Lot 35

(possibly) Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Melbourne

(possibly) Edwin Tanner, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney, 1980, cat. no. 19 (cat. no. inscribed verso)

RELATED WORK:
Edwin Russell Tanner, A Horse, A Horse, My Kingdom For A Horse (Richard III) 1977, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 168 x 183cm

OTHER NOTES
Edwin Russell Tanner (1920-1980) was a Welsh born Australian artist and engineer whose unique career bridged mathematics, mechanics and art. Migrating to Tasmania as a child, Tanner first trained as an engineer, a discipline that informed his lifelong fascination with structure and precision. He began painting in the 1940s and quickly developed a distinctive style that fused exacting geometry with satirical humour.

"In 1952 the artist photographed a horse he found lying dead in a field. The image runs through his pictures across several years, beginning with the moving pencil-on-paper sketch of the lifeless animal, its legs poignantly arrayed, that is nonetheless darkly entitled 'Dead Cert' 1952. 'Ozymandias' 1960 shows a horse skull lying at the same angle as the head of the original 'Dead Cert' horse, but this skull is made of concrete and there are reinforcement cables emerging from its neck. An etiolated bird sits atop it, its own head cast down, either in mourning or to peck at the horse's ear. The title drives the mood home: what are all our engineer's tricks good for, if the flesh gives way in the end, no matter what?"

(Bailey S., 'Preoccupied with the Circuitry of the Species', Arena Magazine, 2018-08 (155), p.52)

© Estate of Edwin Tanner