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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The John Buckley Collection of Modern & Contemporary Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  13 May 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  5
• Lot Description:
  Cecil John Brack
  (1920-1999)
  On the Rings 1975
  oil on canvas
  130.6 x 97.5 cm
  signed and dated 'John Brack 1975' lower left
• Provenance:
  Deutscher Fine Art, Carlton, November 25, 1987, cat. no. 165, illustrated
• Exhibited:
  John Brack, solo exhibition, Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney, December 13, 1975, cat. no. 1; Australian and Australia-related art, 1830-1970s, Deutscher Fine Art, Carlton, November 25, 1987, cat. no. 165; John Brack: A retrospective exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, 1987, plate 92; Five decades of Australian painting 1930 to 1980, Savill Gallery, Sydney, April 1989, cat. no. 59; John Brack, National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, illustrated p.177
• References:
  John Brack: A retrospective exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, 1987, p.70, plate 92; Margot Saville, 'Brack shines in Savill show', Weekend Australia, April 29-30, 1989, illustrated p.31; Five decades of Australian painting 1930 to 1980, Savill Gallery, Sydney, April 1989, cat. no. 59, plate 59; Sasha Grishin, The art of John Brack, vol 2, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1990, p.31, o.228; Kirsty Grant et al., John Brack, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, p.224, plate.177
• Notes:
  In February 1973, John Brack returned to Melbourne after two months in Europe, his first trip outside of Australia. It was a trip which served something of a catalyst in his thinking and subsequently, throughout the seventies, he experimented with various images - gymnasts, ice skaters, still life constructions of knives, forks and walking sticks - all as part of the search for a visual metaphor which would have an immediacy and universality. The gymnast series, to which On the Rings 1975, belongs, is part of this search. At least on one level, it is about individuals and couples shown under stress and displaying their uselessly acquired skills - tottering on the brink of disaster, yet not quite collapsing. On the Rings is a key painting in the gymnast series and was a work with which Brack himself was particularly happy, as he translated the composition into a colour lithograph the following year. It was also a painting which attracted the attention of art historians and curators and was included in both Brack retrospective exhibitions held at the National Gallery of Victoria, in 1987 and 2009. It is an intensely focused composition, concentrating on the figure of a single boy whose limbs are strangely contorted so that the hands and feet fit into two 'flying rings' leaving the body completely suspended in the air. In a typical 'flying rings' routine, the gymnast would jump into the rings and then would perform a series of 'pikes' and 'flying dislocates' before a spectacular dismount. The 'flying rings' was one of the few gymnastic routines where there are no nets or other safety devices which would enable the gymnast to safely return to the mat. Brack shows the gymnast at his most vulnerable, suspended against the vertical running studio floorboards, exposed to the full glare of the spotlight. Everything appears gathered against this youthful performer, so that even the frame within the frame in which the composition is displayed, appears off-balance and unstable conspiring against the success of the routine. Stark and superbly resolved in a subdued, almost monochromatic palette, this is a superb statement concerning the precarious path that the individual negotiates through life. Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
• Estimate:
  A$400,000 - 600,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.