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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Important Art
• Sale Date:
  20 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  10
• Lot Description:
  Brett Whiteley
  (1939-1992)
  i) Cypress Trees I (Italy), 1977
  oil on canvas; inscribed, signed and dated lower right: dawn.. tuscany. brett Whiteley 77; 31 x 25.5 cm
  ii) Cypress Trees II (Italy), 1977; oil on canvas; signed lower right: Whiteley; 31 x 25.5 cm
  iii) Garden from the Window (Italy), 1977; oil on canvas; signed lower right: Whiteley; 31 x 25.5 cm
• Provenance:
  Australian Galleries, Melbourne; Private collection, Melbourne; Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane; The Hooper Collection, Queensland
• Exhibited:
  Brett Whiteley: Recent Paintings and Drawings, Fischer Fine Art Limited, London, September 1977, cat. no.'s 13 (i), 14 (ii), 15 (iii) Paintings, Drawings and 3 Scrolls: Brett Whiteley, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 12 - 25 July, 1978, cat. no.'s 33 (i), 34 (ii), 35 (iii) (unpaginated)
• References:
  Brett Whiteley: Recent Paintings and Drawings, Fischer Fine Art Limited, London, September 1977, cat. no.'s 13 (i), 14 (ii), 15 (iii) (unpaginated) Paintings, Drawings and 3 Scrolls: Brett Whiteley, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, July, 1978, cat. no.'s 33 (i), 34 (ii), 35 (iii) (unpaginated)
• Notes:
  These works will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the life’s work of Brett Whiteley to be published 2018 – 2019 by Kathie Sutherland. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kathie Sutherland & Caroline Purves in the cataloguing of these works. This assemblage of captivating Tuscan landscapes from 1977 were exhibited in London at Harry Fischer’s Gallery in September that year and then shown with Australian Galleries in March 1978. They were created while spending respite in Il Paretaio, a large Tuscan farmhouse which belonged to the prominent artist Arthur Boyd. Perched on the crest of a hill and surrounded by fields and olive groves, Il Paretaio was situated five kilometres from the village of Palaia in the province of Pisa, Tuscany.1 Brett and Wendy Whiteley were staying there with fellow artist Joel Elenberg. This faraway refuge was sheltered from the outside world, apart from the occasional Australian visitors. It was an idyllic situation as Brett and Wendy were both taking the opportunity to ‘dry out’. Brett’s paintings from this visit were mostly the product of observations from the car window, according to Elenberg, as he could only make it a few hundred yards on foot. Although they knew there were picturesque walks to be had around town, apart from shopping and a trip to Carrara, Brett and Wendy mostly kept to themselves.2 In subsequent years while in Bundanon with Arthur Boyd, Whiteley wrote in a letter to his mother reflecting how his work prospered indoors ‘..the poetry in the painting has really got more to do with invention and how much you remember from going for a walk than it does from ringing it out by setting the canvas in the paddock..’ 3 Brett had trepidations about his upcoming show at Fischer Fine Art Gallery in London, voicing his concerns in a letter to Arthur Boyd, ‘Artistic integrity is more important than expectation or manners or money,’ he continued with rallied spirits, adding ‘But I may bring it off.’ And so he did, the exhibition went ahead with Brett exhibiting seventy-nine works. Elfriede Fischer told Brett his pictures had ‘impressed many people’ and sparked lively debate. 4 The exhibition was better received the following year however with Australian Galleries in Collingwood, Melbourne. Mixed reviews from critics at the time of the show, Graeme Sturgeon the most severe of all. Albeit the exhibition sold well with highlights including the impressive work Tuscany I, 1977, imposing at 2 x 2.5 meters. The resulting landscapes Brett produced during this time hark a return to the pictorial appreciation and fundamental joy of nature. Even his severest critic Sturgeon concludes, the landscapes are ‘certainly a recognisable record of the Italian landscape… The swelling voluptuous rhythms with all their overtones of breast and buttock become synonyms for the life force itself.’5 Whiteley’s landscapes heed to the female form with an ever-present sensuality accomplished by the push and pull of form versus content. ‘I know that in my work there is a certain sensuality, a sexuality. There is a sort of addiction to the curve, to the carnal, to the rounded, even to lust almost.’6 When last in Italy on a travelling scholarship in the 1960s Whiteley didn’t have a chance to absorb the landscape in a way he had hoped; the return trip provided this opportunity and the mood was right. These three Tuscan paintings each achieve a singular vision while remaining succinctly unified to the local ambiance. The ethereal silhouette Cypress Trees I inscribed Tuscany… at dawn shows restraint on the freshly primed canvas. While the transitional canvas Cypress Trees II is a soft monochromatic rendition, hinting towards twilight when the colour of the day melts away to darkness. Finally, there is the resplendently sun soaked and sensual work titled Garden from the Window. Furnished in Naples yellow, the voluptuous and boundless hillsides of Tuscany are starkly contrasted by the protruding upright Cypress and framed in ultramarine blue with highlights of white. ‘Whiteley’s love for landscape has been constant, as well as the view through the window…’ writes Bryan Robertson in the catalogue introduction for the London exhibition, going on to remark, ‘If Pater and Berenson were right, and the representation of the human figure in a landscape is the summit of creative endeavour for any artist…then Whiteley has often synthesised these two disparate elements of figure and situation at a remarkable altitude.’7 The works can be summed up in a quote by French novelist Andre Malraux, which Whiteley had scrawled on the wall of his Sydney studio, “Don’t just interpret nature, become its rival.” Sarah Garrecht 1 Judith Blackall, Australians in Italy: Contemporary Lives and Impressions: Chapter 10; Australian artists in Italy: Residencies and residents, Monash University, Melbourne, 2010; 2 Ashleigh Wilson, Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 2016, p. 266; 3 Brett Whiteley, Letter to my mother 1980, pen and ink on paper, collection: Brett Whiteley Studio; 4 Ashleigh Wilson, Ibid., p. 265-266; 5 Graeme Sturgeon, Brilliant Brett, The Australian, 17 July, 1978; 6 Brett Whiteley in Difficult Pleasure: a Portrait of Brett Whiteley, Creative Spirits: A Six Part Series on Prominent Australian Artists, directed by Don Featherstone, Australia, 1989, colour, 51 min; 7 Bryan Robertson, The Continuity of Australian Art, Fischer Fine Art Limited, London, September 1977
• 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.