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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Elizabeth Durack (1915 - 2000) "A Singular Australian"
• Sale Date:
  22 Mar 2015 ~ 2pm (WA time)
• Lot #:
  44
• Lot Description:
  Elizabeth Durack
  (1915-2000)
  The Grandmother 1946
  oil on board
  81 x 68 cm
  signed 'Durack' lower left
• Provenance:
  Rupert Lockwood, Darwin; Bill Harney, Ayres Rock and Alice Springs; Boyd and Jean Byrne, Adelaide; Elizabeth Durack
• Exhibited:
  The WA Art Gallery, Perth, August 1946; Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne, December1946; David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, February 1947; John Martin's Art Gallery, Adelaide, June 1949.
• References:
  Time and Tide MDM Catalogue Notes, WA Art Gallery 1946
• Notes:
  I was in Broome. The war was ended. A tiny town - along with great cities and vast tracts of land - lay in waste. It had been bombed, evacuated and neglected - yet there in that remote corner of the world (my world, my corner) people were living and new life emerging - almost as though nothing had happened ...' Letter from ED to Robert and Janet Holmes a Court in The Art of Elizabeth Durack Patrick ® Hutchings (ed) The Western Mail, Perth, 1981 p.15 Reinvent ... how I reinvented myself in my 80th year - ED's Journal 1995-2000 3 Sept 1996 This afternoon Boyd Byrne phoned to say he was in Perth ... He has The Grandmother with him and wants to call in. He and his wife are coming on Friday morning. I think Boyd wants to sell it back to me ... Doug Lockwood, who bought The Grandmother from John Martin's Gallery, Adelaide, had it hanging in his house in Darwin. Years ago he wrote and said that whenever Albert Namatjira called on him from the Alice he would stand in front of the painting, look at it very intently and then smack his thigh and exclaim: 'That's got'm alright! ... You say g'day to that Betty Durack from me ...' 8 Sept 1996 Today Boyd and Jean Byrne came with The Grandmother. The work is now in my possessionÉ I have missed this painting and long wondered what happened to it. A few years ago I painted two slightly different versions of it - one of them for Lord McAlpine. Now I come to look at the original more carefully I can see the toll that time and circumstances have taken ... It is definitely the painting done in Broome 50 years ago ... I notice the holes in each corner where Boyd said Bill Harney had fitted it into an alcove above his fireplace at Ayres Rock - but I think these holes might have been there all along as part of the old RAAF mess table top itself ...' extracts from the manuscript Reinvent ...
• Estimate:
  A$9,000 - 12,000
• 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.