E Phillips Fox
(Australia, France 12 Mar 1865–08 Oct 1915)
- Title
- The ferry
- Year
- (circa 1910-circa 1911)
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 114.6 x 152.4cm stretcher; 141.5 x 179.2 x 12.0cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed l.l. corner, black paint "E.Phillips Fox". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1949
- Accession number
- 8171
- Location
- 19th c Australian art
- Further information
Among Fox's most sumptuous and colourful works, 'The ferry' is regarded as a masterpiece of the artist's maturity revealing a lifelong enchantment with sunshine and bright colour. Arising from Fox's visit to Trouville, a favourite beach resort in the north of France, the painting was based on rapidly painted sketches made out-of-doors, of striped bathing huts, umbrellas and holiday crowds.
When first exhibited in Sydney at the Royal Art Society in 1913, during one of Fox's return visits to Australia, 'The ferry' was an important source of inspiration for younger painters of the time like Roland Wakelin, Grace Cossington Smith and Roy de Maistre - who loved the painting for its broken brushwork and adventurous way of fragmenting and juxtaposing colour.
'The exhibition made a great impression on me ... we'd never seen colour like that here before. That was the thing that struck me most. Fox had been in France and had seen impressionist pictures which were scarcely known here then. Painting had been on the brown side - more tone than colour - this was expression through colour, we'd never seen it before.'
- Roland Wakelin, 1968- Bibliography (23)
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Look (May 2011), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.
Art, love and life: Ethel Carrick and E Phillips Fox (2011), Angela Goddard (Author), Queensland Art Gallery (Australia, estab. 1895), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Look (Mar 2010), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.
I blame Duchamp: my life's adventures in art (2009), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Author), Penguin Books Australia P/L, Surry Hills, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Art Gallery of New South Wales: highlights from the collection (2008), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Look (Dec 2006-Jan 2007), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.
Through artists' eyes: Australian suburbs and their cities 1919-1945 (2004), John Slater (England) (Author), The Miegunyah Press (Australia), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Museum National (May 2002), Roslyn Russell (Australia) (Editor), Museums Australia (Australia), Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia.
Parallel visions: works from the Australian collection (2002), Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Australian art: in the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2000), Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook (1999), Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Parade: The story of fashion in Australia (1998), Alexandra Joel (Author), Harper Collins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd (Australia), Pymble, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Painted women - Australian artists in Europe at the turn of the century (1998), Anne Gray (Australia, b.1947) (Author), Helen Carroll (Author), Ann Galbally (Australia) (Author), Janda Gooding (Australia) (Author), Barbara Kane (Author), Ruth Zubans (Author), Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia (Australia), Western Australia, Australia.
Roy and Matilda - The Golden Locket (1994), Susan Venn (Author), Edwina Publishing (Australia), Canterbury, Victoria, Australia.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections (1994), Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
National life and landscape - Australian painting 1900-1940 (1990), Ian Burn (Australia; United States of America, b.1939, d.1993) (Author), Bay Books Pty. Ltd. (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Creating Australia: 200 years of art 1788-1988 (1988), Daniel Thomas (Editor), Ron Radford (Australia, b.1949) (Assistant Co-ordinator), International Cultural Corporation of Australia (Australia), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Art Gallery of New South Wales Handbook (1988), Annabel Davie (Editor), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Portrait of a Gallery (1984), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Editor), Jan Meek (Australia) (Editor), Capel Court Corporation Pty. Ltd., Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Australia's national collections (1980), Clem Lloyd (Author), Peter Sekuless (Author), Cassell and Co. Ltd, North Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Painting (1961), Brian Finemore (Australia, b.1925, d.1975) (Author), Longmans, Green and Co (England), London, England.
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Oil Paintings by the Late E. Phillips Fox and of Ethel Carrick (Mrs. E. Phillips Fox) (1925), Anthony Hordern & Sons, Ltd. (Australia), Anthony Hordern & Sons, Ltd. (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Look (Nov 2011), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.
- Exhibition history (7)
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Oil paintings by E. Phillips Fox and Ethel Carrick (1925), (01 Oct 1925–15 Oct 1925), at Anthony Hordern & Sons, Ltd. (Australia), Brickfield Hill Sydney New South Wales Australia 2000.
Pictures by E. Phillips Fox (1913), (13 Oct 1913–28 Oct 1913), at Royal Art Society of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1880), 76 Pitt Street Sydney.
Royal Academy of Arts, 1911, (1911–1911), at Royal Academy of Arts (England, estab. 1768), Burlington House The Mall London, England, United Kingdom.
Paris Salon, 1912, (1912–1912), at Paris Salon (France), Paris, France.
Parallel Visions: Twenty-two artists from the Australian collection, (22 Feb 2002–May 2003), at Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Art Gallery Rd Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000.
Pictures by the late E. Phillips Fox, (29 Feb 1916), at Athenaeum Gallery (Australia, estab. 1839, closed 1977), Upper Athenaeum Hall Collins Street Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000.
E. Phillips Fox Interstate Exhibition, (Mar 1949–Apr 1949), at Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Art Gallery Rd Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000.