narrative, it is the landscape itself, distilled in its unknowable ‘essence’, that occupies the focus, imbued with a sense of drama that leaves the viewer poised indefinitely in a moment of suspense. As Delafield Cook observes of this quality in his art, ‘It’s the stage that we’re living out our lives in… The picture is the set, pregnant with possibilities’.6 1. Fitzpatrick, A., ‘Intimations of Mortality in the Work of William Delafield Cook’ in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 32 – 44, p. 39 2. The artist, cited in Hart, D., William Delafeld Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998 p. 184 3. Gregg, S., ‘William Delafield Cook: A Survey’, in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 2 – 23, p. 5 4. The artist, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 199 5. Gregg, op. cit., p. 9 6. The artist, cited ibid. p. 16 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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LLOYD REES

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(1895 – 1988) MORNING VISION (LANE COVE RIVER), 1982 oil on canvas 102.0 x 137.0 cm signed and dated lower right: L. REES 82 inscribed with title verso: MORNING VISION (LANE COVE RIVER) ESTIMATE: $120,000 – 160,000

PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist, March 1991 (as ‘Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, 1984’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 3 June 1991 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 57 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 74 (illus.), 231

We are grateful to Brenda Martin Thomas, wife of the late David Thomas AM, for kindly allowing us to reproduce David’s research and writing in this catalogue entry.

For many years, Lloyd Rees rightfully held the position of the grand old man of Australian art, his eminence still felt today in the treasures he bequeathed to all. Inspired throughout his life by the genius of J.M.W. Turner, in his later years he rose out of the solid form and superb draughtsmanship of his earlier years to create visionary paintings full of luminosity. Rees’ Morning Vision (Lane Cove River), 1982 is an essay about light, ennobled by the vision that comes with age following a lifetime of achievement. ‘If there is one thing I want now’, he once

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said, ‘is for my paintings to be light right through’. Referring to the Impressionists and the great fresco painters of Italy and ‘the sense of the painting being on a light background’, he added ‘This is what I am trying to do here, to make the lightness of the canvas the dominating thing’.1 All of Rees’ later paintings celebrate light in both technique and subject whether they be of sunlit Sydney or the twilight moments of Hobart.

Water often plays a prominent part, graced by the white sails of yachts, as in Dusk on the Derwent, Tasmania, 1985 or The Waterfall, Tasmania, 1982, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

The time of day likewise plays a significant role, not only in the changing appearances from dawn, through noon to dusk, but also metaphorically.

Like the ages of man, the sun rising speaks of the beginning, noon the height, and the afternoon into twilight, of maturity into the tranquillity and richer perceptions of the sage. Morning Vision (Lane Cove River), 1982 was painted when Rees was around eighty-seven years old. In its light-drenched panorama of Sydney Harbour, complete with white sails and those looking on, it combines notions of youth, the new day and new life (the sun rises in the east), with the maturity of the day in a concept of Impressionist splendour, couched in that poeticism that distinguishes Rees’s late work. Everything is enveloped in a golden haze of optimism.

It resonates with yellow, the colour of the sun and life, and dissolves into the visionary with a touch of the heroic. Of the spiritual in the material, nobility of perception combines with the sensuous appeal of paint and lively strokes of the brush, as does form with light. The softness of definition, almost diaphanous, not only embraces the miracle of light and its beauty, but also evokes an atmosphere of embracing calm and enlightenment. It touches upon the transcendental, recalling the great masters, especially Claude Monet at Giverny, expressing the harmony of all things – perceptions of infinity through the everyday.

1. Lloyd Rees, Age, 1982, quoted in Pearce, B., Australian Art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2000, p. 287

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JEFFREY SMART

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(1921 – 2013) STUDY FOR MAN WITH BOUQUET, 1981 oil on canvas on board 45.0 x 35.0 cm signed lower right: JEFFREY SMART ESTIMATE: $120,000 – 180,000

PROVENANCE Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 23 November 1999, lot 14 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 25 November 1999 EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart – Recent Paintings, Redfern Gallery, London, 11 November – 4 December 1982, cat. 24 Jeffrey Smart, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 5 – 16 April 1983, cat. 3 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 Jeffrey Smart, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 11 December 2021 – 15 May 2022 (label attached verso) on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1983, cat. 783, p. 117 McDonald, J., Jeffrey Smart / Paintings of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, cat. 243, p. 160 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 128 (illus.), 232 Hart, D., and Edwards, R., Jeffrey Smart, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2021, p. 163 RELATED WORK Man with Bouquet, 1982, synthetic polymer paint and oil on canvas, 90.0 x 75.0 cm, private collection Man with Bouquet was also produced into an aquatint (edition 100) in 1983 to accompany the deluxe edition of Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1983. In 1997 a further black and white etching of this subject was also produced.

We are grateful to Stephen Rogers, Archivist for the Estate of Jeffrey Smart, for his assistance with this catalogue entry.

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Jeffrey Smart’s aim was to create ‘a memorable image; one that not only strikes the viewer but also surprises and puzzles’. 1 His paintings amalgamated, in the manner reminiscent of magical realism, a combination of classical geometric composition, visual suspense and uncanny subject matter. In Study for Man with Bouquet, 1981 a besuited balding gentleman nonchalantly crosses a road at a zebra crossing, with a hand in his pocket he stares blankly into the void. Curiously, in this study, he does not hold the eponymous bouquet in a closed fist, as he does in both the final version of this painting (yellow blooms in pink wrapping) and in coloured aqua tints of the same title (pink blooms in yellow wrapping).

In the early 1970s, Smart moved into a large farmhouse in Tuscany with a committed life partner Ermes de Zan but continued living a peripatetic life. His paintings from this time began to reflect an underlying concern with the wonders and possibilities of travel. Often showing empty areas of transit such as bus stops, motorways, and footpaths, they featured raking vantage points, flattened planes, and strong contrasts of light and shade. In Study for Man with Bouquet, the businessman, although well-dressed in a vertically pin-striped suit, with a tie, pocket square and a pink carnation in his buttonhole, is completely anonymous. He wanders safely, but beyond the limitless expanse of painted bitumen, there is no indication of location or time of day.

Smart’s archetypal motif of the striped traffic marking is emphatically repeated on various items in this painting: poles, asphalt and kerbsides, drawing the attention not of motorists but of the viewer of this painting.

A strong pool of light from a streetlamp existing beyond the frame, spills on to the figure in a concentrated ring, the focal point where Smart’s competing striations converge. Jeffrey Smart explained ‘[my paintings are] always about the light, obviously it must be the light. Without the light, you don’t see anything […] by casting shadows and making shapes that never existed before, or the mistiness of making mystery’. 2 1. Malouf, D., ‘David Malouf remembers Jeffrey Smart - and Smart-talk from a Tuscan studio’, Australian Financial Review, Sydney, 14 May 2016 2. De Groen, G., ‘Where the light must rule’, Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, vol. 19, no. 2, Summer 1981, p. 190 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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(1921 – 2013) CHILDREN PLAYING, 1965 oil on canvas 40.5 x 70.5 cm signed and dated lower right: JEFFREY SMART 65 inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: CHILDREN PLAYING ESTIMATE: $200,000 – 300,000

PROVENANCE South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne James O. Fairfax AC, New South Wales Paintings and Furniture from the James O. Fairfax Collection, Christie’s, Sydney, 25 October 1994, lot 26 Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 28 April 1997, lot 227 Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 30 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Jeffrey Smart, Galleria 88, Rome, 8 – 23 April 1965, cat. 15 Exhibition of Paintings Jeffrey Smart, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 29 September – 11 October 1965, cat. 14 Jeffrey Smart, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, 19 April 1966, cat. 8 Jeffrey Smart, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 11 December 2021 – 15 May 2022 (label attached verso) on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Gleeson, J., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s “still” lifes’, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 3 October 1965, p. 76 Quartermaine, P., Jeffrey Smart, Gryphon Books, Melbourne, 1983, cat. 438, p. 109 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 232 Hart, D., and Edwards, R., Jeffrey Smart, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2021, p. 160 We are grateful to Stephen Rogers, Archivist for the Estate of Jeffrey Smart, for his assistance with this catalogue entry.

Although deriving his subject matter from all that would appear disturbing about the modern world – bleak highways, industrial landscapes inhabited by motorised traf fic, and an impersonal contemporary architecture that seems unforgiving to human presence – Smart’s paintings are quite assuredly not commentaries upon urban alienation or the human condition. To the contrary, Smart rejoices in the beauty and oddity he perceives within the urban environment,

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translating momentary glimpses of the everyday into impeccably composed harmonies of colour, shape and line – all imbued with originality, irony and an inescapable feeling of foreboding. Like many of the works featured in Smart’s inaugural (and hugely successful) exhibition in Rome, held at Galleria 88 in April 1965, Children Playing, 1965 draws its inspiration from the ‘city of the soul’ – and more specifically, the deserted, semi-industrial zone near the Villa Torlonia in via Nomentana where Smart was renting an apartment at the time.

As Barry Pearce elucidates, it was ‘…a rather fascist-looking area on the outskirts of Rome, but ripe with appeal for painting; no suburbia yet to speak of, blocks of flats adjacent to open agricultural land, a bit of light industry, and scattered sentinels of radio technology breaking the skyline. It was the wondrous landscape of now and the recent past; and for Smart, archetypal.’1 A stunning example from his early years in Italy, Children Playing evokes the enigmatic to brilliant effect, exuding that slightly eerie, expectant quality that is quintessential Smart. Two youths caught in a moment of acrobatic exuberance contrast sharply with the backdrop of immovable, monolithic apartment blocks while above, dark foreboding skies presage a tempest ahead. All elements seem, paradoxically, fixed in ‘stormy immobility’, the air stilled with suspense. As James Gleeson perceptively noted in his review of Smart’s highly acclaimed Macquarie Galleries show in Sydney in 1965 (which included the present work): ‘…In each of the paintings he has chosen to freeze a moment in the story that will be least specific, yet most evocative. He is a narrative painter who deliberately refrains from telling a story Instead he paints a ‘still’ and leaves us to construct a sequence around it – and his ‘stills’ are always enigmatic and capable of many different extensions. Nothing moves in his work… He paints a world of threatened serenity. It combines the satisfactions of stability with the titillating promise of dramatic action.’2 Indeed, so impressed was James Gleeson with Smart’s show that he devoted his entire Sunday feature article to exploring other facets of the enigma that is Smart, concluding ‘…Smart preserves a façade of objectivity even when he is being his most subjective.’3 Beguiling both the mind and eye, Children Playing exemplifies superbly this uncanny instinct for capturing the most alluring moment of frozen time in the appearance of contemporary life. Like the best of Smart’s achievements, it remains infinitely suggestive yet reveals nothing.

1. Pearce, B., Jeffrey Smart, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2005, p. 144 2. Gleeson, J., ‘Jeffrey Smart’s “still” lifes’, Sun-Herald, Sydney, 3 October 1965, p. 76 3

Ibid.

VERONICA ANGELATOS

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MARGARET OLLEY

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(1923 – 2011) STILL LIFE WITH MARIGOLDS AND ORANGES, c.1973 oil on composition board 61.0 x 76.0 cm signed lower left: Olley ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Holdsworth Galleries, Sydney (partial label attached verso) Private collection, Queensland Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, lot 33 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Artist and Mentor, Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 14 July – 23 September 2012 It’s all about the light: works by Margaret Olley from public collections, Tweed River Art Gallery, New South Wales, 18 January – 14 April 2013 The Reading Room, The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Arrangement, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 26 May – 8 July 2018 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 118 (illus.), 228

A much-loved, vibrant personality of the Australian art world for over 60 years, Margaret Olley exerted an enduring influence not only as a remarkably talented artist, but as a nurturing mentor, inspirational muse and generous philanthropist. Awarded an Order of Australia in 1991 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006, Olley featured as the subject of two Archibald-Prize winning portraits (the first by William Dobell in 1948, and the second by contemporary artist Ben Quilty in 2011, just prior to her death) and was honoured with over 90 solo exhibitions during her lifetime, including a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1997. Today her work is held in all major state and regional galleries in Australia, and the myriad contents of her Paddington studio have been immortalised in a permanent installation at the Tweed Regional Gallery in northern New South Wales, not far from where Olley was born. Bequeathing a legacy as bountiful as the

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subject matter of her paintings, indeed her achievements are difficult to overstate – and reach far beyond the irrepressible sense of joy her art still brings.

A striking example of the still-life and interior scenes for which Olley remains widely celebrated, Still Life with Marigolds and Oranges, c.1973 encapsulates well the way in which she repeatedly turned to the quotidian for inspiration, excavating her domestic setting to uncover the beauty inherent in everyday life. Notwithstanding the apparent randomness or familiarity of her arrangement however, fundamental to such compositions is the artist’s careful ‘orchestration’ to create a harmonious image which was inspired directly by her experience of the theatre in 1948 when she assisted with painting the sets for Sam Hughes’ productions of Shakespeare’s Pericles and Cocteau’s Orphée (designed by Jean Bellette and Sidney Nolan respectively). Observing the actors being instructed to enter the stage and count twenty seconds before speaking their lines, the young artist soon came to appreciate the importance of creating space for oneself; as she fondly recalled, ‘space is the secret of life… it is everything.’1 Over the ensuing decades, Olley consequently came to arrange the objects in her art as characters on a stage – objects both commonplace and beautiful, shuffled this way and that, plunged into deep shadow or transformed by brilliant light.

In Still Life with Marigolds and Oranges, both the theatrical lighting and careful arrangement of items which are eminently unpretentious thus serve to create an intimate, deeply personal drama for the viewer’s eye and mind to explore. Paying homage to the great European masters of her métier such as Vermeer, Bonnard, Matisse and Cézanne (the oranges motif), as well as her domestic surroundings which continue to provide inspiration, indeed the work reveals the very essence of the artist’s identity. As Barry Pearce aptly notes, ‘…to live with a Margaret Olley painting is to experience the transfiguration of a passionate, highly focused personality into art. In her paintings, the space surrounding each bowl of fruit, each vase of flowers, and through which the eye traverses a cacophony of surfaces such as patterned carpets, modulated walls, and cluttered tabletops, resounds with her presence.

