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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Contents of Prince Albert House, Mosman
• Sale Date:
  21 Aug 2016 ~ 2pm
• Lot #:
  25
• Lot Description:
  Charles Blackman
  (born 1928)
  Matador circa 1972
  oil on board
  137 x 182 cm
  signed upper left: BLACKMAN
• Provenance:
  David Sumner Gallery, Adelaide 1975; Private Collection; Christies, Australian and European Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Part I, Melbourne, 27 August 1997, Lot 78
• Notes:
  In 1970 Charles Blackman was engaged in the weaving of the White Cat's Garden series of tapestries at the Tapecarias Portalegre Workshops in Portugal, and it was undoubtedly during this period that the matador subject was conceived. At this time too Blackman was undertaking a twelve-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, in Paris that gave him a life-long love of that city with its access to the great art collections that it contains. The essence of Charles Blackman's imagery from the early Schoolgirl and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s, through his Window series of the 60s, and to his later works, is the poetic way in which Blackman conveys through his extensive cast of characters and his effective use of shadows, a deep psychological sense of vulnerability. While doing so he also evokes the inner world of emotions and memories aligned with human relationships - love and desire along with loss and loneliness. Moreover, his vast repository of images produced during a long career also contain more playful images that explore the world of daydreams, cats, children and flowers. Blackman's striking use of shadows is seen to dramatic effect in the present work where the face and figure of the matador accompanied by another male figure, is cloaked in darkness while he encounters a female spectre or vision. This metaphysical presence hints at the latent danger inherent in the bullring where matadors as well as the bull face possible death. The shift between the figures has a rhythm that alludes to Picasso's use of multiple viewpoints. Of course, Blackman would have been aware of Picasso's fascination with Spanish bullfighting, and also of his Vollard Suite of etchings completed in 1937, that show the half-bull/half-man minotaur from Greek mythology being tormented; and Blackman would have known too that the creature in these works is generally seen as Picasso's alter-ego. In the 1990s Blackman himself took up the minotaur theme with a group of watercolour studies in which the creature takes on humanistic attitudes in some works, while in others, the appearance of a devil. Frances Lindsay AM
• 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.