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soldSep. 15, 2023Ian Fairweather
Est: AUD100 - AUD150Ian Fairweather by Murray Bail. Bay Books 1981. First Edition. Hardcover in dust wrapper in very good condition, dust wrapper is a little bit faded. 33cm x 26cm
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldSep. 15, 2023Ian Fairweather
Est: AUD80 - AUD120The Drunken Buddha by Ian Fairweather. Published by University of Queensland Press in 1965. Original cloth in dustwrapper, Very good copy
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldAug. 25, 2023Ian Fairweather Signed
Est: AUD130 - AUD150The Drunken Buddha by Ian Fairweather. Published by University of Queensland Press in 1965. Original cloth in dustwrapper, Very good copy inscribed ' To Mr Carl Plats with thanks and best wishes from Ian Fairweather'
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldAug. 04, 2023Ian Fairweather
Est: AUD100 - AUD200Ian Fairweather by Murray Bail. Bay Books 1981. First Edition. Hardcover in dust wrapper in very good condition. 33cm x 26cm
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldMay. 02, 2023§ IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Summer (1964) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard
Est: AUD250,000 - AUD350,000§ IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Summer (1964) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard signed 'Ian Fairweather' lower right; inscribed 'Summer' verso 72.1 x 101.5 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Sydney PROVENANCE Ian Fairweather, Bribie Island Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Hazel Hughes, Sydney, acquired from the above in May 1965 for £210.0.0. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, gift from the above in memory of Norman Schureck in 1965 Fine Art Auction, Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 17 November 2010, lot 6, illustrated Selwyn and Renata Litton, Sydney, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Other Recent Works by Ian Fairweather exhibited with The Drunken Buddha Series, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 12-24 May 1965, no. 20 LITERATURE Murray Bail, Ian Fairweather (rev. ed.), Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, cat. no. 206, plate 180, pp. 208 (illustrated), 210, 259
Smith & Singer
soldFeb. 06, 2023Ian Fairweather
Est: AUD100 - AUD150Fairweather by Murray Bail. Sydney Murdoch Books 2009. Quarto. Mint copy in dustwrapper
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldDec. 04, 2022Manner of FAIRWEATHER Ian (1891-1974), Figure Composition, Gouache on Paper on Board, 27x39cm
Est: AUD100 - AUD300Manner of FAIRWEATHER, Ian (1891-1974) Figure Composition No signature apparent. Gouache on Paper on Board 27x39cm
Davidson Auctions
soldDec. 01, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER, PEKING WALLS, 1948
Est: AUD70,000 - AUD90,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974) PEKING WALLS, 1948 gouache and pencil on paper 41.5 x 46.0 cm (sheet) signed indistinctly lower left: Fairweather PROVENANCE The Redfern Gallery Ltd., London (label attached verso) Mrs Ruth Keating, London, acquired from the above in 1948 Thence by descent Private collection, USA EXHIBITED Ian Fairweather, Redfern Gallery, London, 28 October – 20 November 1948, cat. 40 ESSAY No Australian twentieth century artist understood Asia better than Ian Fairweather. It began in improbable circumstances as a prisoner of war. He enlisted in the British Army in June 1914 and, within two months of arriving in France, was captured by the Germans. He read works by E. F. Fenollosa and Lafcadio Hearn (two distinguished scholars on Japan), illustrated prisoner-of-war magazines and attempted unsuccessful escapes. Back in London he studied at the Slade School of Fine (1920 – 24) while attending evening classes in Japanese and Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies. By 1929, he was in Shanghai and remained in China until 1932. His peripatetic nature, restless curiosity and affection for China saw him return there in 1935 where he was ‘completely at home with (his) fellows.’1 Travel to other places followed, from South East Asia to Calcutta – and regardless of location, Chinese subjects continued. It was a necessary and essential part of his personality. Indeed, the idea for Monastery, 1961 (National Gallery of Australia) remained in his memory for more than two decades before it was realised.2 In Peking Walls, 1948 we find Fairweather’s synchronised approach to painting, one which would evolve into larger, grand paintings during the sixties. Both however have the same underpinning: Chinese thought and experience, and his unmistakable, idiosyncratic technical fluency. Drawing with paint is used extensively across mediums – from paper to card and wooden panels, calligraphic-like gestures over layered surfaces result in final irregular painting, a finished work. Fairweather’s observation is always one of creative approximation, forever avoiding the dullness of literalism.3 There is no suggestion of a clichéd, exotic Western unfamiliarity in Peking Walls where stereotypes might suffice. Fairweather was too immersed in Chinese culture, philosophy, language and art to fall into some kind of Asian Grand Tour romanticism. While certain subtle inflections suggest a nod to Matisse and the French Nabis – for example, painted lineal suggestions and blotchy shapes of colour – there are specific Chinese characteristics in works such as these as well. There are also similarities with Peking Tea Room, 1936 (Art Gallery New South Wales) – it clearly complements Peking Walls but is one of many later iterations of subjects that remained a perpetual echo. What might appear as Fairweather’s clumsiness of execution as an individual stylistic trait, is actually an aesthetic virtue shaped by his understanding of Chinese painting. As Pierre Ryckmans notes in his discussion of spiritual deficiency and finish in Chinese painting, ‘…technical virtuosity and seductiveness in a painting are considered vulgar, as they precisely suggest the slick fluency of a professional answering a client’s commission and betray a lack of inner compulsion on the part of the artist.’4 Peking Walls is the clear, continuing and evolving