Lot 38

Australian Galleries, Melbourne, acquired 1983
Private collection, Melbourne
Thence by descent

Morrison, S., After Fire: A Biography of Clifton Pugh, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2009, page 379 (illus.) (Related work)
Allen, T., Clifton Pugh: Patterns of a Lifetime, Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1982, page 85 (illus.) (Related work)

Rites of Spring is a major painting within Clifton Pugh's output, notable for the scale and quality of its execution. The composition is structured around an enclosing, egg-like form, a recurring theme in Pugh's work, which creates a contained yet highly charged pictorial space. The intertwined figures of the bull and cow form a dense, interlocking structure of line and colour, giving the work both physical weight and emotional intensity.
Pugh's handling of surface is particularly striking. Layered textures, earthy tonalities and assertive contour lines produce a tactile quality that reinforces the work's connection to landscape and to lived personal experience. The painting reflects his ongoing engagement with themes of vitality, conflict and generative force in nature, approached with a distinctly Australian sensibility.
A 1971 colour etching of the same title, which predates the painting, appears to have served as an important study. The print establishes the core compositional structure and thematic direction later realised on a more expansive and painterly scale. The enclosing oval form also connects this work to earlier composition The Muse and Ourselves 1956 a depiction of Pugh's wife and children, demonstrating Pugh's sustained exploration of intimacy, tension and the powerful forces that shape both personal and natural worlds.

RELATED WORK
Clifton Pugh, The Muse and Ourselves 1956, oil on canvas, in the collection of the John Curtin School of Medical Research Australian National University, South Australia
Clifton Pugh, Rites of Spring 1971, colour etching, edition unknown, 50 × 32 cm, in the Dunmoochin Art Collection, La Trobe University, Melbourne