Title
"Mayfair: four signs, 4 paintings (Jonagold) for B.H. & J.W."
1999-2001
Artist
-
Details
- Place where the work was made
-
Brisbane
→
Queensland
→
Australia
- Date
- 1999-2001
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- synthetic polymer paint on hardboard
- Dimensions
-
91.0 cm x 388.9 cm board overall
:
a - panel 1, 122 x 91 cm
b - panel 2, 122 x 91 cm
c - panel 3, 122 x 91 cm
d - panel 4, 122 x 91 cm
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. verso [part a], black fibre-tipped pen ".../ .../ 1999-2001/ R. MACPHERSON .../ .../ .../ .../ .../ .../ .../ .../ ...".
- Credit
- Anonymous gift 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 560.2018.a-d
- Copyright
- © Robert MacPherson
- Artist information
-
Robert MacPherson
Works in the collection
- Share
-
About
This work, "Mayfair: four signs, 4 paintings (Jonagold) for B.H. & J.W.", belongs to Robert MacPherson's celebrated 'Mayfair' series (instigated in 1983, and resumed again in 2013), which encompasses text, sculpture and installation pieces, and monochromatic paintings featuring imagery and lettering appropriated from signage found in suburbia and regional towns throughout Australia. The 'Mayfair' paintings combine MacPherson's abiding interest in pop art and post-painterly abstraction with his aesthetic appreciation of work perceived to be menial, specifically signwriting. In his own words: 'The sign painters do most of the things a traditional high-art painter would do. Their signs have superior position to mine their works have a purpose – like the bison or kangaroo painters, 'Paint one today, kill it tomorrow'. My intent pulls it into a world of no function. I take that purpose away and by elevating it to the context of art, I legitimise what they do, it's good fun doing it' [1].
1. Robert MacPherson quoted in interview with Ewen McDonald, The painter's reach, QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2015, pp 81-82
-
Places
Where the work was made
Brisbane
-
Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
Robert Macpherson: The painter's reach, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 25 Jul 2015–18 Oct 2015
-
Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
-
Ingrid Periz, Robert MacPherson: The painter's reach, South Bank, 2015, 32, 134 (colour illus.), 197. cat.no. 25
-