Richard Larter

(1929-2014)

LCH 1, 1963

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Private collection
Christie's, Melbourne, 29 April 1997, lot 273
Private collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Richard Larter: a Retrospective, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 20 June – 14 September 2008

LITERATURE
Deborah Hart, Richard Larter, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2008, p. 33 (illus.), 168

In her monograph on the artist, curator Deborah Hart notes of this work, 'the year after he arrived in Australia, Larter painted works based on drawings he had sent from England and on memory such as LCH no. 1, 1963, (the title an acronym of Balzac's La Comedie humaine). In this work he evokes a rich tapestry of everyday life, of people young and old, dressed and undressed, hip and square. The hip demeanour of the young woman with a cigarette in hand, who appears to be looking into the painting, contrasts with the authority figure of the uniformed officer in the top right. He in turn faces a young couple in winter duffle coats, the outfits of choice for many students Larter encountered in London coffee shops. Spatially the figures on the edges are set within dense abstract patterns, drawing our attention to the picture plane. The two portly men - who could be characters from a Balzac novel - are placed in shallow stage sets, while the couple on the street in front of the finely drawn railings are located in a deeper space that conveys a feeling for place, a very English-looking street corner.

...In 1963, the year this work was painted, Richard and Pat Larter moved with their three children, Lorraine, Nicholas and Derek, to Luddenham on the outskirts of Sydney. The next year Diane was born, followed by Eliza four years later.'