These are reflections of the things she loves, and which embellished the centre of how she prefers her existence to be.’2 1. Margaret Olley cited in Pearce, B., Margaret Olley, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 14 2. Pearce, B., ‘Margaret Olley Retrospective’, State of the Arts, Sydney, August – November 1996, p. 5 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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EDWIN TANNER

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(1920 – 1980) SELF PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST STUNTING, 1958 oil on composition board 122.0 x 141.5 cm signed upper right: EDWIN TANNER. signed and dated lower leftt: EDWIN TANNER. 1958 [inverted] ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Shirley Tanner, Melbourne Frank Galbally, Melbourne, by 1976 Savill Galleries, Sydney Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 9 August 1990 EXHIBITED Edwin Tanner Retrospective 1976, Age Gallery, Melbourne, 18 – 29 October 1976, cat. 34 Five Decades of Australian Painting 1930 to 1980, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 5 May – 5 June 1989, cat. 42 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Vice Versa Biplane’, upside down) Edwin Tanner Works 1952 – 1980, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 15 March – 12 May 1990, cat. 30 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 41 Edwin Tanner: Mathematical Expressionist, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 12 May – 15 July 2018 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 9, no. 3, December 1971, p. 212 (as ‘Self Portrait as a Pilot’, illus. upside down), 222 Duncan, J., Harwood, G., Jamieson, G., and Murray, K., Edwin Tanner Works 1952 – 1980, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 1990, pp. 7 (illus.), 26 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 90 (illus.), 232 Fitzpatrick, A., Edwin Tanner: Mathematical Expressionist, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2018, pp. 23, 40 (illus.), 132

Edwin Tanner is among Australia’s most idiosyncratic artists. A polymath, Tanner’s eclectic and diverse career progression and broad range of achievements informed his often-autobiographical paintings.

During the Second World War, Tanner held the position of Engineer-inCharge of Aircraft Design in the Department of Aircraft Production at

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Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne. Although he was unsuccessful in three separate attempts to join the RAAF, Tanner eventually learned to fly a Gipsy Moth in 1945 through employment with BHP.1 The many activities of Edwin Tanner provided ample visual source material, mostly industrial, for the artworks he would later exhibit in Contemporary Art Society exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. Self Portrait of the Artist Stunting, 1958 is a joyous painting of the liberating rewards the artist enjoyed after years of dedicated and determined study, both as an aeroplane pilot and as a painter. Here the artist’s confidence as a painter is mirrored in its content, presenting himself as an accomplished pilot freewheeling in the void. There is humour in the fact that Tanner signed the painting twice, in opposite orientations, indicating that the image can be read in 360 degrees, following the plane’s own loop-the-loop. Self Portrait of the Artist Stunting is a freezeframe of a confident, death-defying aeronautical trick, painted with a befittingly spare and unapologetic gesture outlined on a flat and neutral ground.

Tanner existed outside of mainstream currents. His paintings were characterised by a muted palette, a strong black outline, elongated and anonymous figures and scenes with a dry sense of humour, the satirical bite of which occasionally attracted negative public reception.

Like the young Melburnian painter, John Brack, Tanner’s distinctive graphic style was formed early and is likely to have been stimulated after seeing the work of French expressionist Bernard Buffet, whose work he saw featured in the travelling exhibition French Painting Today in September 1953.

Although Tanner emigrated to Australia with his family as a small child, the Welshman always remained on the outside of Australian culture, looking in. His artworks reflect this observational distance and impersonal exactitude, their emotive quality hidden instead in plain sight. The muted colour modulations of his minimal backgrounds and the cheeky humour of his stylisation, which reveals a portrait of this artist in his astounding multifaceted complexity.

1. Fitzpatrick, A., Edwin Tanner: mathematical expressionist, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2018, pp. 120 – 122 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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JOHN BRACK (1920 – 1999) THREE EGYPTIAN WOMEN, 1975 oil on canvas 91.5 x 71.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John Brack 1975 inscribed with title on artist’s label verso: Three Egyptian Women bears inscription verso: 9 ESTIMATE: $100,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney Private collection Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 11 April 1990, lot 163 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED John Brack: Paintings and Drawings, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 13 – 31 December 1975, cat. 9 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 54 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Lindsay, R., John Brack: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 129 Grishin, S. The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1990, vol. l, p. 135; vol. ll, cat. o234, p. 31 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 119 (illus.), 214

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50

137

John Brack Knives and Forks, 1958 oil on canvas 43.5 x 99.0 cm Private collection © courtesy of Helen Brack

John Brack resigned from his position as head of the Melbourne National Gallery School at the end of 1968. With the promise of a monthly stipend (to be offset against annual sales) from the Sydney art dealer, Rudy Komon, he had the freedom to paint full-time and soon constructed a purpose-built studio at home. Brack’s first commercial exhibition with Komon was held in 1970 and the following year, he was awarded the Travelodge Art Prize. Also in 1971, a monograph by Ronald Millar was published, a further reflection of the significant place Brack and his painting now held in contemporary Australian art.

In late 1973, Brack and his wife, Helen, left Australia for the first time. With plans to travel in England and Europe for two months, Brack painstakingly planned their itinerary, ‘down to the specifics of street maps and detailing individual paintings that would form cultural targets.’1 While the experience of visiting great historical cities and seeing works of art known up until then only in reproduction left Helen buoyant, John however was overwhelmed by the loss of control he felt in such unfamiliar surroundings. 2 It took some time for the impact of Brack’s travels to emerge in his art, but when it did, a year or so later, his audience was confounded. The social commentary that had been such a consistent feature of his work was gone, as was the human figure. These elements were now replaced

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with precarious arrangements of cutlery, pencils and postcards depicting artworks and artefacts from ancient cultures, carefully reproduced in paint. Sandra McGrath typified the cool response of many to this new imagery, writing in the Australian newspaper that ‘Brack’s work celebrates an intellectual rather than an emotional approach to life and art. It’s a unique vision and puts him outside the mainstream of Australian art.’3 Titled the Unstill Life series, these paintings were the result of intense preparation and a meticulous technique. Setting up elaborate tableaux in his studio – using fishing line and tape to suspend actual cutlery, postcards and other items to create a model from which he would make a detailed preparatory drawing – Brack also used fine brushes and glazes to minimise the appearance of brushstrokes and heighten the sense of pictorial realism. His aim was to engage viewers by these means, so that they could focus on the meaning of his imagery rather than being distracted by painterly bravura.4 Here, a complex arrangement of knives, forks and spoons supports a trio of museum postcards featuring the three Egyptian women of the title – a highly-coloured painting, a headless sculpture and a ceramic fragment depicting a figure in a dramatic gymnastic pose. The dark, irregular border surrounding the scene became a familiar element of the late works, highlighting the illusionistic nature of painting and pointing to the possibility of other

John Brack The Hands and the Faces, 1987 oil on canvas 213.0 x 167.5 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne © courtesy of Helen Brack

realities; to something beyond the surface. As Helen Brack observed, ‘The margins here are very important, because they are about the dark past, other ages. He was extremely interested in how you can use structure to say what you want to say.’5 While the intended meaning is open to interpretation, the focus on female subjects is significant – a husband and father of three daughters, Brack was surrounded by women. As Sasha Grishin has noted, this and other related postcard paintings also explore notions of artistic authenticity, as well as stability and permanence, both in relation to art and society.6 These paintings weren’t entirely without precedent in Brack’s oeuvre – familiar, everyday objects such as cutlery and scissors had been prominent in earlier works such as Knives and Forks, 1958 (private collection) and the shop window paintings of the early 1960s. Similarly, images of works of art had been incorporated into 1950s paintings such as The New House, 1953 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), where the Van Gogh reproduction hanging on the lounge room wall alludes to the social and cultural aspirations of the home’s young owners.7 Brack always used complex symbolism to imbue his imagery with meaning – aiming to make ‘some sort of comment, but … never the sort of comment that could be put into words’8 – and his focus was inevitably the flaws and foibles of human behaviour.

In the late paintings Brack’s perspective expanded beyond the suburbs and the everyday, to the universal. As Patrick McCaughey eloquently concluded, ‘The strategy of these paintings is clear; here the still life goes beyond the observed and the daily and passes into the life of metaphor… John Brack, the master of the studio… transforms himself from the classicist whose forms are drawn from the experience of the world to the allegorical fabulist. The still life enables him to ruminate and reflect on ideas and arguments beyond the scope of observed appearance. Brack becomes a ‘modern history painter’, able to take on the largest speculations pictorially through the humble genre of the studio still life.’ 9 1. Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 – 1994, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2000, p. 4 2

Ibid., pp. 4 and 6

3. McGrath, S., ‘Brack’s unique vision’, The Australian, 27 December 1975 quoted in Gott, ibid., p. 8 4 Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 132 5. Brack, H., quoted in Gott, op. cit., p. 11 6. See Grishin, op. cit., pp. 133 and 135 7

Ibid., p. 132

8. Brack, J., speaking in the Lively Arts: John Brack, ABC-TV documentary, Melbourne, 1965, directed by Tony Morphett 9 McCaughey, P., ‘The Complexity of John Brack’ in Lindsay, R., John Brack, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 9 KIRSTY GRANT

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IAN FAIRWEATHER

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(1891 – 1974) THREE FACES, c.1965 synthetic polymer paint and gouache on plywood on board 61.5 x 80.0 cm bears verso certificate of authenticity signed by Mary Turner, Director of Macquarie Galleries, dated 30 January 1976 ESTIMATE: $80,000 – 120,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1965 (label attached verso) Dr Mary Beeston, New York, USA Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 64 (as ‘Untitled Abstract’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 106 (illus.), 218

From his emergence in the 1930s as a precocious modern painter, through to late career deference in the 60s, Fairweather’s interest in faces and figure groups holds an enduring presence. Individual faces, pairs and groups occur in works from each decade – mother and child is another recurring theme. One is usually unaware of the subjects’ individual identities, although Three Faces, c.1965 shares something of the loosely contained geometry of Portrait of the Artist, 1962 (National Gallery of Australia).1 A formative decade in Fairweather’s oeuvre, the thirties were strong in French Post-Impressionist mannerisms and soft chalky tones and surfaces. Yet if the present work bears the familiar dryness and painterly drawing, that is where stylistic similarities end. His interest in Asia – and China in particular – became an intellectual and expressive enchantment. Indeed, Three Faces is something akin to a bookend after decades of close, contained portraits consumed his interest. Faces at the Window, 1933 (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art) is an early indicator of this preoccupation. 2 Other important moments flank 30 years of unwavering critical interest in his work. The Tate acquired his work in 1935, while in 1965, Fairweather’s retrospective exhibition toured nationally, and his book, was The Drunken Buddha, published. 3

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From 1953, he lived in his now legendary improvised and rough-hewn circumstances on Bribie Island, an hour north of Brisbane. Much too has been made of his boundless curiosity, travel in Asia and (mis) adventures. Periods of depression and paranoia didn’t diminish his capacity for productive work, producing paintings which were to define him as one of Australia’s greatest modernists. In the 1950s, Cubism as a compositional and pictorial underpinning was finally overtaken by his confidence to apply what he had learnt and absorbed from Chinese painting – an intense preoccupation which was no mere encounter and something expediently adapted, but rather a culture whose art and language he understood with scholarly nuance.

In Three Faces, lines are single gestures, marks and flecks are ‘placed’ and never vigorously worked; Fairweather had observed Chinese calligraphers at work, ‘…calligraphy is at first a performance – it is a graphic dance, the dynamic trace of gesture, the translation into twodimensional space of a fluid sequence of movements unfolding in time.’4 Similarly, the wooden panel support reminds us that Fairweather was untroubled by using whatever was on hand. The wood retains holes and exposed areas revealing it was un-primed and it serves as a halftone for a muted, austere palette. A label notation on the reverse suggests that this work, with the agreement of the artist, was used by the Art Gallery of New South Wales conservation department to further understand the artist’s techniques in the future restoration of his work. Three Faces not only emanates a surface personality and character which mark his paintings from the 50s onwards, but its painterliness and painted lineal forms encapsulate his late figuration with familiar distinction.

1.

Self Portrait, 1962, synthetic polymer paint, gouache on cardboard mounted on composition board (National Gallery of Australia) reproduced in Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, illus. p. 191 2.

Faces at the Window, 1933, oil gouache and pencil on paper on cardboard on composition board (Queensland Art Gallery| Gallery of Modern Art) 3. Fairweather, I., The Drunken Buddha, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1965 (the publication is a translation of an ancient Chinese novel, illustrated with Fairweather’s paintings).

4. Ryckmans, P., ‘An Amateur Artist’ in Bail, M., Fairweather, Art and Australia Books in association with the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1995, p. 15 DOUG HALL AM

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ROGER KEMP

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(1908 – 1987) MECHANICS OF THE MIND, c.1985 also known as CONFIGURATION synthetic polymer paint on linen 206.0 x 350.0 cm bears inscription three times verso: COVENTRY No 1 bears inscription on stretcher bar verso: No 1 ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 12 July 1990 EXHIBITED Roger Kemp – Recent Paintings, Coventry Gallery, Sydney, 6 – 31 May 1986, cat. 1 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 59 (as ‘Configuration’) Art in a Time of Change, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney, 21 January – 9 April 2000 A Century of Australian Art, Gosford Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 14 April – 28 July 2000 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 222

Roger Kemp is often described as ‘an artist’s artist’. Indeed, as Patrick McCaughey has written, he ‘embodied to successive generations the very idea of what it was to be an artist. It was a calling, not a career.’1 Grounded in geometry and mediated by gesture, his bold abstract paintings are unique within late twentieth century Australian art, revealing both the singular vision and expressive hand of their maker.

Kemp’s purpose also set him apart. There is no narrative in his work, no obvious figuration or representational aim. He sought instead, to express a deeper meaning through his art, a personal perspective ‘that alluded to the timeless and universal, a means to articulate his experience of a higher truth.’2

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Painting full-time from 1966, the 1970s saw Kemp’s practice widely acknowledged. Represented in the inaugural Sydney Biennale in 1973, he was awarded an OBE for services to Australian art in 1977, and in 1978, a group of works was acquired for the developing national collection. Although a stroke in 1980 slowed him down and required him to relearn the use and control of his body, Kemp’s creative drive remained strong. Initially working on a small scale, he was soon producing vast mural-sized paintings which, during the previous decade, had become such a signature element of his oeuvre. Further accolades and recognition were to follow too, including a commission (completed in 1984) to produce a suite of large-scale tapestries for the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria – well known to visitors to the gallery for decades to come.

