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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 #:
  18
• Lot Description:
  Howard Arkley
  (1951-1999)
  Primitive (Silver) 1982
  acrylic on canvas
  210 x 210 cm
  signed, titled and dated verso; bears Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery label verso
• Exhibited:
  Popism, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 June - 25 July 1982; Howard Arkley: Recent Works, Roslyn Oxley9, 15 June - 2 July 1983, cat. no. 11; Howard Arkley, Monash University Gallery, 18 October - 30 November 1991, cat. no. 40; Howard Arkley, A National Touring Exhibition, The Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 November 2006 - 25 February 2007
• References:
  Paul Taylor, 'POPISM', Flash Art, May 1983, p.50 (illustrated); Ashley Crawford and Ray Edgar, Spray, The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, pp. 50-51 (illustrated)
• Notes:
  Howard Arkley is popularly-known for his vibrant pop-art airbrushed images of Melbourne suburbia and as Australia's representative in the Venice Biennale in 1999. Works from his early career, however, are also of significant art historical importance. In 1981, Tony Clark - a good friend of Arkley's and a teacher at Prahran College, Melbourne - asked Arkley to contribute a work to an exhibition he was putting together. The artist was busy preparing works for another exhibition and ended up creating the one for the Prahran College Gallery in the 24 hours before it was due. This time pressure seemed to unleash a frenetic energy and creative freedom to draw upon the minutiae of everyday life and influences around him and resulted in Primitive (1981). According to the artist, this work really began his career: "I did 'Primitive' in a fun way that reflected my personal life much more... I thought it was interesting, but I had no idea that from that day on my work would go in a different direction"; by which he meant his focus shifted from abstraction to figuration.1 Speaking about the significance of Primitive, Clark added, "When I was a teacher I used to use Howard's work as a kind of canonical example of the changes from the American abstract formalist school to other values and ideas..." and that opened "...the door to imagery that was not generated within the art world but outside it."2 The title, Primitive, was inspired by a song by the punk bank, The Cramps, and evokes primalism, rawness, spontaneity and being unfettered by conventions. Arkley revisited central elements of Primitive throughout his career, starting with Primitive (Gold) and Primitive (Silver) in 1982. While the original work was monochromatic, as the titles suggest, the two works from 1982 were imbued with the metallic colours, gold and silver. Primitive (Silver) possesses the greatest similarities with Primitive, making this a highly important work in the artist's oeuvre. All three paintings were included in the National Gallery of Victoria's seminal exhibition, POPISM, in 1982 and the National Gallery of Victoria acquired Primitive (Gold) in that same year. Furthermore, Paul Taylor's 'Popism' article in Flash Art garnered Primitive (Silver) international exposure. According to Crawford and Edgar, the images for the Primitive series "...were lifted directly from the doodles in his notebooks, and individual motifs took on greater significance. Indeed, Primitive looks like the exploded page of one of Arkley's hotel art books."3 Arkley is represented in most major Australian state collections and his memorable portrait of musician Nick Cave, commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in 1999, has been one of that gallery's most popular works since it first went on display. Arkley was the recipient of a number of awards, prizes and residencies, including a residency at the Moya Dyring Studio in Paris in 1977, awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Dr Shireen Huda 1 Ashley Crawford and Ray Edgar, Spray, The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1997, p. 48 2 ibid, p. 52 3 ibid, p. 51
• Estimate:
  A$80,000 - 120,000
• 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.