MASTERPIECE: Rosemary Madigan Quartet 1981-1991

MASTERPIECE: Rosemary Madigan Quartet 1981-1991

Smith & Singer's Masterpiece Private Auction established a new world auction record for Rosemary Madigan and the third highest price for a work by an Australian female sculptor.  The magnificent and magisterial Quartet 1981-1991 exceeded its high estimate and attracted interest from across Australia.

Rosemary Madigan is widely and appropriately acknowledged as one of Australia’s significant sculptors.  Quartet is Madigan’s most important work, the magnum opus and tour de force of her career and featured in Madigan’s joint exhibition with Robert Klippel at Carrick Hill, Adelaide, in 1992.  Illustrated on the cover of the exhibition catalogue, the remarkable power and beauty of the work was duly celebrated, with Madigan describing the composition: ‘I thought of 24 hours.  It’s my feeling of a full day.  The four figures: Night sleeps, a female.  Day is a male, dynamic.  Evening is male, legs crossed, relaxed.  Morning is female, waking, yawning, stretching.’

Formerly on long-term loan to the Carrick Hill, Adelaide and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, it is indeed a rare occasion that we can unequivocally state that we have been entrusted with the finest composition by a major Australian artist, and we are therefore particularly delighted with the response received from collectors.