deutscherandhackett important australian + international fine art 24 April 2013, Melbourne http://www.deutscherandhackett.com/auctions/catalogues/123456916 Highlights of this sale are groups of works from the collections of two distinguished female artist/collectors from Melbourne. Socially well connected, Lina Bryans was an artist and cultural advocate who ran a painter’s pub in Darebin in the 1940s, close to where Heide now stands. She supported many artists, none more so than Ian Fairweather, whose first patron she became. He lived and painted at Darebin over the period 1945-47, although Bryans had begun collecting his work in the late 1930s when it was being managed by the modernist painter William Frater. In all Bryans assembled over 30 works by Fairweather, several of which have already found their way into museum collections. The niece of flower painter Ellis Rowan, Maie Casey was educated overseas and began painting on her return to Melbourne in 1910. Later she married Richard Casey and his various ambassadorial postings took her around the world. But she maintained her interest in art and supported a range of artist friends, including Russell Drysdale, Peter Purves-Smith and Clive Stephens, who she met at the Geroge Bell School in the mid 1930s. The works in this auction suggest she had an acute eye and an interest in the most advanced modernism being painted in Australia in the 1930s and 40s. Lot 5 Russell Drysdale Still Life 1937 watercolour, gouache, pen and ink on paper 68.5 x 48 cm $40,000-60,000 Born in England in 1912, Russell Drysdale settled in Melbourne in 1923. His family had pastoral interests and the young Drysdale worked on the land in Queensland and Victoria. From 1935-39 he studied with George Bell, at the same time making several trips to Europe where he studied at the Grosvenor School in London and Le Grande Chaumiere in Paris. In 1940 he made his first trip to the outback, and over the following two years he took on the outback landscape and its people as his true subject. By 1950 he was showing solo in London, and a decade later he was recognised as Australia’s greatest living artist. The current work, painted during Drysdale’s student days at George Bell, shows his tremendous talent. By the age of 25 he had absorbed the lessons of modern French painting, particularly Braque and Matisse, and was able to construct an impressive still life in which the traditional elements of a vase of flowers and plates and bowls of fruit are upstaged by a bravura handling of space, particularly via the use of coloured fabrics and surfaces. The steeply dipping table top thrusts the fruit and flowers forward, while the variously patterned fabrics enclose the still life elements, rendering the space shallow and frontal. The whole composition inhabits only the very front of the picture plane, a modernist technique widely used by Picasso et al but little understood in Australia at the time. A classic example of French-inspired modernism, this work is as sophisticated as anything being produced in Australia in the late 1930s. Indeed, Drysdale’s pure painterly skill makes many other local moderns look ham-fisted. While not in his mature style, it would be a superb addition to a small group of modernist paintings, perhaps including works by Cossington Smith, Dorrit Black, Margaret Preston and Ian Fairweather. Atypical works like this by a major artist are difficult to price. $40,000 feels on the low side, so I’d expect to have to go close to mid-estimates to have a chance. Strongly recommended. Lot 7 John Perceval The Benediction 1960 earthenware with green and red reduced copper glazes 23 x 27 x 17 cm $15,000-20,000 Perceval came to public attention early in World War 2, when his paintings of soldiers and refugees were at the forefront of artistic reaction to the war. By the late 1940s he was following Arthur Boyd into Breughel inspired scenes, while also working with Boyd at the Boyd family pottery at Murrumbeena. In the mid 1950s he embarked on a series of landscapes painted in plein air at the old port of Williamstown. These paintings launched his career: his first solo show at Australian Galleries in 1956 of the Williamstown paintings is also credited with launching the post-war art boom. Later in the 1950s Perceval detoured back into ceramics, producing a celebrated series of ceramic sculptures of baby angels, rendered in a vivid sang boeuf glaze. They were inspired by his own young children and by the putti in renaissance paintings. But unlike putti, these children are rollicking and often badly behaved. They