.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
1959 was a breakthrough year for Ray Crooke as an artist. He had his first major solo exhibition at Australian Galleries, Melbourne, which was a sell out. Encouraged by his success, Crooke devoted himself to painting and over the next decade he exhibited constantly, establishing his reputation as Australia's foremost painter of the tropics and island life.
It was military service during the 1940s that originally took Crooke from Melbourne to Cape York, Thursday Island, Papua New Guinea and Borneo, giving him his first taste of the tropics. Following his discharge he returned to Melbourne to complete his studies at Swinburne Technical College. In 1949, following his graduation, the lure of the tropics saw him return to the Torres Strait, which set him on his path as an artist. During this time Crooke kept a journal, an ordinary foolscap notebook, which he enlivened with text, sketches and some watercolour. This early trip and the resulting journal became the reference point for many of his most important paintings.
Painted at the beginning of this most productive period, islanders features the hallmarks of Crooke's paintings: a keen observation of colour, bright and splendid in the direct light, a response to nature in the contrasting and ever abundant lush foliage of the tropical landscape, a close affinity to the island people and an underlying sense of peace and harmony.
In 1949 Crooke wrote in his Thursday Island journal:
"Sometimes this world is very near and real to me. I find it in music and in sleep, memories of past ages sweeping down in patterns of sensation. I find a strange island where ghosts of ancient glories linger, where the winds and the flowers are sweet and the people still gentle and smiling, where man is conscious of his grandeur and is content to live simply in harmony with the forces around and within him. Yet if we found this island we would destroy it in a month. So we must be content to write symphonies and paint pictures about it, always yearning for the vague dream world that seems so real..." (Ray Crooke cited in P Denham, Island Journal Ray Crooke, Brisbane, 2000, pp. 28 - 29)
In islanders, Crooke invites the viewer to be an observer looking through the tropical foliage into this idyllic island life. His work reveals a place realised from part memory, part myth and part imagination. It is an expression of truth as he sees it at the time, a creation of heightened reality as he seeks a way to simplify the world, to find something still and eternal in a changing environment. It is this element that has made his work so endearing. Crooke has studied and shared Islander ways of living and subsequently, in his paintings, he is looking for the 'essence' of island life, a place where the "pattern of life is so simple that it never intrudes harshly... where there is an innocence of the complexity of life." (R Crooke, op. cit, p. 42)
We are grateful to Peter Denham for providing this catalogue entry
It was military service during the 1940s that originally took Crooke from Melbourne to Cape York, Thursday Island, Papua New Guinea and Borneo, giving him his first taste of the tropics. Following his discharge he returned to Melbourne to complete his studies at Swinburne Technical College. In 1949, following his graduation, the lure of the tropics saw him return to the Torres Strait, which set him on his path as an artist. During this time Crooke kept a journal, an ordinary foolscap notebook, which he enlivened with text, sketches and some watercolour. This early trip and the resulting journal became the reference point for many of his most important paintings.
Painted at the beginning of this most productive period, islanders features the hallmarks of Crooke's paintings: a keen observation of colour, bright and splendid in the direct light, a response to nature in the contrasting and ever abundant lush foliage of the tropical landscape, a close affinity to the island people and an underlying sense of peace and harmony.
In 1949 Crooke wrote in his Thursday Island journal:
"Sometimes this world is very near and real to me. I find it in music and in sleep, memories of past ages sweeping down in patterns of sensation. I find a strange island where ghosts of ancient glories linger, where the winds and the flowers are sweet and the people still gentle and smiling, where man is conscious of his grandeur and is content to live simply in harmony with the forces around and within him. Yet if we found this island we would destroy it in a month. So we must be content to write symphonies and paint pictures about it, always yearning for the vague dream world that seems so real..." (Ray Crooke cited in P Denham, Island Journal Ray Crooke, Brisbane, 2000, pp. 28 - 29)
In islanders, Crooke invites the viewer to be an observer looking through the tropical foliage into this idyllic island life. His work reveals a place realised from part memory, part myth and part imagination. It is an expression of truth as he sees it at the time, a creation of heightened reality as he seeks a way to simplify the world, to find something still and eternal in a changing environment. It is this element that has made his work so endearing. Crooke has studied and shared Islander ways of living and subsequently, in his paintings, he is looking for the 'essence' of island life, a place where the "pattern of life is so simple that it never intrudes harshly... where there is an innocence of the complexity of life." (R Crooke, op. cit, p. 42)
We are grateful to Peter Denham for providing this catalogue entry