§ GODFREY MILLER 1893-1964 Still Life No. 1 (circa 1955) oil, pen and ink on canvas signed 'GM' lower right; signed and inscribed 'STILL LIFE NO 1 / GM.' verso (on label) 43.6 x 55.7 cm PROVENANCE Godfrey Miller, Sydney Mr Kym Bonython, Adelaide, by 1965 Mr Benno C. Schmidt, New York, acquired from the above Private Collection, New York, by descent from the above Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above on 29 February 2000 Important Australian Art, Smith & Singer (trading as Sotheby's Australia), Sydney, 16 August 2017, lot 1, illustrated Private Collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above EXHIBITED (Possibly) Godfrey Miller, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 7-19 July 1957, no. 8, 'Still Life' Godfrey Miller Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 June - 17 July 1959, no. 12 Godfrey Miller Memorial Exhibition, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 16-27 March 1965, no. 13 LITERATURE John Henshaw, Godfrey Miller, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1965, plate 4, 'Still Life with Oranges', n.p. (illustrated) OTHER NOTES PROPERTY LINE: PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR BENNO C. SCHMIDT, NEW YORK
§ GODFREY MILLER 1893-1964 Figure Group oil, pen and ink on canvas 50.5 x 61.5 cm PROVENANCE Godfrey Miller, Sydney The Estate of Godfrey Miller, Sydney Darlinghurst Galleries/Artarmon Galleries, Sydney John Altmann and Jan Altmann, Melbourne, acquired from the above Important Australian Art, Smith & Singer (trading as Sotheby's Australia), Sydney, 23 November 2010, lot 48, illustrated Private Collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Mixed Exhibition, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1960s OTHER NOTES PROPERTY LINE: PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOHN ALTMANN AND JAN ALTMANN, MELBOURNE
§ GODFREY MILLER 1893-1964 Still Life with Blue Jar (1945-1950) oil, pen and ink on canvas 51.5 x 61.8 cm PROVENANCE Godfrey Miller, Sydney The Estate of the Late Godfrey Miller (certificate JH89) (label verso) Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Dr W.R. Griffiths, Victoria, acquired from the above on 29 May 1978 Private Collection, by descent from the above Important Australian & International Art, Smith & Singer (trading as Sotheby's Australia), Sydney, 11 May 2016, lot 126, illustrated Private Collection, New South Wales, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Autumn Exhibition 1978: Recent Acquisitions, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 7-20 April 1978, no. 100, illustrated OTHER NOTES PROPERTY LINE: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW SOUTH WALES
GODFREY MILLER (1893 - 1964) STILL LIFE oil on canvas 46.0 x 61.0 cm 53.0 x 68.0 cm (frame) PROVENANCE Artarmon Galleries (label attached verso) Private collection, Victoria Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 9 May 2001, lot 130 Private collection, Victoria, acquired from the above by private treaty This work is located in our Melbourne Gallery
GODFREY MILLER (1893 - 1964) STILL LIFE WITH JUG, c.1932-33 oil on canvas on board 22.0 x 19.5 cm 24.5 x 22.0 cm (frame) PROVENANCE Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Artarmon Galleries, Sydney Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Private collection, Brisbane, acquired from the above This work is located in our Melbourne Gallery
"Nude Sketch" Oil on board c1944-1947. 60 x 40cm. Provenance: Ray Hughes Gallery Exhibition Catalogue 'Australian Paintings 1936 - 1976' (June 1981). 'Godfrey Miller' Sydney Ure Smith pub. 1965, plate 49; signed authentication dated 15 July 1966 (Lewis Miller, John Henshaw, John Kaplan) with receipt Lister Gallery April 1994.
GODFREY MILLER (1893 - 1964) THE GREEN GINGER JAR oil on canvas 40.0 x 40.5 cm signed on label verso: Lewis Miller, John Henshaw, John Kaplan, JH 171 PROVENANCE Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso) Private Collection, Sydney Shapiro, Sydney, 17 May 2016, lot 26 Private collection, Jakarta
GODFREY MILLER 1893-1964 Fig Tree Series (circa 1940) oil on canvas 46 x 61 cm PROVENANCE Godfrey Miller, Sydney Artarmon Galleries (Artlovers), Sydney (label verso) Private Collection, New South Wales Southern Cross Galleries, Melbourne J.G.L. Investments Pty Ltd, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 5 November 1984
"Nude Sketch" Oil on board c1944-1947. 60 x 40cm. Provenance: Ray Hughes Gallery exhibition catalogue No. 2 'Australian Paintings 1936 - 1976' (June 1981). Darlinghurst Galleries 'Plate No. 49 Godfrey Miller book' (Sydney Ure Smith pub. 1965). With signed authentication dated 15 July 1966 - Lewis Miller, John Henshaw, John Kaplan, with receipt Lister Gallery April 1994.
