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THE RUTH PROWSE COLLECTION Ruth Prowse (1920-2005) was the director of Gallery Huntly, an important venue for visual culture in Canberra for more than thirty years. She opened the gallery at her home in 1974, at a time when there were very few commercial galleries operating in the nation's capital- the National Gallery of Australia was still in a warehouse in the suburb of Fishwick. The range of artists she showed was impressive and in many instances these artists not only had their first show in Canberra, but their first show in Australia, in her gallery. She championed a European sensibility in art at a time when few other Australian galleries exhibited such work. Prowse rode the wave of the maturing of Canberra as an art capital and played a significant role in laying the foundations for Canberra as the capital of fine art printmaking. The Canberra Museum held The Legacy of Ruth Prowse: Works of Art Donated from her Private Collection in April 2012.

Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)

Smoke Mirror Circle

Details

Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)
Smoke Mirror Circle
numbered '4/12' (on the side of the base)
bronze with gold patina, perspex and metal frame
20¼ in. (51.4 cm.) high, including the revolving base
Conceived in 1972.

Provenance

with Bruton Gallery, where acquired by Ruth Prowse in January 1978.

Literature

Jacob Nyenhuis, Myth and the Creative Process: Michael Ayrton and the Myth of Daedalus, Wayne State University Press, 2003, p. 192. no. 766.

Exhibited

Canberra, The Australian National University, Drill Hall Gallery, The Ruth Prowse Collection - Thirty Years of Collecting April - May 2004, no. 11.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

'In Smoke Mirror Circle figures appear to be caught in a revolving door, their images multiplied by the transluscent perspex. In actuality, however, Smoke Mirror Circle represents a circling dance movement, calling to mind the dancing floor of Ariadne mentioned in the Iliad'. Nyehuis p. 192.

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