- 7
JEFFREY SMART
Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 AUD
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Description
- Jeffrey Smart
- ON THE BEACH, SAN DIEGO
- Signed lower right; label on reverse bears artist's name, date '83 and title
- Oil on canvas on composition board
- 56 by 76 cm
Provenance
Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above
Exhibited
Jeffrey Smart: Recent Paintings, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 6 - 24 November 1984, cat. 3
Literature
Elwyn Lynn, 'Rich Content - but what does it mean?', The Weekend Australian, 17 - 18 November 1984, p. 16
C. West, 'Jeffrey Smart', Harper's Bazaar Australia, February 1985, pp. 10 - 11 (illus.)
The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 142, No. 11, 27 May 1985, cover illustration
John McDonald, Jeffrey Smart: Paintings of the '70s and'80s, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1992, p. 160, cat. no. 270
Condition
This work is in good original condition. There are no visible defects or evidence of retouchings from UV inspection.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
In his early sixties, and at the height of his powers, Jeffrey Smart enjoyed a busy year in 1983. The BBC began filming a documentary on his work, Peter Quartermaine's exemplary monograph was published and there were successful exhibitions in both Melbourne and Sydney. Later in the year Smart travelled to the Middle East, and in August to the United States in company with Germaine Greer. That American visit took him to Los Angeles and San Diego, the ostensible subject of the present work.
Ostensible because this California beach scene is, like all of Smart's landscapes, a kind of no-place, a generalised and manipulated setting for the artist's sophisticated manipulation of form and content. Somewhat atypically (The Dome of 1977 is perhaps another example), it has a low horizon line, but the flat expanse of sky is fully occupied: by a stark abstract landscape of beach signage - one blue and two green rectangles and their four vertical supports - and by a drifting flight of seagulls. The signs are a typical Smart motif: faced away from the viewer, they give the work a certain air of mystery, even menace, while at the same time they provide a strong formal-proportional structure which can be subtly adjusted through the various modelli in accordance with the artist's aesthetic judgements. Indeed, Smart explores some of the themes articulated in this composition in a number of subsequent works. The three slabs recur in the red, yellow and blue fuel drums of Morning, Yarragon Siding (1983-84, private collection), while the corrugated backs of the signs and the insistent verticals of their supporting poles anticipate the ridged containers and foreground trees of the celebrated Victorian Arts Centre mural Container Train in Landscape (1983-84).
Beneath the more central horizontal sign is the work's key figure: a male upper torso seen from behind, waving to a female companion coming up the beach towards him. This man with his pink towel is a direct borrowing from Théodore Géricault's famous Raft of the Medusa (1819, Musée du Louvre), quoting the figure of the black man at the summit of the raft's pyramid of misery who signals frantically to a ship just visible on the horizon. In the present work, however, nineteenth-century France becomes twentieth-century America, romantic invention gives way to cool reportage, the tragic dimension is replaced by the domestic and historical drama is reduced to surf and sunbathing. Nevertheless, within the poised and airless formalism, Smart the incorrigible ironist inserts a potent image from the real world. 1983 was also the year of the bombing of the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut; the vessel visible on the Pacific horizon irresistibly recalls the silhouette of the USS New Jersey cruising off the coast of Lebanon.
We are most grateful to Stephen Rogers for his assistance in cataloguing this work.
Ostensible because this California beach scene is, like all of Smart's landscapes, a kind of no-place, a generalised and manipulated setting for the artist's sophisticated manipulation of form and content. Somewhat atypically (The Dome of 1977 is perhaps another example), it has a low horizon line, but the flat expanse of sky is fully occupied: by a stark abstract landscape of beach signage - one blue and two green rectangles and their four vertical supports - and by a drifting flight of seagulls. The signs are a typical Smart motif: faced away from the viewer, they give the work a certain air of mystery, even menace, while at the same time they provide a strong formal-proportional structure which can be subtly adjusted through the various modelli in accordance with the artist's aesthetic judgements. Indeed, Smart explores some of the themes articulated in this composition in a number of subsequent works. The three slabs recur in the red, yellow and blue fuel drums of Morning, Yarragon Siding (1983-84, private collection), while the corrugated backs of the signs and the insistent verticals of their supporting poles anticipate the ridged containers and foreground trees of the celebrated Victorian Arts Centre mural Container Train in Landscape (1983-84).
Beneath the more central horizontal sign is the work's key figure: a male upper torso seen from behind, waving to a female companion coming up the beach towards him. This man with his pink towel is a direct borrowing from Théodore Géricault's famous Raft of the Medusa (1819, Musée du Louvre), quoting the figure of the black man at the summit of the raft's pyramid of misery who signals frantically to a ship just visible on the horizon. In the present work, however, nineteenth-century France becomes twentieth-century America, romantic invention gives way to cool reportage, the tragic dimension is replaced by the domestic and historical drama is reduced to surf and sunbathing. Nevertheless, within the poised and airless formalism, Smart the incorrigible ironist inserts a potent image from the real world. 1983 was also the year of the bombing of the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut; the vessel visible on the Pacific horizon irresistibly recalls the silhouette of the USS New Jersey cruising off the coast of Lebanon.
We are most grateful to Stephen Rogers for his assistance in cataloguing this work.