WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 1936-2015 A Haystack 1992 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed and dated ‘Delafield Cook 92' lower right 82.5 x 127 cm PROVENANCE William Delafield Cook, London Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne (stock 10980) Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1992 Australian + International Art, Deutscher-Menzies, Sydney, 13 June 2007, lot 63, illustrated Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936 - 2015) HILLSIDE I, 2004 – 11 synthetic polymer paint on linen 162.0 x 380.0 cm signed and dated lower right: W Delafield Cook 04 – 11 PROVENANCE Olsen Irwin Gallery, Sydney (labels attached verso) Company collection, Sydney, acquired from the above in 2016 EXHIBITED William Delafield Cook, A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria, 16 July – 11 September 2011, then touring to TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria, 15 October 2011 – 12 February 2012, cat. 17 Summer Group Show, Olsen Irwin Gallery, Sydney, 29 January – 13 February 2014 LITERATURE Gregg, S., William Delafield Cook, A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria, 2011, cat. 17, pp. 46 (illus.), 49 – 50 Field, F., 'William Delafield Cook', obituary, Independent (UK), 13 May 2015 ESSAY ‘By giving what is commonplace an exalted meaning, what is ordinary a mysterious aspect, what is familiar the impressiveness of the unfamiliar, to the finite the appearance of infinity...’1 With their glacial proportions and immutable subject, Delafield Cook’s Australian landscapes such as the magnificent Hillside I, 2004 – 2011 eloquently encapsulate the concept of time immemorial. For despite their visual immediacy and apparent fidelity, such landscapes nevertheless appear suspended in time – suffused with a sense of calm and tranquillity that, though reassuring in its contemplation of an eternal space, simultaneously evokes a disquieting undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty through the landscape’s ability to expose our limits and the finitude of our existence.2 The span of a human life pales into insignificance in the face of such an ancient, monumental landscape; and indeed, as the artist admits, part of his motivation for fastidiously recording a place springs from ‘acknowledging your mortality’ and ‘attempting to leave something behind after you are gone.’3 Heightening the depiction of reality to such unimaginable degree to reveal the ‘essence’ of his subjects, thus Delafield Cook highlights the surreal within the real, inviting us to contemplate that which lies beyond our perception – the basic human quest for an underlying universal truth that transcends time or locality. Both Delafield Cook’s affinity for the Australian landscape and his consummate skill in capturing its essential character with an intensity unparalleled in Australian art is all the more remarkable when one considers that such paintings – which he created almost exclusively from the late 1970s onwards – were produced entirely from his studio in London. Relocating to London in 1958 after what had been intended as a short trip became a second home, significantly Delafield Cook would spend part of every year for the last three decades of his life travelling back to his country of origin to reconnect and undertake long journeys into the landscape ‘…where his ancestors had settled, where his grandfather had painted, where he had grown up…’4, before then returning to his studio abroad to recreate his vision. Paradoxically perhaps, such distance only enhanced the power of his iconic landscapes, allowing the artist to pursue ‘…the pure idea of land filtered through memory, in which all voices and activities are silenced, and the spirit of the earth can peacefully emerge.’5 Noteworthy in its execution over an extended period of seven years, Hillside I clearly represented an epic undertaking for Delafield Cook and unsurprisingly perhaps, was selected for inclusion in his highly acclaimed survey exhibition organised by the Gippsland Art Gallery in 2011 (the artist’s last solo show before his untimely death in 2015). So utterly still and elemental that it almost seems beyond time, the composition offers an intriguing, mysterious interpretation of the parched hillside motif that has today become a universally recognised hallmark of his art. Reprising the artist’s earlier iterations of the theme which first emerged during the late 70s and early 80s – many of which have now entered the country’s major state gallery and corporate collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Bendigo Art Gallery; Heide Museum of Modern Art; The University of Melbourne Art Collection; ANZ Collection; and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Collection – Hillside I also betrays unmistakable allusions to Tom Roberts’ celebrated bushranging masterpiece, Bailed Up!, 1895, 1927 (Art Gallery of New South Wales) with its high horizon