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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  06 Jun 2016 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  32
• Lot Description:
  Emily Kame Kngwarreye
  (circa 1910-1996)
  Untitled (1993)
  synthetic polymer paint on canvas
  231 x 80 cm
• Provenance:
  Rodney Gooch, Northern Territory (63/793); Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney (EKK 4003); Private collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  It’s good to have a keen eye if you are an artist, and when Kngwarreye stayed at our place on the way back from Canberra, after receiving a Keating fellowship from the Prime Minister in early 1993, she spotted something that she would later put to good use. When she was presented with the Fellowship, she announced she was giving up painting, which shocked everyone, but what she meant was that she wanted to use the Fellowship to take the pressure off, and for a while it did. This painting was done during that time. When she returned to Utopia, she asked Rodney Gooch for a big paint brush, which he supplied, only to be told that it wasn’t right. She wanted the big one! He called me perplexed, but eventually the penny dropped, she wanted the french house painters brush she had spotted in my studio. It was an unusually large round brush you never see in Australia, neither in an art store or a paint shop, but Kngwarreye knew it would work for her. Kngwarreye was an excellent technician, she knew just how to use this brush. Her usual method of applying paint was more or less a stamping action. When pressure was applied the bristles of the round brush would spread out, the paint that was loaded on the brush, leaving a round ‘floret' when withdrawn. This new brush allowed her to make marks many times larger than previously possible and the affect was quite remarkable. Of course the technical virtuosity is not just in the scale of the mark, it is also apparent in the clarity she retains throughout the picture plane. Lesser artists would end up very quickly with mud, not the clear rich colour Kngwarreye maintains. It’s this lightness of touch and harmonious articulation of the surface that gives these panels depth and delicacy. Of course, the stamping action pushes paint well into the bristles, towards the bezel of the brush, and in the desert heat, this starts to set even as the painting is being created. Even with regular washing, with every painting the spread of the bristles diminished and progressively the florets got smaller and smaller. Thus this series has perhaps ten or so works with such large and luminous florets, which sets them apart as a unique and distinct series in her oeuvre and where this overall affect was forged, and rarely bettered. Christopher Hodges
• Estimate:
  A$60,000 - 80,000
• 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.