Lot 24

GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney (label verso)
Private collection, Sydney
Thence by descent

Smashed: Ben Quilty, GRANTPIRRIE at Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne, 30 July - 3 August 2008
One Show, Two Venues, Two Cities, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney 6 - 30 August 2008

Butler, R., One Show, Two Venues, Two Cities, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney, June 2008, pp. 8, 24 (illus.)

In "Jude (Baby)", Ben Quilty pares everything back to the essentials. The child's head is cropped tight and set against a bare ground, hovering without context, so that all attention rests on the expression. Built up in thick, urgent strokes, the face sits somewhere between image and object, paint pushed, smeared and dragged until it almost collapses on itself. There is a tenderness here, but it is not sentimental. Caught mid-cry, with small teeth just breaking through, the moment feels immediate and slightly uncomfortable, heightened by the exaggerated scale. Quilty lets the material do the work, using weight and texture to mirror the intensity of the encounter.

Quilty's rise in the early 2000s was defined by a very different cast of subjects, revved-up Torana's, stacked hamburgers, and close-up faces of mates after a long night out, painted with the same thick, unrestrained energy. These works quickly cemented his reputation, grounding his practice in a distinctly Australian language while probing the edges of masculinity. The shift the followed the birth of his son Joe introduced a more introspective thread, without loosing the physical immediacy. "Jude (Baby)" sits within this turn. While not a portrait of his own child, it carries the same heightened awareness of care, responsibility, and the unfamiliar territory of fatherhood, translated through paint that remains as direct and unfiltered as ever.

© Ben Quilty, 2026