Jon Molvig Paintings & Artwork for Sale | Jon Molvig Art Value Price Guide

Aug. 26, 2024
Jon Molvig, Australia (1923-1970), Seated Figure, Pencil on paper
Est: $200 - $400
Jon Molvig Australia (1923-1970) Seated Figure Pencil on paper Signed upper right
Theodore Bruce Auctioneers & Valuers
Mar. 19, 2024
§ JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Construction Industrial 1960 oil and enamel on board 135 x 122cm
Est: $4,000 - $6,000
§ JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Construction Industrial 1960 oil and enamel on board signed and dated lower right: Molvig 60 signed and titled verso 135 x 122cm PROVENANCE: Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney (label verso) The Estate of Ray Hughes, Sydney Shapiro Auctioneers, Sydney, 21 November 2018, lot 88 Private collection, Melbourne
Leonard Joel
Mar. 09, 2024
MOLVIG Jon (1923-1970), Nude, Pen & Ink,
Est: $50 - $100
MOLVIG, Jon (1923-1970) Nude Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney, label verso (stock no. 1379). Pen & Ink PROVENANCE: The Estate of Ray Hughes, Sydney.
Davidson Auctions
Mar. 07, 2024
POSSIBLY BY JOHN MOLVIG, (THE LANDLORD'S FAMILY) C.1952, OIL ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, UNSIGNED, 54 X 29CM, FRAME SIZE: 66 X 41.5CM
Est: $1,000 - $2,000
POSSIBLY BY JOHN MOLVIG, (THE LANDLORD'S FAMILY) C.1952, OIL ON CANVAS LAID ON BOARD, UNSIGNED, 54 X 29CM, FRAME SIZE: 66 X 41.5CM
Leonard Joel
Feb. 28, 2024
JON MOLVIG, Australia (1923 - 1970), A Twilight of Women, 1957, offset lithograph (unframed), sheet: 74 x 86.5 cm. (29.1 x 34.0 in.)
Est: $100 - $200
JON MOLVIG Australia, (1923 - 1970) A Twilight of Women, 1957 offset lithograph (unframed) Collector's Edition, published by The Australian and Ibis Imprints, 1970
Lawsons
Feb. 07, 2024
JON MOLVIG, (1923 - 1970), Ballard of the Dead Stockman, offset lithograph, ed. 89/100, 44.5 x 72.5 cm (frame: 49 x 77 x 3 cm)
Est: $100 - $200
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) Ballard of the Dead Stockman offset lithograph, ed. 89/100
Lawsons
Oct. 24, 2023
§ JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Untitled 1960 oil on board 69 x 121cm
Est: $4,000 - $6,000
§ JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Untitled 1960 oil on board signed and dated lower left: molvig 1960 69 x 121cm PROVENANCE: Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney (label verso, cat. no. 142) The Collection of Ray Hughes Shapiro Auctioneers, Sydney, 23 August 2016, lot 116 Private collection, Queensland
Leonard Joel
Oct. 19, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) - Town Nocturne, 1955 oil on masonite 74 x 89 cm (frame: 83 x 98 x 4 cm)
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) Town Nocturne, 1955 oil on masonite 74 x 89 cm (frame: 83 x 98 x 4 cm) signed and dated lower right | Provenance: possibly Macquarie Galleries, 1955
Lawsons
Oct. 08, 2023
MOLVIG Jon (1923-1970), Seated Nude, Sanguine Coloured Pencil on Paper, 53x35.5cm
Est: $300 - $500
MOLVIG, Jon (1923-1970) Seated Nude Sanguine Coloured Pencil on Paper 53x35.5cm
Davidson Auctions
Oct. 08, 2023
MOLVIG Jon (1923-1970), Russell Drysdale - three portrait studies, c.1964., Pencil (3), 19.5x12.5cm (each panel)
Est: $800 - $1,500
MOLVIG, Jon (1923-1970) Russell Drysdale - three portrait studies, c.1964. Each signed 'Molvig' The artist's oil portrait of Russell Drysdale (now in the collection of Queensland Art Gallery) was a finalist in the 1965 Archibald Prize. Pencil (3) 19.5x12.5cm (each panel)
Davidson Auctions
Aug. 16, 2023
JON MOLVIG, SLEEPING ABORIGINAL WOMAN AND CHILD, 1958
Est: $100,000 - $150,000
