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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 7, 2024 | Bonhams | Sydney | Important Australian Art | 26 | $****** - ****** | The Ferry Coming In - Lavender Bay |
Works on Paper
143.5 x 152 cm (56.5 x 59.84 in)
brush and ink on paper on board
stamped upper left with artist"s monogram: "BW"; titled lower left: "The ferry coming in - Lavender Bay Dec/9/77"; signed lower right: "brett whiteley"
Private collection, Sydney
Kathie Sutherland, Brett Whiteley: Catalogue Raisonne , Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne, 2020, cat. 90.77, vol. 7, p. 403
RELATED WORKS
Harbour Storm , 1977, brush and ink on paper, 153.0 x 153.0cm, private collection
Ferry Coming In , 1974, oil on canvas, 41.0 x 51.0cm, private collection
Lavender Bay in the Rain , 1979, oil on canvas, 86.0 x 86.0cm, private collection
"In July 1969 Whiteley flew to Fiji, seeking the refuge of a world far removed from the chaos and stress of his life in New York. He was joined shortly after by Wendy and Arkie, and for a few months he enjoyed the kind of tranquillity he had experienced in Sigean seven years earlier. Unfortunately, the period in Fiji was short-lived, and by November the Whiteleys were back in Sydney, with mixed feelings about remaining in Australia for very long. One factor that did persuade them to stay was the house in Lavender Bay, which they found through the architect Rollin Schlicht, an Australian friend who had been in London at the same time as the Whiteleys and who was living with his family in the house"s upper floor. The combination of the ambience of the house, which the Whiteleys purchased a few years later, and Sydney Harbour, whose large liquid presence was a perfect vehicle for Whiteley"s gift at composing works with large, empty spaces, evoked in the artist the strong feeling that at last he had come home.
Inspired mainly by Matisse - particularly his masterpiece The Red Studio - Whiteley produced basically three kinds of Lavender Bay subjects dur-ing the 1970s: interiors, harbour views and table-top still lifes. These works exude an equilibrium and the sumptuous ecstasy of living. Unlike the vision of Matisse which eradicated the ego and its dark side, however, there are small hints that not all was perfect in paradise. In several paintings, harbour glimpses appear to be escape routes from enclosures, and there are subtle manifestations of a restlessness that became more explicit in White-ley"s portraits during this time and into the 1980s".1
1. Barry Pearce, et al, Brett Whiteley: Art and Life , Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1995, p. 142
Brett Whiteley (1939-1992)
The Ferry Coming In - Lavender Bay, 1977
stamped upper left with artist"s monogram: "BW"
titled lower left: "The ferry coming in - Lavender Bay Dec/9/77"
signed lower right: "brett whiteley"
brush and ink on paper on board
143.5 x 152.0cm (56 1/2 x 59 13/16in).
