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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2022 ~ 6pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  4
• Lot Description:
  Arthur Boyd
  (1920-1999)
  Bundanon Sandbank, c.1980
  oil on canvas
  90.0 x 121.0cm (35 7/16 x 47 5/8in).
  signed lower right: 'Arthur Boyd'
• Provenance:
  Corporate Collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  After spending nearly fifteen years in England, Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne returned to Australia to visit art dealer Frank McDonald at his property in the Shoalhaven, a visit that inspired Boyd's rediscovery of Australia and its wildly beautiful landscape. On his first 'sweltering hot' day at Bundanon, Boyd took to the riverbank and sketched. It was an experience so impactful it ignited a love for the visual and spiritual duality of the region, describing himself as feeling 'entranced'. 1 He and Yvonne immediately began making plans to re-establish their lives in the Shoalhaven. In 1973 they received a letter from Frank about a property nearby... 'the prettiest part of the farm rising steeply from the water making it possible to have a house commanding much better river views than we can have at Bundanon.' 2 The Boyds bought Riversdale sight unseen. As one of his most enduring subjects, this particular setting in Riversdale has been explored by Boyd in its many different seasons and times of day. As Sandra McGrath notes, 'Boyd has captured the river in all its moods; quiet as floods begin to recede; ugly brown as it swells with water; dark, calm and green in summer when the land is parched; glowing pink at sunset.' 3 In Bundanon Sandbank, the contemplative calm of the pink and blue sunset reflected on the still river effectively communicates the spiritual entrancement felt by the artist. The brushstroke used for the sea and sky all allude to the movement of time, it glides peacefully, as does the boat as it meets the sandbank in almost stillness. However, the Shoalhaven that Boyd knows is not only tranquil, its beauty is also felt in its fragility and danger. As Grazia Gunn describes, it is 'a prehistoric landscape which traps you in its primordial mysteries'. 4 So even during this quiet moment, there is the looming threat of bushfire that slowly burns on the distant shore. With trees that have collapsed on the riverbank, succumbing to the seasonal threat of fire, a sense of power from the land emerges. As Gunn reiterates, 'The Australian bush does not know compromise; once its pristine purity is broken it stays scarred and disfigured.' 5 This duality of power and fragility is balanced by the fisherman, who appears unperturbed by the fire flaring behind him. For many Australians, it is a familiar experience. The constant threats of the untamed landscape are an accepted part of its cycle. However, for this fisherman, as he returns to the sandbank that appears to open up and accept him back for the evening, such threats cannot impinge upon the stillness of this quiet summer's sunset. Boyd finding balance again between the familiar and the idyllic mysticism of his landscape. Azura Nichols 1. Barry Pearce, Arthur Boyd Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1993, p. 27; 2. ibid., p. 177; 3. Sandra McGrath, The Artist & the River: Arthur Boyd and the Shoalhaven, Bay Books, Sydney, 1982, p. 78; 4. ibid., p. 177; 5. ibid., p. 177
• Estimate:
  A$70,000 - 100,000
• 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.