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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The John Buckley Collection of Modern & Contemporary Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  13 May 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  6
• Lot Description:
  Cecil John Brack
  (1920-1999)
  The Toast 1960
  watercolour, charcoal with pencil on paper
  58.2 x 41 cm
  signed and dated 'John Brack 60' lower centre
• Provenance:
  Gifted from the artist to a private collection; Christie's, Melbourne, 27 April 1999, lot 142; Purchased by the current vendor from the above
• Exhibited:
  The Winter Collectors' Exhibition: Important paintings and works on paper, John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, 8 - 25 August 2007, cat. no. 8
• Notes:
  The Toast is a drawing which belongs to a series of paintings and drawings which Brack executed in 1960/61 dealing with the theme of the wedding. Brack did not enter this drawing into the studio ledger, nor did he exhibit it in his exhibitions related to the marriage theme. Robert Lindsay relates the genesis of the series in the following terms. "Since the mid-1950s Brack had wanted to paint a Wedding series - the theme of two individuals becoming one - but he wished to avoid the clichŽ of the frontal pose ... The idea of the wedding series lay dormant until the chance discovery by Brack of an illustration of a wedding cake attached to a toy cake-icing set belonging to one of his daughters. It gave him a solution - to focus away from the celebrants and onto the cake, the symbol of union."1 The Toast drawing appears to be a study for the figure on the left hand side of the large oil painting, The Wedding Breakfast, 1960, one of the key paintings from the wedding series. The colour range has been simplified with the figure conceived in yellows, but applied in breathing bands, as one scholar commented, paint has been "applied in a manner similar to the way one might ice a cake".2 This figure, who accompanies the bride, at first glance is the only one who does not merge into another figure, as the bride merges into the groom, while the two bridesmaids on the other side seem to flow one into the other. On closer inspection, she may in fact have a companion who closely echoes her shape and whose head protrudes above her, it is an ambiguous coupling of forms. The central idea behind the series is that of unity and happiness, a moment of complete human bliss.3 The woman in yellow is shown in strict profile and may be in the process of pronouncing a toast to the happiness of the bridal couple. The extreme elongation of her sinuous right arm, which extends from a somewhat disjointed shoulder and in an insect-like manner spins down the body, breaching every anatomical canon along the way, supports a glass in a dainty hand. This is the invention in design which ties the composition together. The theme is that of unity and of happiness which grows out of this unity. Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University 1 Robert Lindsay, John Brack: A retrospective exhibition, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 1987, pp.17-18 2 Kirsty Grant et al., John Brack, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, p.113 3 See Ronald Millar, John Brack, Melbourne, Lansdowne Australian Art Library, 1971, pp.38-44
• Estimate:
  A$30,000 - 40,000
• 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.