John Coburn

(1925-2006)

Rajastan, 1987

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist
Lugosi Auctioneers, Sydney, 15 March 2020, lot 205
Private collection, Sydney

LITERATURE
Nadine Amadio, John Coburn: Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1988, p. 205, titled Rajasthan


Coburn is one of Australia's most iconic and recognisable abstract artists of the 20th Century, his imagery identified by its bold colours and striking shapes. In 1969 Coburn was recommended to architect Peter Hall to design the Sydney Opera House curtains. Hall was appointed to take over from Danish architect Jorn Utzon following a dispute with the New South Wales government and his resignation from the project in 1966. Coburn had already received international recognition when he was the first Australian artist invited to design tapestries for the world-renowned Aubusson workshop, some 250 kilometres south of Paris, in the 500 year old Chateau Felletin. He moved with his young family to France in order to oversee the project, the relocation providing Coburn with the opportunity to be exposed to the highest calibre of International art in the European museums. With such a high profile undertaking came immediate fame. Solo shows in Paris and New York followed, giving Coburn sufficient confidence to embark on his own artistic mission: to develop a distinctly Australian abstract visual expression.

'During 1982 the Coburns travelled to Nepal and India, when they returned home Coburn was interviewed by P. Royle for artworks. He was asked what had been the principle influence in his paintings. The answer he gave was: 'Picasso, Matisse, Miro and Braque, and also by the New York school of the 1950s, particularly Rothko'... Asked if his preference for colour had undergone any changes he replied: 'Yes. My colour preferences change constantly because I respond to colour everywhere. I've recently been to India and I'm sure that experience is going to have some influence on my colours over the next few years. Visual experience does not always emerge immediately: it has to be digested over a long period of time and one day it just appears'.1

These profound visual experiences re-emerged some five years later when the present work, Rajastan, was completed. John Coburn once noted that 'my work has, over the years, and following a natural progress of development, gone from simplicity to greater complexity and back to simplicity again a number of times.'2 Rajastan reveals a complex and methodical balance of shapes. Each with their own unique intention – sun, sky or figure - they predominantly support a three dimensional window in the centre of the composition. The configuration placed against a red and pink rothkoesque like structure, perhaps an ode to the infamous buildings of the Pink City of Jaipur.

Alex Clark

1. Lou Klepac, John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2003, p. 68
2. Nadine Amadio, John Coburn: Paintings, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1988, p. 110