Painted around 1985, Mechanics of the Mind exemplifies the expressive power of Kemp’s work. Repeated geometric shapes and lines create an overall pattern from which an irregular central form emerges.

Delineated in part by subtle variations in colour, the dusky pinks and white of the centre are surrounded by shades of blue and purple which are characteristic of Kemp’s distinctive, immediately recognisable palette. The scale on which he worked demanded that painting was a very physical act and beginning with a preparatory sketch to outline the composition, he then worked freely, ‘without traces of mannerism, artifice or guile… There was no apparent struggle, no erasures or revisions.’3 At over two metres high and more than three and a half metres in length, Mechanics of the Mind is a monumental work which vibrates with energy and draws the viewer in with the purity of its painterly expression.

1. Patrick McCaughey quoted in Heathcote, C., The Art of Roger Kemp, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2007, p. 168 2. Heathcote, C., A Quiet Revolution: The Rise of Australian Art 1946 – 1968, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1995, p. 7 3. Heathcote, 2007, op. cit., p. 140 KIRSTY GRANT

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BRETT WHITELEY

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(1939 – 1992) SKETCH OF THE RIVER AT CARCOAR, c.1977 ink on paper 96.0 x 50.0 cm (sight) signed lower right: brett whiteley bears artist’s studio stamp lower right inscribed with title lower left: Sketch of the river at Carcoar ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 80,000

PROVENANCE Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, acquired from the above in 1985 Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2002, lot 11 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED 162 Drawings: Brett Whiteley 1960 – 85, Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney, 19 October – 6 November 1985, cat. 106 (as ‘The River at Carcoar, 1979’) Last Acquisitions, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2 April – 10 July 2016 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 237 Sutherland, K., Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné, Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, cat. 99.77, vol. 3, p. 439 (illus.), vol. 7, p. 404 RELATED WORK River at Carcoar (Autumn), 1977, oil on plywood, 203.0 x 121.9 cm, private collection, illus. in Sutherland, K., Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné, ibid., vol. 3, p. 467 Small Preliminary brush drawing for ‘The River at Carcoar’, 1975, brush and ink on paper, 27.6 x 20.6 cm, Brett Whiteley Estate, illus. in Klepac, L., Brett Whiteley drawings, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2014

After a tumultuous decade abroad, in 1969 Whiteley returned to Australia and embarked upon an artistic pilgrimage to rediscover his homeland. Captivated afresh by the beauty, vastness and variety of the Australian landscape, he explored first the changing chromatic illusions and ‘optical ecstasy’ of Sydney Harbour’s Lavender Bay, before subsequently revisiting the landscape of his boyhood in the western New South Wales towns of Oberon, Kurrajong, Marulan, Carcoar and

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Bathurst. Indelibly embedded in his imagination, the gentle vales and hills of the countryside surrounding his school in Bathurst had been not only an important impetus for his precocious endeavours, but an endless source of solace and inspiration over the intervening years.

Equally influential were the compositions of Lloyd Rees (see lot 29) which Whiteley had first admired at Macquarie Galleries one day after school – landscapes deeply poetic in their contemplation of soft curves and arabesques all rendered with impeccable tonality. As he later recalled in a letter to his artistic mentor, ‘…They contained nature and ideas, they contained naturalism but seemed also very invented, and the adventure of them was that they showed the decisions and revisions that had been made while they had been painted. I had never seen anything like that before… it set me on a path of discovery that I am still on today – namely that change of pace in a painting is where the poetry begins.’1 Painted around the same time as he was awarded the prestigious Wynne Prize for landscape painting twice in two consecutive years 2, Sketch of the River at Carcoar, c.1977 offers a superb example of the pen and wash sketches, that Whiteley routinely completed – often en plein air – in preparation for many of his universally acclaimed pastoral paintings from this period, including Summer at Carcoar, 1977 (Newcastle Art Gallery) and Paddock – Late Afternoon, 1979 (private collection), painted at nearby Oberon. Like such masterpieces, the present similarly features the artist’s signature sinuous river meandering through the centre of the composition, flanked by burgeoning weeping willows and intermittent strewn granite boulders, with the sensuous, rounded curves of the mountains beyond. In his untiring efforts to depict this landscape in all its myriad seasons and moods, Whiteley recognised in such works a tendency which he described as ‘Chinese’ – not simply in his use of the calligraphic medium reminiscent of the Asian art he so admired, but more fundamentally perhaps, in the repetition of certain motifs to symbolise states of mind. The arabesques of rivers echoed the flight paths of birds, which in turn mirrored the artist’s relaxed journey through his own domain. As Sandra McGrath observed of the closely related oil painting, ‘The River at Carcoar borders on the surreal, having none of the convincing details to suggest that this is not a river of his own mental landscape.’3 1. Klepac, L., Lloyd Rees – Brett Whiteley: On the Road to Berry, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 1993, p. 7 2. Whiteley won the Wynne Prize for Landscape painting three times: in 1977 with The Jacaranda Tree (On Sydney Harbour); in 1978 with Summer at Carcoar; and in 1984 with The South Coast After Rain.

3. McGrath, S., Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney, 1979, p. 210 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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BRETT WHITELEY (1939 – 1992) PRELIMINARY NOTES FOR ‘HARRY’S BUILDING’, 1976 ink, graphite, gouache, pastel, collage and synthetic polymer paint on paper 17.5 x 12.0 cm (each) 25.0 x 96.0 cm (sight, overall) signed, dated and inscribed with title lower right: preliminary notes for ‘Harry’s building’/ 7’ x 5’ pale grey & white rain April / 76. / brett whiteley bears artist’s stamp lower right ESTIMATE: $60,000 – 80,000 (7) PROVENANCE Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 September 1998

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EXHIBITED Brett Whiteley, Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney, 12 – 30 October 1991, cat. 7 Modern Australian Painting 1920s – 1980s, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 – 27 September 1997, cat. 50 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 44) on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 120 – 121 (illus.), 237 Sutherland, K., Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné, Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, cat. 202.76, vol. 3, p. 382 (illus.), vol. 7, p. 378 RELATED WORK Harry’s Building – Sydney Harbour, 1978, mixed media on paper, 40.0 x 30.0 cm, private collection

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GEORGE BALDESSIN

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(1939 – 1978) GIRL IN STRIPED DRESS WITH BOUQUET OF FLOWERS, c.1977 conte pencil and synthetic polymer paint on paper 72.5 x 66.5 cm (sheet) signed lower left: George Baldessin ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Possibly: Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 58 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 2 August 1990 EXHIBITED Possibly: George Baldessin, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 20 August – 14 September 1977 Possibly: Creative Power: The Art of George Baldessin, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales, 2012 (label attached verso) Figures & Landscapes: Curated works from The Cbus Collection of Australian Art and the Latrobe Regional Gallery Permanent Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 123 (illus.), 212

Despite only having an exhibiting career of just 14 short years – from the time of his first solo exhibition at Melbourne’s Argus Gallery in 1964 to his death in a car accident in 1978, George Baldessin’s work endures, continuing to resonate with audiences who have been able to experience his practice in a variety of new exhibition contexts and through new research.1 Baldessin’s work remains fresh and contemporary, and the highly personal and interconnected iconography of his printmaking, drawings and sculpture have ensured that he now holds an established position in the history of recent Australian art.

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Baldessin began attending the Lacourière lithographic printworks three days a week in 1976 while he was living abroad in Paris, and it was during his time at this studio that he commenced his iconic MM of Rue St Denis charcoal drawings (1975 – 76). These combined his interest in medieval images of the Mary Magdalene with the contemporary scenes of prostitutes he was witnessing on the city’s streets. 2 Baldessin made Girl in Striped Dress with Bouquet of Flowers, c.1977 around the time he returned to Australia in 1977, and the work’s unidentified subject shares much with his depictions of the Mary Magdalene. As the artist said of his MM drawings: ‘…I’m always trying to work out ways to animate the figure, that is fragmenting, breaking it up in some way and I always look for a real way, an existing way. I don’t want to impose formal ways of fragmenting the forms in the way that the cubists would or the expressionists and so on. I would always look for a natural way of fragmenting the forms of the figure and at the same time bringing the notion of the Madeleine to life.’3 With her somewhat awkward pose and crossed arms, and her voluptuous form evident through her sheer striped dress, Baldessin’s subject is an intriguing and complex embodiment of her own sexual freedom and the objectification of male desire. While she is seemingly offered up to the viewer for our consumption and delight, her direct and forthright gaze leaves us in no doubt of her agency. She understands what the game is here, and she is knowingly playing her part. The image’s shallow depth of field also reveals the importance of printmaking to Baldessin, and the way in which elements of his chosen mediums coalesced and informed each work regardless of how they were made. The woman seems to float above the picture plane, her form offset by the work’s deep black background, which in turn recalls the inky blackness of the artist’s earlier etchings, with their ‘flattened, ambiguous space and tilted ground.’4 1. The most recent of these was the National Gallery of Victoria’s 2018 exhibition Baldessin / Whiteley: Parallel Visions; see Grishin, S., Baldessin/Whiteley Parallel Visions, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2018 2. Lindsay, R. & Holloway, M.J., George Baldessin: Sculpture and Etchings, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1983, p. 21 3. Grishin, op. cit, p. 112 4. Cross, E., ‘George Baldessin 1939 – 1978’ in George Baldessin Prints 1963 – 1978, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1997, p. 16 KELLY GELLATLY

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KEN WHISSON

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(1927 – 2022) WATER AND LIGHT, 1999 oil on canvas 90.0 x 119.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: 7/2/99 Title: “Water and Light” / or / “Seaside with / Green Lines and Black Boat”/ … / Ken Whisson / Perugia 7/2/99 / ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Watters Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 1 May 2002, lot 97 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Ken Whisson Landscape Paintings, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 20 October – 6 November 1999, cat. 11 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Essential, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 8 May – 5 September 2010 Mute Reason, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 27 April – 25 August 2013 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Whisson, K., and McDonald, J., Ken Whisson: Paintings 1947 – 1999, Niagara Publishing, Melbourne, cat. 85, pp. 101 (illus.), 122 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 176 (illus.), 237

A notable feature of many Ken Whisson’s paintings is a curious tendency to apply multiple titles for each work. In this painting, in his usual fashion, Whisson has inscribed alternate titles on the reverse of the canvas as follows: Water and Light or Seaside with Green Lines and Black Boat. These variable titles, or descriptions, offer an insight into the artist’s working methods and underline his free-form, intuitive approach. The official exhibition title, Water and Light, anchors the work to a subject, while the second, more detailed title gently reflects the artist’s thought processes as the work evolved on the canvas.

In this painting, Whisson’s two titles are worlds apart and ser ve different purposes. Water and Light places it in the natural world, while the second, more poetic title provides a kind of street map to the interpretation of the work, with its green lines acting as pointers for viewers to enter the work. On one hand these can be read as descriptions of what Whisson sees on the surface and responds to as the work evolves. On the other, they point to the artist’s overarching subject,

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which was to explore experience through memory. The second title also points to the figurative elements of this painting and assists in teasing out a literal interpretation. While the entire composition is soaked in a white light, a blue mark to the left which one can assume to be water suggests a horizon and divides the canvas evenly. Into this scene, we follow Whisson’s figures as they pose and gyrate throughout the work.

We can distil the seaside scenario quite easily – although the work was created in landbound Perugia in Italy – the blue ocean presents as a horizon with its drifting diagonal hinting at distance and perspective.

The black boat tethered to its mooring is minimal and abstract – a flash of memory.

The palette of Water and Light is typical of Whisson’s use of bright primary and secondary colours. He wants his paintings to be noticed and the bright colour arrests the viewer’s attention and draws the eye through the work. The high key colour of Whisson’s work is at odds with the lack of colour in his daily surrounds. As a regular visitor in recent years, I was struck by the absence of colour within his small apartment.

The overall feel was of warm greys between white walls devoid of artworks. In his tiny bedroom studio, which contained only the bare necessities for painting, even the brightly coloured works in progress were turned to the wall leaving only the blank reverse visible. Whisson would talk about not wanting to waste his eyesight and preserved it by minimising screentime and rarely going outdoors without his safety sunglasses. The only colour came from a large window, where from his second floor, he had a view of trees and a neighbouring swimming pool, where he watched birds swoop for insects on the water’s surface. In a sense the window acted as a screen through which the artist would watch the world, following nature’s passing light. The neutrality of the apartment’s interior amplified the power of this exterior scene.

Whisson’s dedication to his work has parallels with the reclusive Ian Fairweather. But where Fairweather chose to isolate on himself on Bribie Island, Whisson’s isolation was in inner cities, amongst the people and his essential connections to the world, such as literature and international newsfeeds via the radio. In the early years when Whisson set out on his journey as an artist he was aware that it would be a long road and it would take time to achieve success. For this reason, he lived frugally, ate sensibly and exercised. And until his sudden death aged 94 in February this year, was painting daily with as much vigour and passion as he ever had. The consistency of his output over many decades is unmatched and his often-polarising paintings are simply unique in Australian art.

HENRY MULHOLLAND

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ROSALIE GASCOIGNE

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(1917 – 1999) LASSETER’S REEF, 1993/1996 – 97 retro-reflective road sign on wood 84.0 x 122.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Rosalie Gascoigne / 1996–97 / LASSETER’S REEF ESTIMATE: $150,000 – 200,000

PROVENANCE Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1998 Christie’s, Sydney, 13 August 2000, lot 51 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Rosalie Gascoigne, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 1 April – 2 May 1998, cat. 6 Toi Toi Toi, Three Generations of Artists from New Zealand, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 23 January – 5 April 1999; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand, 22 May – 4 July 1999, cat. 73 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Toi Toi Toi, Three Generations of Artists from New Zealand, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, 1998, cat. 73, p. 83 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 168 (illus.), 219 Gascoigne, M., Rosalie Gascoigne. A Catalogue Raisonné, ANU Press, Canberra, 2019, cat. 614, pp. 124, 296 (illus.), 416

Lasseter’s Reef, 1993/1996 – 97 glimmers with the numinous energy that Rosalie Gascoigne was able to summon from her materials and alludes to a mirage, the contemporary tall tale from which it derives its title. Rosalie Gascoigne’s art was deeply informed by the geographic features of her adoptive Australian homeland and followed a progression of formal and abstract distillation. Her works were all anchored in the aesthetic qualities of her found materials and their poetic associative power. Often the origin and function of her found objects was completely obscured by the artist’s process of alteration, fragmentation and reconstitution.