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) SLEEPING ABORIGINAL WOMAN AND CHILD, 1958 enamel and oil on composition board 107.0 x 137.0 cm signed, dated and inscribed lower left: Molvig 58 / EO PROVENANCE David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso) Judy Cuppaidge, Brisbane, until 1979 Westpac Art Collection, Sydney Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 17 April 1989, lot 458 (as ‘Woman and Child’) Private collection, Melbourne EXHIBITED The Australian Women’s Weekly Art Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 September – 19 October 1958, then touring all state galleries, cat. 20 (as ‘Untitled portrait’) The Sound of Sky: the Northern Territory in Australian Art, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 8 April - 16 July 2006, cat. 89 LITERATURE Churcher, B., Molvig: the lost Antipodean, Allen Lane, Melbourne, 1984, cat. 206 (as ‘Untitled Portrait: Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child’), pp. 69, 74 - 75, 77 (illus.), 83, 185 Murray, D., The Sound of Sky: the Northern Territory in Australian Art, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 2006, p. 116 (illus.) ESSAY The late 1950s were a period when, for a number of non-Indigenous Australian artists, ‘(m)orality … assumed a prominence’ and through their imagery ‘endeavoured to use art to probe contemporary ethical issues.’ 1 Of these, Arthur Boyd’s ‘Bride’ series and Russell Drysdale’s memorable outback portraits of Aboriginal people are well known, but others who pursued a similar course include James Cant, David Boyd, Ray Crooke and Sam Fullbrook. Another was the Brisbane artist Jon Molvig and Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child, 1958, is a powerful and evocative statement where the figures and the parched land almost merge. It was painted in Molvig’s studio in Lambert Street, Kangaroo Point, after the artist had returned from an epic car journey with his former student (and then partner) Maryke Dageus, travelling via Melbourne, Adelaide, Port Augusta and the desert, up to Alice Springs, where they camped for nearly six weeks next to Uluru. 2 They then drove back across Queensland to Brisbane. Molvig was born in Newcastle to a Norwegian sailor who had travelled to Australia on board a windjammer. During World War Two, he served with the Army in New Guinea and the Philippines, enrolling as a student at East Sydney Technical College after he had been discharged. He went overseas in 1949 and studied painting in Europe until 1953. Described as ‘a man who enjoyed pubs, played darts, strummed the guitar, sang bawdy ditties and was an expert with the longbow,’ 3 Molvig held his first exhibition at Sydney’s Macquarie Galleries in 1955, and the following year, painted a powerful seated self-portrait, depicting himself as if carved from the cliffs bordering the Aswan Dam in Egypt. He was a restless artist and in these years was moving from a dynamic expressionist phase into a more considered approach rich in angularity and vibrant colours, influenced by his close study of artists such as Pierre Bonnard and Ernst Ludwig Kirschner. Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child attracts an extended analysis in Betty Churcher’s authoritative monograph Molvig: the lost Antipodean, from 1984: ‘The anthropomorphic curves and furrows (in this painting) … have been given specific human form, and like the legendary women of the Aboriginal Dreaming, they seem on the very point of metamorphosis, when their bodies will be converted forever into features of the landscape. They could also be a metaphor for the desert: the arid land that stretched out like a baited trap, set with opalescent colour to seduce the eye. 4 Churcher also recorded that the letters ‘EO’ which appear next to the signature are the artist’s shorthand for his use of enamel and oil paints in this work. Molvig’s star began to rise following Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child’s inclusion in the 1958 The Australian Women’s Weekly Art Prize Exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, leading to an invitation to join the stable of artists established by influential Sydney dealer Rudy Komon; though Molvig ‘adamantly refused’ a similar invitation to join the Antipodeans in early 1959.5 Before entering the Westpac Collection, Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child was owned by the Cuppaidge family whose patriarch Russell had his portrait painted by Molvig, subsequently entered into the Archibald Prize in 1959. Molvig would go on to win the Archibald Prize 1966 with his portrait of close friend Charles Blackman (Art Gallery of South Australia). 