Category: Auctions

Margaret Dunn Crowley would say of Orban in her memoir “I learnt more from him than any other teacher” and considering the quality of teaching Dunn Crowley had received, that was an impressive endorsement.

Desiderius Orban was a most important painter and influence in the Australian art world. He arrived in Australia in 1939 after leaving Hungary following the Nazi invasion of Poland. He was 55 years of age and had established a successful career in his homeland where he was a member of the “The Eight,” a group of painters that introduced modern painting techniques into Hungary.

His early years in Australia were difficult and it wasn’t until 1943 following a successful exhibition at the Notanda Gallery in Sydney that he commence teaching. His first students included Margot Lewers, Oscar Edwards and Yvonne Audette. Others to pass through his classes were John Olsen, George Laszlo and John Coburn.

Orban had a profound understanding of matters related to art and was responsible for writing three influential books. They were A Layman’s Guide to Creative Art (1968), Understanding Art (1969) and What is Art All About (1975).

He considered that the basic principle of art teaching was to influence the student as little as possible and impart to the student the method to discover themselves. The main failing of academic teaching he believed was to stifle creativity in all but the genius.

Orban was a person with a strong opinion and according to him the difference between the painter and the artist was that the painter is someone who tried to make a pictorial copy of reality, whereas the artist uses the elements of reality to make a new creation.

This work Fruit and Palette was painted in Australia in the 1950’s and exhibits Orban’s interest in cubism and its use of familiar objects in creating new imagery. In his early years in Paris Orban came into contact with Picasso and Braque and the exposure to those artists influenced his style though not his creativity. He was constantly experimenting with new materials and his technique moved away from cubism to a more formal abstract expressionism in his later years.

The winner of many awards including the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1967 and 1971, he also conducted summer schools at the University of New England from 1957 to 1967 and gave armchair chats on ABC radio.

His work is included in the collection of every major gallery across Australia and the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest.

Orban was 101 years of age upon his death in Sydney and he had put most of those years into the development and assisting of others to appreciate and understand art.

Like so many artists working during the turn of the 20^th century, few records have been kept to indicate much of the intricacies of their lives in Australia. All that remains as a testament to their time here are the artworks that resurface, few and far between, and in diminishing numbers as they are well sought after by the major galleries and institutions in the country.

George Bourne is one of these artists and this rare and sizable work of his of Bunbury Harbour is only matched in quality by three watercolours that have been acquired by the National Maritime Museum in Canberra.

Records indicate the Bourne arrived in Fremantle from England aboard the Daylight on the 16^th of August 1876 and that he worked most ports between there and Adelaide. He was a resident at Esperance Bay 1897-98 and in Albany c.1900-02 and has been identified as the harbourmaster of Bunbury in 1909. His trade was the maritime industry and he divided his time between working aboard ships and painting scenes of these ships and ports.

Aside from this record and a smattering of newspaper articles alluding to the nature of his character (a series of jaunts at the local courthouse), little has been uncovered about the artist whose delicate landscapes offer a timeless account of life in Western Australia during a period of settlement, burgeoning trade and colonialism.

While watercolour is the obvious medium for a professional ship portraitist due to its quick drying qualities, this oil painting by Bourne would have taken some time and consideration.

From the almost pinpoint couple standing at the waters break to the coastal train rocketing towards the length of the jetty that reaches out to a bustling mooring of three-mast ships, to a lone fisherman floating in the bay as a steam ship passes the breakwater – behind which stands the reconstructed Bunbury lighthouse – we can see that this is a thoughtful composition by Bourne that draws the eye well around the canvas.

Not only does this painting allow the viewer an intricate reconstruction of Bunbury harbour at the time, it also offers a glimpse through the eyes of a working man whose life and livelihood, like many other settlers at the time, was deeply reliant on the ocean and seaborne trade.

The capricious titles that often accompany George Haynes paintings tend to deflect from the effort and technical know-how that had gone into their making. Up Down and Over the River on a Sunday Afternoon is such a title – a light-hearted one for an intricate depiction of East Fremantle from North Fremantle, with the Swan in between and the span that is Stirling Bridge joining them.

It is a picturesque day with the river sparkling and a gentle breeze driving a sailboat before it. A couple hand in hand stroll on a pathway and a young man rests in the shade of the bridge surveying all that is before him. A powerboat casting a wake speeds up river and the buildings that are East Fremantle appear pristine and glow in the midday sun.  It is an idyllic summer’s afternoon on the banks of the Swan River that isn’t a river at all – it’s an estuary.