expression born from his visits to China in the 30s. Fairweather paints vastness and intimacy, figures in the foreground to a mid-ground market canopy. The painted lineal sweeps in halftones are interspersed with his familiar use of a rich ultramarine or, in Fairweather’s specific case, Reckitt’s blue.5 1. Abbott-Smith, N., Ian Fairweather: profile of a painter; University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1978, p. 27 2. Capon, J., ‘The China Years’ cited in Bail, M., et al., Fairweather, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1994, p.63 3. For a specific analysis of Fairweather’s approach see, Fisher, T., The Drawings of Ian Fairweather, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997, pp. 4 – 7 4. Ryckmans, P., ‘The Amateur Artist’, in Bail, op. cit., pp. 15 – 23 5. Roberts, C. & Thompson, J., (eds.), Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2019. This publication provides a rich, first-person account in letters from the artist, many of which are about China. DOUG HALL AM
Deutscher and Hackett
soldNov. 16, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Two Figures synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard
Est: AUD140,000 - AUD180,000IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Two Figures synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard 93 x 68.5 cm PROVENANCE Ian Fairweather, Bribie Island The Estate of the Late Ian Fairweather, Queensland Australian Paintings, Christie's Australia, Melbourne, 28 April 1976, lot 110 Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above
Smith & Singer
soldSep. 14, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER, GAMELAN, 1958
Est: AUD700,000 - AUD900,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974) GAMELAN, 1958 synthetic polymer paint and gouache on four sheets of cardboard on hardboard 126.5 x 189.5 cm signed with artist’s monogram lower right: IF inscribed with title lower right: Gamelan bears inscriptions verso: GAMELAN – IAN FAIRWEATHER / FROM MACQUARIE GALLERIES / 19 BLIGH ST, SYDNEY RESERVED / MRS TURNER / 21/91 MANDALONG RD / MOSMAN bears inscription on partial label verso: A014 / - GAMELAN - / FAIRWEATHER PROVENANCE John and Jan Altman, Melbourne Bonython Galleries, Sydney, c.1967 Australian Galleries, Melbourne Geoff K Gray Auctions, Sydney, 13 February 1974, lot 33 Jack and Beryl Kohane, Melbourne Niagara Galleries, Melbourne The Reg Grundy AC OBE and Joy Chambers-Grundy Collection, acquired from the above in 1996 EXHIBITED Ian Fairweather, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 19 November – 11 December 1958, cat. 2 Festival Exhibition, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, Adelaide, March 1962, cat. 25 Australian Irresistibles 1930 – 1970, Bonython Gallery, Sydney, 11 August – 2 September 1970, cat. 47 LITERATURE Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney, 1981, pp. 149, 204 Bail, M., Fairweather, Art & Australia Books in association with the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1994, ill. 15, pp. 57 (illus.), 58, 61 Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, cat. 155, pl. 129, pp. 146 - 47, 150, 151 (illus.), 158, 255 ESSAY Ian Fairweather has been described as ‘the least parochial of Australian painters, an artist of exceptional force and originality’1 and he is undoubtedly one of the most singular artists to have worked in Australia during the twentieth century. Although he is claimed as an Australian and spent many years living here, he had a restless spirit and the story of his life reads like the pages of an adventure book. Born in Scotland, Fairweather undertook his formal art education at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, studying under the formidable Henry Tonks and in 1922, being awarded second prize for figure drawing. As a prisoner of war in Germany during the First World War he had access to books about Japanese and Chinese art, and later, studied these languages at night. In 1929 he sailed to Shanghai where he lived for several years, the country’s unique art, culture and philosophy exerting a lasting influence on his art. Peripatetic by nature, or perhaps reluctant to establish roots and commit to ongoing relationships, Fairweather travelled extensively – from London, to Canada, China, Bali, Australia, the Philippines, India and beyond – ‘always the outsider, the nostalgic nomad with a dreamlike memory of distant places and experience.’2 Fairweather’s first encounter with Bali was in the early 1930s. Travelling to Australia from China, where he had lived for the past few years, his boat stopped at Buleleng on the northern coast of the island and, after going ashore, he changed his plans and stayed there for almost nine months. It was a happy and productive time during which he painted almost forty known works. Some were Chinese landscapes – painted from notes and recollections of his recent experiences – but the majority depicted Balinese figure subjects, studies of solitary figures or scenes describing local people going about their daily lives.3 In 1933 he painted two mural-sized works which are ambitious both in terms of scale – being among the largest works he ever made – and the complex, multi-figure scenes they depict. Bathing Scene, Bali, c.1933 – 34 was acquired by the Tate Gallery, London in 1935 (Presented by the Contemporary Art Society) and the following year, Leicester Museums and Art Gallery purchased Procession in Bali, 1933, a panoramic scene thought to depict an episode from a traditional marriage ceremony. In a letter to his friend, Jim Ede, Fairweather, who was typically self-critical, wrote, ‘Don’t think too badly of the paintings – they are terribly crude on the surface and were done under trying conditions’, adding, ‘oh hell – Bali was somewhere near to heaven.’4 It was a place that obviously had a profound impact on Fairweather and remembering his experience of Bali decades later, he declared, ‘I was hypnotised and never recovered.’5 A second, much shorter and less pleasant visit to Bali, followed the infamous journey of 1952 when he left Darwin Harbour on a hand-built raft with the aim of sailing to Timor. By way of explanation, he subsequently told an interviewer that Timor ‘(was) the next best thing to Bali where I had done