line, tilted picture plane and sunburnt palette (though Delafield Cook deliberately eschews any hint of the sentimental human drama favoured by his predecessor). Notwithstanding its ostensible neutrality or stark emptiness however, the landscape here is nevertheless informed by exquisitely rendered incidents ‘…if one is prepared to look long and hard enough’6 as Delafield Cook asserts, while the vast amplitude of the hillside is conveyed through the painting’s panoramic scale: ‘…it brings in this element of having to turn your head to take in the picture which fills the field of vision, like being there.’7 Simultaneously infinite in its detail and infinite in its expanse, the work thus fathoms an Australian ‘sublime’ that is boundless and majestic in the manner of Caspar David Friedrich and the eighteenth-century Romantics Delafield Cook so admired. Inspiring awe and reverence, the classical harmony and stillness imply that the forces of the cosmos have here aligned – that there is a divine order amidst the chaos of nature.8 Bereft of any apparent narrative, it is the landscape itself, distilled in its unknowable ‘essence’, that occupies the focus, imbued with a sense of drama that leaves the viewer poised indefinitely in a moment of suspense. As Delafield Cook observes of this quality in his art, ‘It’s the stage that we’re living out our lives in… The picture is the set, pregnant with possibilities.’9 1. Quote from Novalis, Poeticism (1798) inscribed in one of Cook’s notebooks; see Hart, D., William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 220 2. Fitzpatrick, A., ‘Intimations of Mortality in the Work of William Delafield Cook’ in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 32 – 44 3. Delafield Cook, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 184 4. ibid., p. 168 5. Gregg, S., ‘William Delafield Cook: A Survey’, in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, op. cit., pp. 2 – 23 6. Delafield Cook, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 197 7. Delafield Cook, cited ibid., p. 199 8. Gregg, op. cit., p. 9 9. Delafield Cook, cited ibid., p. 16 VERONICA ANGELATOS
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION, MELBOURNE WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936-2015) Interior 1972 conté and ink on paper on canvas 96.0 x 141.5 cm; 99.0 x 144.5 cm (framed) signed lower right: W Delafield Cook 72
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936-2015) Sans titre 1973 signé et daté 73 ; signé, daté 73 et inscrit 30 Holmbush Rd London SW15 au revers acrylique sur toile signed and dated 73 ; signed, dated 73 and inscribed 30 Holmbush Rd London SW15 on the reverse acrylic on canvas 152 x 152 cm. 59 13/16 x 59 13/16 in.
Australian, 1936-2015 Garden, 1998 Signed and dated W Delafield Cook '98 (ll) Acrylic on canvas 34 1/2 x 59 1/4 inches (87.6 x 150.5 cm) Provenance: Rex Irwin Art Dealer, New South Wales, Australia (Framed dimensions: 35 1/4 x 60 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches) A faint cluster of light brown pigment at upper left in sky. Some scattered rubs along edges of canvas, most apparent in sky.
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK SENIOR (1861-1931), Boats on the Water, Kew, The Yarra, gouache, signed lower right "Delafield Cook", 24 x 37cm, 41 x 54cm overall
William Delafield Cook (1936-2015) Through a Window, 1966 Also known as Painting, 1966 signed and dated lower right: 'W. Delafield Cook 66' oil on paper 59.5 x 44.0cm (23 7/16 x 17 5/16in).
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936-2015) Green Cage No. 2 1969 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right: W Delafield Cook '69 titled and inscribed verso: GREEN CAGE/ Cat. No 2 91 x 100.5cm PROVENANCE: Private collection, Melbourne Thence by descent LITERATURE: Hart, D., William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998 In the 1960s, Delafield Cook was looking to move away from Abstract Expressionism and towards a more figurative approach. "A window, a fragment of latticework, the geometric slats of a pergola of the balustrade of a balcony, now begin to appear, suggesting new possibilities for anchoring, for framing, for structuring the picture plane. The best of these works reveal an increasing technical dexterity, combining rigour with a light touch, and sense of poetic intimacy." (p. 53) In the mid 1960s, Delafield Cook produced a series of paintings associated with birds intersecting with a cage and hedge. Inspired by the evocative brushwork of Francis Bacon, amongst others, Delafield Cook became more adventurous with colour, using vivid yellows and greens for an eerie sense of drama. OTHER NOTES: RELATED WORK: William Delafield Cook, Green Cage 1966, oil on canvas, 66 x 45.7cm, Private collection.
William Delafield Cook (1936-2015) Louis XV Chinoiserie Commode, 1988 signed and dated lower right: 'W. Delafield Cook '88' charcoal and conté crayon on paper 108.0 x 124.0cm (42 1/2 x 48 13/16in).
