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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  28 Oct 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  7
• Lot Description:
  Justin Maurice O'brien
  (1917-1996)
  The Birth of the Virgin
  watercolour and ink
  48 x 68.5 cm
  signed 'O'Brien' upper right
• Provenance:
  Macquarie Galleries, Sydney; Private Collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  Justin O'Brien and his glowing paintings, watercolours and drawings were the subjects of a major retrospective entitled Justin O'Brien: The Sacred Music of Colour, which was held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2011. It was the first full survey of his work since 1987. O'Brien was a close friend of Jeffrey Smart and both artists are somewhat unique in choosing Italy to eventually settle in. Smart probably to escape Adelaide's oppressive stuffiness and O'Brien to follow his religious faith and be close to the art that he so admired and emulated. O'Brien's watercolour The Birth of the Virgin?is fully characteristic of his chosen artistic style. It emphasises bodily elegance through a deliberate elongation to give figures statuesque linearity. His perspective is always flattened and the compositional effect of such treatment lends to his works a fresco-like or bas-relief character, no doubt to provide a mental link back to Early Renaissance or Mediaeval Italian paintings. His artistic world was the one of the past and it was driven not by a slavish adherence to its forms but by an urge to match its visual and devotional integrity, especially as found in the works of Giotto, Botticelli and Della Francesca. The subject of the present watercolour painting shows an interior scene immediately after the birth of the Virgin Mary, probably in Tzippori, Israel, that is not recorded in official Church documents but is celebrated nine months (8 September) after that of the Immaculate Conception (8 December). Mary's parents, Saints Joachim and Anne, were childless until after an angel predicted Mary's birth and its significance. The painting's carefully rendered architectural details together with the still quality of the figures lends to the scene O'Brien's characteristic reverential reserve.
• 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.