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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Australian Art Collection of Sandra Powell & Andrew King
• Sale Date:
  19 Mar 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  22
• Lot Description:
  Keith Looby
  (Born 1940)
  The Last Supper
  oil and gilding on composition board
  234 x 171cm (5 panels irregular)
• Provenance:
  Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle; Gay Sauna, Newcastle; Fine Australian Paintings & Books, Sotheby's, Melbourne, 27 March 1988, lot 209; Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney; The Hugh Jamieson Collection of Contemporary Art, New South Wales; Sotheby's, Fine Australian Paintings, Melbourne 28 & 29 April 1997, lot 13 (illustrated)
• Exhibited:
  A Survey 1963-1969 by Keith Looby, The Johnston Gallery, 20 April-3 May 1969, cat. 7, (titled Crucifix)
• References:
  A Survey 1963-1969 by Keith Looby [exhibition catalogue], The Johnston Gallery, 1969 (titled Crucifix)
• Notes:
  Keith Looby ranks among some of the most highly awarded Australian painters of the 1970s, '80s and 90s: in 1973 Your Motel Calvary Still Life Flowers (1973, Griffith University Art Collection, Queensland) was awarded the Blake Prize; the following year he was the Sulman Prize winner for Still Life and Compfy II (1974, private collection); his 1984 portrait of Max Gillies (1984, private collection) came on top in the Archibald Prize that year; and in 1992 he was known as Canberra's artist of the year. A National Art School graduate, Looby left Australia for an extended sojourn and study tour in the United Kingdom and Italy. The present work, painted shortly upon Looby's return to Australia, reveals the impression that the Italian maestri had on the young artist. We see it in the subject matter, a favourite among the Italian renaissance painters; it is evident in the Quattrocento gilded ground upon which the figures float; and most certainly in the pastel-coloured, curled torsos and rounded faces that indicate the artist's affection for Pontormo and the Florentine Mannerists. Diana Hiller, art historian and Last Supper scholar, has also noted 'the oblique reference to Leonardo's triadic construction' and suggests that the unusual choice to depict the subject on a cross 'constructs a rather nice conjunction between the beginning and the end of Christ's Passion'1. Judas, the figure falling from his chair, and Christ with his blessing gesture, look directly at the viewer and create a sense of dutiful engagement. On this compositional device, Jeffrey Smart noted how with 'groups of persons, standing as if poised for the camera - one feels an inexorable confrontation - [yet] these Looby persons are painted with wit and compassion'2. What is even more intriguing and colourful, is the painting's provenance: the work was submitted into the Blake Prize in 1967; in 1976 the work hung in the Anglican Cathedral in Newcastle; nine years later it was in the city's gay sauna3; it entered the Hugh Jamieson collection via Barry Stern and has been in Ms. Sandra Powell and Mr. Andrew King's collection for over a decade. 1 In a communication via e-mail with the author, 7 February, 2014 2 Jeffrey Smart, Keith Looby, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1967, p.2 (reprinted from the catalogue of Looby's exhibition in Rome in 1964) 3 Humphrey McQueen, Suburbs of the Sacred: Transforming Australian Beliefs and Values, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1988, p.108
• Estimate:
  A$12,000 - 18,000
• 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.