Among the highlights of the timed online sale which carries an estimated total value of $700,000 – $1,000,000 is an exciting group of International Contemporary works consigned from a private collection in Sydney. Acquired originally from Gagosian gallery, Beverly Hills, the immersive Woods, 1996 (Lot 12 ) by prominent New York artist Ross Bleckner offers a poignant meditation upon mortality and the human condition, while in Personal Distance (Four), 2003 and Frozen Shadow: Female Spirit V, 2003 (lots 10 and 11) – both from Baldwin Gallery, Aspden – fellow American Carroll Dunham employs a crude cartoonish stylisation of the human figure to playfully examine the tropes of Western painting. By contrast, the enigmatic, tonal depiction of an isolated male figure by Scottish painter, Stephen Conroy draws upon precisely upon this tradition, evoking the work of Walter Sickert, Degas and the Glasgow figurative school in his mysterious, slightly disturbing Study – The Staircase, 1994 (Lot 9 ).
Closer to home, key works from the offering of Australian Contemporary Art include Petrina Hicks’ iconic juxtaposition of beauty and anxiety in her flawless portrait of an adolescent girl seemingly swallowing her pet budgie (Lot 4 ); John Beard’s sublime The Gap, 2005 (Lot 21 ), awarded the prestigious Archibald Prize by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2005, and his powerful self-portrait, Head I, 2004 (Lot 22 ); Aida Tomescu’s blazing red-orange Parme, 2007 (Lot 1 ) recipient of a Special Mention in the AGNSW’s Sir John Sulman Prize in 2008; and a stunning magnified floral bloom painting by Tim Maguire,UNTITLED 96U19, 1996 (Lot 23 ).
Notably the online auction also features excellent examples by Australian moderns such as John Brack’s acute observation of suburbia in The Surrey Gardens, 1961 (Lot 17 ); two vibrant, pulsating compositions by John Coburn (lots 13 and 14); an exquisite early abstraction by Guy Grey-Smith, Mountain Quarry, Greenmount, 1953 (Lot 19 ); and two elegant bronze sculptures by celebrated figurative sculptor, Guy Boyd (lots 30 and 31).
