Find Lots

• Auction House:
  W T Macalister
• Sale Name:
  40 Years of Leo Bensemann
• Sale Date:
  28 Mar 2012 ~ 6:30pm (NZDT)
• Lot #:
  5
• Lot Description:
  Leo Bensemann
  (1912-1986)
  Lawrence Baigent was Leo's closest friend from 1925, when they first met at Nelson College, to 1985 the year both died, aged 73. In Portraits, Masks &
  Oil on canvas
  493 x 442mm
• References:
  Hunstman was reproduced in A Second Book of Leo Bensemann’s Work (Caxton, 1952) and on the cover of Landfall 157 (March 1986); see also Simpson, Fantastica, p. 25
• Notes:
  Lawrence Baigent was Leo's closest friend from 1925, when they first met at Nelson College, to 1985 the year both died, aged 73. In Portraits, Masks & Fantasy Figures, Leo's daughter Caroline Otto reproduces no fewer than eleven portraits in oils by Leo of Lawrence, painted between about 1935 and 1948. The earliest was shown at the Suter Gallery in 1936; the first to be dated was 1937, while others of the sequence were exhibited at Group Shows in 1938, 1940 and 1948. In the 1920s Lawrence and Leo both lived in Grove Street, Nelson, attending Nelson College between 1925 and 1930. Their friendship deepened after Lawrence was injured in the 1929 Murchison earthquake and Leo frequently visited him during his convalescence. Leo had performed poorly at school but made up for lost time by immersing himself in literature, art and music at the Baigents' house where Lawrence's widowed mother made him welcome. Lawrence was a gifted musician, poet and scholar who served as something of an intellectual and artistic mentor to Leo. When Mrs Baigent moved to Christchurch in 1931 to provide a home for Lawrence while he attended university she generously invited Leo (who couldn't get a job in Nelson and was at a loose end) to live with them. Lawrence introduced Leo to his university friends such as Denis Glover, Ian Milner, Charles Spear and Basil Dowling, which led to Leo's work appearing in a number of university publications such as the C.U.C. Review and Oriflamme and Sirocco, two early publications of the fledgling Caxton Press with which Bensemann later cemented his relationship when Caxton, by then an independent firm, published Bensemann's remarkable Fantastica: Thirteen Drawings in 1937. Soon afterwards Leo joined Caxton as a partner with Glover and John Drew, remaining with the firm as printer and designer for 40 years. In 1938, after Mrs Baigent had died, Leo and Lawrence moved into 97 Cambridge Terrace where they shared facilities with their close friend Rita Angus, an environment in which portraiture and self-portraiture flourished. Angus also painted portraits of Baigent. Lawrence and Leo remained at Cambridge Terrace until 1943 when Leo married Mary Barrett. Of Leo's remarkable (and remarkably various) suite of portraits of Lawrence, only a few are signed and dated, namely those of 1937, 1940 and 1948. The one included in this catalogue is dated but not signed. Stretching across the top of the painting in large Roman lettering appears the inscription LAWRENCE BAIGENT MCMXXXVIII. Lettering on this scale is completely unprecedented in Bensemann's work. This device is (which presumably served Bensemann as a model) as for example in Albrecht Dürer's portraits of Elsbeth Tucher and Oswolt Krel (both 1499) and in Manet's version (1854) of Tintoretto's self-portrait as an old man. Baigent is depicted against a smoothly painted green-blue background without expressive markings of any sort. The handsome young man (26 at the time), wearing a brown jacket and a roll- top red sweater, is shown frontally, with wavy black hair, brown eyes and a serious direct gaze, suggesting high intelligence and a rich inner life. It is one of the most polished and resolved of Bensemann's portraits of him and was singled out by the Press reviewer of the 1938 Group Show for its 'smooth colour and fine gradations of tone' ( Simpson, Fantastica, p. 63). This work was included in Leo Bensemann: A Fantastic Art Venture at Christchurch Art Gallery in February 2011.
• Estimate:
  NZ$20,000 - 25,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

  Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.