Lot #72 - Brett Whiteley
-
Auction House:Bonhams Australia
-
Sale Name:Tony White | The Jeweller's Eye
-
Sale Date:11 Oct 2020 ~ 2pm (AEDT)
-
Lot #:72
-
Lot Description:Brett Whiteley
(1939-1992)
Bonsai, 1971
charcoal on paper
101.0 x 76.0cm (39 3/4 x 29 15/16in).
dated centre right: 21/7/71 -
Provenance:Bonython Art Gallery, Sydney; Collection of the Late Tony White, Sydney
-
Exhibited:The Bonsai Show, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 9 - 18 November 1971
-
References:Sandra McGrath, Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney, 1979, cat. 23, p. 221 (illus.); Kathie Sutherland, Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonné, Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, cat. 88.71, vol. 3, p. 93 (illus. in situ), vol. 7, p. 247
-
Notes:We are grateful for the kind assistance of Kathie Sutherland in cataloguing this work. The bonsai, one of the many embodiments of wabi-sabi, was the subject of an installation Brett Whiteley created at the Yellow House in 1971. In the centre of the room, placed high on a white circular plinth, was a bonsai lit from above by a single light bulb. The installation is a counter-point to Whiteley's more cacophonous exhibitions with their bonfires and amplified 'sound like a million cicadas (that) pierces the eardrums'. 1 Rather the white walled room is lined with monochromatic works by various artists of bonsais. They face in towards the high plinth in a form of quiet reflection, scrolls and works on paper echoing the form which is a type of beauty described under the aesthetics of wabi-sabi as 'imperfect, impermanent and incomplete'. For Whiteley, the bonsai was the antithesis of his American experience. Spare, in charcoal but with calligraphic elements, the central trunk twists and plunges, fist-like, towards earth. An arrow directs us down further, beyond the limits of the work. To the right, an open hand, almost clawed as in ecstasy, pushes upwards. It is this same ecstatic hand that is so compelling in Self portrait after three bottles of wine, created the same year and now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Unlike the ink he favoured for his other Bonsai and scroll works from the period, even describing the ink-loaded brush as feeling 'like a tongue', charcoal was a less willing though worthy medium. Of its properties, Whiteley notes: 'Charcoal | crackles | and is as | vulnerable | to making | mistakes by itself | as any nervous | system is, trying | to keep it on target.'3 The circular red seal to the upper right reads 'Wu' (or 'Mu' in the Japanese teachings) and can be translated into a number of meanings in Zen Buddhism, a practice that had come to underpin much of Whiteley's work at the time. 'Wu' refers to the first koan in a collection titled the Gateless Gate, compiled in China by Wumen Huikai (1183-1260), and used to teach students the path to dharma. Variously translated as 'nothing' or 'nothingness', Whiteley's own interpretation of 'Wu' is manifold. When discussing himself as a painter, Whiteley notes the drive, 'to be perpetually shifting and not holdable, to be mercurial and Zen!' In the nexus between wabi-sabi, Zen Buddhism, the writings of Baudelaire opened a space where Whiteley engaged in personal interrogation. Gone was the 1960s social criticism which drove the violence and confrontation with terror that so dominates The American Dream, and in its place was a new, though often hard-won, silence. This inward turning, his struggle to transmute into paintings the beauty that sat at the centre of existence, would ultimately produce his most profound works. With Bonsai, that quiet reflection is apparent. For Whiteley, 'Zen is the theology of drawing. The virgin white page must be broken, but not destroyed'. Merryn Schriever. 1. Laurie Thomas in Sandra McGrath, Brett Whiteley, Bay Books, Sydney, 1979, p.101; 2. ibid, p.219; 3. ibid, p.91
-
Estimate:A$80,000 - 120,000
-
Realised Price:
-
Category:Art
This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.