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Lasseter’s Reef is amongst a handful of works within Gascoigne’s oeuvre that directly reference their own retro-reflective surface, honouring the creative and poetic potential that was concealed in their original function as road-signs. In appropriating the arresting blaze required for safety in street signage to evoke the enticing (but ultimately unreliable) glimmer of treasure and fame, Gascoigne created tongue-in-cheek works with names such as Flash Art, 1987; All that Glisters, 1989; Fool’s Gold, 1992 (National Gallery of Australia); Danegeld, 1995, and the present Lasseter’s Reef. This last work was initially conceived in 1993 (as photographs of the artist’s studio have recorded), before being reworked into its final form in May 1997 prior to the artist’s antepenultimate solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley in April 1998. The title that was applied to the final product refers to a vast mythical quartz and gold vein that Harold Bell Lasseter claimed to have found in Central Australia in 1897, before perishing on a subsequent prospecting expedition to the area in 1930.

His story persisted as a famous Australian folktale throughout the mid twentieth century.

This planar assemblage is almost entirely abstract, founded on the rhythm and order of a tessellated Modernist grid. The rigour of this arrangement is disrupted by the irregularities of her found materials.

Although arrestingly bright, the shine and yellow hue of Lasseter’s Reef is not uniform. The variations in the wear and tear of each fragment of signage produce a dappled monochromatic surface that pays homage to the element on which Australia built its wealth, while also being “a warning and a promise, that is, of man’s ability to degrade the land and to create beauty”.1 As the celebrated art critic Sebastian Smee noted at the time in his review of the original exhibition: “these works are about the solidly real and transitory all at once”. 2 The artist herself placed mystical meaning in the visual effects of this transient shimmer, in the same year explaining: “I don’t think you want the solid shine so that it always shines […] It is a terribly good omen to see a shine coming out of a picture and then it just sulks, and the sun goes around”. 3 1. Mary Eagle, notes, National Gallery of Australia 1993, cited in Edwards, D., Rosalie Gascoigne: Material as Landscape, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997, p. 15 2. Smee, S., ‘The Prime of Rosalie Gascoigne’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 2 April 1998, p. 11 3. The artist, 1998, quoted in, Gascoigne, M., Rosalie Gascoigne. A Catalogue Raisonné, ANU Press, Canberra, 2019, p. 277 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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PETER BOOTH

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born 1940 WINTER, 1988 oil on linen 167.0 x 243.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Booth 1988 WINTER ESTIMATE: $100,000 – 150,000

PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Private collection Masterpiece Fine Art Gallery, Hobart Private collection, Tasmania Christie’s, Sydney, 13 August 2000, lot 96 (as ‘Winter Landscape, 1994’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED on loan to the University of Tasmania, Hobart, May 1996 – June 2000 Mute Reason, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 27 April – 25 August 2013 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 138 (illus.), 214

Charged with emotion and symbolic meaning, Winter, 1988 belongs to a transitional phase in Booth›s oeuvre between his celebrated ‘apocalyptic’ paintings executed from 1977 to 1982, and the quiet chill of the snow paintings which he commenced during the winter of 1989. Influenced partly by his childhood years in Sheffield in England’s industrial north, these works represented an important transition in the artist’s oeuvre which he paralleled to the journey in Milton’s epic sequence of poems, Paradise Lost (1667) to Paradise Regained (1671).

More specifically however, the series was inspired by the artist’s rereading of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) with its chilling themes of ambition and evil bearing resonance for Booth in contemporary Western greed and its blatant disregard for the planet. Accordingly, in many of these paintings, snow throws a white curtain of silence over a charred, blackened landscape, heralding the end of man’s aggression towards his fellow man and the environment, like the omen of destruction foretold by the decimation of the Birnam wood in Macbeth.

Powerfully evoking the aftermath of some terrible disaster, vividly captured with agitated, heavily applied brushwork and menacing abstract forms blanketed in snow, Winter is an intense, dramatic work encapsulating well Booth’s landscapes from this period. Perceiving in

A key figure in the revival of figurative painting in Melbourne during the 1980s, Booth’s reputation as one of Australia’s most renowned contemporary painters was cemented in the early years of that decade when he was chosen (alongside Rosalie Gascoigne) to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1982. Over the intervening decades since, he has only continued to attract further widespread acclaim with his highly expressive, energetic works which, depicting a world both imagined and observed, poignantly explore fundamental human emotions and anxieties, issues of spiritual turmoil, social alienation and the devolution of civilisation. Drawing upon epic legends of the past and prophecies for an imagined future, thus Booth’s vision transcends the immediate or particular to acquire a universality comparable to the musings of his greatest ar tistic predecessors, including Goya, Blake and Shakespeare.

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his art a loss of faith in civilisation, critics have thus not surprisingly interpreted such sombre, haunting images as premonitions against ‘The Fall’ – the possible downward trajectory of the present age towards barbarism and eventual extinction. Yet to focus solely upon the immediate, pessimistic impact of such works is to ignore the lyricism – even optimism – frequently underlying Booth’s imagery.

Indeed, discussing the snow motif specifically Jason Smith elucidates ‘...for Booth, the winter landscape is one of serenity and the promise of renewal. It reminds us of the resilience of nature and is a metaphor for human endurance against the physical and psychological trials of life...’1 1. Smith, J., ‘Peter Booth: Human / Nature’ in Peter Booth: Human / Nature, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, pp. 14 – 15 VERONICA ANGELATOS

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HOWARD ARKLEY

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(1951 – 1999) DULL HOME, 1998 synthetic polymer paint on paper 76.0 x 55.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed verso: For / Kenneth / with love / Howard 98 signed, dated and inscribed verso: Name Howard Arkley / Date 1998 / Size 560 x 760 mm / Medium Acrylic on paper / Title Dull home ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000 PROVENANCE Kenneth Pleban, a gift from the artist in 1998 Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 8 August 2000, lot 135 (as ‘Suburbia’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

‘The day I came back, I realised what I needed to do: I was Australian and had to deal with that. This sounds like something Sidney Nolan might have said in 1945, but it’s true. I was astounded because, like many other artists, I had denied it. I had left the suburbs never to return…’1

EXHBITED Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria

Although he dabbled in abstraction and tackled other subject matter, from freeways to shadow factories, it is the suburban home that remains Howard Arkley’s singular legacy. He was obsessed with capturing his immediate environs, no matter how mundane his apparent source material. Using an airbrush, Arkley created individual scenes of homes and their interiors utilising psychedelic colours and outlining suggestive of graffiti. The vivid, implausible hues of his palette and the tell-tale out of focus black outlines, hark back to the fetishism of custom painting and yet also heavily allude to street ar t vandalism. Both streams take the ever yday object and amplify and distort it thus elevating it to a cult like status. Dull Home, 1998 captures the appeal of Arkley’s oeuvre succinctly.

LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 175 (illus.), 212 Howard Arkley Online Catalogue Raisonné: [https://www.arkleyworks. com/blog/2012/05/05/dull-home-1998-wp/] (accessed 7/03/22)

When the Melbourne-based artist was launched internationally with his ‘Howard Arkley: The Home Show’ at the Australian Pavilion for the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999 it was an instant hit, a blazing contrast to the largely dour offerings otherwise on show. Arkley’s imagery was immediately recognisable and relatable, clearly a celebration, a clarion call to the minutiae of our built environments and everyday existence.

Today Arkley’s work is held in a number of private, public and university collections within Australia including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.

1. Arkley quoted in Crawford, A., & Edgar, R., Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, p. 26

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© The Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

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JUAN DAVILA

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born 1946 UNTITLED, 1994 oil on canvas 101.5 x 86.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Juan Leger 94 signed and dated verso: JUAN DAVILA 1994.

ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1994 Christie’s, Melbourne, 25 June 2002, lot 31 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED 3-D Semblance, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, February 1994 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 166 (illus.), 216

After fleeing the Pinochet regime in his native Chile, Juan Davila arrived in Australia in 1974, and had an almost immediate impact on the Australian art world with his distinctive, hard-hitting and politically focused work that unflinchingly brought to the fore complex issues around identity, race, gender and sexuality. As is now well known, Davila’s notoriety reached a crescendo in 1982 with the impounding of his large-scale mural Stupid as a Painter, 1981 – 82 by the NSW Vice Squad after complaints received by the conservative religious organisation the Festival of Light, spearheaded by its leader and NSW Parliamentarian, the Reverend Fred Nile.1 Yet this significant and deeply troubling event in no way curbed Davila’s desire to slaughter the ‘sacred cows’ of Australia’s art history and national myths. Since that time, his astute and biting appropriation of

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the imagery of European, North and South American and Australian artists in his work has seen him become one of this country’s most instantly recognisable and celebrated postmodern artists. Steadfastly committed to figuration, and to painting, as it has gone in and out of favour, Davila’s work reminds us of the capacity of art to speak to power, and of its ability to challenge societal injustice and prejudice. Tellingly, in recent years, he has increasingly turned his caustic gaze to the ongoing traumatic legacy of Australia’s colonisation and to our unconscionable treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

Untitled, 1944 Is one of several Davila paintings of the 1990s based on French artist Fernand Léger’s iconic Nude on a Red Background, 1927.

In each iteration, Davila reworks the blocky forms, articulated limbs and singular orb-like breast of Léger’s sitter, recreating her in a number of different guises. Set against a decorative background reminiscent of the patterns and colours of South American textiles, the subject of Davila’s Untitled is gender fluid, impassive, and defiant. Authorship of the painting is also characteristically thrown into question by the artist’s enigmatic signature, ‘‘Juan Léger”. As Elizabeth Ann Macgregor has noted: ‘Davila forces us to consider the question of what we want from artists today. He gives us a comprehensive answer: provocative, probing, witty, uncomfortable, unpalatable work which nonetheless aspires to a level of aesthetic pleasure – beauty even: work that cannot be forgotten and which leaves a lingering sense of unease, disturbing our world view at a time when dissent has become increasingly unacceptable. No-one escapes Davila’s excoriating gaze.’2 1.

History repeated itself in 2019 when the Australian Christian Lobby called for the removal of Davila’s work Holy Family from the exhibition The Abyss at Griffith University Art Museum in Brisbane. The work remained on show.

2. Macgregor, E., Juan Davila, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2006, p. vii

KELLY GELLATLY

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DANILA VASSILIEFF (1897 – 1958) CATTLE IN LANDSCAPE, c.1938 oil on plywood 31.5 x 41.5 cm signed lower left: Vassilieff

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PROVENANCE Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, acquired from the above in 1979 Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 1 May 2002, lot 95A The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 EXHIBITED Spring Exhibition 1979, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 17 – 30 October 1979, cat. 128 Edge of Silence, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2010 – 2011 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE St John Moore, F., Vassilieff and his Art, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, cat. p122, p. 148 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 236

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ARTHUR BOYD (1920 – 1999) NORTHCOTE QUARRY, c.1940 oil on canvas on composition board 51.5 x 58.0 cm signed lower right: A Boyd ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000

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PROVENANCE Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 1 August 1990 EXHIBITED Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 22 July 2012 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 210 (illus.), 214

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SALI HERMAN (1898 – 1993) A WOMAN IN THE DOORWAY OF NO. 171, 1949 oil on canvas 46.0 x 56.0 cm signed and dated lower left: S. Herman. 49 ESTIMATE: $18,000 – 25,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 16 April 1991, lot 230 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 6 May 1991

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 35 on long term loan from Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 78 (illus.), 220

CLIFTON PUGH (1924 – 1990) NEW GROWTH, c.1958 – 63 oil on composition board 69.0 x 91.5 cm signed lower right: Clifton bears inscription on typed label verso: New Growth ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 70 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 2 August 1990

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 53 Midwinter Masters: (What’s so funny ‘bout) peace, love and understanding…?, Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 22 June – 18 August 2013 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 91 (illus.), 230

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LEONARD FRENCH

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(1928 – 2017) THE BRIDGE, 1983 enamel on hessian on composition board 122.5 x 244.0 cm signed lower right: French inscribed on artist’s label verso: 1983 / Study for the Oppenheimer Mural / Brenthurst Library Johannesburg / South Africa ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 50,000

PROVENANCE Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 May 1990 EXHIBITED Leonard French ‘The Bridge’, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, 28 September – 17 October 1985 (illus. on exhibition invitation) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 58 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July - 13 October 2019 Leonard French ‘The Bridge’, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 3 November 2018 – 3 March 2019 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 130 (illus.), 219 RELATED WORK The Bridge, 1982 – 84, mural, 275.0 x 500.0 cm, in the collection of The Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg, South Africa

The following excerpts are from Arnold, M., ‘‘The Bridge’, by Leonard French, Melbourne’, reproduced at https:// www.brenthurst.org.za/the-bridge/ ‘By the time he received the commission from Harr y Frederick Oppenheimer for The Brenthurst Library, South Africa [for which the present work is the study], French had established a distinctive relationship between form and content, favouring a stylised schema of representation married to themes where opposing forces were distributed in conceptual and visual tension. Leonard French visited South Africa in 1982. The Bridge was generated by his travels and observations at a time when attempts were being made to restructure rather than dismantle the apartheid artifice.

French travelled widely throughout South Africa but The Bridge is not based on a particular place or event and it offers no direct social

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comment… [Rather] The Bridge is about people… The subject is a synthesis of contradictory and complex sense-experiences, encounters with people from all sectors of the community, and information about South Africa. The assimilated sources are transformed into an image that explores the tension between opposing forces and the literal and metaphorical implications of the concept, ‘bridge’. A bridge is a physical structure erected to afford safe passage over a barrier and its presence directs human beings along a specific route. It may be a transitional phase connecting two conditions and, in this sense, it is a very apt metaphor for the situation in which South Africa found itself as the architects of apartheid attempted to plan new social routes. Since a bridge facilitates movement and manifests human skill at overcoming impediments, its collapse initiates chaos, signifies human fallibility and implies failure of a system. French depicts a bridge that arches across his entire format and is torn asunder in the centre.

