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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2022 ~ 6pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  50
• Lot Description:
  Clarice Beckett
  (1887-1935)
  Across the Bay, c.1928
  oil on board
  29.0 x 49.0cm (11 7/16 x 19 5/16in).
  signed lower right: 'C.Beckett'
  EXHIBITED: possibly, Homage to Clarice Beckett (1887-1935): Idylls of Melbourne and Beaumaris, Rosalind Humphries Galleries, Melbourne, 30 October – 20 November 1971, cat. 65; possibly, Homage to Clarice Beckett (1887 – 1935): Idylls of Melbourne and Beaumaris, Rosalind Humphries Galleries, Melbourne, 12 November – 1 December 1972, cat. 59; possibly, Homage to Clarice Beckett (1887 – 1935): Idylls of Melbourne and Beaumaris, David Sumner Galleries, Adelaide, 25 July - 19 August 1973, cat. 15; Politically Incorrect: Clarice Beckett, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, 5 February - 28 March 1999, then touring; SH Ervin Gallery (National Trust of Australia), Sydney, 24 April - 13 June 1999; Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales, 19 June - 18 July 1999; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 6 August - 19 September 1999; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 30 September - 31 October 1999; Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria, 5 November 1999 - 16 January 2000; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 3 February - 26 March 2000; and Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania, 7 April - 22 May 2000, cat. 32 (label attached verso)
• Provenance:
  probably Rosalind Hollinrake Gallery, Melbourne; Private collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  'Working like a mystic, Clarice Beckett infused an inimitable mediative silence into her landscape paintings. Developing her own notable gift for converting prosaic forms into a distinctive visual language, she transcended notions of time and place. This ineffable sense of difference in her art impeded its acceptance in her lifetime and led to difficulties in elucidating and describing her work and accounting for it in Australian art history. Nevertheless, the gradual appreciation of the subtle, mutable nature of her work has now seen her favourably positioned among this country's most admired modernist painters. Research into the life and work of Clarice Beckett has enabled us to appreciate her art as offering more than mere beauty or a formalist style of modernism. That her art is also acknowledged as expressing a deeply felt internal life is equally significant. This gentle pointing to the 'possibility of something' - something hidden and beyond our present reality - resonates today. In light of our times of upheaval and change, the universal humanity in her work poignantly speaks to us and invites alternative readings to understanding reality and our common place in the world. Beckett understood isolation and human suffering and the restorative power of stillness. The same meditative silence found in her paintings is now being experienced by millions across the globe, who have found their own ways to slow down, retreat and reflect. It seems as though it is a timely moment to reconsider the art of Clarice Beckett. Her art reminds us of the beauty in the everyday and the transcendent power of nature. With grace and single-minded determination, she focused on capturing the ephemeral in paint, exhibiting her work for sixteen years in succession. How rewarding it would be for us, her admiring audience, to believe that she quietly realised that one day her art would be appreciated beyond the small pond of parochial early twentieth-century Melbourne and her paintings recognised for their gentle humanity and universal themes.' Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, in her monograph The Present Moment: The Art of Clarice Beckett, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2020, p. 140
• Estimate:
  A$50,000 - 80,000
• 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.