Australian & International Fine Art Auction

Born in the UK and arrived in Tasmania in 1921, studied 1925-29 Hobart Technical College under Dechaineux, fellow students includes Edith Holmes, Eileen Crowe, Jean Bellete. Studies George Bell School, Melbourne, where she remembered Russell Drysdale as fellow student. 1940 appointed art instructor Hobart Technical College remained until retirement 1964, notable among fellow instructors where Jack Carrington Smith, Rosamond McCulloch, George Davis, notable students included Tony Woods, Owen Lade. April1949 till June 1950 she studied at the Anglo-French Centre, St Johns Wood, London and in Paris at the Academie Chaumiere, and Atelier Croqouis, Paris. She also took extra instruction privately from Eduoard-Georges MacAvoy (who taught at the Chaumiere), interested in the school of Paris' such as that by Picasso, Matisse, Marcharnd and Yves Brayer. After some travel in France Italy and England (where she met Philip Connard and attended classes at Goldsmith's College, London, she returned to Hobart in 1950.

Further studies at East Sydney Technical College under John Passmore, Godfrey Miller and Dorothy Thornhill 1961 - 1966. Late teaching connections connected her with Frank Hodgkinson and Michael Shannon. First exhibited Art Society of Tasmania 1929 ,continued, founding member Contemporary Art Society of Australia in Melbourne and Hobart.

Reference Edith Holmes Dorothy Stoner two retrospectives Hendrik Kolenberg TAMG 25 August - 2 October 1983

Among Australia's most successful portrait painters Holocaust survivor, society darling and highly acclaimed portrait painter, Cassab was first woman to win the Archibald twice.

She studied in Europe and with her husband arriving in Aust 1951, an early letter of introduction to Charles Lloyd Jones, whose family owned David Jones, re-established her portraiture career.

Cassab immersed herself in Sydney's art scene, befriending artists such as Jeffrey Smart. Talented, beautiful and exuding European sophistication, she quickly became a media favourite, too. From 1952, when her work was included in a group exhibition, she was not only regularly reviewed, but also featured in society pages.

Prizes came, and solo exhibitions, which numbered more than 70 in her lifetime. Then, in 1957, the first of many trips overseas to browse galleries and paint portraits. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Cassab was in demand internationally, including among British, Indian and Thai royalty. Work included portraits 1961 Royal Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Kent, 1962 Queen Sirikit of Thailand for Aust Official gift commissioned by Menzies, 1962 UK Lord Astor. 1964 Won Perth Prize again, her works admired by Drysdale.

Commissions at home, including Opera House portraits of Joan Sutherland and Robert Helpmann, were overwhelming – although she increasingly preferred non-commissioned portraits of friends, which could be more experimental. Artist friends Stanislaus Rapotec and Margo Lewers were the subjects of her 1960 and 1967 Archibald winners.

A boon for the development of Cassab's style, which balanced the figurative and abstract, and her less celebrated landscapes, was the first of numerous visits to central Australia in 1959. She came to describe it as her "spiritual home". During the 1960’s her abstract and portraits flourished, however she resisted pressure to choose one over the other.

Her usual pattern was to spend 2 months a year in Europe, painting and exhibiting. Her 1981 Paris exhibition which then toured in London, was reviewed by Edward Lucie-Smith Art International 1982 “Judy Cassab is now one of the most distinguished Australian painters, finding her own terms for the experience of the Australian landscape like the late Russell Drysdale and like Sydney Nolan immediately before her”

In 1988 she was awarded the AGNSW Cite International des Arts Residency and stayed April – June 1989.

“The postmodern architecture of the Pompidou Centre, with its colour-coded water pipes, ventilator shafts and electricity lines, all placed on the outside of the building, gave her an idea for saying something new about a city which too many artists had commemorated. A series of paintings was inspired by the surreal juxtaposition of the architecture of Old Paris and the Pompidou’s white funnel shaped ventilator shafts, which she called the ‘Ned Kellys’ During this period she also travelled through Place des Vosges, Giverny, Chambord, Vienna, Leopold Museum, Belvedere, Budapest.

Ref Lynn, Elwyn Judy Cassab Places, Faces, Fantasties 1981
Niall, Brenda Judy Cassab A Portrait Allen & Unwin 2005
These works come from the Nettlefold Estate.

Well known Tasmanian based artist who brings humour and light hearted comments to highlight issues of animal rights and forestry. Primarily a landscape painter, Michael won the Glover Prize in 2004, Glover Prize People’s Choice Award in 2011 and 2012, and the Waterhouse Art Prize in 2005. Recent Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne shows sold out.