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 1936-2015 Gundagai Revisited 2006 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed and dated 'W. Delafield Cook 06' lower right 76.5 x 183 cm PROVENANCE: William Delafield Cook, London Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney Private Collection, Melbourne EXHIBITIONS: William Delafield Cook - Jonathan Delafield Cook, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 26 September - 21 October 2006, illustrated William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 16 July - 11 September 2011; TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, 15 October 2011 - 12 February 2012, no. 21, illustrated LITERATURE: Patricia Anderson, William Delafield Cook - Jonathan Delafield Cook, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 2006, n.p. (illustrated) Simon Gregg, William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 18 (illustrated), 19, 51
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936 - 2015) HILLSIDE, ELLERSTON, 1990 synthetic polymer paint on linen 74.0 x 196.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Delafield Cook 90 PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne, acquired directly from the artist The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Melbourne, acquired from the above, December 1990 EXHIBITED Dawn to Dusk: Landscapes from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, 31 May – 16 November 2014 Colour and Movement, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 19 February – 9 June 2016 on long term loan to Wollongong City Gallery, New South Wales LITERATURE Nainby, B., Stanhope, Z., and Furlonger, K., The Cbus Collection of Australian Art, in association with Latrobe Regional Gallery, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 148 ESSAY With their glacial proportions and timeless subject matter, Delafield Cook’s Australian landscapes such as the magnificent Hillside, Ellerston, 1990, eloquently encapsulate the concept of time immemorial. For despite their visual immediacy and apparent fidelity, such landscapes nevertheless appear suspended in time – suffused with a sense of calm and tranquillity that, though reassuring in its contemplation of an eternal space, simultaneously evokes a disquieting undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty through the landscape’s ability to expose our limits and the finitude of our existence.1The span of a human life pales into insignificance in the face of such an ancient, monumental formation; and indeed, as the artist admits, part of his motivation for fastidiously recording a place springs from ‘acknowledging your mortality’ and ‘attempting to leave something behind after you are gone.’2 Heightening the depiction of reality to such unimaginable degree to reveal the ‘essence’ of his subjects, thus Delafield Cook highlights the surreal within the real, inviting us to contemplate that which lies beyond our perception – the basic human quest for an underlying universal truth that transcends time or locality. Both Delafield Cook’s affinity for the Australian landscape and his consummate skill in capturing its essential character with an intensity that is unparalleled in Australian art is all the more remarkable when one considers that such paintings – which he created almost exclusively from the late 1970s onwards – were produced entirely from his studio in London. Relocating to London in 1958 after what had been intended as a short trip became a second home, significantly Delafield Cook would spend part of every year for the last three decades of his life travelling back to his country of origin to reconnect and undertake long journeys into the landscape, before then returning to his studio abroad to recreate his vision. Paradoxically perhaps, such distance only enhanced the power of his iconic landscapes, allowing the artist to pursue ‘…the pure idea of land filtered through memory, in which all voices and activities are silenced, and the spirit of the earth can peacefully emerge.’3 An intriguing, mysterious image, Hillside, Elllerston offers a recreation of the eponymous landscape in the upper Hunter Valley region of New South Wales that is so utterly still and elemental, it seems beyond time. Notwithstanding its ostensible neutrality or stark emptiness, the landscape is informed by exquisitely rendered incidents while the vast amplitude of the hillside is conveyed through the painting’s panoramic scale; as Delafield Cook suggests, ‘…it brings in this element of having to turn your head to take in the picture which fills the field of vision, like being there.’4 Simultaneously infinite in its detail and infinite in its expanse, the work thus fathoms an Australian ‘sublime’ that is boundless and majestic in the manner of David Casper Friedrich and the eighteenth-century Romantics Delafield Cook so admired. Inspiring awe and reverence, the classical harmony and stillness imply that the forces of the cosmos have here aligned – that there is a divine order amidst the chaos of nature.5 Bereft of any apparent narrative, it is the landscape itself, distilled in its unknowable ‘essence’, that occupies the focus, imbued with a sense of drama that leaves the viewer poised indefinitely in a moment of suspense. As Delafield Cook observes of this quality in his art, ‘It’s the stage that we’re living out our lives in… The picture is the set, pregnant with possibilities’.6 1. Fitzpatrick, A., ‘Intimations of Mortality in the Work of William Delafield Cook’ in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp.32 – 44, p.39 2. The artist, cited in Hart, D., William Delafeld Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998 p. 184 3. Gregg, S., ‘William Delafield Cook: A Survey’, in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 2 – 23, p.5 4. The artist, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 199 5. Gregg, op. cit., p.9 6. The artist, cited ibid. p.16 VERONICA ANGELATOS
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936-2015) Still Life Helmet 1988 charcoal on paper 65.0 x 72.0 cm signed and dated lower right: W. Delafield Cook 88 inscribed lower left: 'Helmet'
