Bonhams 1793 : Lloyd Rees (1895-1988) Twilight in Tasmania 1976

PROVENANCE
David Sumner Galleries, Adelaide (label attached verso)
Private collection, Adelaide
Australian, International & Contemporary Art, Christies, Sydney, 26 August 2003, lot 6
Private collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Lloyd Rees at the David Sumner Galleries: Adelaide Festival of Arts Exhibition, David Sumner Galleries, Adelaide, 6 - 18 March 1976

A highly skilled technician, Rees's oeuvre remains true to this preferred subject, explored and refined through Rees' experimentation in other media such as drawing and printmaking. Deeply influenced stylistically, by the tradition of representational art, Rees remarkably stayed true to his vision and style
during an explosive and revolutionary period in Australian art history ominated by the emergence of modernism.

Tasmanian Twilight 1976, is a fine example of Rees' late career works. "In his last years, Rees moved to an even more diffuse and luminous final style which is highly reminiscent of those seen in the late works of J.M.W. Turner, or of Claude Monet in his final years again, a familiar 'traditional' trajectory.... Yet there always adheres around Rees' work something that is recognisably of and from the Australian landscape, but writ large by a hand and mind that were profoundly 'European' in the broadest and best sense."1 Rees, here enacts a perfect harmony of light and muted colour resulting in an evocative and poetic painting that is certainly indebted to these pioneering European masters and their interest in the effects of light. A masterfully created translucent veil envelops the view of the homestead, as a solitary figure dressed all in white approaches. The apparent simplicity of the work achieved through the minimalist palette and polished brushwork belies the immensely complicated approach to technique that Rees honed in a career spanning some seventy years.

1 Hassall, D., 'The Realm of Visible Creation, Some Reflections on the Art of Lloyd Rees', Quadrant, December 2009, p.93