Art Gallery NSW and Restorer

It's been a while since my last update, and that is because I have returned to full time work and havn't had much time for this investigation. In the last couple of weeks there have been some interesting developments.

I finally managed to get Barry Pearce, curator of Australian Paintings at the AGNSW to have a look. His initial reactions involved a lot of chin scratching and head shaking. He was concerned about how small the signature was, and that the painting appeared to be coated with a very thick varnish - unusual for any painting. He also was concerned about the level of detail in the painting - that Drysdale was 'not concerned with detail'. In a way I was glad to hear this because this was one of my concerns when I first inspected the painting.

Although he noted that there were some arguments for it being a Drysdale (palette, plausible signature) his theory is that someone had found this painting, thought that it looked a little bit like a Drysdale so added the signature, then covered it in a thick coat of varnish so that tests with 'blue' or 'black' lights would not be able to discern that the signature was added long after the painting was completed.

However, he did acknowledge that this was just a theory, and that the only way to come to any definitive conclusion would be through forensics. He recommended that I take the painting to, a trusted restorer, to remove the layers of varnish over the signature area and then run the 'blue' and 'black' light tests.

So the painting is now at the restorer awaiting this treatment...

Provenance

I finally have some information on the provenance of the painting. The painting was offered for sale in the March 2005 auction by Deutscher-Menzies with the title of 'Bayswater Road'. The vendor was a dealer from Melbourne, who bought the painting as a speculative buy, not sure if it was actually a Drysdale. The experts at Deutscher-Menzies took it to the Melbourne expert on Drysdale - Geoffrey Smith - who said that the pallette was correct, but was concerned about the exectution/technique, and therefore could not confirm it as a Drysdale.

This also solves the mystery of the sticker with the number '7708', which is the item number from Deutscher-Menzies.

All in the technique

Recently I have been distracted with the task of trying to find the location of the scene in the painting. While this has been interesting, even if I were to find the exact location it would not really help in confirming the painting as a Drysdale or ruling it out. It would only really add to the interest of the painting. Maybe the exact location does not even exist. In a video I watched today on Drysdale, he stated that "Bell taught me how to draw from memory". Maybe this picture is an amalgamation of different elements of a typical inner city scene.

In any case, a better chance of determining the authenticity lies within the technique. Another quote from the video I watched today is as follows:

"I was taught to paint by the indirect method, and that is, instead of picking up paint already mixed and putting it on the canvas and leaving it there, I've been taught to build a composition up so that one uses an underpainting - posititve and neutral tones, and the glaze, a film of colour and paint into the glaze and gradually build up the quality of the paint that way."

The painting I have is very textured with what seems to be many layers of paint underneath. Although I have never seriously painted with oils, to me it seems plausible that this painting was painted with the technique described above. I'll need to have a look at some other Drysdale paintings, as the only ones I have seen are the ones that are currently on display in the NSW art gallery. Soem trips to the National Gallery in Canberra and the state gallery in Melbourne could be on the cards.

Barcom Avenue store sells a red herring

I went out this afternoon to see if the store still exists, and to my surprise it did! Here it is:


Although its days as a corer store have long passed, it is still standing. A few things looked right about the location - narrow street, terrace houses surrounding it. There were also terrace houses behind from where this photo is taken, so I could imagine that there could have been washing hanging at the front of these houses as depicted in the painting.

The things that are wrong about this location is that Bayswater Avenue is at least 1 block away, but the big factor here is that directly opposite from where this photo was taken there should be terrace houses, but instead there is Darlinghust Primary School, which according to the school's website has been there since 1883, and was a water mill before that from 1810.

I think its time to focus on the other Bayswater Avenue in Kings Cross to see if there was a deli advertising McNivens Icecream there.

A corner store

I have been researching on the Sydney City Council archives today for corner stores on either of the Bayswater Avenues I have recently discovered, but couldn't find anything. So I decided to search for corner stores in the surrounding streets, thinking that the corner store in the painting may have actually been on the other cross street. I found the following picture on the pictures australia website:


This picture was taken on 35 July 1940, and is at the corner of Barcom Street (which runs parallell to the Bayswater Avenue in Darlinghurst) and Liverpool street. The description of the picture is as follows: "Corner store advertises McNivens Icecream and Mothers choice flour". This sounded strangely familiar, so I inspected the signs on the store in the painting, and sure enough the words "McNivens Icecream" can just be made out.

Could this be the store? It has the same 'castle-like' brickwork around the top, if though a little more detailed in this corner store. Maybe artistic license was used to simplify the store when it came to painting it.

The lost roads - Bayswater Avenue

My previous theory on the location of the scene in the painting was that it must be on Bayswater Road in Kings Cross / Darlinghurst. This is beacause a street sign in the painting says 'Bayswater..' then something illegible. After finding only Bayswater Road in the current street directory I assumed that this must be it, but what bothered me was that Bayswater road had always been a very wide, busy road, with trams running down it, whereas the painting depicts a smaller road, or even a back lane.

In the state library of nsw today I found a couple of old street directories from 1942 and 1950, which show that at these times there were two different Bayswater Avenues - one in the middle of Kings Cross off Bayswater Road, and one a bit further down in Darlinghurst off McLaughlin street. At some stage between 1950 and today these streets have been reclaimed and lost forever. However, my spirits have been lifted with this discovery because the size of these streets is more consistent with the painting. After arriving back home, I had another look at the street sign in the painting under the magnifying glass, and could definately make out an 'A' after 'Bayswater'. Now the next step is to see if I can find if a corner store existed on either of these Bayswater Avenues.

Pricing gun theory shot down

Called Lawsons in Annandale today and was advised that the price gun sticker refers to Lawson-Menzies in the city - the same auction house that I bought the painting from, and the same auction house that is not being cooperative with any information.

Pricing gun sticker

All over the back of the painting there are small stickers that have come from a typical price gun, as well as a bigger sticker with the number 7708. This bigger sticker is white with red numbers and looks like it was from an auction house. It was not the same as the stickers that they use at Lawson-Menzies, and for now I will assume that it is a sticker put on there by Deutscher-Menzies. This is where I was told the painting came from. It may have passed in at a Deutscher-Menzies auction, then given to their subsidiary company, Lawson-Menzies, where it was bought by me. I must get to Deutscher-Menzies just to confirm if this is one of their stickers.

Anyway, getting back to the smaller 'price gun' stickers. There is about 10 of them, all the same, with the number '117104 1' with a big gap between the '4' and the '1'. Until now I had no idea what this meant or who put them on there. Today I attended the general weekly auction at Lawsons in Annadale, which is another division of the same auction house that deals with general goods, deceased estates, furniture and other bric-abrac. On the items for auction here, as well as the auction lot number (not in the same style as the '7708' on my painting) they have the same price sticker with numbers in the similar format - ie. six numbers, then a big space, then a final number. In addition, they are stuck on in a similar fashion to the painting - lots of them, stuck randomly on the object.

I think this number refers to the seller of the item, so I hope to take it into Lawsons next week and ask them about it. With this new information, it is looking likely that this painting originally came into the auction house through Lawsons in Annandale. I'll give up persuing Lawsons-Menzies for extra information, and see what information I can get through Lawsons in Annandale.