Title
Mayfair: eleven paintings, eleven signs, red-yellow-green (autumn) for Mrs Brisbane 1994-2004
1994-2004
Artist
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Details
- Date
- 1994-2004
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- synthetic polymer paint on hardboard
- Dimensions
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244.0 x 91.0 cm board overall
:
a - panel 1, 122.3 x 91.5 cm
b - panel 2, 117.5 x 91.5 cm
c - panel 3, 122.3 x 91.5 cm
d - panel 4, 117.5 x 91.5 cm
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l. verso on board [part a, vertically], black fibre-tipped pen "...1994-2004/ R.MACPHERSON...".
Signed and dated l.r. corner verso on board [part b], black fibre-tipped pen "R.MACPHERSON ... APRIL 2004".
Signed and dated u.r. verso on board [part c], black fibre-tipped pen ".../ 1994-2004/ R.MACPHERSON ... APRIL 2004".- Credit
- Gift of Simon Johnson 2014. Donated through the Australia Government's Cultural Gifts Program
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 118.2014.a-d
- Copyright
- © Robert MacPherson
- Artist information
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Robert MacPherson
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
This painting is from the 'Mayfair' series, which encompasses a large body of work made by MacPherson from the early 1990s onwards. The title refers to the Mayfair sandwich bar in Brisbane, where MacPherson had lunch every day for many years. The people's names he uses in the titles are people he has met, often in places like the sandwich bar. The reference to a sandwich bar, even one that sounds like posh real estate though it is just a shop, and the word 'Smoko', point to Macpherson's interest in the idiosyncratic use of language, names and signs in Australia.
Along with other works in the series it is painted with Dulux commercial paint rather than specialist artists paints and is also painted on masonite, an everyday material. The black monochrome refers to 20th century international modernism just as tomatoes and apples based on homemade roadside advertising signs represent a vernacular local Australia - an encounter between the local and the international has been key to MacPherson's practice for many years.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Mayfair: eleven paintings, eleven signs, red-yellow-green (autumn) for Mrs Brisbane, Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Potts Point, 05 Jun 2004–03 Jul 2004
Australian art and the Russian avant-garde, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29 Jul 2017–29 Oct 2017
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Ewen McDonald., Robert Macpherson: art project 07, 'Drive/buys...roadside stall signage and other earthly delights', Sydney, 2009, n.pag.. general reference
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