1. Heathcote, C., A quiet revolution: the rise of Australian art 1946-1968, Text Publishing, Melbourne,1995, p. 95 2. See: John Molvig: maverick, exhibition catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery|GOMA, Brisbane, 2019, pp.15, 32 3. McGrath, S., ‘The Viking is on the wall’, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 4-5 November 1978, p. 6 4. Churcher, B., Molvig: the lost Antipodean, Allen Lane, Melbourne, 1984, p. 74 4. Heathcote, C, ibid., p. 114 ANDREW GAYNOR © Courtesy of the artist’s estate
Deutscher and Hackett
Jul. 27, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of Fred Williams pen on paper, unframed 38 x 28cm (sheet, irregular)
Est: $300 - $400
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of Fred Williams pen on paper, unframed unsigned 38 x 28cm (sheet, irregular) PROVENANCE: Sir Sidney Nolan By inheritance to his widow, Lady Nolan The Estate of Lady Nolan, UK
Leonard Joel
Jul. 27, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of Fred Williams pen on paper, unframed 38 x 28cm (sheet, irregular)
Est: $300 - $400
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of Fred Williams pen on paper, unframed unsigned 38 x 28cm (sheet, irregular) PROVENANCE: Sir Sidney Nolan By inheritance to his widow, Lady Nolan The Estate of Lady Nolan, UK
Leonard Joel
Jul. 27, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of John Perceval ink on paper, unframed 38 x 28.5cm (sheet, irregular)
Est: $300 - $500
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of John Perceval ink on paper, unframed unsigned inscribed on reverse: 'Drawings by/ Jon Molvig' 38 x 28.5cm (sheet, irregular) PROVENANCE: Sir Sidney Nolan By inheritance to his widow, Lady Nolan The Estate of Lady Nolan, UK
Leonard Joel
Jul. 27, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of John Perceval Double-sided with portrait verso, possibly of Fred Williams oil on paper, pen on pa...
Est: $300 - $400
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Portrait of John Perceval Double-sided with portrait verso, possibly of Fred Williams oil on paper, pen on paper verso, unframed signed lower left 38 x 28cm (sheet, irregular) PROVENANCE: Sir Sidney Nolan By inheritance to his widow, Lady Nolan The Estate of Lady Nolan, UK
Leonard Joel
Jul. 09, 2023
MOLVIG Jon (1923-1970), Nude, Pen & Ink,
Est: $150 - $300
MOLVIG, Jon (1923-1970) Nude Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney, label verso (stock no. 1379). Pen & Ink PROVENANCE: The Estate of Ray Hughes, Sydney.
Davidson Auctions
Jul. 09, 2023
MOLVIG Jon (1923-1970), Portrait of Rudy Komon, Oil on Board, 78.5x62cm
Est: $300 - $600
MOLVIG, Jon (1923-1970) Portrait of Rudy Komon Oil on Board 78.5x62cm PROVENANCE: The Estate of Ray Hughes, Sydney.
Davidson Auctions
Jun. 28, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970), Seated Studio Nude 1960
Est: $400 - $600
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Seated Studio Nude 1960 pastel and crayon on card signed upper right: Molvig 38 x 32.5cm PROVENANCE The Collection of Andrew Sibley, circa 1960 EXHIBITED Newcastle Regional Gallery
Gibson's
May. 23, 2023
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $2,500 - $3,500
Woman in Blue, 1957 oil on board, signed and dated l.r.c. 'Molvig. '57'
Shapiro Auctioneers
May. 18, 2023
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) Landscape with Leaves, 1959 oil on board 50.5 x 63.5 cm (frame: 52 x 65 x 5 cm) signed and dated lower left...
