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Lot Essay
In August 1953 Ian Fairweather arrived back in Sydney after his ill-fated raft voyage from Darwin to Bali. Almost immediately he returned to Bribie Island, off the Queensland coast close to Brisbane, which he had visited in 1945. There he built the first of a series of thatched huts in a native pine forest where he was to live for the rest of his life.
As Murray Bail points out in his account of the artist's life and work, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, if Fairweather had not survived his foolish raft voyage to Bali his work to that date would have done little more than make him a footnote in art history. It is the extraordinarily creative period of the late 1950s and early 1960s that give Fairweather such an important place in Australian art. Painting in almost impossibly primitive conditions, he drew on the richness of his experience of the world and his knowledge of Asian and Aboriginal art and western modernism to create some of the most beautiful images ever painted in Australia.
In one of Hazel de Berg's invaluable recordings with Australian artists in the National Library of Australia, Fairweather says, Painting to me is something of a tightrope act; it is between representation and the other thing - whatever that is. It is difficult to keep one's balance. In Queen of Diamonds Fairweather's tightrope act is perfectly visible.
The image, suggested by the title, is definable, but not clearly visible. The viewer can, with the aid of the title, determine a figure, or figures, standing. The reference is to the world of reality. However, the balance between this world and the world of Fairweather's imagination is taut. The act of painting, Fairweather's driving force, is really the subject of this work.
The burst of energy that accompanied Fairweather's return to Australia and settlement on Bribie Island resulted in a self-confidence not seen in earlier work. The paintings are suddenly larger, more complex and sophisticated, and the brushwork more alive, less descriptive. In Queen of Diamonds the lines that suggest the image are carefully, but energetically painted. They are the marks of a mature calligrapher, sure of the beauty and power of his brushstroke. These brushstrokes sit on the surface, as the last strongest lines to define the subject, but they also sit on top of rich layers of underpainting, the result of the artist's practice of working on a painting over a long period of time, and constantly refreshing his vision. The colours possess the subtlety we expect of Fairweather. A range of soft greys, pinks and mauves are typical of the complexity of Fairweather's palette at the height of his greatest creativity.
Queen of Diamonds, is among the most beautiful of all his works from Fairweather's most creative period. Never illustrated or exhibited since it was first sold, the freshness of its image is remarkable.
We are grateful to John McPhee for providing this catalogue entry
As Murray Bail points out in his account of the artist's life and work, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, if Fairweather had not survived his foolish raft voyage to Bali his work to that date would have done little more than make him a footnote in art history. It is the extraordinarily creative period of the late 1950s and early 1960s that give Fairweather such an important place in Australian art. Painting in almost impossibly primitive conditions, he drew on the richness of his experience of the world and his knowledge of Asian and Aboriginal art and western modernism to create some of the most beautiful images ever painted in Australia.
In one of Hazel de Berg's invaluable recordings with Australian artists in the National Library of Australia, Fairweather says, Painting to me is something of a tightrope act; it is between representation and the other thing - whatever that is. It is difficult to keep one's balance. In Queen of Diamonds Fairweather's tightrope act is perfectly visible.
The image, suggested by the title, is definable, but not clearly visible. The viewer can, with the aid of the title, determine a figure, or figures, standing. The reference is to the world of reality. However, the balance between this world and the world of Fairweather's imagination is taut. The act of painting, Fairweather's driving force, is really the subject of this work.
The burst of energy that accompanied Fairweather's return to Australia and settlement on Bribie Island resulted in a self-confidence not seen in earlier work. The paintings are suddenly larger, more complex and sophisticated, and the brushwork more alive, less descriptive. In Queen of Diamonds the lines that suggest the image are carefully, but energetically painted. They are the marks of a mature calligrapher, sure of the beauty and power of his brushstroke. These brushstrokes sit on the surface, as the last strongest lines to define the subject, but they also sit on top of rich layers of underpainting, the result of the artist's practice of working on a painting over a long period of time, and constantly refreshing his vision. The colours possess the subtlety we expect of Fairweather. A range of soft greys, pinks and mauves are typical of the complexity of Fairweather's palette at the height of his greatest creativity.
Queen of Diamonds, is among the most beautiful of all his works from Fairweather's most creative period. Never illustrated or exhibited since it was first sold, the freshness of its image is remarkable.
We are grateful to John McPhee for providing this catalogue entry