the best painting of my life’.6 Gamelan was painted in 1958, five years after Fairweather had settled on Bribie Island, off the coast of Queensland, and where, for the rest of his life, he famously lived in a pair of huts built with materials salvaged from the surrounding bush. Conditions were primitive – no running water, sewerage or electricity – and Fairweather’s handmade bed and chairs were reportedly upholstered with fern fronds.7 Despite the rudimentary nature of his surrounds however – or perhaps because of it – the next two decades witnessed the production of many of Fairweather’s finest paintings and the 1960s saw his art acknowledged in significant ways, with works being included in the landmark exhibition Recent Australian Painting at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (1961); the European tour of Australian Painting Today (1964 – 65); and in 1965, a major travelling retrospective of his work was mounted by the Queensland Art Gallery. While the title of the painting refers to the traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra which Fairweather presumably witnessed in Bali, Gamelan is not a representational depiction. Murray Bail sees it as a ‘remembrance of… happy times on Bali, which in turn traces more memories, or moods of memories’,8 while composer Martin Armiger identifies a connection between the sound of the gamelan and the construction of the picture. ‘As rhythm builds on rhythm… simple melodies take on subtle variations, the various strands interweave delicately. The relationships between these melodic strands shift… gradually, hypnotically’.9 He continues ‘…patterns emerge from gamelan, as form emerges from… this painting’10, subtly evoking the experience of its subject through gestural line, shape and layering which emphasise the process of art-making, more than the end result. Alongside Last Supper, 1958 (Art Gallery of New South Wales); Gethsemane, 1958; and Kite Flying, 1958 (both Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art), Gamelan is one of four important large-scale paintings which Fairweather completed in 1958. Variously composed of three or four cardboard sheets joined together, the increased scale of these works signalled a newfound confidence and authority in Fairweather’s approach, the expanded pictorial scope opening up his compositions so that they retain their distinctive linear complexity, but simultaneously assume a new sense of strength and monumentality. The significance of these works was recognised early on by distinguished collectors renowned for their sophisticated and discerning eyes – author Patrick White purchased Gethsemane from its second exhibition in 1961, and curator and art historian, Daniel Thomas AM, was the first owner of Last Supper, buying it in 1962. Sending the works to Treania Smith at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney in 1958, with detailed instructions for their preparation and mounting, Fairweather wrote, ‘I guess they are really murals – in feeling as well as size – and not at home in living rooms’. He added, ‘They have given me hell – They are an attempt to climb up to something out of something else.’11 The ‘something’ he was seeking was abstraction, and these works are especially significant in that they mark the beginning of a move towards pure abstract imagery which he likened to ‘the Buddhist idea of suspended judgement – The mind is cleared of thought but not of awareness – Always the purpose of art is to find its way through the forest of things to a larger unity containing all things’.12 1. Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney, 1981, p. 220 2. Bail, M., ‘The Nostalgic Nomad’, Hemisphere, Canberra, vol. 27, no. 1, 1982, p. 54 3. Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Millers Point, 2009, p. 23 4. Ian Fairweather to Jim Ede, late 1933, quoted in quoted in Roberts, C. & Thompson, J. (eds.), Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2019, p. 15 5. Ian Fairweather to Treania Bennett, 12 April 1956 in Roberts & Thompson, ibid., p. 387 6. Bail, 2000, op. cit., p. 103 7. Ibid., p. 119 8. Ibid., p. 146 9. Armiger, M., ‘Fairweather and Music’ in Bail, M., et. al., Fairweather, Art & Australia Books in association with Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1994, p. 58 10. Ibid. 11. Ian Fairweather to Treania Smith, early 1958, Roberts & Thompson, op. cit., p. 218 12. Ian Fairweather to Annette Waters, 23 – 25 October 1958 in Roberts & Thompson, op. cit., p. 226 KIRSTY GRANT © Ian Fairweather/DACS. Copyright Agency 2022
Deutscher and Hackett
soldSep. 02, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER
Est: AUD50 - AUD801) The Drawings of Ian Fairweather, by Tim Fisher. National Gallery of Australia (1997). Hardcover, no dust wrapper in good condition. 30cm x 24cm. 2) The Drunken Buddha, by Ian Fairweather. University of Queensland Press (1965). Hardcover with dust wrapper. Tan edges, otherwise in good condition. 25cm x 24cm
Sydney Rare Book Auctions
soldJul. 27, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER, THREE FACES, C.1965
Est: AUD80,000 - AUD120,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974) THREE FACES, c.1965 synthetic polymer paint and gouache on plywood on board 61.5 x 80.0 cm bears verso certificate of authenticity signed by Mary Turner, Director of Macquarie Galleries, dated 30 January 1976 PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1965 (label attached verso) Dr Mary Beeston, New York, USA Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 30 April 2002, lot 64 (as ‘Untitled Abstract’) The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 106 (illus.), 218 ESSAY From his emergence in the 1930s as a precocious modern painter, through to late career deference in the 60s, Fairweather’s interest in faces and figure groups holds an enduring presence. Individual faces, pairs and groups occur in works from each decade – mother and child is another recurring theme. One is usually unaware of the subjects’ individual identities, although Three Faces, c.1965 shares something of the loosely contained geometry of Portrait of the Artist, 1962 (National Gallery of Australia).1 A formative decade in Fairweather’s oeuvre, the thirties were strong in French Post-Impressionist mannerisms and