The moored boats, some with masts, face into the breeze all spaced and positioned to aid the vertical and compliment the horizontal of the panorama. The water is choppy to make reflection minimal and not interfere with the order of the design, which ensures our eye does not wander outside the perimeters Haynes has set us.

As we gaze across the panel from left to right (or east to west if you are a local) we notice a change in the tone and length of the shadows. To the west of the bridge the sky takes on an afterglow as the sun sinks into the ocean. The sandy edge of the river has changed from warm to cool and the buildings are no longer bathed in bright light, there is haziness as we peer into twilight. Suddenly it’s realised – there’s a bit more to this work, this isn’t just a scenic expanse of the river using a wide lens profile, it’s a length of day picture.

Haynes has painted the subtle changes of light we experience during the course of an afternoon. He has progressed time from midday to sunset across the width of the panel and the change of light has been introduced so gently and skilfully that it has hardly been detected, just as a day can slip quietly away when we are relaxing or enjoying ourselves with some other temperate activity.

Haynes likes his audience to look at his pictures and see them as well – he believes the longer you look the more you see and he is often reluctant to give a literal explanation of his intent. With all good works there is pleasure in discovery.

Through this picture Haynes is able to combine all the elements of picture making at which he excels, and then he teases us with the title to disguise his purpose. The subject of his picture is not East Fremantle or the Stirling Bridge or the Swan River and its attendant activity; it is the change of light during day. The scenery, while entertaining and topographically relevant, is really a bonus – it’s a prop to aid with the effect Haynes was seeking.

Others may have titled the work, “The Disappearing Day” or “Metamorphous from Noon to Twilight” but then they would be far too literal and the élan that is Haynes would be lost.

Donald Friend’s Night Fishing is an intoxicating blend of myth and landscape, the figurative and the fanciful. It is both as whimsical and self-aware as the prose that fills the pages of Friend’s perceptive publication Donald Friend in Bali, of which the artwork – in its vibrant detail – wraps around the inside covers.

On what was supposed to be only a visit to Bali, Friend decided to stay. He made a place for himself there, not only through his intimacy with the lifestyle and the locals but also through his place within the landscape. It was said that the gods reside in the mountains and the sea is home to the demons, Friend took advantage of this local belief and was able to secure prime waterfront property in Sanur where he built a grand house and striking garden.

He was known as Tuan Rakshasa or Lord Devil because his residence overlooked the place in the ocean where a ferocious demon lived. One could imagine him delighting in the notoriety of his local persona – his nature was to engulf those around him, be they family, friends or acquaintances, and to be referred to as a devil, let alone Lord Devil, would have caused him no end of mirth.

Friend was able to live an opulent lifestyle on Bali, the sales of his works excelled and enabled him to maintain and support a conspicuous lifestyle that included houseboys and gardeners. He became a collector of paintings, bronzes and artefacts, many of which ended up in Australian museums and galleries.

In addition to painting and drawing, he produced a number of manuscripts for books, some of which were published, Donald Friend in Bali and Bumbooziana being the better known and both displaying his wit, skills of observation and talent as a writer.

Friend wrote of the night fishermen,“… The tide is low. You can see the lamps and flares of a hundred fishermen wading ankle-deep in dark water, netting prawns and small fish. Their lights meander slowly over the shadowy shallows like a festival of stars, incandescence is fragmented in placid ripples. As always, music sounds somewhere near, and a yelp or two from some damned scavenging village dog, and the sound of someone laughing.”

Night Fishing was painted in Sanur when it was mainly a fishing village and superstitions were strong. Friend has drawn on a local legend as the subject of his painting and completed it in his unmistakable style. The demon in this image is most probably the fanged Djero Geide Metajaling who lived on the island of Nusa Penida which was visible from Donald Friend’s house – night was the time the demons were active as their strength was at its most heightened.

“I found de Stael’s painting gave me an avenue of freer individual development – the simplification of form and the simpler movement of action.”

Guy Grey-Smith was a painter and a potter and it was his practice as a potter from which his painting technique evolved. His works in oils and clay could be described as having a refined-coarse quality and being quintessentially Australian. And while (by his own admission) de Stael may have sewn the seed, Grey-Smith shaped the final result to suit his needs as a painter and to contain the ruggedness of the Northern Australian landscape as a subject.

There’s a timeless quality to his works that have roots in the recent past and branches into the future. His paintings provide a constant source of intrigue as they are more complex than they first appear. The nuances in the primary colours, that he uses to telling effect, and the variation in paint quality to represent the different surfaces on show are uniquely his.

The physical act of painting was a performance he enjoyed and in this work Nullagine all of his talents and knowledge of making exciting art is on display.