Est: $2,000 - $3,000
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) Landscape with Leaves, 1959 oil on board 50.5 x 63.5 cm (frame: 52 x 65 x 5 cm) signed and dated lower left, titled verso | dedication "Jon Molvig to Rudy Komon"
Lawsons
Apr. 18, 2023
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $400 - $600
Seated Figure Study, sketch on paper, signed l.l.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Dec. 14, 2022
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970), Horse
Est: $150 - $250
JON MOLVIG (1923-1970) Horse mixed media on board signed lower right 24 x 18.5cm
Gibson's
Dec. 06, 2022
JON MOLVIG (Australia 1923-70), 'Three Girls', pastel and wash, signed and dated '56 lower right, 58 x 44 cm, framed 74 x 60 cm. Bea
Est: $300 - $500
JON MOLVIG (Australia 1923-70), 'Three Girls', pastel and wash, signed and dated '56 lower right, 58 x 44 cm, framed 74 x 60 cm. Bears gallery label verso for Bonython and Wentworth Galleries.
Raffan Kelaher & Thomas
Dec. 01, 2022
JON MOLVIG, SLEEPING LUBRA, 1958
Est: $30,000 - $40,000
JON MOLVIG (1923 - 1970) SLEEPING LUBRA, 1958 oil on composition board 76.5 x 102.5 cm signed and dated lower right: Molvig 58 PROVENANCE Estate of A. Waldron The Johnstone Collection, Brisbane Christie’s, Brisbane, 5 June 1994, lot 14 Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Jon Molvig, The Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 28 April – 15 May 1959, cat. 4 Jon Molvig: Maverick, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 14 September 2019 – 2 February 2022 LITERATURE Churcher, B., Molvig - the lost Antipodean, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1984, cat. 207, pp. 74, 77 (illus.) Hawker, M., Heiser, B., Helmrich, M., and Littley, S., Jon Molvig: Maverick, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2019, pp. 16, 108 (illus.), 178 ESSAY ‘Because he has been so difficult to categorize, Molvig has often been overlooked by historians and curators, and there are few artists about whom such confusion has reigned. Yet, at the full stretch of his talent, he has produced images so powerful and urgent that they have that quality of all good art: they remain in the mind in all their original clarity.’1 From a working-class family in Newcastle, Molvig experienced an unsettled childhood and then served in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II. He studied art in Sydney before travelling to Europe where he encountered the German and Norwegian expressionists whom he believed were more influential on his practice than his Australian contemporaries… In 1955, Molvig would settle in Brisbane for the better part of his adult life. At the time, the only formal courses for emerging artists involved particularly rigid and rigorous technical training, and little consideration of style. From a studio in Kangaroo Point, which was run by John Rigby (who had inherited it from Margaret Cilento), Molvig offered an alternative. At the same time as teaching a growing cohort of rapt students, Molvig developed his own distinctive style, one that Betty Churcher called ‘a lucid and accomplished expressionism.’2 An intensely complicated artist and individual, Molvig was a relentless innovator and his experimentation could be brilliantly iconoclastic. In Robert Hughes’ The Art of Australia, the young critic singled out Molvig: ‘His art exalts the vitality of the first moment of perception,’ Hughes wrote, noting that while the artist’s style was mutable, his exploration of new techniques and approaches was nonetheless strategic.3 A formidable presence on the Brisbane art scene during the late 1950s and 1960s, indeed Molvig’s work was provocative, and as inspiring to his students as it was insistent and uncompromising… Churcher divided this part of his career into two periods: tumultuous and complex pictures from the late 1950s and early 1960s – punctuated by a series of landscapes that built on his visit to Central Australia in 1958 – and his ‘Eden industrial’ pictures, inspired by Newcastle.4 Discussing Sleeping Lubra, 1958 and another closely related work from this period titled Untitled Portrait: Sleeping Aboriginal Woman and Child, 1958, Churcher notes that ‘…the allegorical quotient ensured that Molvig was able to operate on a level of meaning that went beyond the image. In both paintings an Aboriginal woman in a pink dress lies in a parched landscape under a hot sky. The anthropomorphic curves and furrows that had animated the surface of Ayer’s Rock in Centralian Landscape have hereby been given specific human form, and like the legendary women from the Aboriginal Dreaming, they seem at the very point of metamorphosis, when their bodies will be converted forever into the features of the landscape. They could also be a metaphor for the desert: the arid land that stretches out like a baited