French poses his interpretation of the human condition in South Africa in symbolic terms, avoiding the particularisation that is generated by naturalistic detail. The multitudes that crowd the bridge are mechanised forms, people reduced to automata with heads resembling canon mouths. Accompanied by weapons, wagons and crosses the crowd cannot be identified ethnically or historically. The imagery itself is universalised; conflict and disaster are posed in general terms and the situation relates to South Africa only when a non-formal reading of the imagery admits the relevance of the socio-political South African situation to the interpretation… …The dominant visual metaphor in The Bridge is that of containment, established by the bridge as a structural container and by its separate bolted units which frame and contain sections of the human procession… Symbolically, the bridge structure is also a container.

It is formed by wooden units, irregularly shaped crosses which denote the controlling power of church doctrine. Some figures carry crosses, reinforcing the reference to Christianity and its emotive force within society, something which French must have observed in Nationalist government debates about apartheid. Placed against a gold background, the central shattered area of the bridge contrasts strongly with the moody dark-blue sky… In French’s narrative the break in the bridge is the key to his meaning. Topped by flames, the bridge is broken by an organic black form that plunges vertically through the format.

Quite literally, ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ Tearing the opposing forces apart and breaking the structure, the black form is – in the context of the South African situation – a forceful reminder of black power.’

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JOHN PERCEVAL

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(1923 – 2000) SEAGULLS AND SULPHUR SMOKE AT WILLIAMSTOWN, 1990 oil on canvas 91.5 x 122.0 cm signed lower right: Perceval signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: SeaGULLS / AND / SULPHUR / SMOKE / AT / WILLIAMSTOWN / Perceval / ‘90 ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000

PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso, stock no. 7804) Private collection, Melbourne Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 September 1998 EXHIBITED Recent Paintings, Drawings and Pastels by John Perceval, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 9 – 26 April 1991, cat. 1 (illus. on front cover of exhibition catalogue) Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 151 (illus.), 229

John Perceval first encountered the shambolic, working port of Williamstown in the company of Charles Blackman in the mid-1950s, and the experience inspired three renowned cycles of painting. The first formed the core of his inaugural solo exhibition held in 1956 at then newly opened Australian Galleries in Melbourne, with Blackman describing his colleague as being ‘a wonderfully ecstatic painter… very free and very beautiful.’1 The second sequence, dated between 1967 and 1968, echoed the palette and technique of its predecessor, but the third series, which began in 1987 and of which Seagulls and sulphur smoke at Williamstown, 1990 is a key example, is distinguished by its bold use of colour, calligraphic swirls and an enduring sense of optimism. One reason for such renewed vigour was the fact that Perceval was celebrating the end of ten ‘lost’ years, predominantly spent being treated for schizophrenia in Larundel psychiatric hospital in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. In 1984, a retrospective of his work was held at Heide to great acclaim, and two years later, an exhibition of 48 of his drawings sold out in minutes. The subsequent media attention motivated him to return to easel painting.

With the assistance of carers, Perceval was able to re-visit Williamstown, and he found the dock was still as shabby as three decades prior.

Working back in his studio on paintings such as Seagulls and sulphur smoke at Williamstown, he celebrated the grand beauty that lurked amidst the detritus by portraying, for example, the rusted surfaces of the old boats in exuberant bursts of yellow and orange. His treatment here of the water’s reflections is similarly effective with whorls of paint snaking through the surface. Perceval’s use of sulphureous yellow for the smoke contrasts brightly against the deep blue of the sky, and the overall composition is held together tightly by the final layer of white paint squeezed directly from the tube. These trails end emphatically with the artist’s enlarged signature at bottom right, a bold statement of authorship that speaks volumes regarding Perceval’s personal satisfaction with this painting, whilst simultaneously declaring his own survival after so many dark years.

1. Shapcott, T., The Art of Charles Blackman, Andre Deutsch, London, 1989, p. 23 ANDREW GAYNOR

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ROBERT DICKERSON (1924 – 2013) GIRLS IN THE GARDENS, 1970 also known as PINK AND BLUE oil on canvas on composition board 91.5 x 61.0 cm signed lower right: DICKERSON inscribed with title on old label verso: GIRLS IN THE GARDENS ESTIMATE: $25,000 – 35,000

PROVENANCE Lister Gallery, Perth Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 November 1999, lot 18 (as ‘Pink and Blue’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Robert Dickerson, Leveson Street Gallery, Melbourne, 22 November – 3 December 1970, cat. 8 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 Figures & Landscapes: Curated works from The Cbus Collection of Australian Art and the Latrobe Regional Gallery Permanent Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 16 December 2017 – 11 March 2018 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 217

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RALPH BALSON (1890 – 1964) MATTER PAINTING (PAINTING NO. 8), 1960 enamel on composition board 66.0 x 61.0 cm signed lower right: R. Balson bears certificate of authenticity from Gallery A verso ESTIMATE: $8,000 – 12,000 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Sydney Gallery A, Sydney (label attached verso) Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane 100 Works from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 June 1991, lot 44 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Balson, Crowley, Fizelle, Hinder, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 5 – 30 October 1966 and touring to Newcastle City Art Gallery, New South

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Wales, 9 November – 11 December 1966, cat. 14 (as ‘Painting No. 8’) Paintings by the Late Ralph Balson 1960 –64; The Third and Final Memorial Exhibition, Gallery A, Sydney, 27 May – 14 June 1969, cat. 9 (label attached verso) Contemporary Art in Australia – A Review, Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, July – August 1987 The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 43 IMPACT, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 December 2012 – 21 April 2013 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Thomas, D., ‘Ralph Balson’, Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, vol. 2. no. 4, March 1965, p. 248 (illus.)

MOCA Open – Contemporary Art in Australia, A Review, Brisbane, 1987, p. 9 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 94 (illus.), 213

PETER UPWARD (1932 – 1983) ORANGE ACCENT II, 1960 oil on composition board 61.0 x 45.5 cm signed and dated lower centre: Upward / 60 bears inscription with title on gallery label verso: PETER UPWARD / ORANGE ACCENT II / $200 / 14 ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 25,000

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EXHIBITED Clement Meadmore / Peter Upward, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 31 August – 12 September 1960, cat. 14 Last Acquisitions, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2 April – 10 July 2016 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 97 (illus.), 236

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2002, lot 281 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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JOHN COBURN (1925 – 2006) BARRIER REEF, 1976 synthetic polymer paint on canvas board 60.0 x 75.0 cm signed lower right: Coburn inscribed with title verso: BARRIER REEF ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000 PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney Shapiro, Sydney, 3 December 2002, lot 83 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED Recent Paintings, Prints and Tapestries – John Coburn, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 8 – 22 June 1976, cat. 11 Essential, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 8 May – 5 September 2010 IMPACT, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 December 2012 – 21 April 2013 Last Acquisitions, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2 April – 10 July 2016 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Amadio, N., John Coburn Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1988, p. 199 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 122 (illus.), 216

TONY TUCKSON (1921 – 1973) UNTITLED DRAWING #3 (TD 388), c.1953 – 56 watercolour and gouache on paper 76.5 x 101.5 cm (sheet) bears inscription verso: No 3 ESTIMATE: $5,000 – 8,000 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Sydney Watters Gallery, Sydney Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above on 11 November 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane 100 Works from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 June 1991, lot 40 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED Tony Tuckson – Themes and Variations, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 2 May – 18 June 1989; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 28 June – 27 August 1989, cat. 12 (label attached verso) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 50 IMPACT, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 December 2012 – 21 April 2013 on long term loan to the Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Maloon, T., Tony Tuckson – Themes and Variations, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 1989, p. 24 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 85 (illus.), 236

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MICHAEL JOHNSON

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born 1938 SLEVIN, 1992 – 93 oil on canvas 213.5 x 183.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: Michael Johnson “SLEVIN” 1992–93 OIL ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 40,000

PROVENANCE Private collection Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 21 August 2000, lot 5 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 163 (illus.), 222

A towering and energetic painting, Michael Johnson’s Slevin, 1992 – 93 presents an immersive vertical plane of painted accretions, arranged in dense matrices through which the viewer can travel. The title possibly refers to the Gaelic word for mountain, reinforcing the imposing power of this painting’s physical presence. Sydney-based painter, Johnson has been a stalwart presence in the Australian art world, resolutely faithful to abstraction in its many forms. Slevin was painted at the height of Johnson’s riotous painterliness of the eighties, nineties and early twothousands. These paintings presented a series of variations on a theme inspired by a newfound interest in the complexity of the natural world and the underlying structures that govern it all.

Organised around a composition of interlocking colour graduations and chromatic harmonies in three horizontal strata, Slevin, like other paintings by Johnson from this period, is ultimately a work about the

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power of colour. The critic John McDonald, who was a keen champion of the artist in newsprint at the time, remarked in 1990 that it was difficult to ‘think of any living artist anywhere who uses colour with the same degree of intensity and skill’.1 Building on his technical skills as a hard-edge colourist, Johnson had an innate understanding of the physical properties of colour, orchestrating the associations and tensions between each daub and streak into a complex symphony.

Some of these layers are startlingly bright, including large underlying areas of magenta and upper veils of lime green. The directionality of the paint and the gesture (whether smoothed on with a palette knife, vigorously worked into the canvas with a wide brush or squeezed on directly from the tube) also alternates between each later. This creates a cumulatively cross-hatched surface that is alive with the push-and-pull tension between background and foreground, its ambiguous surface has a shallow pictorial depth, no focal point or anchoring features. Slevin’s surface is enlivened with occasional bursts of iridescence within the depths of the foundational matrix.

By vir tue of its detachment from pictorial representation, no interpretation or associative play is required from the viewer. Johnson has always been adamantly against prescriptive explanations of his artworks, explaining that they only required individual observation and engagement with the pictorial surface. One might be tempted to read within Johnson’s painting architectural associations or watery landscapes, or strata of the earth’s crust, however none of these are dictated by the artist. He works with a confident free-hand engagement with the act of painting, ‘like a poet moving from iambic pentameter into free verse or a musician going from a fixed score to brilliant improvisation’. 2 1. McDonald, J., ‘Sinew of an Athlete’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 6 October 1990 2. McDonald, J., cited in Pearce, B., Michael Johnson, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2004, p. 98 LUCIE REEVES-SMITH

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DAVID LARWILL

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(1956 – 2011) DEPARTURE I, 1985 oil on canvas 202.5 x 179.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: david Larwill / 1985 / ’departure I’ bears inscription on stretcher bar verso: No / 2 ESTIMATE: $30,000 – 50,000

PROVENANCE Coventry Gallery, Sydney Private collection, acquired from the above in 1985 Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 81 (as ‘Departure T’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Probably: Melbourne Group Show., Coventry Gallery, Sydney, 1985, cat. 2 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 131 (illus.), 223

ROAR Studios and Gallery was established in 1982 in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy as a place where a group of like-minded artists could come together to create and exhibit their work outside of the city’s established galleries, who were, at that time, uninterested in their art.

As one of ROAR’s co-founders, David Larwill’s larrikin-like personality and blokey joie de vivre saw him quickly assume a role as the group’s unofficial figurehead and spokesperson, championing art-making that was spontaneous, intuitive and accessible, and an alternative to what they perceived as the overly theorised nature of contemporary art.

Ironically, in just a few short years, ROAR and its artists, and especially Larwill, had made a tremendous impact, renowned as much for their carousing and parties as for their exuberant expressionist work. As art critic Christopher Heathcote recalled in The Age in 1992: ‘The Roar

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painters have been one of the very few vanguard groups to emerge in Australian art in the late 20th century. Not since the 1960s, have Melburnians witnessed an attempt by a small band of spirited younger artists to upset the complacent order of the contemporary scene. And they were able to bring about change not because of the art system, but in spite of it… Between 1982 and 1985 Roar Studios was the most creative irritant that had disturbed the Melbourne art system for years.’1 Largely self-taught, Larwill had a sporadic art education, studying briefly at Prahran College of Advanced Education in 1975, followed by a stint at Preston Institute of Technology in 1980. Heavily influenced by both the work and spirit of Australia’s Angry Penguins, and by international artists such Paul Klee, Picasso, the CoBrA group and Jean Dubuffet and his interest in ‘art brut’, Larwill’s own work was unplanned, spontaneous and emotive. Through a process of trial and error and a willingness to experiment, Larwill quickly arrived at the kind of ‘signature style’ that we witness in Departure I, 1985 with its characteristic childlike figures, all-over patterning, bold palette and thick, assured brushstrokes. Yet despite the intuitive nature of Larwill’s approach, the densely packed forms of Departure I also highlight the way in which he continued to work an image – applying multiple layers of paint and adding and subtracting motifs 2 – until he was satisfied with it. As he had said: ‘I start by just drawing figures and lines on the canvas. Then I keep flipping the canvas round until I see something to build on, or what seems to be coming out.’3 ‘You’ve just got to put your heart in it and be honest.’4 1. Coslovich, G., ‘Artists Reunite from Roaring ‘80s’, The Age, 23 February 2011, https://www. theage.com.au/national/victoria/artists-reunite-from-roaring-80s-20110222-1b42s.html, accessed 24 May 2022 2. McDonald, J., ‘Cult of the Untouchables’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 July 1987, p. 50, cited in McGregor, K., & Thomson, E., David Larwill, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, p. 22 3. McGregor et al., ibid., p. 18 4. Ibid., p. 28 KELLY GELLATLY

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RICHARD LARTER (1929 – 2014) WELL ALRIGHT, SO NOW, 1970 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen on composition board 121.0 x 90.5 cm signed and dated lower right: R. LARTER OCTOBER 1970 inscribed with title verso: Well all right [sic.]/ So Now

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EXHIBITED Richard Larter & Garry Shead, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 3 – 20 November 1971, cat. 5 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria

ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Watters Gallery, Sydney Bernard Smith, Melbourne, acquired from the above Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 7 May 1990, lot 207 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 113 (illus.), 223

DAVID ASPDEN (1935 – 2005) MIDNIGHT, 1988 oil on canvas 152.0 x 122.0 cm inscribed with artist’s symbol lower right: Δ signed dated and inscribed with title verso: ASPDEN ’88 / OIL/ “MIDNIGHT” bears inscription on label attached to stretcher bar verso: 1 ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000

