Hugh Sawrey (1919-1999) - Original Oil Painting on Board - 29cm x 39cm

HUGH SAWREY (1919-1999). Original oil painting on board from one of Australia's greatest bush painters and most sought after artists. Titled 'Lasseter Country - Central Australia' (Circa 1965) and signed lower right with thumb print (yes Hugh used his thumbprint over his signature) and signed and titled verso. 

This is an important piece of work. Sawrey describes the legend of Harold Bell Lasseter who had always claimed that he had found an immense reef of gold hundreds of miles west of Alice Springs. In 1930, with Australia in the grip of Depression, a privately funded expedition led by Fred Blakeley, accompanied Lasseter in an attempt to relocate the reef. Blakeley left Lasseter at Ililba, and Lasseter continued his trek towards the Olgas with a dingo shooter and their camels. Lasseter continued to be introspective and brood, prompting Lasseter to go off alone with two camels. In March 1931 an expedition led by bushman Bob Buck found Lasseter’s body at Winter’s Glen, and his diary at Hull’s Creek, wherein it describes how after his camels bolted, he was alone in the desert, encountering a group of nomadic Aboriginals who offered offer him food and shelter. Blind, exhausted and dying, Lasseter made one last attempt to walk from Hull’s Creek to Uluru.

This is an absolutely stunning piece, in excellent condition with its vibrant landscape colours, typical Sawrey brushstrokes and in its original 1960's frame. It's a nice sized piece for a Sawrey and definitely one for the collectors or investor. Provenance: Amanda Addams Auctions, 2012.

Dimensions

Image size: 24cm x 19cm
Frame size: 43cm x 53.5cm x 3cm

Bio

Hugh David Sawrey, CBE (born in Forest Glen, Queensland 1919, died Benalla Victoria, 1999) was an Australian artist and the founder of the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame, Longreach. Sawrey was an artist whose prolific output of paintings, and drawings of the Australian landscape and its people contributed in a profound way to the preserving of the memory of times and places in Australian history that were in danger of being overlooked and lost to posterity. Throughout his long career, he experienced firsthand events that shaped Australian identity in the 20th century and documented through his work many of the characters that lived in this period. Hugh Sawrey was born at Forest Glen near Buderim in Queensland on the 3 March, 1919. Hugh is renowned as a figurative impressionist painter of the outback. He was mainly self-taught but also studied intermittently with artist Max Meldrum and Caroline Barker.

Sawrey is arguably Australia’s greatest bush painter and undoubtedly one of the best painters of horses in the world. Vibrant images of horses and cattle, the dust of the outback and station life are images synonymous to Hugh Sawrey. In addition to his skill as a painter, Hugh Sawrey is also highly regarded as a writer and poet and illustrated four books. Sawrey travelled extensively throughout the interior of Queensland and the Northern Territory, often befriending Aborigines and occasionally being rewarded with access to remote tribal sacred places. Many of his paintings of aboriginal stockboys and cattle mustering were inspired by his travels from Alexandria Downs in the Northern Territory to Tiberoo Station, out from Eulo. His droving experiences took him mustering out past the Cooper and Diamantina, and as far west as Western Australia.