soft chalky tones and surfaces. Yet if the present work bears the familiar dryness and painterly drawing, that is where stylistic similarities end. His interest in Asia – and China in particular – became an intellectual and expressive enchantment. Indeed, Three Faces is something akin to a bookend after decades of close, contained portraits consumed his interest. Faces at the Window, 1933 (Queensland Art Gallery ǀ Gallery of Modern Art) is an early indicator of this preoccupation.2 Other important moments flank 30 years of unwavering critical interest in his work. The Tate acquired his work in 1935, while in 1965, Fairweather’s retrospective exhibition toured nationally, and his book, was The Drunken Buddha, published.3 From 1953, he lived in his now legendary improvised and rough-hewn circumstances on Bribie Island, an hour north of Brisbane. Much too has been made of his boundless curiosity, travel in Asia and (mis)adventures. Periods of depression and paranoia didn’t diminish his capacity for productive work, producing paintings which were to define him as one of Australia’s greatest modernists. In the 1950s, Cubism as a compositional and pictorial underpinning was finally overtaken by his confidence to apply what he had learnt and absorbed from Chinese painting – an intense preoccupation which was no mere encounter and something expediently adapted, but rather a culture whose art and language he understood with scholarly nuance. In Three Faces, lines are single gestures, marks and flecks are ‘placed’ and never vigorously worked; Fairweather had observed Chinese calligraphers at work, ‘…calligraphy is at first a performance – it is a graphic dance, the dynamic trace of gesture, the translation into two-dimensional space of a fluid sequence of movements unfolding in time.’4 Similarly, the wooden panel support reminds us that Fairweather was untroubled by using whatever was on hand. The wood retains holes and exposed areas revealing it was un-primed and it serves as a halftone for a muted, austere palette. A label notation on the reverse suggests that this work, with the agreement of the artist, was used by the Art Gallery of New South Wales conservation department to further understand the artist’s techniques in the future restoration of his work. Three Faces not only emanates a surface personality and character which mark his paintings from the 50s onwards, but its painterliness and painted lineal forms encapsulate his late figuration with familiar distinction. 1. Self Portrait, 1962, synthetic polymer paint, gouache on cardboard mounted on composition board (National Gallery of Australia) reproduced in Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, illus. p.191 2. Faces at the Window, 1933, oil gouache and pencil on paper on cardboard on composition board, (Queensland Art Gallery ǀ Gallery of Modern Art) 3. Fairweather, I., The Drunken Buddha, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1965 (the publication is a translation of an ancient Chinese novel, illustrated with Fairweather’s paintings). 4. Ryckmans, P., ‘An Amateur Artist’ in Bail, M., Fairweather, Art and Australia Books in association with the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1995, p. 15 DOUG HALL AM © Ian Fairweather/DACS. Copyright Agency 2022
Deutscher and Hackett
soldMar. 08, 2022IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974), Chinese Village Landscape, watercolour and gouache on paper, signed lower right, 38 x 41cm. Closely associated with "Hangchow Canal, 1945€“47" watercolour, gouache and crayon on paper, signed lower left, 37 x 41 cm,
Est: AUD80,000 - AUD120,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974), Chinese Village Landscape, watercolour and gouache on paper, signed lower right, 38 x 41cm. Closely associated with "Hangchow Canal, 1945–47" watercolour, gouache and crayon on paper, signed lower left, 37 x 41 cm, sold by Deutscher and Hackett, Melbourne, 28/11/2012, Lot No. 14, for $126,000 incl.BP. Ian Fairweather is one of the most significant twentieth-century artists to have worked in Australia. After a life of wandering, including time spent in China, Bali and the Philippines, Fairweather settled on Bribie Island, off the coast of Queensland, where he built his own house. In 1962 a leading art critic named him 'our greatest painter'. Fairweather is exceptional among modern artists for his experience of Chinese life and culture. He lived and worked in China for extended periods, learnt Chinese and published a book-length translation of the popular Chinese novel 'The Drunken Buddha' (1965). From an early age Fairweather sought alternatives to art based on verisimilitude and single-point perspective. This led to a lifelong engagement with the principles of Chinese art and thought that profoundly shaped his own creative process. [From a review of the book "Fairwaether and China" by Claire Roberts]. © Ian Fairweather/Copyright Agency, 2022
Leski Auctions Pty Ltd
soldNov. 16, 2021§ IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Composition (1961) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard
Est: AUD45,000 - AUD65,000§ IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 Composition (1961) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard signed 'I Fairweather' lower left 42 x 58 cm PROVENANCE Ian Fairweather, Bribie Island Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Alexander Slutzkin, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1961 The Estate of the Late Alexander Slutzkin, Sydney Private Collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Ian Fairweather, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 14-23 June 1961, no. 13, 25 gns
Smith & Singer
soldNov. 10, 2021IAN FAIRWEATHER, COMPOSITION, c.1960 – 61
