IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The digital catalogue for the upcoming Important Australian Art auction at Smith & Singer is now available to view online.

Among the highlights of the sale is Brett Whiteley’s magnificent Vision of Bali 1976-1978 (lot 12, estimate $800,000-1,200,000, pictured above).  

Brett Whiteley is widely and appropriately celebrated as one of Australia’s great cultural identities: both a charismatic artist pop star and a phenomenally gifted draughtsman and painter.  Versatile and expansive, his oeuvre encompasses a wide range of media and subjects – in 1978, the year in which Vision of Bali was completed, Whiteley became the first and only artist ever to win all three of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ prestigious painting prizes; the Archibald (portraiture), the Wynne (landscape) and the Sulman (subject/genre).

Vision of Bali pulsates with an exuberance and radiance that, like Van Gogh, presents a landscape that seems alive, vital and quivering.  Onto the beautifully primed and painted surface the artist articulates the outlines of the shapes of an exotic scene that is both physical and metaphysical, real and imagined.  Saturated and bathed in a golden light, the canvas catapults the viewer to a heightened state of reality.  It is a subject known and experienced by Whiteley.  It is Whiteley making Van Gogh his own.

The exhibition will take place in Melbourne from Wednesday 2 November – Sunday 6 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 14-16 Collins Street, and in Sydney from Thursday 10 November – Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT JEWELS, WATCHES & MEDALS

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels, Watches & Medals that will take place in Sydney in December 2022.

This auction will build on the resounding success of our August Important Jewels & Watches sale, which realised a total of $1,343,127, our highest since 2019, and demonstrated that demand remains strong for diamonds, coloured gemstones and jewels and watches by the world’s leading jewellery brands and watchmakers.  A number of important pieces have already been consigned, including this spectacular diamond and gem-set 'Allegra' necklace, Bulgari, circa 2010 (estimate $40,000–50,000, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

ARTHUR BOYD

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Arthur Boyd's Fishing at Dusk on the Shoalhaven (circa 1983) for private sale.

Arthur Boyd’s preoccupation with the landscape of the Shoalhaven area, near Nowra in New South Wales, commenced in the summer of 1971, when he returned to Australia after living more than a decade in the United Kingdom.  For the next almost thirty years Boyd intermittently recorded the Shoalhaven River, Riversdale Hill and surroundings at various times of the day throughout the changing seasons.

During the early 1980s Boyd’s Shoalhaven landscapes became more ambitious, monumental and tactile as the artist began applying paint with his fingers as well as a brush.  Film footage showing the artist creating these paintings reveals both a primal response to the physical act of painting and an innate empathy and reverence to land and place.  Born from his obsession with and exploration of a particular landscape, these paintings of the river and the bush-covered escarpment behind have entered the Australian psyche, becoming some of the most recognisable images of the Australian landscape.

Impressive for its serene beauty and refined application of pigment, Fishing at Dusk on the Shoalhaven is a deceptively simple transcription of the view, without the mythological or allegorical subject matter introduced into many of the Shoalhaven pictures.  The work incorporates a number of the most familiar elements of the local iconography: the densely forested riverbanks with fallen tree-trunks, scattered boulders wedged into the hillside, and the smooth surface of the peaceful water, broken only by the mirrored reflections.  The landscape is ablaze with the vibrant opalescent colours of an Australian summer’s day as a lone fisherman quietly attends to his task.  It is a joyful, profound and splendid hymn to a much-loved landscape.

Fishing at Dusk on the Shoalhaven has long been regarded as amongst the very finest of the series and represents a special opportunity to acquire a major composition from one of Australia’s most influential and beloved artists. 

Pictured above 

ARTHUR BOYD 1920-1999 
Fishing at Dusk on the Shoalhaven (circa 1983) 
oil on canvas
120 x 100 cm 
For private sale  
© Arthur Boyd/Copyright Agency, 2022

IMPORTANT JEWELS, WATCHES & MEDALS

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels, Watches & Medals that will take place in Sydney in December 2022.

This auction will build on the resounding success of our August Important Jewels & Watches sale, which realised a total of $1,343,127, our highest since 2019, and demonstrated that demand remains strong for diamonds, coloured gemstones and jewels and watches by the world’s leading jewellery brands and watchmakers.  A number of important pieces have already been consigned, including this spectacular opal, South Sea pearl and diamond necklace, Paspaley, 2005 (estimate $48,000–58,000, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

 IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

Consign now to our forthcoming auction of Important Australian Art.

In 2021, Smith & Singer achieved 7 of the 10 highest prices for art at auction in Australia that were combined with excellent sold rates and performances against estimates.

Building on the resounding success of our August 2022 auction of Important Australian Art, which achieved the highest total for a mixed vendor sale as well as the two highest prices at auction for the year to date, our carefully curated November 2022 auction will include significant examples of historical, modern and contemporary Australian art.

To participate in this sale, please contact our highly experienced specialists for a confidential appraisal. 
You may also use our appraisal estimate form.   

JUSTIN O'BRIEN

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Justin O'Brien's Nude Against Landscape (1971-1972) for private sale.

For Justin O’Brien, even in a painting as personally immediate and naturalistic as Nude Against Landscape (1971-1972), there is a feeling of calm and grace.  The subject is one of several exquisite depictions of window views inspired by O’Brien’s time spent on the Greek Island of Skyros in the summer of 1971:

‘Sykros is an enchanting island … figs, pomegranates, vast vineyards, mulberry trees heavy with fruit … All this side by side with great stark mountains and Cyclonean walls.  It has a biblical aura and a sense of mystery … I have tried to catch some of the extraordinary lushness and the exotic splendor of the unforgettable view.’

