9
COLIN MCCAHON - Anne
Starting Bid: $9,000
Estimate:
$14,000 - $20,000
Live Auction
Important & Rare Art
Lot Updates
Illustrated photo:
Anne McCahon (née Hamblett), c.1940s. Photographer unknown, Box-022-010, Uare Taoka o Hākena Hocken Collections, University of Otago
ARTIST
COLIN MCCAHON (1919 - 87)
Size
44.5 x 34 cm
Description
Graphite on paper
Condition
To request a condition report, please contact us at auctions@artcntr.co.nz or phone +64 9 379 4010
Signature
Signed & dated '42
Provenance
Private Collection, Auckland
Literature
This striking graphite drawing by Colin McCahon of his wife Anne is dated 1942, the year of their marriage. Anne, aged 27, and Colin, aged 23, were married in Dunedin in September 1942 by Anne’s father, Canon Hamblett, an Anglican minister. They met at the Dunedin School of Art 5 years earlier in 1937 when Colin was barely out of high school, while Anne was one of the senior and most promising students. Soon after their wedding, the young couple moved to Pangatotara in the Motueka Valley about 60kms north west of Nelson, where they worked on a tobacco farm until the birth of their first child in 1943.
It is likely that this drawing was made at Pangatotara. It belongs with a cluster of portraits of Anne McCahon made at that time (1942-43) in various media, including gouache, graphite, charcoal, oils and pen and ink, all clearly reflecting a period of domestic intimacy. Woman on riverbank (oil, 1943) shows Anne sitting beside a river; the others are interiors, probably drawn or painted at night by lamplight in their cottage at Pangatotara.Anne (1942-43, gouache and charcoal, Aratoi), shows her sitting with her elbows on a table, cupping her chin in her hands. Two drawings, Seated Woman and Anne (the present work) both dated 1942 depict her in profile gazing downwards. In Seated Woman she is clearly reading a book; in Anne her hands are either obscured or unfinished but could be holding a book or handwork of some kind. Both Colin and Anne were keen readers and letters from that time often refer to books they were reading in the evenings.
In the graphite drawing, Anne, the emphasis is strongly linear and geometric with the focus on the outlines of head, upper body and clothing. Particularly noticeable is a pattern of strong vertical lines. The emphatic vertical of the hair-parting is almost continuous with the line formed by her left sleeve, and this is repeated in the fall of her hair and the vertical lines of her garment. The triangular form of the nose is picked up in other triangular shapes created by bent arms in conjunction with the fabric of her jacket. The roundness of the head contrasts the pervasive angularity.
Landscapes McCahon was drawing and painting at this time, such as Road through bush (1942) or the many studies of the hills near Pangatotara (especially Crusader), show the influence of Cézanne, as mediated by Toss Woollaston. Drawings of figures such as Anne were subject to the same constructive influences. The reappearance of this strong drawing in the marketplace over 80 years after it was made is a noteworthy event.
PETER SIMPSON
It is likely that this drawing was made at Pangatotara. It belongs with a cluster of portraits of Anne McCahon made at that time (1942-43) in various media, including gouache, graphite, charcoal, oils and pen and ink, all clearly reflecting a period of domestic intimacy. Woman on riverbank (oil, 1943) shows Anne sitting beside a river; the others are interiors, probably drawn or painted at night by lamplight in their cottage at Pangatotara.Anne (1942-43, gouache and charcoal, Aratoi), shows her sitting with her elbows on a table, cupping her chin in her hands. Two drawings, Seated Woman and Anne (the present work) both dated 1942 depict her in profile gazing downwards. In Seated Woman she is clearly reading a book; in Anne her hands are either obscured or unfinished but could be holding a book or handwork of some kind. Both Colin and Anne were keen readers and letters from that time often refer to books they were reading in the evenings.
In the graphite drawing, Anne, the emphasis is strongly linear and geometric with the focus on the outlines of head, upper body and clothing. Particularly noticeable is a pattern of strong vertical lines. The emphatic vertical of the hair-parting is almost continuous with the line formed by her left sleeve, and this is repeated in the fall of her hair and the vertical lines of her garment. The triangular form of the nose is picked up in other triangular shapes created by bent arms in conjunction with the fabric of her jacket. The roundness of the head contrasts the pervasive angularity.
Landscapes McCahon was drawing and painting at this time, such as Road through bush (1942) or the many studies of the hills near Pangatotara (especially Crusader), show the influence of Cézanne, as mediated by Toss Woollaston. Drawings of figures such as Anne were subject to the same constructive influences. The reappearance of this strong drawing in the marketplace over 80 years after it was made is a noteworthy event.
PETER SIMPSON