Tracey Moffatt has just been announced to represent Australia at the next Venice Biennale in 2017.

Tracey Moffatt - Under the Sign of Scorpio, 2005

At a moment’s glance - My photo series, Under the Sign of Scorpio, depicts me appearing as forty well-known extraordinary, women from history and popular culture, all born under the astrological sign of Scorpio. Since I was born on November 12th and am also a Scorpio, I have been intrigued about what makes the Scorpio tick.

The shooting of this Scorpio series, as well as the printing, has taken me six months of research and immersion. Being Indira Gandhi was again researched and thought through. An Indian woman theatre director in New York’s East Village suggested I dress in white muslin, and ditch the idea of a coloured sari. I have also placed Indira on a mountain top. As a result my picture hopefully has a holy spiritual quality.

My Scorpio series pays tribute to a vast array of women. I’ve portrayed myself as Roseanne Barr, Goldie Hawn, Whoopi Goldberg (all comic geniuses); Hillary Rodham Clinton (to become the first American woman President); Shere Hite (sex report writer, I’ll never forget how she stormed off an Australian current affairs television show in the 1970s when the host was a sexist bastard to her). Marcia Langton and Oodgeroo Noonuccal (both Australian Aboriginal intellectuals and political activists and heroines to me); Tina Brown and Anna Wintour (brilliant English magazine editors); Fran Leibowitz (wit like no other); Edith Head (Hollywood’s most successful costumier); Marie Dressler (superb character actress: watch the film Dinner at Eight (1933) and wait for Marie’s final sizzling line to Jean Harlow); and Billie Jean King (the most alive tennis player ever). In my portraits I have tried to capture their spirit and likeness, but only “at a moment’s glance”. It is almost like the moment when you see a famous person in a restaurant. Everyone is craning their necks to get a glimpse, only to end up with a fleeting view of the back of the celebrity as they exit into the VIP room.

I shot the photographs with a simple digital camera in my loft against a bed sheet curtain, and in my cramped awful bathroom. I then added the high-key supernatural coloured landscape backgrounds to the images in Photoshop on my computer. Rather than a formal portrait, I wanted a very pop, almost comic book quality. I propose that all of these women are ‘pop figures’, they are a part of the landscape of popular western culture.

Other Scorpios in my photo series not mentioned in my essay are: Grace Slick, ‘60s psychedelic pop star from Jefferson Airplane. She once said she wanted to slip LSD into President Richard Nixon’s tea at the White House, “so he could see reality”.

Tracey Moffatt is represented by Roslyn Oxley Gallery Sydney. The Ghandi portrait was the signature piece for the series. These are all from limited edition of only 21 that were released across her galleries in Sydney, New York and Europe, the Ghandi and the Hillary Clinton editions have sold out.

Art Collector magazine, from 1999 -2011 Moffatt was voted in the top 50 most collectable artists for the years 1999,2000,2002,2003, 2004

Late colonial artist and etcher, produced many topographical artworks in Tas where he lived and worked for many years. He made many trips to Victoria around 1900-1930. Member of the Vic Arts Society. Represented TMAG, most state and regional galleries.

Born Melbourne and studied at RMIT, Walker came to Hobart 1947. Typical of the period he went overseas for further experience and studied under Henry Moore and further in Italy working in two Italian sculptural foundries between 1953 and 1970 before returning home and establishing his home and own foundry at Campania. He pioneered a unique method of mould heating for the lost wax process that enabled him to produce large scale sculptures very economically. Walker has created a unique presence of major public works predominately in Hobart however it is very rare to have available a work of a smaller scale and also to have one available for acquisition.

A selection of major public commissions since 1969 include
Westpac Fountain Sculpture 'Tidal Pools Sydney 1970, relocated to lower Sandy Bay 2013
Entrance Façade, CBA, Martin Place, Sydney 1970
Antipodean Voyage, French Memorial fountain, Huon Pine, Botanical Gardens Hobart, 1972
Justice, Façade, Supreme Court Building, Hobart 1973
Journey to the Southlands fountain Salamanca Square 1977
The Tank Stream Fountain, Circular Quay, Sydney 1981
Antarctic Tableau, Reserve Bank Macquarie Street, Hobart 1984
The Tasman Fountain, Salamanca Place Hobart 1988
Australian Coat of Arms, Dept Foreign Affairs Canberra 1996
The Australian Stockman Royal Melbourne Showgrounds 1996
Bernacchi Tribute Victoria Dock, Hobart 2002

Many of these works are classified under National Heritage Register.
Living close to Hobart and the connections to the Southern Ocean and Antarctic along with his love of birds and marine life, saw many of the works encompass natural studies of fauna.

