Description: Oil on composition board Signed and
dated 59 upper left
Provenance Major Harold de Vahl Rubin,died in N.S.W.,
1964 Artlovers Gallery, Artarmon, Sydney (label on the reverse); purchased by
Woodhall Australia Pty Ltd in November 1972; transferred to Elders IXL in 1985
Exhibited Possibly William Dobell Paintings 1926-1964, Art Gallery of New
South Wales, Sydney, 5 July - 30 August 1964, cat. 154 (however this may have
been another work entitled Wangi Girl, 1953) Reference James Gleeson,
William Dobell, Thames & Hudson, London, 1964, p. 108, illus. plate 102
Dobell's solid academic training - in Sydney and ten years in Europe - found him
a following with both conservative and progressive art collectors after his
return to Australia in 1939. However, after the personal and professional trauma
of the court case over his Archibald Prize portrait of Joshua Smith in 1943-44,
Dobell retreated to Wangi Wangi on the central coast of New south Wales. There
he was nursed by his sister Alice at the family's weekender on the foreshore of
Lake Macquarie. Landscape painting became a solace and restorative and in 1948
Dobell won the Art Gallery of New South Wales's Wynne Prize for landscape. Then,
that same year, his portrait of Margaret Olley won him a second Archibald Prize
and his confidence in figure painting returned. Also known as 'Rattails',
Wangi Girl was inspired by his memory of a local girl he had seen on a
bus. As James Gleeson observes, Dobell's style took its cue from the subject:
'Rattails... is all delicate attenuation and subtle modelling'.(1) Like
his large and well-known 1960s Wangi Boy and the smaller standing
Wangi Boy of 1948-49, she is not primarily a portrait. 'I prefer to be
doing character work', Dobell later said.(2) His Wangi girl is an archetypal
Australian 'kid': thin, wide-eyed, freckle-faced, hair in bunches - and alive
with personality. She is not a child, but not yet adult; slightly pensive and
open to the world around her. Wangi Girl dates from 1959, the year of
his third Archibald Prize win. After a period of ill health, he received the
Australian Women's Weekly Portrait Prize for his Helena Rubinstein in
1957 (National Gallery of Victoria) and then a commission for a Time
Magazine cover in 1960. Although his work was now almost universally
acclaimed, and he was honoured with a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of
New South Wales in 1964, he lived the remainder of his life in the peace and
quiet of Wangi. (1) William Dobell, Thames & Hudson, London, 1964,
p. 108. (2) Quoted by Peter Raissis in Barry Pearce (ed.), William Dobell,
the Painter's Progress, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997, p.
90.
Dimensions: 49.4 by 37.6
cm
this artwork and artist relates to my body of work due to he has painted portraits of people he knows, as i am painting my great nana, who means something to me.
dated 59 upper left
Provenance Major Harold de Vahl Rubin,died in N.S.W.,
1964 Artlovers Gallery, Artarmon, Sydney (label on the reverse); purchased by
Woodhall Australia Pty Ltd in November 1972; transferred to Elders IXL in 1985
Exhibited Possibly William Dobell Paintings 1926-1964, Art Gallery of New
South Wales, Sydney, 5 July - 30 August 1964, cat. 154 (however this may have
been another work entitled Wangi Girl, 1953) Reference James Gleeson,
William Dobell, Thames & Hudson, London, 1964, p. 108, illus. plate 102
Dobell's solid academic training - in Sydney and ten years in Europe - found him
a following with both conservative and progressive art collectors after his
return to Australia in 1939. However, after the personal and professional trauma
of the court case over his Archibald Prize portrait of Joshua Smith in 1943-44,
Dobell retreated to Wangi Wangi on the central coast of New south Wales. There
he was nursed by his sister Alice at the family's weekender on the foreshore of
Lake Macquarie. Landscape painting became a solace and restorative and in 1948
Dobell won the Art Gallery of New South Wales's Wynne Prize for landscape. Then,
that same year, his portrait of Margaret Olley won him a second Archibald Prize
and his confidence in figure painting returned. Also known as 'Rattails',
Wangi Girl was inspired by his memory of a local girl he had seen on a
bus. As James Gleeson observes, Dobell's style took its cue from the subject:
'Rattails... is all delicate attenuation and subtle modelling'.(1) Like
his large and well-known 1960s Wangi Boy and the smaller standing
Wangi Boy of 1948-49, she is not primarily a portrait. 'I prefer to be
doing character work', Dobell later said.(2) His Wangi girl is an archetypal
Australian 'kid': thin, wide-eyed, freckle-faced, hair in bunches - and alive
with personality. She is not a child, but not yet adult; slightly pensive and
open to the world around her. Wangi Girl dates from 1959, the year of
his third Archibald Prize win. After a period of ill health, he received the
Australian Women's Weekly Portrait Prize for his Helena Rubinstein in
1957 (National Gallery of Victoria) and then a commission for a Time
Magazine cover in 1960. Although his work was now almost universally
acclaimed, and he was honoured with a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of
New South Wales in 1964, he lived the remainder of his life in the peace and
quiet of Wangi. (1) William Dobell, Thames & Hudson, London, 1964,
p. 108. (2) Quoted by Peter Raissis in Barry Pearce (ed.), William Dobell,
the Painter's Progress, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997, p.
90.
Dimensions: 49.4 by 37.6
cm
this artwork and artist relates to my body of work due to he has painted portraits of people he knows, as i am painting my great nana, who means something to me.