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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  22 Apr 2021 ~ 6.30pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  45
• Lot Description:
  Leonard French
  (1928-2017)
  Turtle over Temples, 1963
  enamel and gold leaf on hessian on composition board
  137.0 x 122.0cm (53 15/16 x 48 1/16in).
  titled, inscribed and signed verso: 'TURTLES OVER TEMPLES / RETURN TO / FROGNAL / LONDON NW3 / Leonard French'
• Provenance:
  Private collection, Sydney
• Exhibited:
  Biennial of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 28 September – 22 December 1963 (label attached verso); Leonard French Retrospective, Adelaide Festival of the Arts, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, March 1970, cat. 64 (label attached verso)
• References:
  Lou Klepac (Ed.), Special exhibitions at the Art Gallery of South Australia: sixth Adelaide Festival of Arts 1970, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, p. 28
• Notes:
  In 1963, Art and Australia, commissioned Bill Hannan to write a feature on Leonard French for their August edition. French was without doubt a star burning bright in the Australian art world having enjoyed critical and commercial success both here and abroad. The Campion Paintings of 1960 had consolidated French's lexicon of symbols and the works which followed added depth with each year. In the article Hannan notes, 'Admittedly (French) manifests a certain nostalgia for the past, but he does not ally himself with any specific tradition. If anything he represents another phase of a widespread desire in our time to search out our origins, a desire which is made possible by the means available to us, and urgent by the fact that our world is changing so rapidly that we risk losing our grip on anything substantial. The artist expresses permanent values in transient conventions. French's dream of the past implies equally a vision of a better world of the future, notably one which honours life. In this he clearly appeals to very strong undercurrents of thought and feeling in his contemporaries. At the most minimal level of excellence he is a distinguished decorator. On the higher plane of his own metaphysic, he has already gained a mature command over an awesome and expressive language of symbols.'1 Springing forth from French's 1962 stay in Greece, Turtles over Temples was included in the Leonard French Retrospective at the Art Gallery of South Australia alongside other works from the period such as The Great Turtle, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. In the Retrospective catalogue, John Bally describes the Grecian summer, 'In 1962 French left for Greece and settled for a time on Island of Samos. He savoured real freedom living on the island, which excited him visually and stirred his sense of history. He speaks of "the consciousness of layers and layers of civilisation under your feet". He enjoyed the thought that Pythagoras had been born on Samos and that near there Western culture had its origins. He swam in blue Aegean pools and dived for the white stones on the sea bed. The small pictures he painted there, the Samos Miniatures, have the luminosity of those clear pools; the same white stones are there and the glimpse of the ancient world, and they exude the happiness of the period.'2 1. Bill Hannan, 'Leonard French', Art and Australia, Volume 1, Number 2, August 1963, p. 83. 2. John Bally in Lou Klepac (Ed.), Special exhibitions at the Art Gallery of South Australia: sixth Adelaide Festival of Arts 1970, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, p. 22
• Estimate:
  A$18,000 - 25,000
• 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.