were a high point in Perceval’s work, widely collected by museums and leading private collectors. A large exhibition of the Angels was held at John and Sunday Reed’s Museum of Modern Art of Australia in 1959. The current work is one of the finest smaller examples I’ve seen and, unlike many, is in remarkably good condition. It depicts the hand of God coming down to bless the small angel, whose eyes are closed and on whose face is a suitable beatific expression. It is just a perfect piece, beautifully conceived and superbly executed. For me it’s one of the highlights of the sale. Generally the angels have not performed well at auction, although a strong large example made $62,000 in 2011, twice the previous record. The current work is good enough to make a serious figure – I’d suggest a bid in the low twenties would have a good chance. Lot 8 John Perceval Mother and Child 1959 earthenware with green and red reduced copper glazes 20 x 29 x 23 cm $12,000-18,000 This is a larger piece and quite a nice object. However, the mother is missing half a finger and several strands of hair. Generally buyers do not mind this – even with minor losses or damages they can be wonderfully exuberant objects. But given the fact there are two in this sale, and the first is close to perfect, it is hard to get as excited about the slightly damaged second. The lower estimates for a larger work confirm this appraisal. Lot 13 Ian Fairweather Landlady and Daughter, Cairns 1941 gouache and pencil on paper 41.5 x 40 cm $80,000-120,000 The four early works by Fairweather in this sale are from the collection of Lina Bryans, a Melbourne artist of the late 1930s-1960s who was Fairweather’s first major supporter and collector. They are being sold by Bryans’ son Edward, himself now an old man. Boats at Soochow Creek 1938 is a bona fide masterpiece, one of the finest of Fairweather’s Chinese pictures. All other things being equal it should go to a major museum, probably the NGA or the NGV, at a price close to $1 million. The two intermediate works are also Chinese subjects, but both are not quite top notch. The fourth work, which is also the most affordable, is my choice. Although painted only two or three years later, a new Fairweather is beginning to emerge. He has abandoned the oil paint of the Chinese works for gouache and watercolour, and it has liberated him to pursue more immediate effects and a more spontaneous approach. Strongly recommended. Lot 21 Bronwyn Oliver Comet II 1988 copper 80 x 90 x 30 cm $50,000-70,000 Bronwyn Oliver was an individual sculptor who worked in wire and metal to produce elegant works that echoed natural forms, while balancing artifice and a superb use of her intractable materials. Over two decades she produced an impressive body of work, cut short by her early death in 2006 at 47. Comet II begins with the form of a comet, with a large head and trailing stream of burning gasses. But as shaped by Oliver the comet also echoes a jellyfish or some mysterious marine form. It is produced in copper wire which has gradually corroded to develop a gentle green patina. It is a superior piece by the artist, suitable for installation on an interior wall on which it should look very elegant. Oliver’s work has performed very strongly at auction over the last decade, with prices up to $300,000 for major works. Comet II will easily sell mid estimates and may go a little higher. Strongly recommended. Lot 92 Arthur Streeton Bananas 1890 oil on wood panel 56 x 27.5 cm $10,000-15,000 Arthur Streeton is best known as a landscape painter. However, he was equally adept at flower painting, and his flower pieces represent good value compared to the landscapes. I have not seen a traditional still life like this before, ie, fruit, etc. However, this bunch of bananas is an engagingly offbeat image. Painted on a rough and concave wood panel, it captures the bunch of fruit very nicely, the pink ribbon from which the bunch is suspended adding a stylish touch. The work may look slightly comical to contemporary eyes, but artists like Streeton and Roberts went to some trouble to decorate their studios, from which they regularly previewed and sold work. Decoration often included fruit and flowers, fabrics and knick knacks like tambourines and musical instruments. My feeling is that having bought the bananas, Streeton decided they were worth painting. Note that a slightly larger version of bananas from the same year, but with a blue ribbon, is in a university collection in Brisbane. The current version was owned by mid 20th century Melbourne artist Charles Bush.