MILLER, Godfrey (1893-1964) Standing Nude Initialled lower right (and also initialled J[ohn] H[enshaw], a beneficiary of the estate of the artist #384). Pencil 37x26.5cm PROVENANCE: Estate late Audrey Dickenson.
GODFREY MILLER (1893 - 1964) SPACE MOVEMENT I, 1936 oil on canvas on composition board 36.5 x 36.0 cm 50.5 x 50.5 cm (frame) bears inscription verso: JH 267 bears certificate of authenticity attached verso, signed by Lewis Miller, John Henshaw and John Kaplan, dated 16 April 1975 PROVENANCE The Estate of the Artist Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1976 (label attached verso) P L Pickles, Sydney, August 1978 Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 1979 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane (label attached verso) Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 June 1991, lot 58 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Australian Art, Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 12 July – 18 August 1979, cat. 78 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Australian Paintings 1936-1976, A Collection, Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane, 29 May – 18 June 1981, cat. 1 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) BUS Art Collection, Wollongong City Gallery, Wollongong, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 22 (as ‘Space Movement’) One, Two, See: Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 on long term loan to Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 227 This work is located in our Melbourne Gallery
Godfrey Miller (1893-1964) Study with Fruit oil on canvas 49.5 x 60.0cm (19 1/2 x 23 5/8in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
GODFREY MILLER (1893 – 1964) SPACE MOVEMENT I, 1936 oil on canvas on composition board 36.5 x 36.0 cm 50.5 x 50.5 cm (frame) bears inscription verso: JH 267 bears certificate of authenticity attached verso, signed by Lewis Miller, John Henshaw and John Kaplan, dated 16 April 1975 PROVENANCE The Estate of the Artist Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1976 (label attached verso) P L Pickles, Sydney, August 1978 Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 1979 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane (label attached verso) Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane Sotheby’s, Melbourne, 16 June 1991, lot 58 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Australian Art, Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 12 July – 18 August 1979, cat. 78 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) Australian Paintings 1936–1976, A Collection, Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane, 29 May – 18 June 1981, cat. 1 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) BUS Art Collection, Wollongong City Gallery, Wollongong, New South Wales, 16 March – 12 April 1992, cat. 22 (as ‘Space Movement’) One, Two, See: Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 on long term loan to Newcastle Region Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 (label attached verso) LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 227
GODFREY MILLER (1893 - 1964) TREES IN QUARRY, c.1952 – 56 oil, pen and ink on canvas 44.0 x 59.5 cm signed lower right: Godfrey Miller PROVENANCE Macquarie Galleries, Sydney Harold E. Mertz, Texas, USA Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, gift from the above in 1972 (label attached verso) The Harold E Mertz Collection of Australian Art, Christie’s, Melbourne, 28 June 2000, lot 65 The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Godfrey Miller, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 7 – 19 August 1957, cat. 6 Godfrey Miller Retrospective, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 June – 17 July 1959, cat. 14 Godfrey Miller Memorial Exhibition, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 16 February – 27 March 1965, cat. 11 The Mertz Collection of Contemporary Australian Painting, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 10 March – 11 April 1966, cat. 58 The Australian Painters 1964 – 66: Contemporary Australian Painting from the Mertz Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 10 March – 16 April 1967, pl.21, cat. 72 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 65) on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1979 – c.1987 Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 March – 5 May 1996; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 15 May – 17 June 1996, cat. 61 (label attached verso) One, Two, See: Maths in a Visual World, Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales, 2003 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, prior to 2006 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Henshaw, J., Godfrey Miller, Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1965, n.p., pl. 18 (illus.) Gleeson, J., Masterpieces of Australian Painting, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1969, pl. 47A (illus.), p. 125 Gleeson, J., Modern Painters 1931–1970, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1971, pl. 21, pp. 3, 32 (illus.), 85, 86 Edwards, D., Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, pl. 61, pp. 69 (illus.), 75, 123 Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 15, 84 (illus.), 227 RELATED WORK Trees in Quarry, 1961 – 63, pen and ink and oil on canvas, 80.5 x 92.0 cm, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne ESSAY Godfrey Miller’s idiosyncratic temperament marks him as something of a contradiction in modern Australian painting. He eschewed his inherited wealth, the value placed on material existence, much about the art world and its conduct. He preferred his own privacy to the company of others. In return, the Australian