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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  23 Aug 2022 ~ 7pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  29
• Lot Description:
  Arthur Boyd
  (1920-1999)
  Bride Drinking from a Pool, c.1960
  oil and tempera on linen
  91.0 x 101.5cm (35 13/16 x 39 15/16in).
  signed lower right: 'Arthur Boyd'
• Provenance:
  South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne; Private collection, Victoria; Savill Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso); Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above 1995; Private collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  Martin Kemp, Professor of the History of Art and the University of Oxford writes, 'Arthur Boyd was one of the few artists for whom the cliche 'a born painter' matches the reality. Painting, for Boyd, was as natural an act as breathing and eating. He was utterly committed to the very stuff of paint - its extraordinary material properties, thin and thick, translucent and opaque, the ravishing intensity of saturated pigments, and its paradoxical ability to insinuate the painters impulses into the spectator's imagination. He was no less committed to the way that this odd exercise, painting, can conjure up a world of living beings and wondrous settings, and tell moving stories, without literal imitation of what things look like. He tells us how they appear within his inner visual life and, at his best, compels us to share his vision.'1. It was the post war period, from the late 1940s until the end of the 1950s, that consolidated Boyd as a leading visionary for contemporary Australian art and a founding member of the Antipodeans. In November of 1959, Boyd left Australia for London on what was intended to be short trip. Ultimately the experience was so enlivening that the visit was extended indefinitely and the Boyd family settled in a remote part of Suffolk. Solo exhibitions were staged generating positive reviews and commercial success. Without doubt, Boyd's development of the Bride motif was key in consolidating his academic and aesthetic interests. The Bride is a cipher for the human predicament, set against a landscape rich in allegory and myth. They are paintings informed by the broad European history of ideas. Merryn Schriever 1. Janet McKenzie, Arthur Boyd: Art & Life, Thames & Hudson, London, 2000, p. 13
• Estimate:
  A$350,000 - 450,000
• 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.