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PROVENANCE Realities Gallery, Melbourne Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 7 April 1991, lot 2 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED David Aspden, Realities Gallery, Melbourne, 11 June – 7 July 1988, cat. 1 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 142 (illus.), 212

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CRESSIDA CAMPBELL born 1960 REFLECTION OF MOSQUITO COILS, 1980 synthetic polymer paint on paper 44.0 x 60.0 cm signed with initials lower right: C. C. signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Reflection of Mosquito Coils / Cressida Campbell ‘80 ESTIMATE: $5,000 – 7,000

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PROVENANCE Probably: Hogarth Galleries, Sydney Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 144 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991 EXHIBITED Home Truths, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 September – 31 October 2010 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 19, 215

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RICK AMOR born 1948 THREATENING WEATHER, 1997 oil on canvas 34.0 x 44.5 cm signed lower left: Rick Amor 97 dated and inscribed with title verso: OCT 97 / THREATENING / WEATHER / … bears inscription on label attached to frame verso: Threatening Weather / Rick Amor ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000

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PROVENANCE The Victorian Trades Hall Council Auction, Melbourne, 31 March 1999, lot 61 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Mute Reason, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 27 April – 25 August 2013 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 171 (illus.), 212

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ARTHUR BOYD (1920 – 1999) BLACK SWANS AT SHOALHAVEN III oil on plywood 30.0 x 23.0 cm signed lower right: Arthur Boyd ESTIMATE: $18,000 – 25,000 PROVENANCE Berkeley Editions, Sydney, commissioned directly from the artist Private collection, Sydney Shapiro, Sydney, 8 May 2002, lot 55 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED Last Acquisitions, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2 April – 10 July 2016 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 214

TIM STORRIER born 1949 EVENING BLAZE LINE, 1990 synthetic polymer paint and rope on board 40.0 x 49.5 cm signed, dated and inscribed with title lower right: ’Evening Blaze line’/ Storrier / 1990 ESTIMATE: $18,000 – 24,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Christie’s, Melbourne, 22 August 2000, lot 4 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 154 (illus.), 232 RELATED WORK Evening Blaze Line, 1989, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 152.0 x 350.0 cm, private collection

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THEA PROCTOR (1879 – 1966) THE SEASIDE, c.1923 watercolour and gouache on paper on card 38.0 x 44.0 cm signed lower left: THEA PROCTOR ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 251 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above 29 April 1991

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 15 Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 July – 7 October 2013 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 49 (illus.), 230 Edwards, D., and Mimmocchi, D. (eds.), Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013, pp. 68 (illus.), 315

ADRIAN FEINT (1894 – 1971) SUMMER AT PITTWATER, 1951 oil on canvas on compressed card 51.0 x 43.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Adrian Feint / 1951. bears inscription verso: SUMMER AT PITTWATER ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 29 – 30 November 1993, lot 119 Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 15 August 2000, lot 102 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED The Reading Room: The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Arrangement, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 26 May – 8 July 2018 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Heathcote, R. (ed.), Adrian Feint: Cornucopia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2009, p. 50 (illus.)

Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 80 (illus.), 218

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HERBERT BADHAM (1899 – 1961) STUDY FOR THE EXPULSION, 1956 verso: STUDY FOR TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY oil on compressed card 40.5 x 29.5 cm signed and dated lower right: H BADHAM 56 bears inscription on gallery label verso: Herbert Badham / Study for “The Expulsion” / 1956 ESTIMATE: $15,000 – 20,000

PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection, acquired from the above Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 13 November 1990, lot 19 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 19 November 1990 EXHIBITED Herbert Badham (1899 – 1961), Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, August – 10 September 1979, cat. 21 (label attached verso) One, Two, See; Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 87 (illus.), 212 RELATED WORK The Expulsion, 1956, oil on composition board, 114.5 x 91.5 cm, private collection The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1957, oil on composition board, 114.0 x 91.5 cm, private collection

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KENNETH MACQUEEN (1897 – 1960) RECEDING TIDE, NEAR COOLUM, QUEENSLAND watercolour on paper 36.5 x 48.0 cm signed lower right: KENNETH MACQUEEN

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EXHIBITED Annual Collectors’ Exhibition, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 3 – 24 June 2000, cat. 41 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 27) Land Songs, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 26 June 2011 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria

ESTIMATE: $6,000 – 9,000 PROVENANCE Francis Berry, Melbourne Private collection, Victoria Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne (label attached verso) Shapiro, Sydney, 8 May 2002, lot 141 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 71 (illus.), 224

ARTHUR D’AUVERGNE BOXALL (1895 – 1944) BUILDING OF THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE, 1930 watercolour on paper 37.0 x 43.5 cm (sight) signed and dated lower left: D’AUVERGNE BOXALL/ JUNE. 1930 ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 26 November 1990, lot 220 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 28 November 1990

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EXHIBITED Five Decades of Australian Painting 1930 to 1980, Savill Galleries, Sydney, 5 May – 5 June 1989, cat. 10 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Building the Bridge’) The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 18 A New World, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 1 May – 30 August 2009 on long term loan to Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE ‘Queen Chats with Adelaide Artist’, The Mail, Adelaide, 31 May 1930, p. 3 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 11, 17, 56 (illus.), 214, illus. front cover

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MURRAY GRIFFIN (1903 – 1992) THE BACKYARD OPALESCENT SHED, 1949 oil on composition board 36.0 x 41.0 cm signed and dated lower centre: MURRAY / GRIFFIN / 49 bears inscription on frame verso: Murray Griffin / Opalescent Shed ESTIMATE: $5,000 – 8,000

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PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 31 July 1990, lot 200 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above 2 August 1990 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 36 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 17, 76 (illus.), 220

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WEAVER HAWKINS (1893 – 1977) FIGURES IN A GARDEN, 1948 oil on canvas on board 49.0 x 59.5 cm signed and dated lower right: 48 / Raokin ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 8 April 1990, lot 7 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 34 Morning, Noon and Light, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 70 (illus.), 220

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JEAN BELLETTE (1909 – 1991) TWO GIRLS, c.1945 oil on board 52.5 x 37.5 cm signed with initials lower right: JB signed and inscribed with title verso: TWO GIRLS / Jean…

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 27 Jean Bellette Retrospective, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, 10 December 2004 – 16 January 2005 and touring, cat. 13 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Wollongong Art Gallery, New South Wales

ESTIMATE: $5,000 – 7,000 PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private collection Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 22 April 1991, lot 182 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 29 April 1991

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LITERATURE France, C., Jean Bellette Retrospective, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, 2005, pp. 28 (illus.), 71 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 65 (illus.), 213

SHAY DOCKING (1928 – 1998) PORT FAIRY IMAGE, 1957 verso: STREET SCENE WITH TERRACED HOUSES oil on hessian on composition board 46.0 x 61.5 cm signed and dated lower right: SHAY DOCKING, ‘57 ESTIMATE: $2,000 – 4,000

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PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 27 November 2002, lot 152 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Exhibition of Paintings by Leading Victorian and Interstate Artists, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 28 May – 14 June 1957, cat. 29 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 88 (illus.), 217

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ALISON REHFISCH (1900 – 1975) STILL LIFE WITH ZINNIAS oil on plywood 51.0 x 40.5 cm bears certificate of authenticity verso, dated 15 June 1987 signed by Margaret Adams (the artist’s daughter) ESTIMATE: $6,000 – 9,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Lawsons, Sydney, 16 September 1986, lot 69 Private collection Sotheby’s, Sydney, 14 August 1990, lot 11 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 20 August 1990

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 30 The Reading Room, The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Morning, Noon and Night, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to the Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 86 (illus.), 231

GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH (1892 – 1984) INGRAMS GREEN, SUSSEX, 1949 oil on canvas on board 33.0 x 41.0 cm signed and dated lower left: G. Cossington Smith. 49. bears inscription title verso: No. 5351 ‘SUSSEX’/ NO 3/ INGRAMS GREEN

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EXHIBITED Grace Cossington-Smith, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 18 – 30 July 1951, cat. 29 (as ‘Autumn at Ingram’s [sic.] Green’) Probably: Grace Cossington-Smith, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 21 June – 10 July 1972, cat. 28 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria

ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000 PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Sydney Christie’s, Melbourne, 2 – 3 May 2002, lot 47 (as ‘Sussex Landscape, 1947’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 67 (illus.), 232

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JANET CUMBRAE STEWART (1883 – 1960) PORTRAIT OF JEAN SHAW, 1918 pastel on paper 55.0 x 37.5 cm (sight) signed and dated lower right: Cumbrae Stewart / 18 ESTIMATE: $8,000 – 12,000 PROVENANCE Commissioned by the sitter’s husband, Gayfield Shaw, Sydney Gayfield Shaw Art Salon, Sydney Christie’s, Melbourne, 30 July 1990, lot 60 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne

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The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 1 August 1990 EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 11 Figurative Works from the Cbus Collection, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 4 August – 2 December 2012 on long term loan to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 18, 42 (illus.), 216

JESSIE TRAILL (1881 – 1967) LADY IN THE SHADE oil on canvas on board 50.5 x 64.0 cm signed lower left: J. C. A Traill ESTIMATE: $12,000 – 16,000 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist Private collection, Victoria Thence by descent Private collection, Victoria Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 12 April 1989, lot 74 (as ‘Sewing’) Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 9 November 1999, lot 236

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Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired from the above The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 11 November 1999 EXHIBITED Morning, Noon and Light, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 13 July – 13 October 2019 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 235

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SYBIL CRAIG (1901 – 1989) CHRISTMAS LILLIES oil on canvas on cardboard 69.0 x 56.5 cm signed lower left: Sybil CRAIG signed and inscribed with title verso: Christmas Lillies / by / Sybil Craig / SYBIL CRAIG ESTIMATE: $3,000 – 5,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 16 April 1991, lot 249 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 19 April 1991

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 29 Bloomin’ Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, December 2002 – May 2003 on long term loan to Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 62 (illus.), 216

VIDA LAHEY (1882 – 1968) STILL LIFE WITH FUSCHIAS, c.1930 watercolour on paper 39.0 x 37.0 cm signed lower right: V. LAHEY. ESTIMATE: $4,000 – 6,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 15 April 1991

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 13 (as ‘Fuschias, c.1920) Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2015 Arrangement, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 26 May – 8 July 2018 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 55 (illus.), 223

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A.M.E BALE (1875 – 1955) ZINNIAS oil on canvas 36.0 x 41.0 cm signed lower left: A M E BALE ESTIMATE: $3,000 – 5,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 4 April 2000, lot 279 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED The Reading Room, The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Arrangement, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 26 May – 8 July 2018 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, p. 213

A.M.E. BALE (1875 – 1955) STILL LIFE WITH ORIENTAL VASE oil on canvas 51.0 x 66.5 cm ESTIMATE: $3,000 – 5,000 PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Melbourne Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 20 April 1993, lot 536 Private collection Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 22 November 1998, lot 11 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED The Reading Room, The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 In Bloom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 August – 14 September 2014 Arrangement, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 26 May – 8 July 2018 on long term loan to Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 40 (illus.), 213

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LOUIS BUVELOT (1814 – 1888) PASTORAL, 1871 watercolour on paper on card 24.0 x 34.0 cm (sheet) signed and dated lower left: L. Buvelot 1871 ESTIMATE: $4,000 – 6,000 PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 December 1990

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 3 Overland, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 10 March – 15 July 2012 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16, 25 (illus.), 214

HAUGHTON FORREST (1826 – 1925) RIVER LANDSCAPE, TASMANIA, c.1880 oil on academy board 31.0 x 47.0 cm ESTIMATE: $10,000 – 15,000 PROVENANCE Private collection, Tasmania Sotheby’s, Sydney, 15 August 2000, lot 296 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above

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EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May - 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 27 (illus.), 219

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SYDNEY LONG (1871 – 1955) KOOKABURRAS, 1910 watercolour and gouache on paper on card 25.0 x 37.0 cm signed and dated upper left: SID LONG / 1910.

ESTIMATE: $8,000 – 12,000 PROVENANCE Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 23 July 1986, lot 45 Private collection Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 13 November 1990, lot 38 Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 19 November 1990

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EXHIBITED The Reading Room: The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 November 2013 – 20 April 2014 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 39 (illus.), 224

HANS HEYSEN (1877 – 1968) SUMMER AFTERNOON, AMBLESIDE, 1936 watercolour on paper 48.5 x 62.5 cm signed and dated lower right: HANS HEYSEN 1936 signed and inscribed with title verso: NO 1 SUMMER AFTERNOON. AMBLESIDE/ HANS HEYSEN/ HAHNDORF. / STH AUS’ ESTIMATE: $20,000 – 30,000

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EXHIBITED The Bus Collection of Australian Art, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 23 Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 on long term loan to Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 14, 58 (illus.), 221

PROVENANCE Private collection Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 17 June 1990

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1. PRIOR TO AUCTION CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS Catalogues can be obtained at Deutscher and Hackett offices or by subscription (see the Catalogue Subscription Form at the back of this catalogue or online for more information).

PRE-SALE ESTIMATES The price range estimated against each lot reflects the opinion of our art specialists as to the hammer price expected for the lot at auction and is informed by realised prices for comparable works as well as the particularities of each lot including condition, quality, provenance and rarity. While presale estimates are intended as a guide for prospective buyers, lots can be sold outside of these ranges. Pre-sale estimates include GST (if any) on a lot but do not include the buyer’s premium or other charges where applicable.

prospective buyers and sellers guide ALL PARTIES ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE CONDITIONS OF AUCTION AND SALE INCLUDED IN THIS CATALOGUE

RESERVES The reserve is the minimum price including GST (if any) that the vendor will accept for a lot and below which the lot will not normally be sold.

PRE-AUCTION VIEWINGS In both Sydney and Melbourne pre-auction viewings are scheduled for several days in advance of each auction. Deutscher and Hackett specialists are available to give obligation free advice at viewings or by appointment and prospective buyers are strongly encouraged to thoroughly examine and request condition reports for potential purchases. Pre-auction viewings are open to the public and are free to attend.

SYMBOL KEY ▲ Unless ownership is clearly stated in the provenance, this symbol is used where a lot is offered which Deutscher and Hackett owns in whole or in part. In these instances, Deutscher and Hackett has a direct financial interest in the property or means that Deutscher and Hackett has guaranteed a minimum price. ● Used to indicate lots for sale without a reserve.

