Find Lots

• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Alan & Margaret Hickinbotham Collection
• Sale Date:
  25 Jun 2017 ~ 2pm (Australian Central Standard Time)
• Lot #:
  11
• Lot Description:
  Arthur Streeton
  (1867-1943)
  (Window Study), 1924
  oil on canvas
  75 x 49.5 cm
  signed and dated lower left: A STREETON 1924
• Provenance:
  Mr George Page-Cooper, Melbourne (possibly after 1944); The Historical George Page-Cooper Collection, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 21-22 November 1967, lot 255 (as Interior Scene) ; Private collection; Australian, British, New Zealand, and European Historical Paintings etc., Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 16 April 1986, lot 1322 (illustrated), (as Interior at Olinda),
• Exhibited:
  Exhibition of Paintings by Arthur Streeton, Fine Art Society’s Gallery, Melbourne, 3-14 March 1925; Exhibition of Paintings by Arthur Streeton, Fine Art Society’s Gallery, Melbourne, 27 April – 8 May 1926; Arthur Streeton: the passionate gardener, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 9 December 2001 – 17 February 2002, cat. no. 4
• References:
  ‘The Studio: works by Arthur Streeton’, The Australasian, 7 March 1925, p. 47; ‘Art Notes: exhibition of paintings by Mr. Arthur Streeton’, The Age, 27 April 1926, p. 11 ; Geoffrey Smith and Oliver Streeton, Arthur Streeton: the passionate gardener, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2001, pp. 7 (illustrated), 8, 22
• Notes:
  Arthur Streeton was a towering figure in Australian art who enjoyed the advantages of recognition and prosperity that most artists only dream of. From his rise in the Heidelberg School of plein-air Naturalism, until his death in 1943, Arthur Streeton remained the home-grown doyen of Australian painting. At just twenty-two, one critic thought him to be ‘the most talented of Australian landscape painters’.1 When, a decade later, his work was shown in the Exhibition of Australian Art in London’s Grafton Galleries, The Times praised him, noting: ‘Mr. Streeton claims our gratitude for giving us impressions of landscape which seem to be distinctly Australian’.2 This contemporary succès d’estime did not die with the artist. His posthumous appreciation, particularly in the eyes of foreign observers, extended well into the twentieth century. In 1984, he was the only Australian artist to be included in Robert Rosenblum’s important textbook 19th-Century Art. In 2015, the art of Streeton made history when Blue Pacific, 1890 was selected to hang, on a long-term basis, in London’s National Gallery – a first for an Australian artist, and only the second non-European painter to enjoy the privilege. 3 That same institution chose Streeton’s Ariadne (sold Mossgreen, 24 June 2014, for $500,200) to embellish the front cover of its 2016-17 exhibition Australian Impressionists. Much of Streeton’s success hinged on his role in the Heidelberg School and the iconic landscapes and coastal scenes – his blue and gold period. His long British sojourn, by comparison, was unremarkable. He had sailed for London 1897 to obtain the international recognition he so intensely desired. Yet, over two decades later, he left the ‘mother country’ without barely producing a memorable painting - the Venice Series of pictures excluded. His best painting was produced in Australia, where he had forged a reputation of distinction. He was back in Melbourne by 1920 where he began to develop a passion for still life painting which would define his final years. These included flower arrangements, compositions of fruit and seafood, and a few interior scenes. This final period of Arthur Streeton’s oeuvre, much like that of his associates, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts, has in recent decades been revisited, re-evaluated and revived. The Mornington Peninsula Art Gallery’s 2001 show, Arthur Streeton: the passionate gardener, and the Geelong Gallery’s 2016 ode to late Streeton, Land of the Golden Fleece, have regenerated scholarly interest in Late Streeton. (Window Study), 1924, firmly belongs to this final period. It is a work of rare and notable personal significance. In 1924, Streeton was renting the top floor of Fairlie House in South Yarra’s Anderson Street. He spent the weekends in Olinda, in the Dandenong Ranges, where he was building his new home, completed in November that year. It remains uncertain whether the present work represents his inner-city studio in Fairlie House or the highland retreat at Olinda.4. In any case, Streeton invites the viewer into his private, domestic world. And it is unlike any other Streeton interior. The viewer is placed within a confined space, represented by a shallow, diagonal depth of field. The untidy arrangement of personal baggage giving a sense that the viewer has entered the artist’s studio before he had time to tidy up. Alongside the smudgy palette, on the bureau, we see Streeton’s paint box, fedora hat, raincoat and cane. Under the large window, along the shelf, sits a pair of binoculars, and three vases with fresh spring blossoms. They lead the viewer’s eyes to the back wall where a still life hangs in its original gilt frame. Upon close inspection, this painting within the painting is positively identifiable as Melon, (circa 1926), now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.5 In 1931, when reviewing the interior scenes painted by Streeton, John S. McDonald write that they have ‘a convincing sense of enclosure, the real atmosphere of interiority. One feels in them that in leaving them one would get into another air, leaving behind their genial intimacy, the feeling they give of being pleasantly immured.’6 Indeed, nowhere else are we offered a more intimate glimpse into the artist’s space, disorderly and messy as it may be, than in Window Study. The present work was exhibited in Streeton’s 1925 and 1926 exhibitions at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery where praised as a ‘harmonious and vigorous’ work.7 Later, another critic singled out as a ‘strongly executed piece of lighting, painted in with a flowing brush.’8 The work eventually entered the collection of the distinguished art dealer George Page-Cooper (1895-1967). The Historical George Page-Cooper Collection, sold in Melbourne in 1967, was one of the greatest art auctions in Australian history. Among the notable works sold, were included a number of 9 by 5 oils including Tom Roberts’ By the Treasury (National Gallery of Victoria), Arthur Streeton’s Branders Ferry on the Yarra (private collection), and Charles Conder’s Figure in the Sun (private collection). The public interest in the sale was so great that the auction house charged a 20-cent admission fee to visitors. Even so, over five hundred people squeezed into the Malvern Town Hall to witness the momentous sale, which included the sale of this painting. It was kept in private hands for over twenty years before it was purchased by Alan and Margaret Hickinbotham.9 Petrit Abazi 1 ‘Art: Melbourne art notes’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, Sydney, 27 April 1889, p. 857; 2 ‘Exhibition of Australian art’, The Times, London, 4 April 1898, p. 15; 3 Robert Rosenblum,19th-Century Art, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2005, pp. 394-396; Blue Pacific 1890 is currently on long-term loan from a private collection. In 2014 George Bellow’s Men of the Docks 1912 became the first non-European work to be purchased by the National Gallery, London.; 4 One observer described the Fairlie Studio as ‘covered in wooden panelling’, and noted Streeton working on a number of interior ‘with distinct success’. See The Idler, ‘Diary of a man about town, ‘Table Talk, 14 February, 1924, p. 9; 5 We are grateful to Associate Professor Dr David Hansen, Australian National University, Canberra for his assistance in identifying this work; 6 John S. McDonald, ‘Streeton: a great Australian artist’, Sydney Mail, Sydney, 2 December 1931, p. 25; 7 ‘The Studio: works by Arthur Streeton’, The Australasian, 7 March 1925, p. 47; 8 ‘Art Notes: exhibition of paintings by Mr. Arthur Streeton’, The Age, 27 April 1926, p. 11; 9 Not to be confused with the other two George Page-Coopers Collection auctions through Leonard Joel, 10 July 1936, 21, 23-24 June1938, 28-29 July 1938, October-November 1944.
• Estimate:
  A$40,000 - 60,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

  Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.