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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen-Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Important Paintings & Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm (New Zealand Daylight Time)
• Lot #:
  28
• Lot Description:
  Grahame Sydney
  Albatross
  oil on linen, 1990
  660mm x 900mm
  signed GRAHAME SYDNEY and dated 1990 in brushpoint lower right
  NOTE: I've had a love affair with clinker-built dinghies since I was taught to row our own one at the family crib in Karitane, at the ripe age of 5 years old. Their elegant lines and long crafted tradition have always appealed to me, and seeing this one anchored at Deborah Bay on a lunchtime run one day set off a series of studies which took a couple of years, 1989 -1990, to work through. I wound up doing a few works with the Otago Harbour as the primary theme, investigating that combination of the childhood memories and the challenge of painting something floating on water. They're vessels containing memories for me. Grahame Sydney
• Provenance:
  Private collection Auckland.
• Notes:
  ESSAY: Grahame Sydney’s Albatross belongs to a series of dinghy studies completed by the artist between 1989 and 1990. The work is a rendering of an Otago Harbour scene in which an unoccupied dinghy floats on the water’s glassy surface. Light, colour and atmosphere are all radiant in this painting. In many of Sydney’s works, the details of location and topography are critical. Distinguishing visual markers contribute to making the scenes recognisable and deepen our appreciation of the hyperrealist regard that Sydney casts on our land. In the case of Albatross, however, it is the very absence of these facts – the economy and anonymity of subject matter – which sharpens the work to a point of graceful uniqueness. Here is a work borne of a single spot on Otago Harbour but which possesses an undefinable, universal quality. The image of a single boat at sea has been recurrent through centuries of art. Striking in the beauty of its solitude, it is capable of evoking a sense of human vulnerability: of being set loose against the forces of nature. Captured against the backdrop of an infinite horizon and calm waters, the motif may also be understood through the lens of a more spiritually inspired expression. In this context, the boat has frequently been thought to symbolise the journey of the human soul. At the forefront of this tradition are works steeped in Romanticism – consider, for example, Turner’s stormy seascapes and Gustave Le Gray’s magnificent photography of the same subject matter. Such works were intended to compel the viewer to meditative and prayerful reflection on the sublime and on human mortality. Thus considered, the expressive depth and power of Grahame Sydney’s Albatross grow in potential. Rachael Kleinsman
• Estimate:
  NZ$65,000 - 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.