Lot 70: FRASER FAIR B. 1949 KATHERINE GORGE

Oil on canvas Signed and dated 89 lower left
Provenance Purchased by Elders IXL from Stuart Gerstman Galleries, Melbourne, 1 November 1989 Exhibited Fraser Fair, New Work: Paintings and Pastels, Stuart Gerstman Galleries, Melbourne, 10 October - 4 November 1989, cat. 2 Reference Robert Rooney, 'Subtle twists, curious quirks', The Australian, October 1989, illus. When Katherine Gorge was first exhibited in 1989, Robert Rooney wrote: 'What makes the show outstanding is the inclusion of five large, uniformly sized oil paintings...Fair has come up with works unlike any I know (by any Australian artist that is). If anything, Fair's ultra-stylized realism is closest to being surrealist. It is almost as if Yves Tanguy had been reborn an Australian regionalist painter but hadn't lost his sense of mystery and quirky absurdity. These curious scenes of places like Katherine Gorge and Bungle Bungles eschew the cliches of the Sunburnt Country'.

198 by 183 cm