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• Auction House:
  Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Paramount Series
• Sale Date:
  05 Apr 2016 ~ 6.30pm (NZ time)
• Lot #:
  9
• Lot Description:
  Tony Fomison
  Untitled #142 (Self Portrait Outside a Cave in Kaikoura) 1976
  oil on canvas on wood
  315mm x 225mm
  inscribed #142 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed #142 verso, original Bosshard Gallery stamp applied verso
• Notes:
  During his time studying sculpture at the University of Canterbury, Tony Fomison became involved in the University’s Ethnology Department, participating in the excavation of Māori archaeological sites, recording Māori rock drawings, observing caves and shelters throughout the South Island and making tracings of the ancient drawings. These expeditions would have an integral influence on his work throughout his career with caves becoming a motif that would be systematically repeated, both stylistically and allegorically. Fomison built a reputation for himself as an outsider for both his lifestyle and subject matter, choosing to paint those with disfigurements and the recognisable. He would be institutionalised himself on a number of occasions as the result of his drug use, these alternative subjects along with a monochromatic palette differentiated him from his contemporaries. This notion of the artist as the solidary recluse seemingly emerged at an early age, as lamented by Fomison’s sister who discussed the long spells spent in “his little cave, his little room off the kitchen,”1 this cavernous imagery would be echoed in depictions of crypts, coffins and caves, emphasising a withdrawn and brooding aesthetic with inspirations drawn from fairy tales, nightmares and his own personal struggles with heroin addiction. #142 (Self Portrait Outside a Cave in Kaikoura) is one of eight self-portraits created over his short career, some of these executed as self-deprecating characters and grimacing clowns. However in this work the artist depicts himself as an almost featureless ghostly figure, with his naked body steeped in solitary thought. One side of the portrait is obscured in darkness, a stylistic hallmark of Fomison’s, inspired by Old Masters Caravaggio and Goya’s use of chiaroscuro, with his limited colour palette broken by a muted blue sky which was repeated in paintings of this time. At this point in the mid-1970s Fomison had matured as an artist, worked and travelled overseas amassing a distinct body of work, fraught with moody landscapes and unique figures. It was through this cohesive darkness he cemented himself a reputation as the gothic auteur of New Zealand painting. 1 Wedde, Ian, ‘Making Ends Meet: Essays and Talks, 1992-2004 – Tony Fomison’s Dark Places A Postscript, John Leech Gallery, Auckland 2004, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2005, p. 308 CAOLAN MCALEER
• Estimate:
  NZ$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.