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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen-Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Important Paintings & Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2016 ~ 6.30pm (NZ time)
• Lot #:
  14
• Lot Description:
  Tony Fomison
  The Veil of Saint Veronica - After an Old Engraving of a Relic at the Vatican
  oil on cotton stretched over card in found frame, 1973
  190mm x 140mm
  signed Tony Fomison , dated 7.4.73 - Good Friday 1973 and coloured in on 16.5.73 and inscribed The Veil of Saint Veronica ~ after an old engraving of a relic at the Vatican in brushpoint on frame, inscribed This frame is old fashioned telephone wall bracket from the dining from of 10 Papanui Road (forgotten who) of Papanui Rd, (pulled down last year). Cloth stretched on photographer's cards ; prepared;one heavy saturation coat Harns gelatine (at 2 way between size) glue proportions; one coat off white undercoat finally 2 coats of main separation ( separg) ; white. The black lamp (black) started 7.4.7; Sepia finished on Easter Eve 20-21.4.73, Good Friday. Glazed in on 16.5.73. Rose Madder in a little; bit Mars brown mixed with a little Rose Madder.in ink on artist 's label affixed verso.
• Provenance:
  Private collection, Auckland; Purchased by the present owner from Webb 's, July 2012; Gifted to the previous owner by the artist, painted over Easter weekend 1973
• Notes:
  This exquisite small painting by Tony Fomison is a remarkable example of several made as versions after works by 15th and 16th-century European artists, including Simon Marmion, Andrea Mantegna, Luis de Morales, Piero della Francesca, Guercino, Caravaggio and Hans Holbein the Younger. He began these works, from reproductions, while in London in the late 1960s. They constitute what might be called Fomison's tenebrist period, during which he painted at least 20 copies or versions of religious icons, especially Christs, in the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s. In these works, Fomison's experiments with strong directional lighting, dramatic modelling of profile and the sculptural effects of meticulously graded dark tones are worked and reworked in successive versions. The Veil of St Veronica is unusual as well as typical in this company, in that it derives not from a painting but 'after an old engraving of a relic at the Vatican'. This quoted phrase is from Fomison's own inscription, which itself adds interest and value to the work. Nearly all Fomison's paintings from 1969 to 1979 are carefully documented in logbooks that record, in detail, the dates, paint quantities and applications, mixes and so on; after 1979, when the logbooks cease, these records often appear on the backs of paintings. During the logbook decade, however, several paintings also have elaborate verso inscriptions or, as in this case, inscriptions minutely worked in brush point on the frame. The frame, too, is typically unusual. Fomison liked scavenged and recycled frames, or framing structures, and Veil of St Veronica is contained in an ;old fashioned telephone wall bracket / from the dining room of 10 Papanui Road (forgotten who) of / Papanui Rd, (pulled down last year). The nature of Fomison's interest in such religious images is an open question. However, his notes, inscriptions and comments reveal a fascination with the means of achieving their effects - or, if you like, the miraculous effects of transferring the positive image of Christ's face to the 'vei that Veronica gave Jesus to wipe his face with on the way to Golgotha. For The Dowse Art Museum survey exhibition of 1979, comparing his 1966 version of Head of Christ by Morales with the 1969 version, he commented, ;If you compare this [1969] with [1966], you can see that the finer the texture I use to catch the washes on, the more detailed the image becomes. There is a later version of this extraordinary little work: Study for a Veil of St Veronica. Started in Wellington November 1984. It was exhibited at Denis Cohn Gallery, Auckland, in 1984. I've never viewed this work but it would be interesting to see what version of the miracle Fomison accomplished 10 years after the first one. Ian Wedde
• Estimate:
  NZ$45,000 - 55,000
• 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.