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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  06 Jun 2017 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  21
• Lot Description:
  Garry Shead
  (born 1942)
  E.R., 1994
  oil on board
  75.5 x 60.5 cm
  signed and dated lower right: Garry Shead 94
• Provenance:
  Australian & International Fine Art, Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 02 September 2003, lot 59; Private collection, Sydney
• Notes:
  In 1954, Queen Elizabeth II made an official, and extensive, visit to Australia. It was the first time that a reigning monarch set foot on the island continent. It was the biggest, most hyped-up event to arrive in Australia, seeing millions take to the streets, waiting for hours just to catch a glimpse of Her Royal Highness. These moments were eloquently captured by Max Dupain, who caught all the human drama and tension in his typical photo-documentary fashion. At twelve, Garry Shead was among the hordes of school children marched to the Sydney Showgrounds to witness the momentous event, and he vividly recalled, some forty years on: ‘I remember seeing her and feeling the eye contact as she passed… There was something unearthly and untouchable in her beauty… She passed like an incarnate spirit’.1 Decades later, Shead revisited the childhood experience which inspired one of his best-known, and most collectable (in 2007, Queen of Suburbia sold for $432,000) bodies of work, the Royal Suite. In analysing the Royal Suite paintings, Sasha Grishin suggested that they can be described as ‘… history paintings involved in telling many stories which are built up in layers of pictorial narrative. They present a palimpsest through which we catch echoes of the royal progress, personal sexual fantasies and daydreams, the republican discourse, and other biographies and autobiographies. Interwoven through the rich fabric are various visual clues; their interpretation has been ultimately left to the viewer.’2 1 Sasha Grishin, Garry Shead: encounters with royalty, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pp. 11-12; 2 Ibid., p. 9
• 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.