Est: AUD100,000 - AUD140,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 - 1974) COMPOSITION, c.1960 – 61 synthetic polymer paint and gouache on paper on composition board 65.5 x 101.0 cm signed lower left: Ian Fairweather bears inscription verso: COMPOSITION BY IAN FAIRWEATHER / 95 GNS – FOR RAYMOND BURR PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Raymond Burr, USA, acquired from the above, c. 1962 Macquarie Galleries, Sydney John Lane, acquired from the above in 1963 Sir Tristan Antico, Sydney Sotheby's, Melbourne, 19 April 1994, lot 82, (as 'Composition 200') Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Private collection Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso) Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 1998 EXHIBITED Ian Fairweather and Emily Kngwarreye, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 31 January – 18 February 1995, cat. 4 (illus., in exhibition catalogue, as ‘Painting 6 (?)’) LITERATURE Roberts, C., Ian Fairweather and China, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2021, pp. 155 - 156 (illus., as ‘Painting VI’) ESSAY Being interviewed in 1965, Ian Fairweather described painting as ‘something of a tightrope act’, saying it was ’difficult to keep one’s balance.’ He went on to explain that for him, painting sat ‘between representation and the other thing – whatever it is.’1 The ‘other thing’ was abstraction and it was in the late 1950s that he made his first concentrated foray into purely non-representational art. In 1959, by which time he had settled on Bribie Island, Fairweather sent twenty works to his dealers in Sydney, writing ‘they are mostly done on newspaper – (as I ran out of other paper) … They are also (mostly) without titles – for they really refer (mostly) to nothing in particular – sort of soliloquies – I suppose will have to come under the heading of abstracts – Signed in pencil at bottom to indicate what side is up’.2 Another batch was received the following April, and in July that year a selection was exhibited at Macquarie Galleries. While the critical reception was muted – as it often is when an artist changes direction and critics scramble to catch up – there were positive sales. Among others, Mervyn Horton, the editor of Art and Australia, bought one of the large works and reproduced Painting X, 1960 (private collection, London) on the cover of the inaugural issue of the journal in 1963. The Art Gallery of South Australia purchased another from an Adelaide Festival exhibition the following month.3 Other abstracts from this time have since been acquired by major collecting institutions including Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Australia. Like Composition, c.1960-61, many of these paintings incorporate a painted border which frames the central image on four sides as in this example – or suspends it between horizontal bands above and below – introducing space into otherwise complex compositions. In this work, a silvery-grey border surrounds a series of black painted lines and broad brown and tan brush strokes which intermingle with the paler, fleshy-coloured ground. Without a recognisable subject commanding our attention, it is the rhythmic action of Fairweather’s painting, the confidence of his gesture and line, as well as the delicate layering, which prevails. These works emphasise the act of painting, rather than the end result. Murray Bail sums it up well, writing ‘Fairweather …has consciously used abstraction to speak of experience beyond the experience of art itself… He is articulating mood.’4 Although Fairweather’s focus on abstract or ‘unrealistic’ art, as he preferred to term it,5 was relatively short-lived, these works are especially significant as precursors to the great large-scale masterpieces of his career, almost abstract paintings such as Monastery, 1960 (National Gallery of Australia) and Monsoon, 1961-62 (Art Gallery of Western Australia) which, over time, have come to symbolise his brilliant and singular contribution to Australian art. 1. The artist quoted in Bail, M., et. al., Fairweather, Art & Australia Books in association with Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1994, p. 139 2. Fairweather to Treania Smith, 11 November 1939, cited in Roberts, C. & Thompson, J. (eds.), Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2019, p. 243 3. See Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, revised edition 2009, p. 161 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. p. 165 KIRSTY GRANT © Ian Fairweather/DACS. Copyright Agency 2021
Deutscher and Hackett
soldApr. 20, 2021IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 On the Lake (1964) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard
Est: AUD200,000 - AUD300,000IAN FAIRWEATHER 1891-1974 On the Lake (1964) synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard inscribed 'On the Lake' lower centre; signed 'Ian Fairweather' lower right 69 x 93 cm PROVENANCE Ian Fairweather, Bribie Island Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Mrs M.A. McGrath, Sydney, acquired from the above in May 1965, until Australian Historical and Contemporary Drawings and Paintings, Christie's Australia, Melbourne, 6 March 1970, lot 63, illustrated Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne (stock 2017), acquired from the above Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 10 March 1970 EXHIBITED The Drunken Buddha: Ian Fairweather, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 12-24 May 1965, no. 6, 275 gns Ian Fairweather: The Drunken Buddha, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, 29 November 2014 - 15 March 2015 LITERATURE Ian Fairweather, The Drunken Buddha, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1965, p. 155 (illustrated) Murray Bail, Fairweather (rev. ed.), Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, p. 204 Ian Fairweather, The Drunken Buddha (rev. ed.), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2015, pp. 143 (illustrated), 165
Smith & Singer
soldNov. 29, 2020FAIRWEATHER Ian (1891-1974), 'Near Kvam, Norway,' c.1925., W/Clr, 20.5x29cm
Est: AUD1,000 - AUD2,000FAIRWEATHER, Ian (1891-1974) 'Near Kvam, Norway,' c.1925. No signature apparent. Provenance: Geoff Brown, Brisbane; Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane (label attached verso); private collection, Queensland, purchased from the above in 1984; Estate of the above, Queensland. W/Clr 20.5x29cm OTHER NOTES: Exhibitions: Ian Fairweather (1891-1974) Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 19 May-14 June 1984, cat. 25 (as 'Near Kvan, Norway?[sic.]'). Daws, L. and Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, exhibition catalogue, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 1984, cat. 25, pp. 20 (illus.), 31 (as 'Near Kvan, Norway?[sic.]')
