- 24
Brett Whiteley
Description
- Brett Whiteley
- STARING AT THE GARDEN AFTER LOOKING AT THE SUN FOR A MINUTE
- Signed Brett Whiteley and stamped with studio stamp lower right; signed, inscribed and dated Staring at the Garden / after looking at the sun for a minute 1984 Lindfield on reverse; bears artist's name and title on gallery label on reverse
- Oil and mixed media on canvas
- 75.5 by 60.5cm
Provenance
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above
Exhibited
Condition
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."
Catalogue Note
Brett Whiteley occasionally sketched at Lindfield on Sydney's north shore, a short run up the Pacific Highway from his home at Lavender Bay; he made a colour lithograph, Lindfield Gardens, in 1978. Interestingly, that image features the device of a circular orange sun. In this other Lindfield subject, the celestial orb has become a negative (cut-out) white: the moon.
Painted in the year he won the Wynne Prize (for the third time) for South Coast after the Rain, the present work is a typically Whiteleyesque painting-drawing hybrid. The previous year, he had completed the print series Another way of looking at Vincent van Gogh 1888-1889, and the swirling curvatures and intense, repetitive patterning of grass and leaves and star-spotted sky would seem to suggest the ongoing influence of van Gogh's visionary, hallucinatory drawing style. Certainly Staring in the Garden... expresses something of Whiteley's own sensual and metaphysical yearnings, both in its zen-flavoured title and its refined, reductive monochrome, a twilight-oriental blue and white.