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Lot 243

Michael Taylor
(born 1933)
Balls Head Depot, 1963

24 March 2013, 14:00 AEDT
Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art

Sold for AU$7,320 inc. premium

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Michael Taylor (born 1933)

Balls Head Depot, 1963
signed and dated 'M Taylor 63' lower right
oil on canvas
203 x 182.5cm (79 15/16 x 71 7/8in).

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Collection of the artist, from 1964
Purchased from Solander Gallery, Canberra in April 1985

EXHIBITED:
Exhibition of Paintings - Michael Taylor, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 20 May - 1 June 1964, cat. no. 5

LITERATURE:
Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 1964


Taylor's paintings from the 1960s represent the intersection between landscape and abstraction, where observed visual references are usually subsumed as the artist's natural instincts allow the emotional and sensory capacity of paint to dominate. Sydney's offerings for experimental painting in the late 1950s were modest, but Taylor was drawn to Ralph Balson, and artists such as Carl Plate and the dark, gritty European inspired abstractions. It was a time in which John Olsen emerged with an entirely new pictorial language. While Taylor's landscape-inspired paintings often appear to dissolve into total abstraction, their wellspring is the artist's experience to his natural world. Nonetheless, so highly regarded is his art that he was included in the National Gallery of Australia's collection-based exhibition, Abstract Expressionism (14 July 2012 – 3 March 2013).

Doug Hall AM

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