Davidson Auctions
soldNov. 19, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891-1974) Women and Children 1957
Est: AUD60,000 - AUD80,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891-1974) Women and Children 1957 gouache on cardboard 51.0 x 36.0 cm signed with monogram lower left: IF
Menzies
soldNov. 11, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER, HEAD OF A GIRL, 1949
Est: AUD20,000 - AUD30,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 – 1974) HEAD OF A GIRL, 1949 ink and gouache on paper 23.5 x 17.0 cm signed with initials (as Chinese character) lower right: IF PROVENANCE Stanley Coe Gallery, Melbourne Guelda Pyke, Melbourne Joseph Brown, Melbourne Christie’s, Sydney, 22 October 1975, lot 489 (as ‘A Girl’s Head, c.1950’) Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Gouache Drawings by Ian Fairweather, Stanley Coe Gallery, Melbourne, 24 July – August 1, 1951, cat. 15 Spring, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 7 – 23 October 1974, cat. 50 (as ‘Head Study’) (illus. in exhibition catalogue) We are grateful to Murray Bail for his assistance with this catalogue entry.
Deutscher and Hackett
soldNov. 11, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER, INDIAN ROADSIDE, 1949
Est: AUD20,000 - AUD30,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 – 1974) INDIAN ROADSIDE, 1949 ink and gouache on paper 18.5 x 22.5 cm signed with initials (as Chinese character) lower right: IF PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney V.C. Millane, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1953 Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 1 August 1984, lot 11 Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED An Exhibition of Drawings, Ian Fairweather, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 21 September – 1 October 1949, cat. 15 We are grateful to Murray Bail for his assistance with this catalogue entry.
Deutscher and Hackett
soldNov. 11, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER, MUSICIAN, 1951
Est: AUD80,000 - AUD120,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 – 1974) MUSICIAN, 1951 gouache on paper on composition board 47.5 x 67.5 cm signed and dated lower right (in Chinese characters): IF 1951 PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Robert Shaw, Sydney Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Exhibition of Paintings Easter 1953, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 31 March – 20 April 1953, cat. 7 Contemporary Australian Paintings from Private Collections in Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 28 September – 19 October 1955, cat. 26 (as ‘Reclining Figure’) Fairweather: a retrospective exhibition, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 3 June – 4 July 1965; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 21 July – 22 August 1965; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 9 September – 10 October 1965; National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 October – 21 November 1965; Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, 9 December 1965 – 16 January 1966; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 10 February – 13 March 1966, cat. 26 (as ‘Reclining Figure, about 1953?’) Exhibition of the Private Collection of Robert Shaw Esq., Gallery A, Sydney, arranged by the exhibitions committee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 13 – 16 August 1966, cat. 22 (as ‘Lute Player, 1952’) LITERATURE Art and Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1963, p.34 (illus. as ‘Lute Player (1949) Collection Robert Shaw’) McGregor, C. (et. al), In the Making, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1969, p. 147 (as ‘Reclining Figure’, image reversed) Bail, M., Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney & London, 1981, pl. 48, cat. 95, pp. 98, 106 (illus.), 238 ESSAY By the time Ian Fairweather painted this voluptuous image, the British-born artist had already travelled through China, Bali, the Philippines, and India. The memories of these places, particularly of traditional village life, left tangible traces throughout his subsequent paintings. In spite of his self-imposed exclusion from society, Fairweather was fascinated with the lives of others, and his artworks are full of keenly observed imagery. However, it is the fusion of Eastern and Western painting styles that elevates his work. In the Australian canon, there was no one like him, and Musician, 1951, perfectly encapsulates all of these divergent influences. Fairweather’s first solo exhibition was held at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1949, by which time he was living in Cairns. His biographer Murray Bail describes this residence as being ‘an abandoned goat dairy in a forest of lantana. Nearby was the skeleton of a sawmill; within the wall-less space, he constructed a studio.’1 This became a particularly fertile period for the artist as a multitude of images, mostly figurative, poured out of his brushes. A particular subject was his memories of the sub-continent and Fairweather painted ‘dozens of India-based kneeling figures where the brush describes not so much chaste forms as the rhythms of line (and so of life).’2 His nomadic spirit caused the artist to leave Cairns in late 1949, and he hitch-hiked to Darwin in early 1950, again setting up in the least likely of places, an abandoned railway truck. Driven out by possums and rats, Fairweather moved into the rear half of a wrecked patrol boat on Dinah Beach at Frances Bay; and here he stayed until the now infamous raft trip to Timor in April 1952. The figure was again central to the works created in Darwin and key works from 1950-51 include Persimmon (National Gallery of Victoria), Palm Sunday (Queensland Art Gallery), and the boldly evocative Pied-à-terre (Art