EXPLANATION OF CATALOGUING PRACTICE AND TERMS All information published in Deutscher and Hackett catalogues represent statements of opinion and should not be relied upon as fact. All dimensions are listed in centimetres, height before width and are approximate. All prices are in Australian dollars.

ARTIST’S NAMES All reference to artists make use of common and not full names in accordance with the standards outlined in the National Gallery of Australia reference publication Australian Art: Artist’s working names authority list. For instance, John Brack rather than Cecil John Brack; Roy de Maistre rather than Leroy Leveson Laurent De Maistre; Rosalie Gascoigne rather than Rosalie Norah Gascoigne.

Terms used in this catalogue have the meanings ascribed to them below: a. NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work by the artist. b. Attributed to NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, probably a work by the artist, in whole or in part. c. Circle of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work showing the influence and style of the artist and of the artist’s period. d. Studio/Workshop of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work possibly executed under the supervision of the artist. e. School of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work by a follower or student of the artist. f. Manner of NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a work created in the style, but not necessarily in the period, of the artist. g. After NICHOLAS CHEVALIER: in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, a copy of a work by the artist. h. “signed” / “dated” in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has been signed/dated by the artist. i. “bears signature” / “bears date” in the opinion of Deutscher and Hackett, the work has possibly been signed/dated by someone other than the artist.

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PROVENANCE Where appropriate, Deutscher and Hackett will include the known provenance, or history of ownership of lots. Non disclosure may indicate that prior owners are unknown or that the seller wishes to maintain confidentiality.

2. THE AUCTION Auctions are open to the public and are free to attend. Deutscher and Hackett may exclude any person at any time in its discretion.

REGISTRATION Bidders must register to bid prior to the commencement of an auction. Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion.

CONDUCT OF AUCTION Lots are offered for sale on a consecutive basis. Deutscher and Hackett will determine the conduct of the auction in its absolute discretion, including the regulation of bidding. Consecutive or responsive bids may be placed by the auctioneer on behalf of the vendor up to the reserve.

ABSENTEE OR COMMISSION BIDS AND TELEPHONE BIDS As a courtesy service, Deutscher and Hackett will make reasonable efforts to place bids for prospective buyers in absentia provided written or verbal instructions (as indicated on absentee bid forms included at the back of this catalogue or online) are received 24 hours prior to auction. Where successful, lots will be purchased at the lowest possible bid and in the event of identical absentee bids, the bid received earliest will take precedence. Deutscher and Hackett accepts no responsibility for errors and omissions in relation to this courtesy service and reserves the right to record telephone bids.

RESERVE Unless indicated otherwise, all lots are subject to a confidential reserve price determined by the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett or the auctioneer may place any number of bids on behalf of the vendor below the reserve price and is not obliged to identify that the bids are being placed on behalf of the vendor.

BIDDING INCREMENTS Bidding usually opens below the listed pre-sale estimate and proceeds in the following increments (the auctioneer may vary the bidding increments at his or her discretion): $500 – 1,000 by $50 $1,000 – 2,000 by $100 $2,000 – 3,000 by $200 $3,000 – 5,000 by $200 / $500 / $800 $5,000 – 10,000 by $500 $10,000 – 20,000 by $1,000 $20,000 – 30,000 by $2,000 $30,000 – 50,000 by $2,000 / $5,000 / $8,000 $50,000 – 100,000 by $5,000 $100,000 – 200,000 by $10,000 $200,000 – 300,000 by $20,000 $300,000 – 500,000 by $20,000 / $50,000 / $80,000 $500,000 – 1,000,000 by $50,000 $1,000,000+ by $100,000 SUCCESSFUL BIDS The fall of the auctioneer’s hammer indicates the final bid and the buyer assumes full responsibility for the lot from this time.

UNSOLD LOTS Where a lot is unsold, the auctioneer will announce that the lot is “bought in”, “passed”, “withdrawn” or “returned to owner”.

3. AFTER THE AUCTION PAYMENTS Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer. If payment is made by credit card the price will increase by any merchant fees payable

by Deutscher and Hackett (1.15% (including GST) for Visa and Mastercard and 1.65% (including GST) for American Express). In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Cleared funds will be held in an interest bearing trust account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to retain any interest earned during this period. Payment by the vendor of any charge to Deutscher and Hackett is to be made within fourteen days of invoice.

PURCHASE PRICE AND BUYER’S PREMIUM The purchase price will be the sum of the final bid price (including any GST) plus a buyer’s premium set at 25% (inclusive of GST) of the final bid price. Buyers may be liable for other charges reasonably incurred once ownership has passed.

GOODS AND SERVICES TAX Buyers are required to pay a 10% G.S.T which sum is: a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor; and b. included in any additional fees charged by Deutscher and Hackett; and c. included in the buyer’s premium.

Where GST applies to some lots the final bid price will be inclusive of the applicable GST. If a buyer is classified as a “non-resident” for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met.

COLLECTION Lots paid for in full may be collected from Deutscher and Hackett premises the day after the auction occurs but lots paid for by cheque may not be collected until all funds have cleared. Proof of identification is required upon collection and lots not collected within seven days of the sale may incur costs associated with external storage and freight.

LOSS OR DAMAGE Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on either the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made, or on collection by the buyer, whichever is earlier. The buyer is therefore encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from the payment due date.

TRANSPORT AND SHIPPING Deutscher and Hackett directly offers services including storage, hanging and display, appraisals and valuations, collection management and research and in all instances will endeavour to coordinate or advise upon shipping and handling, insurance, transport, framing and conservation at the request and expense of the client. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept liability for the acts or omissions of contracted third parties.

EXPORT Prospective bidders are advised to enquire about export licences — including endangered species licences and cultural heritage permits, where relevant — prior to bidding at auction. Telephone the Cultural Property and Gifts Section, Museums Section, Ministry for the Arts, on 1800 819 461 for further information. The delay or denial of such a licence will not be grounds for a rescission of sale.

COPYRIGHT The copyright in the images and illustrations contained in this catalogue may be owned by third parties and used under licence by Deutscher and Hackett. As between Deutscher and Hackett and the buyer, Deutscher and Hackett retains all rights in the images and illustrations. Deutscher and Hackett retains copyright in the text contained in this catalogue. The buyer must not reproduce or otherwise use the images, illustrations or text without prior written consent.

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The terms and conditions of business set forth below are subject to amendment by verbal or written notice prior to and during the auction and sale. They constitute the entire contractual agreement with the buyer in respect to any lot offered at auction.

By bidding at auction in any manner compliant with bidding procedures, the buyer and all bidders agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the terms of the prospective buyers and sellers guide contained in this catalogue, as amended. To the extent that an agent acts on behalf of the buyer, liability for obligations arising from these conditions of business will pass to the buyer. Multiple buyers are jointly and severally liable for obligations arising from this agreement.

DEFINITIONS 1.

Definition of terms: a. The ‘buyer’ refers to the party with the highest accepted bid for any lot at auction and/or such party’s principal where bidding as agent. b. The ‘vendor’ refers to the party consigning property for sale and/or such party’s principal where acting as agent.

conditions of auction and sale

c. ‘Deutscher and Hackett’ refers to Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd ACN 123 119 022, its subsidiaries, officers, employees and agents. d. The ‘hammer price’ refers to the final bid price (including any GST) accepted by the auctioneer, or in the case of a post-auction sale, the agreed sale price (including any GST). e. The ‘buyer’s premium’ refers to the 25% (inclusive of GST) payable by the buyer calculated as a percentage of the hammer price. f.

‘GST’ refers to the goods and services tax imposed by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 as amended.

g. The ‘lot’ refers to the item(s) described against any lot number in the catalogue.

ALL PARTIES ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE CONDITIONS OF AUCTION AND SALE INCLUDED IN THIS CATALOGUE

h. The ‘reserve’ refers to the minimum price (including any GST) the consignor will accept for a lot.

PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS AND DISCLAIMER 2. Agency: Deutscher and Hackett acts as agent for the vendor and the contract of sale for the lot will be between the buyer and the vendor.

3.

Property is sold ‘as is’: To the extent permitted by law: a. no guarantees, warranties or representations are made (express or implied) by Deutscher and Hackett or the vendor in relation to the nature and condition of any lot; and b. Deutscher and Hackett disclaims liability for any misrepresentations, errors or omissions, whether verbal or in writing, in the catalogue or any supplemental material.

All factual information provided by the vendor is merely passed on by Deutscher and Hackett from the vendor or other source. Deutscher and Hackett has made no attempt to verify this information. All additional statements of opinion represent the specialist opinions of Deutscher and Hackett employees and should not be relied upon as statements of fact.

4. Responsibility to inspect: Responsibility remains with the buyer to satisfy its, his or her self by inspection and evaluation prior to purchase as to the nature and condition of any property.

CONDITIONS AT AUCTION 5. Registration: Bidders must register to bid and obtain a bidder’s paddle prior to the commencement of the auction. Registration requires that bidders provide proof of identity and Deutscher and Hackett may impose other obligations on the registration of bidders in its discretion.

6. Auctioneer’s discretion: Deutscher and Hackett reserves the right to absolute discretion over the conduct of the auction including the regulation of bidding and its increments. This discretion extends to the challenge or rejection of any bid, the right to withdraw any lot and the right to determine the successful bidder or reoffer a lot in the event of a dispute. The prospective buyers and sellers guide details an indicative process for the conduct of auctions. All parties are strongly urged to read the prospective buyers and sellers guide included in this catalogue.

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7. Bidding: Deutscher and Hackett may sell each lot to the highest bidder at auction provided the reserve price has been met or where the net amount accounted to the vendor is at least equivalent to the net amount that would have been achieved for a sale at the reserve price. The fall of the auctioneer’s hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the vendor and the buyer. Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Deutscher and Hackett, the individual physically present at the auction who signals the bid accepts personal liability to pay the purchase price, including the buyer’s premium and all additional fees, taxes and charges.

GOODS AND SERVICES TAX 8. Amounts inclusive of GST: Unless otherwise specified, all amounts specified in this section as payable by the buyer, or otherwise used to calculate payment to Deutscher and Hackett, are inclusive of any GST component. Deutscher and Hackett will provide buyers with a tax invoice that meets the requirements of the Australian Taxation Office.

9. Application of GST to buyers: Buyers are required to pay a 10% GST which sum is: a. included in the final bid prices where buying from a GST registered vendor; and b. included in any additional fees charged by Deutscher and Hackett; and c. included in the buyer’s premium.

If a buyer is classified as a “non-resident” for the purpose of GST, the buyer may be able to recover GST paid on the final purchase price if certain conditions are met.

POST-SALE CONDITONS 10. Post auction private sale: Should the lot fail to sell at auction, Deutscher and Hackett is authorised to sell the lot privately for a period of seven days in which event this agreement shall apply to the relevant buyer to the full extent of its provisions.

11. Payment: The buyer will not acquire title until payment has cleared in full.

Interest at a rate of 17.5% p.a. will be charged over outstanding accounts where no extension of terms has been granted. Interest will be payable from the payment due date. With respect to each lot purchased, the buyer agrees to make the following payments within seven days from the date of sale: a. The hammer price. b. In exchange for ser vices rendered by Deutscher and Hackett, a buyer’s premium calculated at 25% (inclusive of GST) of the hammer price. c. Post sale packing, handling, shipping and storage where applicable. d. If payment is made via Visa, Mastercard or American Express, any merchant fees payable by Deutscher and Hackett on the transaction as indicated in the prospective buyers and sellers guide.

Payment must be made within seven days of the date of sale in Australian dollars by cash, cheque, direct deposit, approved credit cards or electronic funds transfer using the form and/or trust account details provided at the back of this catalogue.

In certain circumstances, extension of payment may be granted at the discretion of Deutscher and Hackett. Once funds have cleared, the proceeds of the sale less the buyer’s Premium, GST and any commission or costs charged as agreed will be remitted to the vendor within thirty-five days of the date of sale provided payment has been received in full. Funds will be held in an interest bearing account by Deutscher and Hackett until remitted to the vendor. Deutscher and Hackett will be entitled to any interest earned during this period. Application for a cultural heritage export licence or any other licence in no way affects the buyer’s obligation to make payment or collection within the periods specified in sections 10 and 13a.

12. Risk and Title: Risk in the lot, including risk of loss or damage, will pass to the buyer on the earlier of: a. the date payment is due, whether or not it has been made; and b. collection by the buyer.

The buyer assumes risk for the property in all respects from this date and neither Deutscher and Hackett nor the vendor will be liable for loss or damage occurring after the payment due date. The buyer is encouraged to make arrangements to ensure comprehensive cover is maintained from this date. Title in the lot does not pass to the buyer, even if the lot is released to the buyer, until the buyer has paid all sums owing to Deutscher and Hackett. If a buyer makes a claim against Deutscher and Hackett for damage or loss after sale, the buyer’s premium and the final bid price shall be payable notwithstanding.

13. Freight: a. The buyer may only remove a lot from the Deutscher and Hackett premises once payment has been cleared in full and must be removed no later than seven days after the date of sale. Should items not be removed by this time, storage and insurance costs may be charged to the buyer. If a lot has not been collected within 30 days after the date of sale and alternative arrangements have not been with Deutscher and Hackett, the lot may be re-sold by Deutscher and Hackett without reserve at the next auction and Deutscher and Hackett may set off any amounts owed for storage and insurance costs and its standard commission before remitting the proceeds to the buyer. b. Buyers are required to make their own arrangements for packing, handling, shipping and transit insurance for their property. Deutscher and Hackett does not accept responsibility or liability for the acts or omissions of any third party, such as a shipping agent, whether or not such a party has been recommended or suggested by Deutscher and Hackett.

14. Limited Warranty of Authorship: If a buyer is able to establish that a lot is a forgery in accordance with these conditions for sale within five years of the date of sale, the buyer shall be entitled to rescind the sale and obtain a refund of the hammer price from the vendor. The buyer must return the lot in the state in which it was sold within fourteen days of notifying Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations.