trap, set with opalescent colour to seduce the eye and lure the foolhardy or unwary to their death.’5 Significantly, Sleeping Lubra, 1958 was recently included in the major retrospective exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane from 2019 – 20. In the accompanying publication, Jon Molvig: Maverick, the first significant monograph on the artist since 1984, curator Michael Hawker elaborates, ‘…In works such as Sleeping Lubra, 1958, the figures are not just part of the landscape, they embody it. In Sleeping Lubra, the woman’s languid arm in the foreground has the contours of a dry creek bed while her torso and hips echo worn ridges and deep valleys. Molvig enhances this idea of embodiment in his use of colour – the ochre-like, chalky pinks, oranges, greys and charcoals immediately suggest the distinctive hues of the outback.’6 1. Betty Churcher cited in Jon Molvig: Maverick, Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2019, p. 94 2. Churcher, B., Molvig -The Lost Antipodean, Penguin Books, 1984, p. 47 3. Hughes, R., The Art of Australia, Penguin Australia, Melbourne, 1984, p.43, cited in Saines, C., ‘Foreword’ in Jon Molvig: Maverick, op. cit. ibid., p. 9 4. Saines, ibid. 5. Churcher, 1984, op. cit., p. 73 6. Hawker, M., ‘John Molvig: Restlessness of Vision’, in John Molvig: Maverick, op. cit., p. 16
Deutscher and Hackett
Sep. 19, 2022
Jon Molvig, Australia (1923-1970), Portrait of a Man & Woman, Backview [2], Ballpoint pen
Est: $400 - $600
Jon Molvig Australia, (1923-1970) Portrait of a Man & Woman, Backview [2] Ballpoint pen Each signed Together with: Churcher, Betty. Molvig, the Lost Antipodean, Allan Lane Penguin Books, 1984, Signed by Rudy Komon, paperback, worn
Theodore Bruce Auctioneers & Valuers
Nov. 23, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
Nude with Crossed Legs, c. 1950 oil on masonite
Shapiro Auctioneers
Sep. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
Through the Hoop oil on board, signed and titled verso 'Jon Molvig, Through the Hoop'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Woman Sketch, 1963 conte on cardboard, signed and dated l.l.c. 'Molvig '63'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $2,000 - $3,000
Eden Industrial Head of Adam, 1961 oil and blowtorch on board, signed and dated l.r.c. 'Molvig, '61', titled verso 'Eden Industrial'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Lying Nude, 1955 pencil on paper, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Girl Seated ink on paper, signed u.l.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Untitled watercolour on paper
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $300
Portrait of a Man charcoal, signed l.l.c. 'Molvig', unframed
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Girl ink on paper, signed u.r.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $1,500 - $2,000
Portrait (Rudy Komon) oil on board, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $400 - $600
Nude pen on paper, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig', titled verso 'Nude'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $400 - $600
Head, 1956 watercolour on paper, signed and dated 'Molvig '56', titled verso 'Head'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $400 - $600
Ballet Dancer pen on paper, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig', titled verso 'Ballet Dancer'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $300
Untitled (Seated Nude), 1966 pencil on paper, signed and dated 'Molvig '66'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $300
Untitled (Child Portrait), 1963 pencil on paper, signed and dated l.r.c. 'Molvig '63'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $400
Indrani's Hand pencil on paper, signed l.l.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $400
Untitled (Portrait of a Man) pencil on paper, signed l.r.c 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $400
Untitled (Portrait of a Man Wearing a Tie) ink on paper, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $400
Hands - Lyn Dyason texta on paper, signed u.l.c. 'Molvig', titled verso 'Hands Lyn Dyason'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $200 - $400
Indrani pencil on paper, signed l.c. 'Molvig', inscribed with title verso 'Indrani'
Shapiro Auctioneers
Jul. 28, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $300 - $500
Reclining Nude ink on paper, signed l.r.c. 'Molvig'
Shapiro Auctioneers
May. 25, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $2,000 - $3,000
Sun Arrangement, 1952 acrylic on board, signed and dated l.r.c. 'Molvig, '52'
Shapiro Auctioneers
May. 25, 2021
Jon Molvig (1923-1970)
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
Tree of Man IV, 1967 oil on board, signed and dated l.r.c. 'Molvig '67', signed and dated verso 'Molvig, '67'
Shapiro Auctioneers