Gallery of New South Wales). In Musician, 1951, the reclining androgynous figure defines the picture plane, eyes shut and engrossed within the music being coaxed from the gourd. This is a hand-made, even rudimentary instrument, which bears only passing resemblance to other gourd-based examples, such as the Indian pungi made famous by snake charmers. Fairweather allows the waves of music to animate the background, undulating lines that mimic the indulgent swell of the musician’s belly. The artist preferred painting at night by the light of kerosene lamps, and would start with a single mark, which would then be added to and amplified as memories, sounds and smells ignited his inspiration. Such a strategy can be determined in Musician, a sense that the image has emerged from the artist’s mind as he progressed. The palette is simple but the sensuous result is not. Musician was not included in the artist’s exhibitions of 1951 and 1952, having already been purchased by the noted collector Robert Shaw. In 1953, Fairweather was ignominiously digging trenches in England, a result of his deportation from Timor. In the absence of new work, Shaw generously loaned Musician for exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries, thus allowing the creativity of this singular artist to remain in public view. 1. Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney & London, 1981, p.90 2. Ibid . ANDREW GAYNOR
Deutscher and Hackett
soldNov. 11, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER, LADS BOXING, 1939
Est: AUD200,000 - AUD250,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 – 1974) LADS BOXING, 1939 oil and gouache on cardboard 48.0 x 44.5 cm signed lower left: I Fairweather PROVENANCE Collection of Lina Bryans, Melbourne Thence by descent Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED Fairweather: a retrospective exhibition, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 3 June – 4 July 1965; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 21 July – 22 August 1965; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 9 September – 10 October 1965; National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26 October – 21 November 1965; Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, 9 December 1965 – 16 January 1966; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 10 February – 13 March 1966, cat. 72 (label attached verso) Ian Fairweather 1891–1974, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 25 September – 6 November 1991 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney, 1981, cat. 53, p. 68, fig. 24 (illus.) ESSAY Ian Fairweather was not a creature of comfort. The creative drive that fuelled his art and his intense commitment to living a life devoted to art-making, saw him eschew the material possessions and comfortable physical environments that most people take for granted. During a peripatetic existence in which the Scottish-born artist travelled between England, Canada, China, Bali, Australia, the Philippines and India, he variously lived in a derelict movie theatre, an abandoned railway truck, and a boat wreck washed up on the shore, before settling in 1953 on Bribie Island, off the coast of southern Queensland. Here, for the rest of his life, he lived and worked in a pair of thatched huts built using materials found in the nearby bush, painting by the light of a hurricane lamp. With little money and no prospects of finding work, Fairweather left the boarding house he had stayed in on his arrival in Cairns in early June 1939, and relocated to a shanty town at Alligator Creek on the outskirts of town. Writing to his friend, the artist William Frater, he said, ‘as soon as I walked into it – I felt at home again – it is like a little bit of the islands – I got a place in an old boathouse along with another hobo – and I just had to start painting again’.1 Postmarked 4 July 1939, this letter to Frater in Melbourne was accompanied by four works – the result of Fairweather’s enthusiastic return to painting in this setting – which he asked him to show ‘to a few friends as soon as you get them’, adding, ‘As for selling them I leave it to you any price at all – I’d be glad of at this moment’.2 The parcel contained two views of Alligator Creek – distinguished as the first of Fairweather’s rare Australian landscape subjects – a portrait of a young local boy and this work, Lads Boxing, 1939.3 Painting familiar subjects that were part of his everyday experience, Fairweather explained that the landscapes were ‘as seen more or less out of the window’ and the boys boxing ‘come up of an evening to train in this old boathouse’.4 The lamp which can be seen in the top right of the image belonged to the artist and was borrowed by the boys for their training. Acknowledging the quid pro quo involved in this exchange, Fairweather wrote, ‘so I took this [image] off them’.5 From a close-up viewpoint, he captures the scene in muted colours which are contrasted with daubs of blue paint, and occasional glimpses of pencil underdrawing beneath. The energetic application of oil paint and gouache echoes the action of the subject, but the focus is clearly the boxers themselves. The features of the rear figure’s face are described in some detail, but it is the muscularity and strength of the boys’ bodies which dominates, communicating both the physicality and intensity of their friendly competition. Lads Boxing and the three other paintings sent to Frater were bought by Lina Bryans, a noted modern artist who would become a close friend and supporter of Fairweather, establishing what was regarded as the best single collection of his art.6 Notifying Fairweather of the sale and sending £20 by telegraphic transfer care of the Cairns Post Office, Frater added a brief but encouraging note, ‘Very good, keep working’.7 1. Fairweather to William Frater, postmarked 4 July 1939, quoted in Roberts, C. & Thompson, J. (eds.), Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2019, p. 104 2. Ibid. 3. Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, revised edition 2009, p. 59 Fairweather to Frater, op. cit. 4. Fairweather to Frater, op. cit. 5. Ibid. 6. See Forwood, G., Lina Bryans: Rare Modern 1909-2000, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2003, pp. 90-92 7. See Roberts, C. & Thompson, J., op. cit., p. 105 KIRSTY GRANT
