Norman Alfred Williams Lindsay

(Australian, 1879-1969)

'The Sisters'

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Sale, Christie's, Melbourne, 11 March 1971, lot 154, sold for $8,200 (buyer Lapin)
Dennis Gowin of Kevin Dennis Motors, purchased privately circa 1973 for in excess of $40,000
Collection of Alan Bond
Eileen Bond, 1990

EXHIBITED:
Perth, The Western Australian Art Gallery, Collectors Pride, 3-26 June 1977, cat. no. 61

LITERATURE:
Norman Lindsay, Paintings in Oil, The Shepherd Press, Sydney, 1945, illustrated pl. 10
Terry Ingram, 'Saleroom', The Australian Financial Review, 25 October 1973, illustrated
Lin Bloomfield, Norman Lindsay: oil paintings 1889-1969, Bungendore, 2006, illustrated, pp.200-201

The present lot was painted in 1943, and at least two preparatory studies are known: one wash and one in pencil (both illustrated in Bloomfield 2006, p.200). The model on the right was Alda, a Parsee Indian. When the painting sold at Christie's in 1971, it fetched a world-record price for the artist. It caused a sensation when it sold for over $40,000 just over two years later:

"Allegorical figures, a peacock, doves, jackal and vultures, accompany two full frontal nudes, one black and one white. The use of allegory, and a dash of humour - the white woman with doves and peacock has the look of a whore about her while the black woman, with jackal and vultures, is unconvincing in her ferocity and bears almost a benign expression - is more characteristically Lindsay...The rarity of his oils (he was not prolific in this medium) should ensure a strong continuing demand for the most accomplished works, such as Sisters." (Ingram 1973)