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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  02 May 2016 ~ 6.30pm - Part 1 - Lots 1 - 47
  03 May 2016 ~ 2.30pm - Part 2 - Lots 48 - 320
• Lot #:
  1
• Lot Description:
  John Brack
  (1920-1999)
  Cold Figure 1960
  watercolour and gouache
  68 x 51.5 cm
  signed and dated lower right: John/ Brack/ 60 ; bears Kensington Gallery label verso
• Provenance:
  Private collection, Adelaide
• Exhibited:
  The Antipodeans: A Tribute, Kensington Gallery, Adelaide, 23 February - 23 March, 2008
• References:
  The Antipodeans: A Tribute, Kensington Gallery, Adelaide, 2008 (colour pamphlet, illustrated on cover) ; Sasha Grishin, The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, p. 78, cat. pr46 ; Art and Australia, 25/3 1988, p. 299
• Notes:
  As a painter John Brack employed commonplace subjects and situations to assert a humanist view that captured the essence of human behavior and social encounter, as seen in his much admired, iconic painting Collins St, 5 p.m 1955 (National Gallery of Victoria). Brack's analytical approach to composition involved seeking out the formalist geometry and abstract patterns underlying the narrative, which then enabled him to move from the particular to the universal. Thus the images we see in Brack's 'constructed world' are always more than what they seem at first. For Brack no subject was too small, as he commented in 1963, 'What I paint most is what interests me most, that is, people; the Human Condition, in particular the effect on appearance of environment and behaviorÉ' 1 In the 1950s and 60s Brack focused on his immediate surroundings - the streets of Melbourne, shop fronts, and images of his children. In Cold Figure 1960, he depicts a thin woman dressed in layers of jumpers with a scarf snugly encircling her neck. Her blue-tinged face and hands project the reality of winter in an era when there was limited heating in suburban houses. This gouache relates to a smaller more sombre watercolour of the same title and date, depicting a male figure, also in layered clothes and scarf, standing next to a desk. The female version came after the watercolour. It has a more extreme outline in terms of the woman's body, and Brack has here detailed an intricate background with blue, red, green and pink dots applied in an almost 'pointillist' manner and raining down like speckling confetti. This painterly effect also creates a knitted ribbed effect in her woollen sweater. In 1960 when this gouache was painted, Brack was exploring a number of new approaches seen in the exaggerated poses and application of texture in his Wedding series (1960-61), where thick impasto paint evokes the fondant of the wedding cake itself. The overall decorative effect in Cold Figure and the stylized outline of the woman, sits firmly within the ambit of this development in Brack's oeuvre. It is a striking and accomplished work by one of Australia's greatest painters of modern life. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Helen Brack. Frances Lindsay AM 1 John Brack quoted in John Reed, New Painting, Longman, Melbourne, 1963, p.19
• Estimate:
  A$30,000 - 40,000
• 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.