art world came to regard his final decade as perhaps his finest. Miller had his first commercial exhibition in 1957, a Retrospective Exhibition in 1959 and, following his death in 1964, was included in a major exhibition of the Mertz Collection of Contemporary Australian Painting in Australia and Washington DC, with Masterpieces of Australian Painting published in 1969. Notably, on each occasion the work on offer, Trees in Quarry, c.1952 – 56, was included. In 1961, the Tate Gallery purchased Triptych with Figures, c.1944 – 50 from the landmark show, Recent Australian Painting held at Whitechapel Gallery, London over June – July that year. Miller’s work is usually cited as belonging to a generation of mid-20th century Sydney-based artists that gave Australian modernism its confident expression of semi-abstract and non-figurative painting. Artists such as Grace Crowley, Ralph Balson and John Passmore were part of a superb ensemble, but comparisons with Passmore, whose overt debt to Cézanne is strong, are tenuous. While both Passmore and Miller shared an intellectual debt to Cézanne, their stylistic manifestations reveal distinct differences from each other. Indeed, Fairweather is a more accurate comparison, as their shared interest in esoteric and non-western philosophy shaped their art in mutually unique ways. Like Fairweather, Miller’s art unambiguously stands alone – he is unable to be categorised as belonging to a school or movement. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Miller wanted to become an architect. The War interrupted a promising momentum and, aged 21, he enlisted as an army private in 1914. He was off to Egypt, then Gallipoli where he was wounded, shell-shocked, and returned to Egypt. He visited Memphis and Sakkara and saw the immaculate formal clarity of Egyptian architecture, painting and sculpture. By 1916 he had been discharged and was back in New Zealand as a student at the Dunedin School of Art. Episodic moments tended to characterise and influence Miller’s intellectual personality and career. He visited the Philippines, Japan, China and Hong Kong in 1919. In the twenties in Melbourne and nearby Warrandyte, his paintings were small, figurative, intimate and using a tonal range of exquisite subtlety. By the end of the decade, he was in London as a student at the Slade School of Fine Art where smaller scale paintings in heightened soft tones mark this period. Two exhibitions in 1936 further refined and consolidated his outlook. Miller visited Paris on three separate occasions to see a Cézanne retrospective at the Grand Palais. In London he saw the large and vast International Exhibition of Chinese Art, held at the Royal Academy of the Arts from November 1935 – March 1936. The Cézanne encounter provides a telling prelude to Trees in Quarry. The quarries at Bibémus, east of Aix-en-Provence, is where Cézanne first painted in 1895. The planar geometry, his tessellated brushwork and lineal accents are works of a distilled pictorial unity. But with Miller the idea of unity was not one of solely harmonised composition. Unity itself became the representation of the connectedness of everything, and had a philosophical underpinning. Miller’s keen interest in mathematics, Cézanne and philosophy never diminished.1 Nothing in Miller’s work sits as isolated from its whole: no one aspect of image development supersedes another. The idea of unity, especially in non-Western thinking and culture, of interconnected relationships became an all-pervasive preoccupation. It was not only as a particular compositional understanding, but also as an expression of ideas which reinforced his art. Philosophy was central to Miller, in life and art – he had read Kandinsky’s influential text Concerning the Spiritual in Art.2 With its rich complexity we find in Trees in Quarry a mature and masterful encapsulation of Miller’s intelligently steadfast pursuits. The geometric lattice arrangement of ruled straight-line ink drawing is a familiar device. Orchestrations of withheld colour and half tones flicker and settle across a meticulously worked surface of chromatic lozenges and other shapes. No element or detail is resolutely held in place to become contained and immutable. Miller often worked on paintings for years and he regarded much of his work as incomplete. It was a considered and perpetually transient working method – as though a final resolution was a daunting prospect. In Trees in Quarry, ‘borders are everywhere, but these are borders which do not confine, as that which moves beyond things is also within them… yet radiate beyond Miller’s compositional boundary.’3 The edge is especially important as it does not seek to frame and contain but alludes to a progression and extension beyond what is seen. Trees in Quarry remains one Miller’s most admired paintings within his lifetime and beyond. A carefully modulated density and weighting of sublime refinement reminds us that logic and mysticism might coexist as unity. 1. Wookey Edwards, A., ‘Godfrey Miller and Mathematics’ in Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, pp. 111 – 113 2. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy from 1935 – 39, joined the Anthroposophical Society, Sydney in 1939, and joined the Krishnamurti movement in 1955. Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published in 1910 was a seminal text discussing spiritual revolution and the importance, amongst many things, of abstraction and its relationship with music. 3. Edwards, D., Godfrey Miller 1893 – 1964, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996, p. 12 DOUG HALL AM
MILLER, Godfrey (1893-1964) Standing Female Nude Inscribed 'G M/J H [John Henshaw] #S111.' John Henshaw was a beneficiary of the estate of the artist. Pencil 28x8cm irreg.
