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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aug 27, 2024 | Bonhams | Sydney | The Morgan Collection | 35 | $****** - ****** | Cartographer (after Durer) |
paintings
160 x 120 cm (62.99 x 47.24 in)
synthetic polymer paint on printed map on canvas
signed, dated and titled verso: "HOWARD ARKLEY / title Cartographer / (after Durer) / 1983 / Ac; /
Collection of the artist, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the artist in 1987
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
The Morgan Collection, Perth, acquired from the above in 2001
Howard Arkley: Recent Works , Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney 15 June - 2 July 1983, cat. 4, as Cartographer
Howard Arkley: Urban Paintings , Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 22 October - 13 November 1983, cat. 8, as Cartographer
Meaning & Excellence , ANZART at Edinburgh, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 5 August 1984; George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University, Melbourne, 20 February - 20 March 1985
Works by Howard Arkley , Anima Gallery, Adelaide, October - November 1987, cat. 7, as Cartographer
Re: Creation / Re-creation: the art of copying, 19th & 20th centuries , Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 17 October - 25 November 1989
Howard Arkley , Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 18 October - 30 November 1991, cat. 42
Howard Arkley , Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 November 2006 - 25 February 2007; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 10 March - 6 May 2007; Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 6 July - 16 September 2007 (label attached verso)
Merryn Gates, Re: Creation / Re-Creation: The Art of Copying, 19th & 20th Centuries , Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 1990, p. 30-31 (illus.)
Jenepher Duncan (ed.), Howard Arkley , Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 1991, p. 7 (illus.)
Ashley Crawford & Ray Edgar, Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley , first edition, Craftsman House, Sydney, p. 66-67 (illus.)
John Gregory, Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley , Cambridge, Melbourne & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, fig. 3.8, p. 92-94 (illus.)
RELATED WORK
After Dürer , synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 150.0 x 240.0cm
Howard Arkley was an almost intolerably curious individual. Any and every subject was grist to the mill, whether it be punk song lyrics, scientific theories, art theory or architectural innovations, it would be washed down with copious mouthfuls of cheap champagne and erudite discussion and end up, inevitably and in one form or another on Arkley"s studio floor- a veritable Library of Congress where a first edition of Marvel"s Amazing Spiderman would share space with Stephen Hawking"s 1988 A Brief History of Time and Sebastian Brant"s 1494 Ship of Fools . There was no particular logic to Arkley"s bower-bird approach, but there would, more often than not, be a visual component at play and Brant"s Das Narrenschiff , or in English, Ship of Fools , published with lavish accompanying woodcuts, was clearly no exception.
Inspired in large part by an illustration by Albrecht Dürer in Ship of Fools , Arkley"s Cartographer came, as did all of his works, amidst more than a singular moment of inspiration or a singular source-work. Arkley created the Cartographer during an outpouring of semi-figurative experiments that touched upon montage and narrative. The use of a physical map as a surface was just the beginning of a series that would never find completion. The notion of narrative - the explorer - was just one of a horde of adventurers he considered as subjects. But postmodernist quotation, the lingua franca of the early 80s Australian art world, was distinctly at play and Albrecht Dürer was certainly fair game and the fact that Dürer had opened up Brant"s Ship of Fools allowed contemporary Melbourne a discourse into purely medieval sensibilities.
But in typical Arkley form, the immediate world around him simultaneously found a way to resonate with both Brant and Dürer with the appearance of the dream-like imagery of Werner Herzog"s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo . Utterly surreal, Fitzcarraldo was written, produced and directed by Werner Herzog, and starred Klaus Kinski as a rubber baron determined to physically haul a steamship over mountainous territory in order to access rich rubber territory in the Amazon rain forest. Fitzcarraldo was screened in Melbourne at the Astor Theatre in Chapel Street, Windsor, literally up the road from Arkley"s studio and the artist dashed from the screening to his airbrush a few blocks away, completing the work it in one long evening.
Arkley"s Cartographer in his painting is most definitely Kinski"s character in the film, complete with pseudo-medieval head-gear and accompanying lavish rubber trees, and represents the ultimate in foolishness, an exploration that is also core to Brant"s Das Narrenschiff .
Arkley was very much the bower-bird as his collation of real-estate advertisements, clearly used as source material for his suburban works, reveal. He had also tinkered with maps in earlier works, notably as collaborations with his partner of the time, Elizabeth Gower. But The Cartographer is a fully resolved adventure revealing a work truly harking to the core themes of Arkley"s remarkably ambitious, but all too short, career; discovery, curiosity and utter misadventure.
Dr. Ashley Crawford
Howard Arkley (1951-1999)
Cartographer (after Durer), 1983
signed, dated and titled verso: "HOWARD ARKLEY / title Cartographer / (after Durer) / 1983 / Acrylic on canvas / 120cm x 160cm / Howard Arkley. 83."
synthetic polymer paint on printed map on canvas
160.0 x 120.0cm (63 x 47 1/4in).
