AOCA CGP OSA
1931 - 1999
Canadian
Bather
mixed media on canvas
on verso signed, titled, dated March - April 1988 and inscribed "Hawkins"
56 x 48 in, 142.2 x 121.9 cm
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
Sold for: $55,250
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Collection of the Weaver Hawkins family, Australia
Private Collection, Australia
Bather is evidence of Graham Coughtry’s dedication to the enduring themes he explored throughout his career—the concept of water as a source of human life, power and sexual energy as well as the allure and romance of the nude figure. His ideas were informed as much by a love of classical poetry and mythology as by his awe of the body in motion, as exemplified in the photography of Eadweard Muybridge, or by the experience of watching a child at play in the ocean. Along with Dennis Burton, Richard Gorman and John Meredith, he had the good fortune to have studied at the Ontario College of Art under the pivotal tutelage of Jock Macdonald. By the mid-1950s, that same group of young artists had joined the Isaacs Gallery. What they also had in common while they were striving to establish themselves as distinctive style-setters was their commitment to post-war abstraction. For Coughtry, it was the work of Willem de Kooning, a star of the New York art scene, that validated the inclusion of the human figure within the bounds of pure abstraction.
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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