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Lot Essay
In looking at Tucker's output from the 1960s it becomes evident that
"there are three series of works that make up the bulk of figure paintings: the Explorers, Intruders and Fauns In the Faun paintings of the sixties Tucker produces a somewhat sinister fantasy creature of the Australian bush - less a faun, perhaps, than Tucker's equivalent of that legendary Australian creature the Bunyip." (C Uhl, Albert Tucker, Melbourne, 1969, p.80)
After thirteen years in Europe and America, Tucker had returned to Australia in 1960 with a renewed interest in and a new way of thinking about, landscape, or what he called 'land image', that being the land and its native wildlife. Like his contemporaries Boyd and Nolan, Tucker became fascinated with man's interaction with, and ability to survive (or otherwise), the threatening and unique Australian terrain.
In Faun attacked by Parrot, Tucker explores the theme of man at war with his environment. His use of strong visual metaphors proves his thesis that man is moulded by his relationship to the natural world. The faun (man) appears secondary to the surrounding landscape, which is guarded by its natural inhabitant, the parrot. Man is tested and attacked by nature, and the question remains as to his ability and means of survival. As Robert Hughes commented " what is interesting about Tucker's work is his statement of human dilemmas, or rather one dilemma: the survival of identity. Tucker celebrates man's minimum function, which is to survive. His figures go through disasters and come out ravaged, but they do come out(R Hughes, The Art of Australia, Melbourne, 1966, p. 231)
"there are three series of works that make up the bulk of figure paintings: the Explorers, Intruders and Fauns In the Faun paintings of the sixties Tucker produces a somewhat sinister fantasy creature of the Australian bush - less a faun, perhaps, than Tucker's equivalent of that legendary Australian creature the Bunyip." (C Uhl, Albert Tucker, Melbourne, 1969, p.80)
After thirteen years in Europe and America, Tucker had returned to Australia in 1960 with a renewed interest in and a new way of thinking about, landscape, or what he called 'land image', that being the land and its native wildlife. Like his contemporaries Boyd and Nolan, Tucker became fascinated with man's interaction with, and ability to survive (or otherwise), the threatening and unique Australian terrain.
In Faun attacked by Parrot, Tucker explores the theme of man at war with his environment. His use of strong visual metaphors proves his thesis that man is moulded by his relationship to the natural world. The faun (man) appears secondary to the surrounding landscape, which is guarded by its natural inhabitant, the parrot. Man is tested and attacked by nature, and the question remains as to his ability and means of survival. As Robert Hughes commented " what is interesting about Tucker's work is his statement of human dilemmas, or rather one dilemma: the survival of identity. Tucker celebrates man's minimum function, which is to survive. His figures go through disasters and come out ravaged, but they do come out(R Hughes, The Art of Australia, Melbourne, 1966, p. 231)