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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  23 Nov 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  4
• Lot Description:
  John Brack
  (1920-1999)
  Out 1979
  watercolour, pen and ink
  71 x 51 cm
  signed and dated lower right: John Brack 1979
• Provenance:
  Private Collection, Melbourne c.1980
• Exhibited:
  Group Exhibition, Crossley Gallery, Melbourne, August 1979, cat. no. 3; John Brack Drawings: 1945-79, Monash University Exhibition Gallery, Melbourne, June - July 1981, cat. no. 61; John Brack: A retrospective exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, cat. no. 189
• References:
  Sasha Grishin, Art of John Brack, volume 2, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1990, p.69, cat. no. 252. Related Works: Out 1979 (oil on canvas), Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, Gift of Patrick White 1981; Confrontation 1978, National Gallery of Victoria Collection, Gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE 2004; Walking Sticks and Pencils 1977, National Gallery of Australia Collection, Purchased 1977
• Notes:
  John Brack's major Pencils Series occupied him for almost a decade between 1978 and 1986 and is widely regarded as the supreme culmination in his art. These paintings are arguably the most intensely deliberate in all of his oeuvre and present fewest parallels in Australian or in international art. He observed in 1988, 'Gradually I came to look at the world physically from a long way away....the whole thing had to be a summing up in a general way. You pick up the thing nearest to hand, the pencil, and that represents the visual metaphor.'1 The Pencils series, on its most fundamental level, represents an analysis of the functioning of human society and patterns of social relationships. The earliest paintings and drawings in the Pencils Series are March, Halt and Confrontation, all of 1978 and all involve the notion of social regimentation and man's innate ability to structure into groups. The subsequent paintings and drawings, Beginning and Crossing, both of 1978, and Out, of early 1979, introduce a greater complexity in an attempt to multiply the levels of meaning. In Out, a phalanx of pens and pencils approaches as if in battle formation, bearing the letters 'O U T', as banners in front of them, and despite the apparent unity, some pens and pencils have already fallen on the scarred battlefield. The oil painting version of Out was presented by Patrick White to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1981.2 The watercolour, pen and ink drawing, which preceded the oil painting and that is the subject of this entry, maps out the main compositional structure as well as the central concept of the work. The Pencils Series poses the central question as to why conflict exists in society. Each pen or pencil can be interpreted as a visual metaphor for the human presence. When Brack presents his huge armies of pens and pencils the underlying question which he asks is what differentiates these groupings of humanity. In some instances they are shown as being separated through colour or through the playing card banners which they hold or under which they gather. Each pen or pencil is shown precariously balanced on its point and makes a faint mark on the surface of the card table that itself is set within the studio with its bare floorboards. The floorboards themselves, which could be read as a metaphor for the stream of life, flow like an endless river, but they are shown at an impossible eccentric vertical angle adding to the sense of instability in the whole scene. To accentuate the central theme of precariousness and instability, Brack also added the formal strategy of painting a frame within the frame and then tilting the whole picture plane so that the composition no longer appears fixed in space, but seems to float suspended and free of gravity. Each element in the composition - the individual pen or pencil, the surfaces which support them and the overall environment - seem momentarily balanced and about to collapse, but not, as yet, collapsing. It is as if there is still time to pull away from the impending disaster. Out is an outstanding early work in one of the most significant series of paintings in 20th century Australian art. Emeritus Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA, Australian National University 1 John Brack, interview with Sasha Grishin, Melbourne, 6 December 1988 2 Edmund Capon, Parallel visions: Works from the Australian collection, 'John Brack / Jeffrey Smart', pg. 116-127, Sydney, 2002, 118, 119 (colour illus.), 142, 147.
• Estimate:
  A$90,000 - 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.