Various Collections
Lot 268
Wallace Anderson(1888-1975)Cobbers, c.1930-1940 24.00 x 14.00 x 9.00
3 December 2025, 14:00 AEDT
SydneyAU$3,000 - AU$5,000
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Alex Clark
Head of Sale, Senior Specialist
Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
Wallace Anderson (1888-1975)
Cobbers, c.1930-1940
signed and dated: 'Anderson / 1930'
titled to the bronze base: 'Cobbers'
bronze on marble plinth, one of an unnumbered edition of 91
24.00 x 14.00 x 9.00
signed and dated: 'Anderson / 1930'
titled to the bronze base: 'Cobbers'
bronze on marble plinth, one of an unnumbered edition of 91
24.00 x 14.00 x 9.00
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Melbourne
EXHIBITED
Australian Painting & Sculpture 2023, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, 1 - 22 April 2023, cat. 38
LITERATURE
Ken Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, Nelson, Melbourne, 1980, p.10-14, lists the artist's extensive commissions in the 1920s and 30s, mostly of subjects related to WWI, of which the best known is 'The Man with the Donkey' at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance.
This is a bronze cast of the original 1930 plaster sculpture of 'Cobbers' held in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. In 1932, Anderson approached the Memorial with the notion of producing copies of the plaster version to sell to the public. Later that year, Anderson agreed to sell the original work (and copyright) to the Memorial, who then engaged the Melbourne founder, E.J. Gregory, to cast the sculptures in bronze. From 1932 to 1940, approximately 91 copies (of which this is one) of 'Cobbers' were cast. None were numbered, though patina appears to have varied, the AWM's copy of the bronze being green.