John Firth-Smith

Australian Art Resources, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above in 2003

(possibly) Peter Clarke, John Firth-Smith, John Peart: recent works, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, 28 February - 19 March 1987
John Firth-Smith, Robert Lindsay Gallery, Melbourne, August - 3 September 1994

Gavin Wilson, John Firth-Smith: A voyage that never ends, Sydney: Craftsman House, 2000, pl. 88, p. 161 (illus.)

There are no tears, or dirts to canvas. It has a very thick and varied surface but there is no apparent cracking to the surface, with the exception of extremely minor crazing with the ellipse. In the largest white shape along the lower edge, the thickness of the paint would have taken a long time to dry. At some stage before the work has dried, the work has been placed against another surface. This may have occurred in the artist's studio. This had caused slight discolouration. Minor scuffing to the edges.
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John Firth-Smith paints the natural world in an abstract pictorial language, or as Robert Lindsay puts it: 'Since the 1970s (he) has been committed to abstracting patterns of nature and the physical environment with works that reference the landscape while steadfastly remaining within the vernacular of modernist abstraction.'¹ 

From the time of his first solo exhibition at Gallery A in 1966, Firth-Smith's paintings have been greatly inspired by Sydney Harbour.  However, as Gavin Wilson notes, he is not content to present the harbour's beauties in the observational-descriptive manner of Brett Whiteley, but rather explores its waters and varieties of maritime activity above, upon and below the waterline.²  In the early 1980s, the artist had several separations from Sydney, travelling to Kakadu, New York and Melbourne, with each trip bringing new inspirations in different landscapes. The present work is one of a group of pictures painted on his return home in 1984.  While the works of the early 1980s were concerned with new places and 'hard' landscape, Firth-Smith's return to Sydney marks a return to the visual exploration of the sea.  Many paintings of this time, such as the present work, employ the motif of the ellipse breaking the painterly surface of the canvas, with the deep blue of the ground and the thick line and curve of the white suggesting an ongoing, unbreaking wave foaming across the sea's horizon. 

Nevertheless, what is most constant for John Firth-Smith is the emphasis upon the construction of each painting.  As he has stated, 'I do use the harbour as a visual catalyst, but it becomes another thing when you start the painting.'³  Each individual work represents an exploration of the act of painting and the problems of painting, as defined by the (late) modernist tradition.  We are constantly aware of the hand of the artist in Firth-Smith's paintings.  In Returning Wave the repeated gesture builds thickly tangible layers of oil mimic the uneven surface of the water and are further broken by the emphatic calligraphy of the elliptical ripple. 

1.  Robert Lindsay, John Firth-Smith, Robert Lindsay Gallery: Melbourne, 1994
2. Gavin Wilson, John Firth-Smith: A voyage that never ends, Sydney: Craftsman House, 2000, p. 82
3. Wilson, op. cit., p. 134