Boy on a Log 1953

RUSSELL DRYSDALE (1912-1981)

Boy on a Log 1953

oil on canvas
50.5 x 76.5 cm
signed lower right: Russell Drysdale

Provenance:
Macquarie Galleries, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney

Exhibited:
Russell Drysdale, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 18 November - 4 December 1953, cat.8, 130 gns
Russell Drysdale: Retrospective 1937-1960, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 5 October - 6 November 1960, cat.81 (label attached verso)
Loreto Arts Festival, Loreto Convent, Sydney, 6-8 May 1966, cat.9

Reference:
Klepac, L., The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale, (rev. ed.), Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2009, pp.260, 380 (illus. p.260, pl.121)

Estimate: $220000 - 280000

Russell Drysdale was twenty three when he took up painting as a career. He would almost certainly have settled into a career on the land at Boxwood Park, the family property in northern Victoria, if it weren’t for a serendipitous series of events, which occurred in 1932. Drysdale was recovering from eye treatment for a detached retina in a Melbourne hospital when his doctor, himself an amateur artist, showed Drysdale’s drawings to Daryl Lindsay. Lindsay was impressed with the draughtsmanship shown in the drawings and arranged for the young artist to meet with George Bell. This was to prove a major turning point in Drysdale’s life and influenced his decision to pursue art as a career over a life on the land. ‘Lindsay was interested enough to ask me whether I had ever thought about taking up painting as a career. Well, it had certainly never occurred to me, but I thought I might try art, and he introduced me to George Bell.’1

George Bell taught Drysdale about modern art and the artists that were experimenting with new styles in Europe. He studied images of work by Cézanne, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso and learnt the importance of drawing and painting from life. George Bell’s greatest virtue as a teacher was that he did not impose his own style upon his students, but that he encouraged them to find their own style. Over the coming years, Drysdale found his own style through his travels to Europe and his immersion in the Australian life and landscape.

Many of Drysdale’s major oil paintings were conceived in the artist’s sketchbooks and photographs, which he would record whilst travelling. Boy on a Log most likely relates back to a drawing from his tour of the outback in 1944 documenting the drought-stricken landscape for the Herald newspaper. The sketch depicts a figure seated on a fallen tree with hands on knees.2 A later pen and ink drawing, Stockman, from 1948, appears to be another related work featuring the seated figure with hands on knees.3

Drysdale’s deep understanding of the Australian landscape and its people can be felt in Boy on a Log – the lone figure magnifies the isolation of the outback; a dark, threatening sky bearing overhead. The artist’s unique interpretations of Australian life and the land have become some of the most widely recognised images of our history and people. ‘He is the artist who stands apart, who depicts as he sees…he compels us to see and realise that which we wish to ignore and holds up a mirror that we may see and realise ourselves’.4

Footnotes

1. Russell Drysdale, interviewed by Geoffrey Dutton, in Eagle, M., Minchin, J.,
The George Bell School: Students, Friends, Influences. Deutscher Art Publications, Melbourne 1981, p.91

2. Drought Scenes 1944, (private collection), illustrated in Russell Drysdale Drawings 1935-1980, Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, 1981, no. 47

3. Stockman c1948, (collection of Mr George Barber), illus. in Klepac, L., The Life and work of Russell Drysdale, Murdoch Books, Sydney 1996, illus. 56, p.132

4. Haefliger, P., ‘Grim paintings by Drysdale’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 April 1943, p. 11

Caroline Jones, MA (Art Admin.)