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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Contents of Prince Albert House, Mosman
• Sale Date:
  21 Aug 2016 ~ 2pm
• Lot #:
  26
• Lot Description:
  Arthur Boyd
  (1920 - 1999)
  Child and White Dog by Pond
  oil on canvas
  119 x 126 cm
  signed lower right: Arthur Boyd; inscribed verso: Arthur Boyd / 13 Hampshire Lane, Highgate, N6, London
• Provenance:
  Private Collection, Sydney; Christies, Australian and European Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Ceramics and Sculpture, Melbourne, 1 August 1995, Lot 77
• Exhibited:
  The Stone Gallery, Newcastle
• Notes:
  When Arthur Boyd, then just thirty-nine, and his family arrived in London, he had already achieved notable success and recognition amongst his peers. Remarkably, his greatest critical accomplishments were waiting for him in this new ground. He came to London so he could meet vis-ˆ-vis with the old and new masters; so he could stand alongside, and in front of, his heroes and behold a world, which until then, he had only peeked at through grainy or faded reproductions. But as well as nourishing his own artistic soul, he was there to dazzle the old guard with 'Boyd's Australia', a dreamy and mysterious place of legends and personal myths, one which English viewer's had never witnessed before. The critics and public alike could not get enough of this young, sharp-eyed antipodean, whose endearing nature was only matched by his gregarious character. In no less than six months, he had secured his first one-man exhibition with Zwemmer Gallery - one of London's major dealerships handling modern British and international avant-garde artists. The following year he was a major contributor to Bryan Robertson's 'Recent Australian Painting' held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery; and that same East London institution enthusiastically hosted a major retrospective on Boyd's work the next year. More solo exhibitions were to follow as well as invitations to paint stage sets in the East End, turning this fresh émigré into a local and international star. Thus, and not surprisingly, what was supposed to be a six-month sojourn, turned into Boyd's twenty year London period. The present work, Child and White Dog by Pond, belongs to these early London years when Boyd was painting his Mythologies (which includes the watershed series Love, Marriage and Death of a Half Caste Bride). Set in a densely thicketed boscage, the picture has an overwhelming fable-like quality to it. Under a fiery evening sky, a young girl with her tousled hair and ghostly white frock (clearly recalling the tormented protagonist of the spectacular Bride series, which Boyd had just recently completed), encounters a white dog, both rushing toward a thick and oily pond which reflects their images. It is unclear exactly what these hauntingly translucent figures are up to. The whole scene is cast under intense secrecy and personal drama. The figures, though not exactly on the same plane, dash towards each other like lovers would; the dog, with open front legs, ready to embrace his dearest human. The sense of urgency is heightened by the towering trees, anthropomorphic and totemic in form. This bushland gully imposes menacingly on an otherwise intimate and symbolic tryst. When this series was executed, Boyd's symbolic and stylistic sources were many and varied. His admiration for Piero di Cosimo's Satyr Mourning over a Nymph at the National Gallery in London has often been quoted as a source for the symbolical use of the dog as a sign of fidelity and companionship.1 Alternatively, the artist's biographer, Darleen Bungey, has noted how the artist would describe the dog as a bestial or sexual element.2 In this metamorphic and sexual use of the beast, Boyd would have found a soul mate in Picasso and his Vollard Suite, whose works he looked at closely as soon as he touched down in London.3 Conversely, Franz Philipp identified the canine presence in Boyd's works as autobiographical references to his family dog, Peter.4 One last source of formal and painterly inspiration could have come from Goya. In 1961, around the time this painting was executed, Boyd travelled to Paris, with Barry Humphries and Charles Blackman, to see the Goya exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart André.5 Whether or not Boyd had seen Goya's The Dog, c. 1820, is not certain. In any case, his affinity with the dark Spanish master is evident in these early works. Hence, it probably came as little surprise when the Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, a long-time resident in Spain, purchased a work from the same year, Nude Turning into a Butterfly, 1961. Painted at the very height of his powers, Child and White Dog by Pond exemplifies Arthur Boyd's ability to not only draw on the great masters of past and present; but also his proficiency in expressing with full force his own dreams, phantoms, legends and fantasies. Petrit Abazi 1 Janet McKenzie, Arthur Boyd: art and life, Thames and Hudson, London, 2000, p. 107-8; 2 Darleen Bungey, Arthur Body: a life, Allen and Unwin, 2008, p. 489; 3 Picasso saw went to see the Picasso retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1960, Ursula Hoff, The Art of Arthur Boyd, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986, p. 223; 4 Franz Philipp, Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967; 5 Ursula Hoff, op. cit. p. 223
• Estimate:
  A$100,000 - 150,000
• 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.