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#28934

INTRODUCTION:

Remembering Elinor and Fred Wrobel

In the 1970s when I first visited Elinor and Fred Wrobel's Double Bay home I discovered a wonderland of art. Lively figurative works jostled for wall space with formal abstract paintings. Small gems by some of Australia's best-known artists were hung next to works by artists not even mentioned in standard art histories. Works by some of these artists were held in storage at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, but for the most part the paintings in the Wrobel collection were more interesting.

At that time, Nora Heysen was mainly mentioned as a footnote in discussions of her father, Hans. But the Wrobel collection held a 1936 self-portrait that showed the confidence of the young artist who, two years later, would become the first woman to win the Archibald Prize. The biggest surprise was an exquisite small fin-de-siecle study of three women by Portia Geach, an artist whose name I only knew from the prize that commemorates her name. Mary Edwards' Spring Time (1945), an exquisite oval floral arrangement, circling in on itself, looking for comfort and finding turbulence, is a reminder that the year before it was painted the artist was a plaintiff, and ultimately victim, of the ill-considered case against the Art Gallery Trustees when they awarded the Archibald to William Dobell.

The many paintings by women meant that in 1995 the Penrith Regional Art Gallery was able to hold a comprehensive exhibition, Australian Women Artists of the 20th Century, drawn entirely from the Wrobel collection. By then, the 20th anniversary of the first International Women's Year, public galleries were belatedly looking at women's art. Fred and Elinor didn't set out to buy work by women artists. Many of the works in their collection are by equally unfashionable men. The art market is a cruel place where five years of relative success can be followed by decades of obscurity.

As collectors, Fred and Elinor Wrobel actively befriended the artists whose work they bought, no matter how apparently obscure they may have been. This involved considerable research and Elinor's social and culinary skills. Artists were invited to see their work in its new home and over coffee and Black Forest cake, talk about art and life. Elinor was a superb cook, and enjoyed hosting dinner parties where she would connect long neglected older artists with younger people who appreciated art made many years before.

John Passmore, who had been a major figure and mentor to artists in the 1950s before fading into obscurity in the 1960s, became especially dependent on Elinor. He once threatened to destroy his unloved art, but after Elinor protested, he changed his will to leave her his entire remaining oeuvre, including the contents of his studio.

In 1983 Elinor and Fred opened Woolloomooloo Art Gallery as a "retirement project" where they showed work by younger artists as well as the textiles that Elinor loved. Some years after the gallery closed, they bought Woolloomooloo's Merryfield Hotel to be both their new home and the John Passmore Museum of Art.

Fred's passion for art was a consequence of his love for building boats. At first, he haunted the Friday auctions best known for selling "junk" and bought paintings associated with boats and marine life. Soon his taste expanded, so he would buy a work of art if it appealed to him, not caring about the name of the artist. Later both Fred and Elinor attended major art auctions but would never bid for major works by "important" artists, preferring to see what the auctioneers in their wisdom had deemed as unimportant. Over the years those in the art trade learnt to notice the art that interested the Wrobels.

There is a back story, another reason why art and the people who make it became a part of the Wrobels' large extended family. Fred, who owned Elizabeth Bay Marine Services, and loved Sydney Harbour so much that he always lived within sight of it, never travelled by train. He was sixteen when he and his family were herded into cattle trains to concentration camps. He never saw them again. His survival as slave labourer at the Czestochowa Ghetto was in part because he managed to get extra rations by making drawings for the guards. In Australia he found it easier to appreciate art made by others.

Fred died in 2015 and Elinor in March of this year. Their legacy is to remind us that works of art are personal both to the artist and their viewer, and connections between those who make art and those who appreciate beauty can be as meaningful as the work of art itself.

In addition, the ongoing value of their collection is a salutary reminder that the significance of an individual work of art does not depend on the current reputation of the artist. Art is indeed longer than life.

Joanna Mendelssohn

ABOUT THIS AUCTION:

This auction will be live !

You can choose to bid in person in the auction room, or you may choose to bid via absentee, telephone or online.

23 Apr 2023 ~ 2pm (AEST)

97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025 Australia

23 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

24 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

25 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

26 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

27 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

28 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

29 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

30 Mar 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
1130 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

19 Apr 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025
Australia

20 Apr 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025
Australia

21 Apr 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025
Australia

22 Apr 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025
Australia

23 Apr 2023 ~ 10am - 4pm
97 - 99 Queen Street
Woollahra, NSW 2025
Australia