Godfrey Miller (1893-1964) Study with Fruit oil on canvas 49.5 x 60.0cm (19 1/2 x 23 5/8in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
GODFREY MILLER 1893-1964 Nude and the Moon (1959-1964) oil, pen and ink on canvas 62 x 103.7 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Sydney PROVENANCE Godfrey Miller, Sydney The Estate of Godfrey Miller, Sydney (JH15) (certificate verso) Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney (label verso) Clifton Pugh, Melbourne Private Collection, New South Wales, by descent from the above
GODFREY CLIVE MILLER (1893 - 1964), Still life arrangement on table, oil and pencil on canvas on board, initialled 'CGM' lower right, 41 x 52cm. Miller held only four solo exhibitions, the second a retrospective mounted by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1959. In all, he only ever showed about forty paintings. He published a pamphlet (1959) elaborating the philosophical stance reflected in his paintings, and a book, '40 Drawings by Godfrey Miller' (Sydney, 1962). Following his death on 10 May 1964 at his Paddington home, a hoard of his paintings was discovered in his house which formed the basis of the Godfrey Miller Memorial Exhibition, held in Sydney in 1965. Miller's achievement lay in melding early twentieth-century practices and theories of picture-making with symbolic traditions to express an enigmatic, poetical mysticism.
Godfrey Miller (1893-1964) Still Life, c.1930 initialled lower right: 'GM' oil on canvas on board 34.0 x 23.0cm (13 3/8 x 9 1/16in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
1) Godfrey Miller. Sydney: Darlinghurst Galleries, Sydney, 1965. Folio size. Hardcover in dustwrapper which has some wear. A good copy. 2) Godfrey Miller 1893 to 1964 by Deborah Edwards. Sydney Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1996. Paperback in very good condition. Previous owners mark on free endpaper.
Godfrey Miller (1893-1964) Suez oil on composition board 16.5 x 25.5cm (6 1/2 x 10 1/16in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
GODFREY MILLER (1893 – 1964) CITYSCAPE, c.1950 – 1952 oil on canvas on compressed card 35.0 x 35.0 cm (image) 33.5 x 33.0 cm (sight) bears inscription lower right in the tacking margin: JH 134 label attached verso signed by J. Henshaw, executor of the artist's estate PROVENANCE Estate of the artist, Sydney John Lockhart AO, Sydney Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1981 EXHIBITED Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 10 – 24 September 1981, cat. 140 (illus. in exhibition catalogue) ESSAY While Godfrey Miller was held in high regard amongst modernist painters of his time, an aversion to exhibiting, or releasing his works from the studio stunted the arc of his career during his lifetime. Most of Miller’s major works are held in institutions, as he was reluctant to sell to private collectors, except on rare occasions for important individuals whom he felt worthy of owning his works. Miller’s paintings represent the true spirit of an artist whose sole focus in life was the pursuit of truth and beauty through his work. His mature paintings are characterised by his use of fine, ruled lines, which segment the surface into small geometric fields poised to receive pockets of pigment. The artist’s working methods were such that it may have felt impossible for Miller to actually finish a painting. His forensic attention to detail meant that each additional application of colour, no matter how minor, would send a kaleidoscopic ripple across the work, which the artist would intuitively be required to follow with further strokes and counter strokes, resulting in a perpetual game of aesthetic adjustment. From early in his career, Miller was known to take up to fifteen years to complete a painting. The current work Cityscape, c. 1950 – 52, is a square format which the artist has divided neatly in half using a direct horizontal line across the centre of the work. This bold gesture for Miller which displays a neat, formal division is not often apparent in Miller’s meditations on nature versus mathematics. In this case the strategy suits the subject very well as it allows him to divide the ‘landscape’ into two equal contrasting parts. The lower half of the work features Miller’s mature geometric style, which is rich in detail and colour and alludes to a natural world. Whereas the upper half of the work features a series of vertical forms, which when read in conjunction with the grey tones suggest a manmade environment of a city with industrial overtones. Miller has often drawn parallels between trees and architecture. In his endless quest for unity between subject, ground and medium, Miller developed a method of weaving and layering his subjects with the surrounding space. Through a merging natural and manmade forms, he succeeded in creating works of enormous technical complexity. The artist has left Cityscape, poised perfectly between representation and near abstraction. From the early 1950s onwards, Miller’s work sat in contrast to the lyrical abstraction which prevailed through the teaching at East Sydney Technical College. While the influential John Passmore and his students danced to the tune of Cézanne, Godfrey Miller stayed true to his intuition: his rigid analytical propositions representing not only a milestone of Australian painting, but a profoundly personal vision. HENRY MULHOLLAND
