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• Auction House:
  W T Macalister
• Sale Name:
  40 Years of Leo Bensemann
• Sale Date:
  28 Mar 2012 ~ 6:30pm (NZDT)
• Lot #:
  10
• Lot Description:
  Leo Bensemann
  (1912-1986)
  After painting landscapes in Canterbury, Central Otago and the West Coast between 1961 and 1964, Bensemann first went to Takaka and Golden Bay for a p
  Oil On board
  612 x 840mm
• References:
  LB to CB, 3 February, 1965, quoted in Simpson, Fantastica, p. 13. See Otto, Landscapes, pp. 40-42.
• Notes:
  After painting landscapes in Canterbury, Central Otago and the West Coast between 1961 and 1964, Bensemann first went to Takaka and Golden Bay for a painting excursion in the summer of 1965. This proved to be an important trip because the Takaka/ Golden Bay region thereafter became his most frequently painted subject. Takaka was, of course, where he was born and spent his childhood, which must have had something to do with the grip it exerted on his imagination. He told Charles Brasch, after this trip: 'I worked through until Jan 8 and then went up to Takaka with Doris for a week - very beautiful and we both did a lot of painting most of which is promising. In spite of the shortness of the visit it was, I think, the most fruitful trip we have made.' In the Group Shows for 1965 and 1966 Bensemann exhibited seven landscape paintings of Takaka/Golden Bay locations. Although the present work is not dated, in all likelihood it was painted either on the 1965 trip or the following year. In particular, it shares stylistic similarities with Towards Collingwood (1965) and Road to Collingwood (1966), which also feature roads snaking through the landscape and providing pathways for the viewer's eye to follow. The work is untitled but it definitely shows the old East Road which hugs the river flats and steep hillsides on the eastern side of the steep- walled Takaka Valley, a setting readily identifiable to those who know the area. The sinuously curving road leads the viewer's eye into the heart of the painting, the top half of which is dominated by the same (though differently coloured) rhythmical and repetitive hillsides that Colin McCahon captured in his well-known Takaka: Night and Day (1948). As often in Bensemann's Takaka paintings, the sky is filled with billowing rain clouds, echoing the grey of the gravel road. This painting has not previously been exhibited.
• Estimate:
  NZ$10,000 - 14,000
• 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.