For a lot to be established as a forgery, the following conditions must be satisfied: a. the buyer must supply two independent expert testimonies attesting to the forgery. Deutscher and Hackett is entitled to request further expert evidence where it deems the evidence provided to be unsatisfactory; b. there must be no conflict of opinion among accepted experts in the field; and c. the forgery must be able to be proven through means that at the time of publication of the catalogue were commonly employed and that will not damage or otherwise put the lot in jeopardy.

The limited warranty and the right to rescind the sale is not assignable and the buyer must have retained title to the lot without disposing of any interest in it up until the buyer notifies Deutscher and Hackett of the forgery allegations. The buyer acknowledges that it has no rights directly against Deutscher and Hackett if a lot is established to be a forgery.

15. Termination, Breach and Legalities: a. Deutscher and Hackett breach: To the extent permitted by law, the sole and maximum remedy to a buyer for breach of warranty is a refund of original purchase price, including buyer’s premium. In such an event the sale contract shall be rescinded and all costs associated with returning the property (in the state in which it was sold) to the premises of Deutscher and Hackett are to be borne by the buyer. Deutscher and Hackett is not liable for any indirect or consequential loss or damage for any matter arising directly or indirectly as a result of the sale. b. Buyer breach: Deutscher and Hackett may, in addition to other remedies available by law, exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies for breach: i. Cancel the sale and retain any payment or property in Deutscher and Hackett custody as collateral or liquidated damages. ii. Charge the buyer interest at the rate of 2% above the rate fixed under section 2 of the Penalty Interest Rates Act 1984 (Vic). iii. Resell the property without reserve at the next auction or privately on five days notice. Any disparity between sale and resale prices, including associated costs such as, but not limited to, legal, storage and sale expenses, will be to the account of the defaulting buyer. iv. Apply any part payment received from the buyer in respect of any lots at its discretion. v. Retain any of the buyer’s property held by Deutscher and Hackett until the buyer has satisfied its obligations to Deutscher and Hackett. vi. Take any other action Deutscher and Hackett deems necessary or appropriate. vii. Refuse to permit the buyer to participate in future auctions. viii. Provide the vendor with the buyer’s details to permit the vendor to take action against the buyer to recover the money.

16. Governing law and jurisdiction: These terms and conditions and any matters concerned with the foregoing fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the state in which the auction is held.

17. Severability: In the event that any provisions of this agreement should be found unenforceable in a court of law, that part shall be discounted and the remaining conditions shall continue in full force and effect to the extent permitted by law.

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© Estate of Roger Kemp

ROGER KEMP MOVEMENT III, 1981 synthetic polymer paint on linen 208.0 x 307.0 cm

EST: $40,000 – 60,000

D+H ONLINE C BUS C OL L EC T ION OF A UST R A LI A N A RT

Online Auction Series CBUS MODERN + CONTEMPORARY ART

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Online bidding from Thursday 4 – Tuesday 9 August (7:00 pm)

Online bidding from Thursday 18 – Tuesday 23 August (7:00 pm)

CBUS TRADITIONAL + MODERN ART

for viewing details contact Deutscher and Hackett

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or visit our website

Thursday 11 – Tuesday 16 August (7:00 pm)

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ATTENDEE PRE-REGISTRATION FORM SALE CODE: CBUS SALE NO.: 070 100 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CBUS COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN ART

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Address

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MELBOURNE AUCTION 27 JULY, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 100 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

tel: 03 9865 6333 fax: 03 9865 6344 info@deutscherandhackett.com

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TELEPHONE BID FORM SALE CODE: CBUS SALE NO.: 070 100 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CBUS COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN ART MELBOURNE AUCTION 27 JULY, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 100 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Billing address (PO Box insufficient)

Address

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1.

2.

Telephone numbers for auction date in order of preference

Facsimile Email

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please email, post or fax this completed form to:

LOT NO.

Date

ARTIST/TITLE

COVER BID*

1.

DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

2.

tel: 03 9865 6333 fax: 03 9865 6344

4.

info@deutscherandhackett.com

5.

3.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY

DATE

TIME

*Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). Bids are made in Australian dollars.

Please refer to the Prospective Buyers and Sellers Guide and the Conditions of Auction and Sale in this catalogue for information regarding sales.

By completing this form, I authorise DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT to contact me by telephone on the contact number(s) nominated. I understand it is my responsibility to enquire whether any Sale-Room Notices relate to any lot on which I intend to bid. I also understand that should my bid(s) be successful, a buyer’s premium of 25% (inclusive of GST), will be added to the final hammer price.

I accept that DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to its clients, that there are inherent risks to telephone bidding, and I will not hold DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT responsible for any error.

217

ABSENTEE BID FORM SALE CODE: CBUS SALE NO.: 070 100 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CBUS COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN ART

(Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss) Name (please print)

Billing address (PO Box insufficient)

Address

City

Telephone

State

Post Code

Business/Mobile

MELBOURNE AUCTION 27 JULY, 7:00 PM LOTS 1 — 100 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

Facsimile Email

Signature (required)

LOT NO.

ARTIST/TITLE

Date

MAXIMUM BID*

1.

please email, post or fax this completed form to: DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT 105 COMMERCIAL ROAD SOUTH YARRA VIC 3141

2.

3.

4.

tel: 03 9865 6333 fax: 03 9865 6344

5.

info@deutscherandhackett.com

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. *Not including buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). Bids are made in Australian dollars.

Absentee bids must be received a minimum of twenty-four hours prior to auction. All absentee bids received will be confirmed by phone or fax. In the event that confirmation is not received, please resubmit or contact our office.

Please refer to the Prospective Buyers and Sellers Guide and the Conditions of Auction and Sale in this catalogue for information regarding sales. By completing this form, absentee bidders request and authorise DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT to place the following bids acting as agent on their behalf up to and including the maximum bid specified.

Lots will be bought at the lowest possible bid authorised by a bidder in absentia.

Should the bid be successful, the buyer will be obliged to pay the final bid price plus buyer’s premium of 25% (inclusive of GST) of the final bid price. DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT provides this complimentary service as a courtesy to clients and does not accept liability for errors and omissions in the execution of absentee bids.

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INTERNAL USE ONLY RECEIVED BY

DATE

TIME

NOW CONSIGNING forthcoming auctions of important australian + international fine art sydney • 02 9287 0600 melbourne • 03 9865 6333 info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com

The Art Gallery of Western Australia

FREE

11 March – 28 August

tracksweshare.com.au

Wendy Hubert, Thalarut Pool, Pannawonica 2021. Acrylic on watercolour paper, 760 x 570mm. Image courtesy of Wendy Hubert (Juluwarlu Art Group).

A Geelong Gallery exhibition

25 June to 11 September 2022

Free entry

Geelong Contemporary Art Prize

Exhibition partner Dimmick Charitable Trust

Fiona McMonagle For most of history anonymous was a woman 2021 watercolour ink and gouache on paper Courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery Melbourne © the artist

Visit the exhibition showcasing Australia’s performing arts

ONLY IN CANBERRA AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY

ON NOW UNTIL 07 AUG 2022 FREE • EXHIBITION GALLERY • NLA.GOV.AU Sir Robert Helpmann as Oberon in an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Songlines from Australia’s First Peoples in a spectacular immersive experience

ON SHOW 8 June — 9 October 2022 National Museum of Australia BOOK NOW nma.gov.au/connection Created & Produced by

FROM THE CREATORS OF

VAN GOGH ALIVE

Curatorial Partner

Tourism Partner

Hotel Partner

Accommodation Partner

Media Partner

The creation of Connection is supported through the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund, an Australian Government initiative.

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WHO ARE YOU: AUSTRALIAN PORTRAITURE

NOW SHOWING THE IAN POTTER CENTRE: NGV AUSTRALIA, FED SQUARE

AN NGV AND NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY COLLABORATION PRINCIPAL PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNER

SUPPORTER

TOURISM PARTNER

EXHIBITION PARTNER

Brook Andrew; Trent Walter (printer) Marcia Langton 2009 (detail) National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2009 © Brook Andrew

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McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery is the home of Australian sculpture, located 45 minutes from Melbourne. With a wide-ranging collection of more than 100 sculptures, the park comprises eight hectares of designed landscape and vast areas of indigenous Australian bushland. The gallery exhibition program focuses on the development of modern sculpture and various forms of spatial practice, and encourages contemporary artists to address challenging issues in an Australian and global context.

Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 5pm 390 McClelland Drive Langwarrin VIC 3910 03 9789 1671

Image: McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, photo Mark Chew.

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®

© EPE. Graceland and its marks are trademarks of EPE. All Rights Reserved. Elvis Presley™ © 2021 ABG EPE IP LLC.

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229

COPYRIGHT CREDITS Lot 18

© Hans Heysen/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 41

© Estate of Fred Williams/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 63

© Sali Herman/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 20

© Margaret Preston/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 42

© Estate of Fred Williams/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 65

© Leonard French/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 21

© Margaret Preston/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 43

© Estate of Fred Williams/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 66

© John de Burgh Perceval/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 23

© Courtesy of the artist’s estate

Lot 45

© Alan and Jancis Rees/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 67

Lot 26

© William Dobell/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 46

© courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart

Lot 27

© Courtesy of the artist’s estate

Lot 47

© courtesy of The Estate of Jeffrey Smart

Lot 69

© Peter Upward

Lot 28

© Courtesy Russell Drysdale Estate

Lot 48

© Margaret Olley Trust and The Olley Project

Lot 70

© John Coburn/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 29

© Alan and Jancis Rees/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 49

© Estate of Edwin Tanner

Lot 71

© Tony Tuckson/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 31

© The Sidney Nolan Trust. All rights reserved,

Lot 50

© courtesy of Helen Brack

Lot 72

© Michael Johnson/Copyright Agency 2022

DACS/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 51

© Ian Fairweather/DACS. Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 73

© David Larwill/Copyright Agency 2022

© The Sidney Nolan Trust. All rights reserved,

Lot 52

© Estate of Roger Kemp

Lot 74

© Richard Larter/Copyright Agency 2022

DACS/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 53

© Wendy Whiteley/Copyright Agency, 2022

Lot 75

© David Aspden/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 34

© Joy Hester/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 54

© Wendy Whiteley/Copyright Agency, 2022

Lot 76

© Cressida Campbell/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 35

© Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 55

© George Baldessin/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 77

© Rick Amor/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 36

© The Albert & Barbara Tucker Foundation.

Lot 56

© Ken Whisson

Lot 78

© Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency 2022

Courtesy of Smith and Singer Australia.

Lot 57

© Rosalie Gascoigne/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 79

© courtesy of the artist

© The Albert & Barbara Tucker Foundation.

Lot 58

© Peter Booth/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 92

© Jessie Traill/Copyright Agency 2022

Courtesy of Smith and Singer Australia.

Lot 59

© The Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed

Lot 100 © Hans Heysen/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 32

Lot 37 Lot 38

© Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 39

© John Olsen/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 60

by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art © Juan Davila. Licensed by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art

Lot 40

© Estate of Fred Williams/Copyright Agency 2022

Lot 62

© Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency 2022

CULTURAL HERITAGE PERMITS

LOTS CONSIGNED BY GST REGISTERED ENTITIES

Under the provisions of the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act, 1986, buyers may be required to obtain an export permit for certain categories of items in this sale from the Cultural Property Section:

All lots in this auction are consigned by a GST registered entity

Department of Communications and the Arts GPO Box 2254 Canberra ACT 2601 Email: movable.heritage@arts.gov.au Phone: 1800 819 461

RESALE ROYALTY Some lots consigned for this sale may be subject to the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2009 (Cth). Any payments due under the obligations of the Act will be paid by the vendor.

Design & Photography: Danny Kneebone © Published by Deutscher and Hackett Pty Ltd 2022 978-0-6452421-5-7

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© Jennifer Dickerson/Licensed Copyright Agency 2022

index A AMOR, R.

77

ARKLEY, H.

59

ASPDEN, D.

75

FOX, E.P.

13

P

FRENCH, L.

65

PERCEVAL, J. PIGUENIT, W. C.

G GASCOIGNE, R. GILL, S. T.

B

57 4

BADHAM, H.

82

GRIFFIN, M.

85

BALDESSIN, G.

55

GRUNER, E.

14, 15

BALE, A.M.E.

5, 6

PRESTON, M.

20, 21

PROCTOR, T.

80

PUGH, C.

64

R REES, L.

95, 96

66

29, 45

REHFISCH, A.

89

19

ROBERTS, T.

9

HAWKINS, W.

86

ROBERTSHAW, F.

24

HERMAN, S.

63

BLACKMAN, C.

35

HESTER, J.

34

BOOTH, P.

58

HEYSEN, H.

BALSON, R.

68

H

BECKETT, C.

22

HALL, L. B.

BELLETTE, J.

87

BLACK, D.

BOYD, A.

38, 62, 78

BOYD, P.

16

J

BOXALL, A. D.

84

JOHNSON, M.

BRACK, J.

50

BUNNY, R.

11

BUVELOT, L.

97

72

76

COBURN, J.

70

CRAIG, S.

93

CUMBRAE STEWART, J.

91

D

S SMART, J.

46, 47

SMITH, G. C.

90

STORRIER, T.

79

STREETON, A.

8

SYME, E.

23

K KEMP, R.

52

L

C CAMPBELL, C.

18, 100

25

LAHEY, V.

94

LAMBERT, G. W.

17

LARTER, R.

74

LARWILL, D.

73

LONG, S.

99

10

DAVILA, J.

60

DE MAISTRE, R.

27

DELAFIELD COOK, W.

44

DICKERSON, R.

67

DOBELL, W.

26

N

DOCKING, S.

88

NOLAN, S.

DRYSDALE, R.

28

MACQUEEN, K.

83

MARTENS, C.

3

McCUBBIN, F.

7

MILLER, G.

TANNER, E.

49

TRAILL, J.

92

TUCKER, A.

30

12

TUCKSON, T.

71

U 69

V VASSILIEFF, D. VON GUÉRARD, E.

33, 61 1, 2

W WHISSON, K.

31, 32

36, 37

TUCKER, T. ST G.

UPWARD, P.

M

DAVIES, D.

T

WHITELEY, B. WILLIAMS, F.

56 53, 54 40, 41, 42, 43

O

F FAIRWEATHER, I.

51

FEINT, A.

81

FORREST, H.

98

OLLEY, M.

48

OLSEN, J.

39

231

232

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