Fine Art Auctions

Paul Boam (1938-2019) Britain, Australia

Lot 18
Bathurst Harbour, Mount Rugby Variations
1997
Oil on linen
122 x 137cm (stretcher) 143 x 158cm (fr)
Signed, title, dated verso
Estimate: $1,200 - $1,500

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Born in the United Kingdom, Paul studied at Nottingham School of Art, Leeds University, before his arrival in Australia in 1963 teaching at New Town High School, followed in 1965 by his appointed lecturer at the Tasmanian School of Art. Teacher, critic, painter, he further included a strong emphasis of drawing, and also designed sets for the Tasmanian Conservation of Music, while later years working in collage.

‘As the influence of his teaching program at the Arts School had directed his work into pure abstraction, his fascination with the organic had not departed. In this the mostly triangular geometry is infiltrated by more organic forms which seem almost like a growth in and out of, and over, the hard, geometrical elements.’

Following the major commission for Lady Jane Franklin Hall 4 x 10ft in specifically noted colours red, silver, blue Boam developed a series over a number of years highlighting metallic paint and striking geometric Pop canvases.

This was countered by a response to reintroduce organic references with relationship to a particular place, promoted by his visit to Bathurst Harbour in 1996, a journey which he describes as ‘a most powerful, sense of wilderness, sheer drama, just powerfully affected me, so epic’. For six months he worked on canvases but nothing satisfied him to enact that sense of the scene. Then, he recounts, he remembered a story of Kandinsky, working all day he left the studio for a break to come back and opening the door, he saw a strange painting he didn’t recognize in its geometry. It was in fact his canvas which had fallen from the easel and landed upside down. ‘Maybe I could learn something from this. Maybe I could repaint (the inverted canvas) and recreate horizon lines, mountain lines, cloud lines, rain, sun, the blues, the greys. That’s the way in’.

A Creative Life Paul Boam 55 Years of painting in Tasmania Curated by Sean Kelly Moonah Arts Centre 2021 Film interview Troy Melville Move Media Eliza Bourke

Condition Report
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