LEONARD FRENCH

Private collection, Melbourne; a gift from the artist

Good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Leonard French is a distinctive voice in Australian art. Like contemporaries such as Roger Kemp and Lawrence Daws, he combined the rich, decorative colour painting of European and American late modernism with a taste for the sacred art of various religious traditions, and more generally for mythic-mystic narratives and symbols. His stained glass ceiling for the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria evokes the devotional glories of the great Gothic cathedrals, while the hieratic frontality and extensive gilding of his paintings owes much to the Byzantine tradition. French was twice a winner of the Blake Prize for Religious Art - in 1963 and 1980.

The present work was painted after the artist returned from a trip to South America in 1971, and the central image of the turtle may refer to the mythology of Taíno and other Precolumbian peoples, though the amphibian does also appear in creation stories from European and Asian cultures. In French's cosmic map the world turtle swims within a wave-scored universal ocean, with a crescent moon and stars at his head and a dream-catcher target sun at his tail. Around this earth-mandala runs the snaking form of a river of life, interrupted by a rainbow and a fish icon.

Rich in mythic resonance, bold in design and sumptuous in colour, texture and patina, Signs of Life is a decorative tour de force, a work of great presence by an artist at the peak of his career.