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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  02 May 2016 ~ 6.30pm - Part 1 - Lots 1 - 47
  03 May 2016 ~ 2.30pm - Part 2 - Lots 48 - 320
• Lot #:
  24
• Lot Description:
  Sidney Nolan
  (1917-1992)
  Dreaming 1988
  spray enamel on board
  151 x 120 cm
  signed lower right: Nolan; signed and dated verso: Nolan Jan 88
• Provenance:
  Deutscher~Menzies, Australian & International Paintings, Sydney, 05/03/2002, Lot No. 92; Private collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  In the final decade of his life Sidney Nolan with characteristic inventiveness and verve produced a series of remarkable paintings, including landscapes and abstracts, using a spray-gun. This technique enabled him to paint on a horizontal surface such as the floor, as his preferred practice, and to create luminous works with diaphanous veils of colour at a speed faster than ever before. For him it was a return to the past as he had first become proficient with an air-brush at the age of sixteen when employed in the art department of Fayrefied Hats in Abbotsford. Later he also used a spray-gun for painting large backdrops for stage sets. Nolan's late spray paintings in many ways reveal the artist reflecting on the past, on journeys and landscapes both seen and imagined, and returning overall to a looser abstraction with a potent mix of reality and imagination. Dreaming 1988 presents a schematized and contorted skeletal 'x-ray' figure of a man looking heavenwards. In its bravura it reminds us of the deep sense of the tragic that runs throughout Nolan's work, surfacing from time to time when prompted by certain events. In this case, Nolan's deep respect for the indigenous people of Australia and the reality of the injustice then being uncovered by the then recently established Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Nolan's haunting and powerful work was painted in January 1988 at the start of Australia's bi-centennial year. At this time Nolan was working on a series of paintings about the deaths in custody, and these works were exhibited in April 1988 at the Lanyon Gallery in Canberra. Frances Lindsay AM
• Estimate:
  A$8,000 - 12,000
• 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.