1. Skip to navigation
  2. Skip to content
  3. Skip to sidebar


Lot #30 - Toss Woollaston

  • Auction House:
    Mossgreen-Webb's
  • Sale Name:
    The Peter Jarvis & Helene Phillips Collection
  • Sale Date:
    30 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm (New Zealand Daylight Time)
  • Lot #:
    30
  • Lot Description:
    Toss Woollaston
    Taramakau 3
    oil on hardboard, 1966
    910mm x 1210mm
    signed Woollaston and dated '66 in brushpoint lower left; original Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch label affixed verso and original Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery, Christchurch label affixed verso
  • Notes:
    ESSAY: The relocation of Toss Woollaston and his family to Greymouth in late 1949 sparked a decade of significant formal development in Woollaston’s practice. Just as Mapua and Upper Moutere had been key motifs for his early paintings, the dramatic West Coast terrain, particularly the Westland of Taramakau, invited a new perspective of the New Zealand landscape with its imposing mountainous backdrops. The sheer scale of this environment, and an improved financial situation, encouraged Woollaston to liberate his paintings from the confines of the small format with which he had been working. This increased scale allowed the artist to explore the process of painting; he could focus on the way in which paint can be used rather than on the painting’s subject. The work of Cézanne was influential to this notion, as Woollaston aspired to achieve the same intimate relationship with a landscape and its realisation in paint as Cézanne had done. Taramakau 3 embodies Woollaston’s suppression of pictorial detail as he embraced the spaciousness of this new scale, filling the void with rhythmic and expressive brush strokes. As was the case with McCahon, Woollaston was not readily accepted at the time of these developments. His unorthodox approach to the landscape appeared unformulated, sketchy and muddy to eyes accustomed to the precision of the hard-edged crispness of cold, glacial light and stark green bush. The earth’s pigments of yellow ochre and light red are the colours of the homemade sun-dried brick used to build his first home at Mapua and these colours characterise his work. “Woollaston’s devotion to the landscape has resulted in a body of work which perhaps more than any other reveals the essence of our visual environment in this country not in topographical terms but in terms of emotional response.”1 1. Art New Zealand, No. 44, Gerald Barnett, M. T. Woollaston: The Later Works, 1987, p.76. Amanda Morrissey-Brown
  • Estimate:
    NZ$50,000 - 70,000
  • Realised Price:
    *****

    Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

  • Category:
    Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.



© 2010-2024 Find Lots Online Pty Ltd