Born in Victoria in 1927, Whisson studied at Swinburne Technical College. He held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1952 and has exhibited widely since then. His works are represented in several state and provincial collections.

Max Beckmann was born in Leipzig in 1884, and completed his studies at the Art Academy in Weimar. He then moved to Berlin, where he joined the Berlin Secession until leaving to help form the Free Secession. During the First World War the artist served as a medical volunteer for a year before suffering a mental breakdown. After this point Beckmann’s style changed. From Impressionistic landscapes and grand religious and mythological works inspired by Delacroix, Rubens and Rembrandt, he began to use his work as a form of social commentary. These works depict an era of change and upheaval in Europe and are characterised by confronting subject matter, strong linear marks, angular forms and foreshortened picture planes. Notable among his technique where woodblock, drypoint etching and lithograph prints.

Hinter den Kulissen, from “Jahrmarkt” 1921 (published 1922)
Drypoint. Edition number 75. This work unnumbered. Signed in pencil lower right. Published by Marees Gesellschaft with blind stamp lower right. Hofmaier 193 B In Jahrmarkt (The Annual Fair), Beckmann imagines the world as a travelling carnival teeming with an eclectic cast of actors, dancers, and circus entertainers who perform in the theatre of life. Beckmann casts himself as a carnival barker in the series’ opening plate, ringing a small bell to announce the show, and cajoling viewers to enter the Circus Beckmann, a curious realm of outsiders ad misfits. Many of the protagonists are friends and acquaintances of the artist: he even includes his wife Minna in the series, who famously appears along with Beckmann balancing on a tightrope. As the scenes of the portfolio unfold, a pageant of players takes the stage: a tall man, a sharp shooter, a snake charmer, exotic dancers, musicians, and other circus entertainers perform in succession. In one plate from the series, Bechmann presents a carousal crowded with a diverse lot of humanity, an apt metaphor for the apparent aimlessness of life. The series was inspired in part by Beckmann’s visits to the Prater, a Viennese amusement park, where he observed the performers and visitors and sketched them from life. Justly celebrated for its incisive observations on the human condition, Jahrmarkt is a brilliant example of Beckmann’s mature graphic style and seminal publication of German Expressionism.

Joan Miro Ferra was born April 20 1893 in Barcelona, into the family of a goldsmith and watchmaker. Miro started drawing classes at the age of seven, but later yielding to his parents insistence to receive a decent profession, took business classes and became a book-keeper. Simultaneously in 1907-1910 Joan Miro studied art at the academy La Escuela se la Lonja in Barcelona in the class of the landscapist Modesto Urgell Inglada and professor of decorative and applied arts Jose Pasco Merisa. In 1912-15 he studied in the private academy of Francese D’A Gali Fabra. In 1918, together with some like-minded friends Miro founded “Agrupacio Courbet”, a group of young artists who opposed themselves to conservative traditions in Catalan art. In his works 1913-17 the most important are the influences of Cezanne and the Fauvists; objects are close to each other and shine with bright and broken colours; striped patterns make up a kind of decorative ornament.

Harland Miller is both a writer and an artist, practicing both roles over a peripatetic career in both Europe and America.

After living and exhibiting in New York, Berlin and New Orleans during the 80s and 90s, Miller achieved critical acclaim with his debut novel, ‘Slow down Arthur, Stick to Thirty’ (2000); In 2001 Miller produced a series of paintings based of the dust jackets of Penguin books. By combining the motif inherent in the Penguin book, Miller found a way to marry aspects of Pop Art, abstraction and figurative painting at once, with his writer’s love of text. The ensuing images are humorous, sardonic and nostalgic at the same time, while the painting style hints at the dog-eared, scuffed covers of the Penguin classics themselves. Miller continues to create work in this vein, expanding the book covers to include his own phrases, some hilarious and absurd, others with a lush melancholy. Perhaps well know for his titles Death What’s in it for Me, Fuck Art Lets Dance

Harland Miller was born in Yorkshire in 1964 and lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include 'Don't Let the Bastards Cheer You Up', BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2009) and 'The Next Life's On Me', White Cube Hoxton Square, London (2012).

This print is silk screen on 410grm Somerset paper, beautiful sensual work, his more recent prints are giclee . This is the first time one of Millers's works have been available for sale in Australia.

Winner Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize 2008, City Hobart Art Prize 1994