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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Alan & Margaret Hickinbotham Collection
• Sale Date:
  25 Jun 2017 ~ 2pm (Australian Central Standard Time)
• Lot #:
  30
• Lot Description:
  Russell Drysdale
  (1912-1981)
  Study for Children in a Bath, 1950
  pen, ink and wash on paper
  20 x 22 cm
  signed lower right: Russell Drysdale; bears title and exhibition label verso
• Provenance:
  Mr and Mrs B.W.W.Johnstone, Brisbane by 1980; The Johnstone Collection, Christie’s, 5 June 1994, lot no. 6; Private collection, Adelaide
• Exhibited:
  Marodian Gallery, Brisbane 1950; Russell Drysdale Retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery, 1961; 1980 Perth Survey of Drawings, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 23 February - 23 March; touring to Art Gallery of New South Wales April - May, Brisbane Civic Museum and Art Gallery, July - August; Art Gallery of South Australia, September - October; Collection Mr and Mrs B.W.W. Johnstone, cat no. 67; Russell Drysdale Drawings 1935-1980, Joseph Brown Gallery, March 1981, cat. no. 87 (Illustrated)
• References:
  Lou Klepac, The drawings of Russell Drysdale, 1980, Perth Survey of Drawing, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1980, cat. no. 67
• Notes:
  Related Works: Children in a bath, 1950, oil on canvas on board, 49 x 59 cm, Fine Australian Paintings, Sotheby’s, Melbourne 1989, lot 214, Private collection; Studies for Children in a Bath, 1950, pencil on paper, signed lower right, Russell Drysdale, 31.3 x 13 cm, Private collection. The aspect of sketching an image through a number of iterations was central to the classic approach that Russell Drysdale followed as an artist. Central and integral to his practice was the importance of sketching an image, one that he had seen previously and committed to memory, then reconfigured in the studio and worked through, beginning sometimes as loose pencil drawings or in ink, and also pen and wash, as in the present work. Often too, Drysdale would utilize the traditional grid system inherited from the Renaissance to assist with the placement of a figure or to adjust proportions, and his major paintings are often supported by a number of sketches that reveal his mastery of the medium. Drysdale thus employed time-honoured methods to underpin his totally original, humanistic reflection on the condition of people within their environment. Drysdale’s achievement was to create in his work a lucid pared-back world that whilst having the quality of a dream, was nevertheless so real and compelling that it redefined the Australian identity and our relationship to the ‘outback’. While this is most easily appreciated through Drysdale’s paintings, the essence of his art is also comprehended through his sketches, as Patrick McCaughey noted, ‘Drysdale’s drawings catch the essential timbre of his art’.1 In Drysdale’s Study for Children in a Bath a boy and a younger girl have imaginatively turned a discarded bathtub into a boat complete with a flag erected on a stick. The artist here picks up on the resilience of children and their capacity to enjoy the simple pleasure of game playing despite the hardship of their environment. The few twisted standing posts and sheets of corrugated iron, as well as the abandoned bath, are poignant indicators that here, in this desolate and empty landscape, a house once stood. The irony that in this parched and arid environment the children have conjured up a boat sailing over an imagined body of water, accentuates our empathy for their situation. Frances Lindsay AM 1 Patrick McCaughey, Foreword, Russell Drysdale Drawings 1935-1980, Joseph Brown Gallery, March 1981, Cat.no.87, (Illustrated)
• Estimate:
  A$7,000 - 10,000
• 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.