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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  28 Oct 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  90
• Lot Description:
  Rover (Julama) Thomas
  (circa 1926-1998)
  Untitled
  natural earth pigments on canvas
  80.5 x 100.5 cm
  signed verso; bears Waringarri Aboriginal Arts cat. no. AP3730 verso
• Provenance:
  Private Collection, Melbourne
• Notes:
  Rover Thomas is widely regarded as one of Australia's most important Aboriginal artists. The first major solo exhibition of the work of an individual Aboriginal artist was the Rover Thomas exhibition in 1994 at The National Gallery of Australia. The seminal exhibition announced the emergence of a new style of landscape painting that moved beyond the dotted formats and more cartographic styles of the Papunya artists, who were highly influential during the new rise of interest in the collection of Aboriginal art. In Thomas' paintings, visual fields of solid ochre colours, black tones and yellow or buff pigments were applied to canvas to suggest the features of the country. These were usually outlined with white pipe-clay stippling, an application technique that developed directly from the traditional motifs of East Kimberley rock art. This form and technique of landscape painting become the basis for what is now recognized as the Turkey Creek or Warmun School of the Kimberley Region. Although it is conceptually seriously mistaken to do so, Thomas' paintings have often been compared with the colour field works of the American late-Abstract Expressionist artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970). An apocryphal story holds that when Thomas saw Rothko's painting at the Australian National Gallery he is supposed to have said ÒWho's that bugger who paints like me? Of course, Rothko did not paint like any Aboriginal artist as it would be impossible for him to do so. The story highlights the conscious simplification of form and the massed colour formats characteristic of Thomas' works. The present painting Untitled bears all the hallmarks of his style and is typical of the new stylistic range of paintings by other artists who admired and, to a certain respect, emulated his pictorial advance. These are artists such as Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Queenie McKenzie Nakarra, Paddy Jaminji Jampin, Freddy Timms and Jack Britten.
• Estimate:
  A$18,000 - 25,000
• 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.