A myriad of feelings are conveyed through compositions such as Nude Against Landscape.  The carefully posed nude figure leaning against the door frame acts as a mediator between the internal and external worlds – the shaded interior of the domestic villa and the sweeping landscape of the hilltop town set against the sparkling waters of the ocean below.  The setting steeped in beauty and history is both realistic and symbolic.  As O’Brien hinted, ‘the religious experience should not be confused with the spiritual experience, for the latter can be expressed through many subjects, like a vase of flowers.’

This remarkable, delicately drawn and sensitively coloured slice of light and life is not only a tour de force of naturalistic painting, but also a picture of spiritual serenity, of a man and an artist entirely content with his place in the world. 

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

Consign now to our forthcoming auction of Important Australian Art.

In 2021, Smith & Singer achieved 7 of the 10 highest prices for art at auction in Australia that were combined with excellent sold rates and performances against estimates.

Building on the resounding success of our August 2022 auction of Important Australian Art, which achieved the highest total for a mixed vendor sale as well as the two highest prices at auction for the year to date, our carefully curated November 2022 auction will include significant examples of historical, modern and contemporary Australian art.

To participate in this sale, please contact our highly experienced specialists for a confidential appraisal. 
You may also use our appraisal estimate form. 

IMPORTANT JEWELS, WATCHES & MEDALS

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels, Watches & Medals that will take place in Sydney in December 2022.

This auction will build on the resounding success of our August Important Jewels & Watches sale, which realised a total of $1,343,127, our highest since 2019, and demonstrated that demand remains strong for diamonds, coloured gemstones and jewels and watches by the world’s leading jewellery brands and watchmakers.  A number of important pieces have already been consigned, including this spectacular Diamond and gem-set 'Cubism' ring, Canturi, 2019 (estimate $75,000–95,000, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

SIDNEY NOLAN

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Sidney Nolan’s Annunciation (1951) for private sale.

Sidney Nolan’s rare and remarkable images of religion hold a singular position within the artist’s oeuvre and coincided with his return to Australia from his first overseas experiences and the establishment of the Blake Prize for Religious Art.  The organisers of the Blake Prize were determined to encourage Australian artists to paint and exhibit religious subjects and thereby‘… get those paintings into our homes, and above all into our churches, to replace the cheap prints and the sentimental shams of mass-produced “sacred art” that so frequently disfigure them.’

During its formative years, the Blake Prize was one of the most prestigious art prizes in Australia, and proved extremely successful in encouraging, and in most instances initiating, many prominent contemporary artists to paint images of religion – a genre largely ignored by Australian artists.  Arthur Boyd, Donald Friend, James Gleeson, Weaver Hawkins, Elaine Haxton, Frank Hinder, Sali Herman, Sidney Nolan, Justin O’Brien, John Passmore, and Jeffrey smart all contributed significant works in the initial two prizes.

Following his European sojourn where he visited numerous cathedrals, churches, galleries and museums, Nolan found the Blake Prize an inspiration.  

Annunciation (1951) was completed on 21 December, four days before Christmas, recording the moment when the archangel Gabriel informed the virgin Mary: ‘You shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus.’  Nolan is particularly faithful to the traditional iconography, showing Mary seated, holding a book from which, according to St Bernard, she is reading the celebrated prophecy of Isaiah. Gabriel, clad in white, kneels before Mary, bearing a lily, the symbol of the Virgin’s purity.  At times the virgin was depicted within or standing at the door of a gothic building, while nearby the Romanesque structure crumbles into ruins.  Nolan locates these ruins in the Australian desert, thereby reinforcing the perception that Christ’s Incarnation heralded the New Dispensation that replaced the Old.

Nolan’s highly original religious imagery offers a dramatic synthesis of his Australian and European experiences.  As his first major series completed with the aid of a direct knowledge and understanding of European art and culture, they imposed a less familiar iconography on his more recognisable desert landscapes, and in turn increased his understanding of the Australian landscape.

ARTHUR BOYD

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Arthur Boyd's Old Mine Shaft (1959) for private sale.

Arthur Boyd’s evocative landscape subjects of the late 1950s occupy a special place within the history and development of landscape painting in Australian art.  As the artist remarked to the author, these paintings directly referred to the naturalistic images created in the late nineteenth century by Charles Conder, Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, and Arthur Streeton, who found inspiration in bush and bay subjects located in close proximity to their own domestic environments.

Many of Boyd’s compositions from this period focused on rugged claustrophobic bush scenes showing tangled scrub amidst a profusion of native wildflowers and grasses, as well as the more sunny and open landscapes of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.  In each of these detailed studies Boyd took particular delight in expressing the tactility and disorder of the Australian bush, whereby the application of thick pigment with both the front and back of his paint brush was further worked to create a surface rich in a variety of textures.

One of the most famous of Boyd’s images from this period is the sensuous and delightful Old Mine Shaft (1959), which within Australian art historical terms, shares parallels with Frederick McCubbin’s Lost (1886, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne).  The work elicited particular praise from Franz Philipp, who declared: ‘There are other, more open, sunny and optimistic bush landscapes; one of the finest is Old Mine Shaft.  The foreground is open, the thickly textured weave of grasses and weeds spattered with the red and white of wildflowers; the colour-flick of a child’s dress (“The lost child”) and of “bluebirds” adds further accents of brightness.’

Old Mine Shaft represents a rare opportunity to acquire a major composition from one of Australia’s most influential and beloved artists.