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• Auction House:
  Davidson Auctions
• Sale Name:
  A Special Timed Auction - Provenance: Family of the Artist
• Sale Date:
  13 Jul 2020 ~ 7pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  60
• Lot Description:
  Margaret Coen
  (1909-1993)
  "Girls" Hairdos (Meg & Friend)" c1960s
  Oil on Canvas
  43.5 x 37.5cm
  Signed lower left.
• Notes:
  My mother was always painting me! As well as formal portraits when I was growing up, she did a number of smaller, more informal studies. One of these showed me lying on the floor with our white cat Snowball; in another I was sprawled in a chair in a party dress, the same cat on my lap, talking on an old-fashioned black telephone. But it wasn't just me. In the 1960s when we were in our early teens, mum loved painting me with my school friends, especially when we dressed up in what we thought was the fashion of the moment. The family of my friend Pennie Tyrrell had a beach house at Terrigal and during this period I often stayed with the Tyrrells in the school holidays, including the May break. Mrs Tyrrell herself painted and came to mum's art classes (held in our house at St Ives) and on several occasions mum stayed with us at Terrigal. A number of drawings and paintings resulted, including I think Girls' Hairdos. Practicing hair styles, teasing for a bouffant or perfecting a French roll was part of our preparation for any possible parties to which we might or might not be asked. In Girls' Hairdos which would have been painted in 1963 or 1964, I am the one sitting on the bed with long hair. I would have been 15 or 16 at the time. Mum exercised a bit of artistic license in regard to the colour of my hair - living with an artist mother you get used to that. In reality, my hair was blonde-brown rather than red. The dark blue boucle jumper with a cowl neck that I am wearing was knitted by her. I remember I wore it first with a grey pleated skirt to a party we held in the garage of another of my friends at St Ives. The party got seriously out of control, in the eyes of my friend's parents, at least, and as a consequence we were in trouble for some time afterwards. I also remember the striped, stretch stirrup pants that Pennie is wearing in the painting. Stretch pants were a highly desirable item and I coveted those pants. I suspect mum did a sketch for the work at Terrigal and then painted the oil back at St. Ives. The room looks much more like my bedroom at St Ives than the long back room where we slept at Terrigal. Although the bed seems to be in the wrong place for St Ives. Maybe the room is an amalgamation of the two locations. I certainly had a divan bed with bedhead like the one in the painting and an identical white bedside light. The light was originally dark brown but mum changed the colour with white oil paint (actually painted the base and shade with white oil paint) and then painted fuchsias around the shade but you can't see these in the painting. In the 1970s mum did another series of oils of myself and friends wearing hippy-style Indian clothes, and one of those works was reproduced on the dust jacket of Dad's book 'Douglas Stewart's Garden of Friends.' Meg Stewart, June 2020.
• Estimate:
  A$450 - 650
• 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.