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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 #:
  26
• Lot Description:
  Colin McCahon
  Landscape Theme and Variations (H)
  oil on unstretched jute canvas
  1770mm x 830mm
  inscribed H in brushpoint verso
• Provenance:
  The Les and Milly Paris Family Collection, Wellington. Purchased by the Paris family from Peter McLeavy Gallery, Wellington, 1975; Sold Webb's, June 1995.
• Exhibited:
  Ikon Gallery, A Landscape Theme with Variations, 14- 31 May,1963; The Dowse Art Gallery, A Private View: works from the Paris Family Collection , 28 April - 29 May 1977; Auckland City Art Gallery, Hit Parade Exhibition , 13 December 1993 - 7 March 1994.
• References:
  Illustrated: Green, Anthony. Bulletin of New Zealand Art History , No. 2, 1974, "Colin McCahon's Paintings and Drawings at the Ikon Gallery". Reference: Colin McCahon database www.mccahon.co.nz, reference cm001101.
• Notes:
  Colin McCahon's exhibition A Landscape Theme with Variations , in which this strong work was first shown, was held at Ikon Gallery, Auckland, in May 1963, simultaneously with the large Woollaston/McCahon Retrospective Exhibition at Auckland City Art Gallery in 1963. McCahon wrote to John Caselberg: 'This exhibition [i.e. the Retrospective] really puts both Toss & myself into the "has been" class. None the less I am naturally pleased & hope to correct many ideas by the new work at Don [Wood's Ikon] gallery' (Peter Simpson, Answering Hark, 2001, p. 95). As well as countering the 'has been' notion, the Ikon show was a reaction to the mainly negative response to the geometric abstractions of McCahon's previous two exhibitions - at The Gallery, Auckland (later called the Ikon) in 1961, and at the CSA in Christchurch in 1962. These were devoted to the Gate series paintings, while the latter show also included the huge 16-panel Second Gate Series (now in Te Papa), which the critics, on the whole, disliked. The Press wrote, 'The Gate series fails because the panels are mostly slight and boring as paintings'. McCahon reacted (as reported) in a 1963 talk: 'The paintings misfired, and this worried him. Came to the conclusion that it was essential to find a way of communicating to people. He must go back again and start from scratch - to the [1940s] Otago Peninsula paintings in fact' (Simpson, p. 94). McCahon told Caselberg that Landscape Theme and Variations was 'a return to ;realist painting but a realism impossible without the previous work' (Simpson, p. 95). Two large series: 'A' (now in Auckland Art Gallery) and 'B' (now in Te Papa Tongarewa), each consisted of eight panels on unstretched canvas hung with their edges touching. There were also a number of separate paintings, which McCahon referred to as 'spares'; these were identical in medium and size and were numbered 'C' to 'I', including the present work, 'H'. McCahon said: ';none of these paintings is of any actual landscape. Certainly the landscape is New Zealand but in an amalgam of both North and South. Nor is this the tourist's landscape we so often see painted. I am dealing with the essential monotony of this land, with variations on a formal theme, and again, as in the Northland panels of some years ago, a "landscape with two few lovers" ' (A Question of Faith, 2002, p. 200). In the commentary on his 1972 Survey exhibition McCahon commented further: 'They were painted to be hung about eight inches from floor level. I hoped to throw people into an involvement with the raw land, also with raw painting. No mounts, no frames, a bit curly at the edges, but with, I hoped, more than the usual New Zealand landscape meaning;' (A Survey, 1972, p. 30). 'H' has close affinities with the Series 'A', in which all but one of the eight panels features arcing headlands - some single, some double (as in 'H') and some triple. The headlands at top and bottom of the picture are formed by opposing arcs (from right and left edges) with a dark plain in between. The hills are vigorously painted and are tawny greenish-ochre in colour. The dark plain between them is highlighted by touches of blue, green and purple; it echoes in shape (mirror image almost) and contrasts in colour with a patch of pale sky, with a dark border of cloud at the top. Wonderfully satisfying in its formal balance; it is also a brooding, imposing and monumental painting, which shows the artist at the top of his game. Peter Simpson
• Estimate:
  NZ$165,000 - 200,000
• 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.