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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen-Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Important Paintings & Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm (New Zealand Daylight Time)
• Lot #:
  1
• Lot Description:
  A. Lois White
  Gay Ladies
  varnished watercolour, 1939
  260mm x 200mm
  signed A. Lois White and inscribed Gay Ladies in graphite on original matt board affixed verso
• References:
  An oil of the same composition and title is illustrated in Art in New Zealand, December 1939, p.75 and Nicola Green, The Art of A. Lois White: By the Waters of Babylon, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland p. 51.The working drawings for this composition are held in The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa.
• Notes:
  A. Lois White was in her mid-30s, producing some of the finest work of her career, when she painted Gay Ladies in 1939. A star pupil at Elam School of Fine Arts in the 1920s, she studied with the English artist A J C Fisher, who recognised her talent and took a special interest in her work. She joined the teaching staff at Elam herself in 1928 and, eventually, became a full-time tutor. A single, independent woman, she was the main wage-earner in her family, helping to support her widowed mother and sister. In 1933, White exhibited her largest painting to date at the Auckland Society of Arts: Persephone's Return to Demeter, a decorative interpretation of the Greek myth, depicting two women embracing in a verdant landscape. The society's president remarked on its 'astounding technique and craftsmanship' and declared that it was worthy to be hung at important exhibitions on the other side of the world.1 He predicted that more would be heard from this artist. In the following years, White painted religious and female allegories, scenes from the Bible, and topical subjects such as in War Makers (1937), which expressed her pacifist views. Her work was often reproduced in newspapers and journals, attracting positive comment, and, by 1939, she had earned a national profile as an artist. Gay Ladies is a stunning example of the harmonious, decorative style that White brought to her figurative paintings of the period. Like many of her images, it is structured according to a series of opposing diagonal lines, which create a lively sense of rhythm and movement. Every element of the composition is carefully considered. The dancing women, arms entwined, exemplify an art deco ideal of beauty with their narrow waists, long sinuous limbs and stylised elegance. Their delicate hands and feet are perfectly placed, linking the two pairs of figures in a flowing circular movement. White was evidently well satisfied with this composition since, as well as this watercolour, she painted a version in oils, which was illustrated in colour in the journal Art in New Zealand.2 It seems unlikely that White was aware of the homosexual implications of her title in 1939; it was not until the 1960s that the term "gay" developed its current usage.3 Her sensual images of the female body have raised questions about her sexual identity but, as art historian Nicola Green remarks, "It is difficult to say whether the allegories project an idealised vision of Whiteâ's relations with other women, or whether they are specifically autobiographical, dealing with a hidden sexuality"4 Drawing was at the heart of White's practice and an archive of her work at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa contains hundreds of sketches, mainly of the female nude, including preparatory sketches for major paintings. A squared-up pencil study for the oil of Gay Ladies testifies to the methodical nature of her art, and her commitment to the craft of painting. Like the watercolour in this auction, it is an image of tightly controlled intensity, expressing a playful, joyful exuberance within a rigorous formal structure. Jill Trevelyan 1. Quoted by Nicola Green, By the Waters of Babylon: The Art of A. Lois White, Auckland City Art Gallery and David Bateman, 1994, p. 25. 2. Art in New Zealand, December 1939. The oil version of Gay Ladies was exhibited at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts annual exhibition in Wellington that year. 3. Although, in Howard Hawks' 1938 comedy Bringing Up Baby, Cary Grant famously declared, "œI just went gay all of a sudden", when asked why he was wearing a frilly nightgown. 4. Nicola Green, p. 51.
• Estimate:
  NZ$20,000 - 30,000
• 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.