Important Australian Art Including Works from the Qantas Collection

/

Lot 44
  • 44

Donald Friend

Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 AUD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Donald Friend
  • AYAM2 KESAYANGAN: 1 A MISCELLANEA 1968-1978
  • One manuscript volume; red leather binding, the cover gold stamped: AYAM2 KESAYANGAN/ DARI/ DONALD FRIEND; inside front cover gold stamped: M. DONNET (binder); buff linen front and end papers; fitted lidded box

  • 185 leaves, paginated (erratically) 2-190. Holograph in black ink on cream paper, with various other papers inserted. Illustrations in pen and ink, coloured inks, wash, gouache, watercolour, gold leaf, ballpoint pen and collage; some drawn separateley and pasted in. 
    Illustrated title page inscribed: AYAM2 KESAYANGAN/ which might be translated as 'Beloved chickens', 'Pet Chicks', / or- 'Compassion for Roosters', or 'Love Towards Poultry', / or even - 'Affection for Domesticated Birds' - 'Love Birds' - equally it might mean 'Yearning towards Cockerels', Yet again, / 'Passionate Attachment to Hens'; whilst 'Strong Sentiment / for Cocks' could also be an acceptable rendering. However whatever the title might signify, it pertains to this / Multi-hued MISCELLANEA comprised of / DRAWINGS. PAINTINGS, VERSES, POEMS, QUOTATIONS, / INCUNABULA, COMMENTARIES, SATIRES, LIBELS AND/ PASTICHES EXECUTED IN A GREAT VARIETY OF / STYLES / BY DONALD FRIEND/ whilst resident on the island of Bali during the years/ 1968-1978

    Contains: miscellaneous erotica, mainly preparatory drawings and text for Bumbooziana and codex Bumbooziaticus, also a great variety of texts and illustrations, mostly satirical or humourous.      

  • 50.8 by 42.4 by 4.7 cm

Provenance

Private collection, Melbourne
Fine Australian Paintings, Sotheby's, Melbourne, 27 November 1995, lot 15
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above 

Exhibited

Donald Friend 1915-1989, Retrospective, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 9 February - 25 March 1990 and tour, cat. 3.2

Literature

Amanda Beresford, 'Manuscripts', in Barry Pearce, Donald Friend, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1990, pp. 136-137

Catalogue Note

As Amanda Beresford explains in the catalogue for the Friend retrospective of 1990, Ayan2 Kesayangan was the first of the artist's oeuvre of illustrated manuscripts. This was one of the four volumes bound for Friend by Madame Donnat of Villa L'ombreuse, Marseilles, whose husband often visited the artist in Bali. The volume was evidently bound to include blank pages which Friend filled during a period of some ten years to create a veritable treasure trove of imagary and text. Over time, many of these drawings evidently found their way into his two great witty erotic fantasies, Bumbooziana and the unpublished Codex Bumbooziaticus. 1
Many of the Ayam2 Kesayangan paintings are richly embellished with gold leaf, the text an integral part of his decorative scheme, reminiscent of the glorious Byzantine and medieval manuscripts which Friend much admired. Indeed the manuscript became such an increasingly important part of his output that he sometimes worried about neglecting his painting as a consequence. Such books 'allowed Donald Friend a greater freedom than did his painting to explore ideas of diverse kinds requiring verbal as well as visual expression, and he could please himself'. 2

These rare manuscripts are now all in private collections or the rare book holdings of national and state libraries. Friend's Ayam2 Kesayangan III 1980-82 is now in the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

1. Beresford A., in Pearce B., Donald Friend, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1990, p. 137.   
2. Op cit., p. 132.