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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Aug 2016 ~ 6.30pm - Part 1 (Lots 1 - 78)
  30 Aug 2016 ~ 2.30pm - Part 2 (Lots 79 - 328)
• Lot #:
  30
• Lot Description:
  § Sali Herman
  (1898-1993)
  (Self Portrait in Studio) 1953
  oil on canvas
  89 x 114 cm
  signed and dated lower left: S. Herman 53
• Provenance:
  Andrew Curtis; Australian and International Art, Shapiro Auctioneers, Sydney, 15/09/2011, lot no. 141; Gallery of Imaginations; Private collection, New South Wales
• References:
  Daniel Thomas, Sali Herman, Shapiro, Sydney, 2011, pamphlet, (illustrated, cover) RELATED WORK: Self Portrait, 1971 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• Notes:
  Born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1898, the fourteenth child of Polish Jewish parents, Sali Herman fled the horrors of Europe just in time to build a life in Australia. In the years leading up to his migration, he had spent time living in Paris, London, and throughout Europe, America and Africa. He exhibited his work in the Zürich Kunsthaus where he was presented with the Carnegie Fund Grant to further his artistic career. When he arrived in Melbourne, at thirty-nine he was a mature artist. He probably expected to find a culture more tolerant towards modern art than the one he had left in Nazi dominated Europe, but he was shocked. No sooner had he arrived in Australia, had he made his voice heard by writing a letter to the Herald editor: 'In a country as young as Australia, I am surprised to find so little interest in modern art. I would prefer to see ideas more advanced and more nearly approaching those of older countries, even at the risk of revolting certain minds. Surely we can demand something better than sleep-inducing exhibitions of art which is not art.'1 To place this frustration into perspective, the year this was written, Picasso (an artist who Herman admired) had painted Weeping Woman (collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, purchased 1986), and Hans Heysen, with his gum tree watercolours was considered to hold an 'unassailable position in the Australian art world.'2 Seven years later, Herman would feel the full force of the anti-modernists when his McElhone Stairs (collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), winner of the Wynne Prize, was dubbed a clumsy, un-Australian slumscape.3 Herman was eventually awarded the Wynn Prize on another three occasions, and would go on to become one of Sydney's most conspicuous painters. Undiscovered, or perhaps ignored, at the time of Daniel Thomas' monographs of 1962 and 1971, and again in Barry Pearce's retrospective in 1981, Self Portrait in Studio is an important recent rediscovery, not only a fine example of Herman's work from the early 1950s, but also as a reminder that Herman was more than just a 'slumscape' painter. The painting shows the artist at work in his light-filled studio at 34 Victoria Street, Woolloomooloo. He had just spent the best part of the year travelling through Europe and preparing for an exhibition at London's prestigious Leicester Galleries. While in Paris, Herman must have seen Gustave Courbet's The Painter's Studio (now in the Mus e d'Orsay, Paris), to which the present work is clearly an homage to, and deserves a brief comparative analysis. Both paintings are large in format and rectangular in shape; Herman, like Courbet, is seen in a moment of intense concentration in front of an unfinished canvas; both artists have included paintings within their paintings and cats appear in each work, though Herman's beloved Sandy sits in a statuesque pose, Courbet's feline is playful and intended for symbolic, rather than sentimental purposes. Herman has replaced the French Realist guitar, for a cello case. Overall, the composition in the present work is simpler, more ordered, and less loaded with symbolic or cryptic messages. Despite some formal and symbolic differences, Herman found a kindred spirit in Courbet, and as Barry Pearce has noted, was one of 'Herman's most aiding sources of inspiration'.4 The present work is an exceedingly rare self-portrait by the artist. Herman was photographed in 1919 painting himself in front of a mirror (whereabouts unknown). He showed a self-portrait in his first exhibition in Melbourne's Riddell Gallery in 1938 (whereabouts unknown). In 1954 he painted a dapper, self-confident portrait with palette and brushes in hand (destroyed). The only other extant related work is Self-Portrait, 1971 (collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). In each of these works he has perfectly adapted the scraped and scumbled surfaces which distinguish the surfaces of his streetscapes. This work was long held in the important collection of Andrew Curtis, Sydney. Curtis was a friend and patron of Herman, and amassed at least twenty paintings by the artist. Mossgreen is delighted to be offering this rare and important work by one of Sydney's most loved artists. Petrit Abazi 1 Sali Herman, 'Letter to the editor', Herald, Melbourne, 14 May 1937, Barry Pearce, Sali Herman: Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1981 2 Rex Wood, 'Hans Heysen Exhibition', The News, Adelaide, 12 October 1937, p. 2 3 Daniel Thomas, Sali Herman, Shapiro, Sydney, 2011 (unpaginated) 4 Barry Pearce, Sali Herman: Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1981, p. 11 § Indicates that Resale Royalty of 5% will be applied to the hammer price of this work.
• Estimate:
  A$40,000 - 60,000
• 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.