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• Auction House:
  Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Important Paintings and Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  06 Dec 2011 ~ 6.30pm (NZ Time)
• Lot #:
  38
• Lot Description:
  Colin McCahon
  This fine watercolour belongs to a numbered series of landscapes inspired by Colin McCahon's response to his new environment at French Bay on the Manu
  watercolour and gouache on paper
  543mm x 740mm
  signed McCahon, dated Jan 54 and inscribed Manukau 2 in brushpoint lower left
• Exhibited:
  The Group Show 54, Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery, Durham Street, 2 - 17 October 1954, cat. no. 64, 12 gns.
• References:
  Bloem, Marja and Martin Browne. Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson, 2002, p.180; Shaw, P. Rainbow Over Mount Eden: Images of Auckland. Godwit/Random House, Auckland, 2002, p.93; Simpson, Peter. Colin McCahon: The Tirangi Years, 1953-1959. Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2007, p. 84. REFERENCE Colin McCahon Database Reference (www.mccahon.co.nz) cm000852
• Notes:
  This fine watercolour belongs to a numbered series of landscapes inspired by Colin McCahon's response to his new environment at French Bay on the Manukau Harbour. He had moved north to Auckland in May 1953 and was immediately struck by the wet climate and dramatic lighting compared with Canterbury. He recalled: At this time the bush and the harbour were of prime importance as subjects the November light for that first year was a miracle. It remains an obsession and still a miracle . Painted in watercolour and gouache on paper, Manukau 2 depicts the harbour and background hills to the left and bush to the right. Above a cloudy sky animates the scene and is reflected in the waters of the harbour. Although it is easy to make out the landscape elements in naturalistic terms, McCahon's painting has other concerns. The artist shows a modernist interest in the formal structure of the imagery as evidenced in the division of the surface by a scaffolding of curved and straight lines. These divisions have very little to do with nature and much to do with constructing a painting on a two-dimensional surface. The lines animate the surface and refer us to it. They also help divide the surface into planes that are merged into one another by the technique of passage introduced into painting by Cézanne and the Analytic Cubists. In this technique an opening, allowing one form to be merged with another, facilitates the transition between them and allows foreground and background to be interlocked. Cubism, and especially the work of Georges Braque, was of interest to McCahon at this time. He was especially concerned with making the painting appear as something solid and permanent rather than ephemeral and illusory. He noted: In nature there are no empty spaces, the air between houses is as real as the air inside houses and the houses themselves In this painting we can see this principle in action as the clouds and their reflections in the water are made as substantial as the hills and the foreshore. A further aspect to note is the subdued palette restricted to mainly blue/grey and ochre tints. Rather than imitating local colours, McCahon creates an image based on the contrast between cold and warm hues, the blue of sky and water and the ochre of bush and foreshore. In doing so he was once more following the example of Braque and Picasso who found that a restricted palette enhanced the objecthood of their Cubist works and drew attention to their formalist nature. It is also possible to see in Manukau 2 the use of multiple viewpoints, for at times we seem to be looking at forms like the hills at eye level while the harbour and bush appear as if viewed from above. This presentation had the advantage of freeing the artist from the constraints of conventional one-point perspective and allowing the element of time and movement to enter the work. All these ideas and more were to figure prominently in McCahon's later paintings. Related works include the Towards Auckland paintings and the Kauri series. This is fine painting in its own right and one that is of great interest because it contains fertile ideas that McCahon was to follow up in his later series. MICHAELDUNN
• Estimate:
  NZ$70,000 - 90,000
• 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.