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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  A Private Collection of Fine Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  23 Oct 2012 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  1
• Lot Description:
  Rosalie Norah King Gascoigne
  (1917 - 1999)
  Shark, 1998
  sawn retroflective road sign on board
  33.7 x 32.2cm
  signed, titled and dated to verso; gallery label to verso
• Provenance:
  Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
• Exhibited:
  Niagara Galleries, 'Blue Chip X: The Collector's Exhibition' 4 March - 5 April 2008, cat. no. 40; Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, New South Wales, 'Found Out' 3 November - 10 December 2006; Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery, 'Rosalie Gascoigne' 1 April - 2 May 1998
• Notes:
  Reference: Gregory O'Brien, Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air, City Gallery of Wellington, Victoria University Press 2004, p.10: "Shark 1998 is a small but striking example of Rosalie's poetic imagination. In Shark, Rosalie conjures from a simple country road sign an image that has all the implied menace of unwelcome visitors at our summer beaches. At the same time she also alludes to that other menace, the road shark. The work was exhibited in Rosalie's April 1998 show at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. In reviewing the show Sebastian Smee commented: ...to see the new show is to see how inventive Gascoigne is, even with the most predictable ingredientsÉ these works are about the solidly real and the transitory all at once. The bold letters are arranged on the grid so as to hint at meaning, or else simply to scramble it. Spliced into still smaller pieces, they blur the line between pattern and notation. The titles are as crucial and pitch-perfect as ever: playful, allusive, poetic 1 Rosalie began working with retro-reflective road signs in 1985 when she first came across some cut up and discarded signs at a dump near Collector, at the north end of Lake George. She worked with the material, supplies allowing, ever since. The background comprises small rectangles of various sizes with the remnants of various letters and shapes. But bang in the centre is a single piece of retro-reflective containing an arrow shape. The arrow in Shark has been carefully cut, to preserve the image and to exclude all other script from the original sign. The arrow is a very considered statement in the sense that Rosalie wanted to exploit the graphic possibilities of this particular arrow shapeÉ The 'quality' of the arrow design is only the starting point. The retro-reflective blocks that make up the work vary in size and thickness, and impart an unexpected physical presence to the work when seen in the flesh. The scaling of the work and the contrasts within it all reinforce the dominance of the arrow and make Shark a powerful image. 2 In 1982, Rosalie Gascoigne was chosen to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale alongside Peter Booth. Her works are held in several major public collections in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and numerous corporate and private collections. 1 Sebastian Smee, 'The Prime of Rosalie Gascoigne', Sydney Morning Herald, 2 April 1998 2 Gregory O'Brien, Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air, City Gallery of Wellington, Victoria University Press 2004, p.10
• Estimate:
  A$25,000 - 35,000
• 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.