STUDY FOR THE RED CARPET, 1970

Important Australian and International Fine Art
Sydney
13 September 2016
10

JOHN BRACK

(1920 – 1999)
STUDY FOR THE RED CARPET, 1970

conté on paper

78.0 x 58.0 cm

signed and dated lower right: John Brack / 70

Estimate: 
$25,000 – 35,000
Sold for $48,800 (inc. BP) in Auction 44 - 13 September 2016, Sydney
Provenance

Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney
Gwen Frolich, Sydney
Thence by descent
Private collection, Sydney

Exhibited

John Brack, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 7 – 28 April 1971, cat. 17
John Brack Drawings 1945 – 79, Monash University Exhibition Gallery, Melbourne, 9 June – 10 July 1981, cat. 40

Literature

Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. II, cat. p144, pp. 57, 216 (illus.)
Lindsay, R., John Brack: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1987, p. 133

Catalogue text

‘In the winter of 1970 Brack made eight conté drawings of the nude from the model and the following summer, working from these drawings, executed a series of eight oil paintings. It was his normal working procedure to use the model for the drawings and then, without the model, take the drawings as his point of departure for the paintings...

The new series of nudes, when compared with the two series that preceded it, has a startling complexity, sophistication and subtlety. The conceptual elements remain relatively constant. The nude, who in her pose frequently echoes an artistic convention, generally refers to the past and to tradition; the bare studio with its naked walls and plain receding floorboards, refers to reality and the present situation; while the oriental carpet – the carpet paradigm – as if separating the two worlds nevertheless forms a strange physical bridge between them...’1

1. Grishin, S., The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 117 – 118