Lot 519: Don Binney Fat Bird oil on board signed and dated

Don Binney Fat Bird oil on board signed and dated 1965; title inscribed, signed and dated 1965 verso 590 x 695mm Provenance: Gifted by the artist to the present owner in 1965

Don Binney established his reputation in the mid-1960s with his paintings of New Zealand birds set against the landscape. Fat Bird, is a characteristic example of his early paintings of the Miromiro or North Island male tomtit. Buller in his Birds of New Zealand points out that 'The strongly contrasted plumage of the male bird renders it a conspicuous object; but the female owing to her sombre colours and less obtrusive habits, is rarely seen.' He adds: 'Its usual attitude is with wings slightly lowered and tail perfectly erect, almost at a right angle with the body.' Binney, however, shows the bird in flight, not perching, and its tail is swept back behind it while its wings appear to flap as it moves from left to right of the spectator as if passing by. The effect of flight is helped by the close viewpoint and the cropping of its tail by the picture frame. The bird's beak is open as if it is uttering its cry, described as 'a prolonged trilling note, very sweet and plaintive.' Binney has observed the bird accurately in keeping with his ornithological interests and his concern for his subjects and their endangered habitat. But his reductive treatment of the forms of the Miromiro and the landscape is far removed from the descriptive illustrations by Keulemans for Buller's lavish publication. Instead Binney's sharp outlines register the patterns of the bird's plumage while the strong tonal contrast enhances its striking appearance. The handling of the black areas where the paint is thick and striated causes a shimmer suggestive of light on plumage. His simplified landscape, recalling McCahon, conveys the essence of the country rather than its specific flora. As usual with Binney, the bird, small in real life, is monumentalised compared with the landscape below, a disjuncture caused by looking at birds through powerful binoculars, effectively magnifying them and distancing them from the background. The painted effect is to take the subject far from the commonplace into a new reality where the bird takes on symbolic meaning. The 1964 catalogue issued by the Icon Gallery where the Fat Bird paintings were first shown commented that 'Don Binney's paintings are indigenous to this country. They do not pretend, in their frequent use of land and bird forms to stress an obvious symbolism of New Zealand - they are not self-consciously 'New Zealand' in a literary sense. They are images, directly stated, of forms familiar to and closely observed by the artist as ingredients of an intimate environment.' Whether intentionally or not, Binney's paintings entered into the nationalist debate about New Zealand art in the mid-1960s, and then as now have strong appeal for anyone seeking imagery that evokes the distinctive ecology of this country. Michael Dunn