Deutscher and Hackett
soldNov. 11, 2020IAN FAIRWEATHER, FIGURE GROUP V, 1968 – 69
Est: AUD250,000 - AUD350,000IAN FAIRWEATHER (1891 – 1974) FIGURE GROUP V, 1968 – 69 synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on board 96.5 x 75.0 cm PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Mr and Mrs G Scott Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Perth, purchased from the above January 1985 Thence by descent Private collection, Sydney EXHIBITED Recent Paintings Ian Fairweather, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 28 October – 9 November 1970, cat. 17 (label attached verso) Ian Fairweather 1891-1974 Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane, 18 May – 14 June 1984, cat. 79 (label attached verso, illus. in exhibition catalogue p.29) Side by Side, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 August – 8 October 2000 (label attached verso, as ‘Figure Group’) Finding Fairweather, Rockhampton Art Gallery, Rockhampton, Queensland, 4 March – 12 November 2017 LITERATURE McGregor, C. (et. al), Australian Art and Artists - In the Making, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1969, p.145 (illus., in studio photograph) Bail, M., Fairweather, Murdoch Books, Sydney, revised edition, 2009, p.271 (illus. in studio photograph) RELATED WORK Standing figures I, 1968, reproduced in Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney & London, 1981, p. 214 Standing figures II, 1967-68, reproduced in Goddard, A., Ian Fairweather: late works 1953-74, exhibition catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2012, p. 86 Figure Group IV, 1970, synthetic polymer paint and gouache on card on board, Deutscher and Hackett, Sydney, 28 April 2010, lot 14 ESSAY By the time Ian Fairweather started Figure group V, 1968-69, he was 77 years old and had been living on Queensland’s Bribie Island for fifteen years. When he first encountered the island in March 1945, he was so entranced that he stayed for seven months in an empty beekeeper’s hut, relishing the view of the distant Glasshouse Mountains and the ‘sunset across the channel (which) comes right to the doorstep – one feels almost in it.’1 Enhancing its appeal was the relative isolation of the island, as access could only be gained via a ferry. This all changed in 1963 when a road bridge was constructed, and regular loads of day-trippers started to arrive. As the fame spread of this legendary art figure, Fairweather became a local curiosity but in spite of this physical intrusion, the visitors’ presence actually began to enhance his work and jostling images of figure groups started to appear regularly in his multi-layered compositions. Part of the mythic appeal of the Fairweather story was that he was a hermit, but this is incorrect. True, he lived in deliberately straitened circumstances in hand-built huts amidst the pines, with the island’s grey sand as a floor, but this was because he had no need for modern conveniences and sought an austere simplicity to his life. He had always been restless, living for periods in numerous countries, or travelling on a whim under bizarre circumstances, like the ill-advised raft journey to Timor in 1952. A partial cause for this wandering was his sad and unusual childhood, but it was also his deep study of Zen, of the concept of everything and nothing-ness, that directed his actions. Unlike a hermit, Fairweather kept in regular touch with the outside world, subscribed to newspapers and journals, and welcomed a regular series of guests to Bribie Island. He was a solitary man, but one with an active and enquiring mind. Allied to his Zen studies was a rich knowledge of calligraphy, and the sinuous lines of this ancient practice are present at every stage of his mature paintings. Fairweather preferred to work simultaneously on many works and, as John Olsen recorded in his diary, all of the walls of the hut ‘were covered with paintings. It was like a little temple, adorned within these marvellous images, out there in the scrub.’2 This practice is vividly displayed in a photograph from c.1968 that shows the artist (dressed up for the camera in clean shirt and trousers) before a tableau of eight works-in-progress, with our lot visible in the upper right. Of these, at least three are figure groups which allow the viewer to explore the artist’s strategy as he accumulates his lines into dense webs of texture and colour, flickering into different directions as new shapes are suggested or memories are evoked. This often meant that most of a painting’s original brush marks would be buried under new paint in the process. Particularly evident in Figure group V is the effect of dappled light as seen through the pine trees by day, depicted by Fairweather using broad patches of off-white that also serve to unify the background. 1. Bail, M., Ian Fairweather, Bay Books, Sydney & London, 1981, p.74 2. John Olsen, diary entry 1961. Quoted in Olsen, J., Drawn from Life, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney, 1997, p.52 ANDREW GAYNOR
Deutscher and Hackett
soldJan. 30, 2020Ian Fairweather "the drunken buddha" 1965 University of Queensland Press
Est: AUD30 - AUD50Ian Fairweather "the drunken buddha" 1965 University of Queensland Press
Lawsons
Popular Artists
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