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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 #:
  30
• Lot Description:
  Tony Clark
  (born 1954)
  Two Landscape Paintings and a Print of BoullŽe's Project for the Church of the Madeleine 1984
  i) oil on canvas, 25 x 35.5 cm
  iii) etching ink on paper, 84 x 121 cm
  ii) oil on canvas, 25 x 35.5 cm
• Provenance:
  Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (label's attached verso)
• Exhibited:
  Tony Clark, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 22 May - 9 June 1985, Melbourne, cat.no. 21; Dreams and Nightmares, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
• References:
  John Buckley, Tony Clark, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 1985, p. 5
• Notes:
  Tony Clark's art is that of Arcadian beauty, an art of dark nostalgia, of classical and post-modernist traditions that are born of personal experience. Beginning and continuing as a zealous conceptual artist since the early 1980s, for the last thirty years Clark has developed a dynamic and diverse non-conformist language that defined the international ideas that questioned traditional and modernist practices. Born in Canberra, Clark followed his family when they immigrated, first to England, and then permanently to Italy, at the age of six. When in Europe, his parents, dilettante historians, travelled extensively with the young boy, in search for Grecian and Roman temples and antiquities. Although not a practising artist in these early years, these memories of rolling Claudian Rovine and Poussinesque vistas were to remain with the artist on his return to Australia in the late 1970s. The current work was first exhibited at the group exhibition Dreams and Nightmares, and was included in the artist's first survey exhibition staged at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art in 1985. This early work comprises two small oil paintings that recall classical Italianate landscapes that stand as a point of difference from traditional Australian landscape painting, and which Gary Catalano defined as 'souvenirs of nostalgia'1. The canvasses are covered in varying degrees of yellowed varnish, quickly applied, suggesting an urgency in the execution. The larger print is derived from the unexecuted plans by Étienne-Louis Boullée for the church of Madeleine in Paris2 and attests to Clark's continued interest in classical and post-modernist architecture. Just prior to the opening of the exhibition at ACCA, Robert Lindsay, then Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, made a submission for acquisition to the NGV's Board of Trustees for the current work3. The details of the meeting are unknown, however, it is common knowledge that the Gallery's interests in contemporary art at this time were less than enthusiastic. Clark, along with Tim Johnson, would go on to represent Australia at Documenta IX. Becoming, at the time, one of only four Australian artists to have ever been invited to present their work at the prestigious international art fair. 1 Gary Catalano, 'Decorative touch in 'Suburban Pavilion'', The Age, 29 May 1985 2 George Goldner, European Drawings 1: Catalogue of the Collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1988, p. 146 3 Submission for acquisition no 6., National Gallery of Victoria Archives, 10 & 13 May 1985, single page.
• Estimate:
  A$5,000 - 8,000
• 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.