John Perceval, (1923-2000)

Scallop Boat on the Slips, Triabunna, 1967

Scallop Boat on the Slips, Triabunna, 1967
signed and dated lower left: 'Perceval 67', signed, titled and dated verso: 'Perceval 'Scallop Boat Slips / Triabunna '67'
oil on canvas on composition board, with crab embedded lower right
60.0 x 80.0cm (23 5/8 x 31 1/2in).

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Sydney, acquired directly from the artist
Geoff K. Gray, Australian & European Paintings, Sydney, 17 June 1985, lot 89
Mr Neville Healy, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne, since 3 July 1985

LITERATURE
Traudi Allen, John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 168

According to Traudi Allen, "John Perceval's distinctive style is perhaps best characterized by his exuberance and delight in a well wrought surface. While he is best known for his joyous use of colour in landscapes"(1). It was his acclaimed series of the Williamstown docks that formed a solo exhibition at Australian Galleries in 1956 that brought great critical and commercial success. As his first biographer Margaret Plant describes, "It is clear that the painter intends his audience to enjoy his painting, to respond to the warmth and blueness of the scene, to want to mess around in boats, to enjoy the vigour and spontaneity of the alla prima way of painting". (2)

The present work hails from this dynamic period in the artist's oeuvre which Allen outlines: "After the first Williamstown scenes in 1956 and 1957 came a second in 1967 and a third boat series, set at the inland waters of Mordialloc, a beach suburb on Port Phillip Bay. A general difference between the two Williamstown series is a more dynamic treatment and heightened intensity of activity in the 1967 paintings". (3). Conceived from his Williamstown series, Scallop Boat on the Slips, Triabunna, 1967, is a unique interpretation having been painted on a visit to Triabunna, a fishing port on the south-east coast of Tasmania, where at the time Perceval's mother was living in the neighbouring town of Orford.

In the present work Perceval replaces the tug boat with a scallop trawler positioned on the dry dock. Using his typical spontaneous, yet considered brushstrokes and vibrant colour palette, Perceval submerges the shell of a crab into the think paint suggesting the trawler is being antifouled in preparation for the upcoming season.

1. Traudi Allen, John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992
2. Margaret Plant, John Perceval, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1971, p. 52
3. Traudi Allen, John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 103