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Lot #36 - Howard Arkley

  • Auction House:
    Deutscher and Hackett
  • Sale Name:
    Important Fine Art + Important Indigenous Art
  • Sale Date:
    29 Nov 2017 ~ 7pm
  • Lot #:
    36
  • Lot Description:
    Howard Arkley
    (1951 – 1999)
    50s, 1979
    synthetic polymer paint on canvas
    203.5 x 78.5 cm
    signed, dated and inscribed with title verso: Name: Howard ARKLEY / Title 50’s / size 800 mm x 2080 mm / H Arkley 79 / Date 1979 / No. 4
    REFERENCES: Taylor, P., ‘Australian New Wave and the Second Degree’, Art + Text, Melbourne, 1981, no. 1, p. 28 (illus., dated as 1980) ; Crawford, A., and Edgar, R., Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996, pp. 30 (illus.), 31; Gregory, J., Carnival in Suburbia. The Art of Howard Arkley, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2006, fig.2.2, pp. 54 (illus.), 55 (illus. in installation shot) ; Fitzpatrick, A., and Lynn, V., Howard Arkley and Friends, Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2015, p. 14; Arkley Works electronic catalogue raisonné reference: http://arkleyworks.com/?p=875
  • Provenance:
    Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 21 June 1992, lot 115 ; Company collection, Melbourne ; Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1999
  • Exhibited:
    Howard Arkley: Recent Paintings, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 9 – 20 May 1979, cat. 14; Howard Arkley, Coventry Gallery, Sydney, 4 – 22 March 1980, cat. 3; Australian Perspecta 1981: A Biennial Survey of Contemporary Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 May – 21 June 1981, cat. 13 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 41, as ‘Untitled (Installation), 1981’) ; Howard Arkley: Urban Paintings, Quentin Gallery, Perth, 7 February – 3 March 1985, cat. 12
  • References:
    RELATED WORK: 1968 – 1988 Selected Works, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 6 – 30 January 1988, cat. 5 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) ; Suburbanism, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 9 August – 1 September 1988, cat. 4 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, pp. 3 – 4) ; HA: Howard Arkley, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 18 October – 30 November 1991, cat.19
  • Notes:
    Conrad Wagner was a German-born photographer and scene painter who emigrated to Grafton, New South Wales, in 1856. There was a large expatriate community there and Wagner soon became the Secretary of the Grafton German Club. He ran a photography studio from Princes Street (employing John William Lindt as his apprentice in the 1860s) but retained a love for drawing and sketching which he practiced whenever he could. He can only be described as a competent artist at best, but his work appealed to many citizens in the region and Wagner undertook a range of portrait commissions as a result. These now form an invaluable record of the life and times. The watercolour on offer here shows an incident on the Tooloom diggings,1 200 km north of Grafton, where gold was first discovered in 1857. It was a relatively rich field attracting some 10,000 miners but was considered to be ‘done up’ by June 1859,2 though a later report in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner reported nuggets were still being found.3 Wagner no doubt travelled there to record the activity photographically but this image reveals his keen eye for other potential drawing subjects. It would seem that Tooloom, like other fields, was dogged by the presence of police extracting fees for the much resented miners’ licences. Such activities led famously to the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat uprising some six years earlier, and tensions between police and miners throughout the country obviously remained. In the middle ground, a group of indigenous Budjalong men have already adopted European trousers but still possess their spears and other implements, whilst in the background the typical gold-digger’s hut of split saplings and bark demonstrates the overwhelming effect of the encroaching miners upon indigenous lands. This drawing by Conrad Wagner is a particularly fine example of its kind and the vibrant colours are the legacy of it having remained folded up in an envelope for many years. The author thanks Jonathan Dickson of Douglas Stewart Fine Books for assistance in this research. 1. Tooloom was subsequently renamed Urbenville. 2. Clarence and Richmond Examiner, Grafton, New South Wales, June 1859 3. Clarence and Richmond Examiner, Grafton, New South Wales, July 1859 ANDREW GAYNOR
  • 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.



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