Ringbark Country

Details

GRACE COSSINGTON SMITH (1892-1984)
Ringbark Country
signed and dated 'G Cossington Smith 38' (lower right); dated and titled 'Ringbark Creek Country 1938' on gallery and exhibition labels (on the reverse)
oil on board
39.5 x 34.5 cm

Provenance

Private collection, Melbourne
anon. sale, Christie's, Melbourne, Australian and International Paintings, including Contemporary Australian Art, 1 May 2000, lot 114
Acquired from the above by the present owners

Literature

B James, Grace Cossington Smith, Sydney, 1990, pl. 73, p. 114

Exhibited

Sydney, Macquarie Galleries, 8 November - 20 November 1939
Sydney, Macquarie Galleries, Paintings 1925 to the Present Day, May - June 1968, cat. no. 28
Sydney, Painter's Gallery; Melbourne, Niagara Galleries, A Survey Exhibition, 8 September - 26 October 1987, cat. no. 23

Special notice

A 10% Goods and Services tax (G.S.T) will be charged on the Buyer's Premium in all lots in this sale

Lot Essay

"Cossington Smith showed 'dry country' works with the Contemporary Group in 1938 and 1939, and in her Macquarie exhibition in 1939. In that show Ringbark Country, took the theme of remoteness and denudation to a nearly surrealistic extreme. Drysdale and Purves-Smith came to the same anti-mythis conclusions about our relationship with the land, but not more forcibly. A dolorous, stripped tree fails to prevent the sky's collapsing tent coalescing with the mire. The English artist, Paul Nash, who scored two asterisks in Cossington Smith's copy of the catalogue to the Telegraph exhibition, is a conceivable presence in this astonishing work." (B James, Grace Cossington Smith, Sydney, 1990, p. 114)

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