William Delafield Cook (born 1936) JJ Rousseau, 1995 titled lower left: 'JJ Rousseau' signed and dated lower right: 'W. Delafield Cook '95' charcoal and conte crayon on paper 70.0 x 56.5cm (27 9/16 x 22 1/4in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936-2015) A Hedge 1974 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed, dated and inscribed verso: W Delafield Cook/ Berlin 1974 82.5 x 199.5cm PROVENANCE: The National Australia Bank Art Collection EXHIBITIONS: The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries From the Collection of National Australia Bank, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 15 October - 28 November 1982 The Seventies: A Selection of Australian Paintings and Tapestries From the Collection of National Australia Bank, Waverly City Gallery, Melbourne, 21 February - 13 March 1986, cat. no. 12 LITERATURE: Lindsay, R. (ed.), The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries From the Collection of National Australia Bank, The National Bank of Australasia, Melbourne, 1982, p. 38 (illus.) Hart, D. William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House in association with G+B Arts International, 1998, p. 105 (illus.) "This painting contrasts with his earlier images of hedges and topiaries in formal garden settings. It reveals the shift...in the close-up concentration on a particular aspect of nature, removed from the surrounding context, and in the intricate handling of multiple, densely interwoven components - in this case of the coppery-coloured leaves" (excerpt, p.105) OTHER NOTES: For most Australians, William Delafield Cook seemed to materialise fully-formed onto the local art scene - from nothing to the top of the tree overnight. The reasons for this were understandable, for his first exhibitions were held at the Redfern Gallery in London, a privilege earned after a decade teaching in English art schools and spending many hours contemplating the works in the great galleries of Europe. Born in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield, he trained at the nearby Caulfield Technical College and then at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He left Australia in 1958 at the age of just 22, like many of his peers going 'OS' to broaden his horizons but, unlike most, he stayed on, making London his home base for the next 50 years. Like Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd before him, he spent the greater part of his working life resident in the United Kingdom, and like them he is always considered an 'Australian artist'. After working through various forms of abstraction, Delafield Cook moved to a form of realism based wholly on photography. Australian art lovers had been shocked into the present, or at least the immediate past, when the NGV mounted the massive exhibition Two Decades of American Painting in 1967, which featured amongst the dominant abstract expressionists the huge photorealist paintings of James Rosenquist, creations based on the illustrations from popular magazines. While accurate realism had long been an aspiration among conservative artists, the idea of 'painting a photograph' was something entirely different. While many artists had freely incorporated photographic reference, it was only ever intended as a means to an end, not an end in itself. What William Delafield Cook took from the American pop artists was not the subject matter, but the obvious reliance on the photographic image and the cinematic scale. That he would rely on photographs was a given - he was after all painting the Australian landscape in the confines of his studio in Putney, half a world away. When his works did arrive in Australia, collectors and galleries alike were mesmerised by his strangely still and meticulously rendered paintings of haystacks and roadside vistas. We are all used to holding a postcard sized photograph and taking in the captured moments of family and friends, holiday snaps and foreign parts. What we see in that concentrated moment takes on a wholly different meaning when rendered on a huge scale, but with the same detail. Delafield Cook's paintings, when seen from a distance, appear as huge 'enlargements', like projections from a cinema or a photographic installation. But when approached, the details remain, rather than blurring out as would happen with a huge photograph. Even on the closest inspection the artist has not resorted to sleight of hand tricks - as we see in his haystacks, every blade of grass has been meticulously rendered, haystacks at the opposite end of the artistic spectrum to those of Claude Monet, for whom the stack was simply a large geometric form, textured and reflective at a moment in time. When Australia did get to see the works of the mature Delafield Cook, he did not have to fight for acceptance, to work through the ranks like most of his peers. It is instructive to note that all our major institutions purchased his works within a year of their completion. The bulk of his paintings went to corporate collections and a small number of wealthy individuals - for not only were the prices daunting, the scale of the paintings made them ideal for public galleries and the foyers of corporate headquarters, way beyond the confines of most domestic spaces. The subject work, A Hedge, has all the detail and meticulously rendered surface of the haystacks and hillsides, but our focus has been brought down to a few metres as we gaze at the dense foliage of the copper beech. The 'horizon' formed by the top of the hedge sits just below the top of the composition, enclosing and trapping us with no clue as to where we are - is it the artist's back garden, or some random wall in a local park? Just as the painting is flawless, so too is the hedge - not one weed, flower, bud or foreign plant intrudes upon the space. We search across the surface, looking for some small variation - perhaps the glimpse of a bird or spider web to break the pattern. The sky too is flat and featureless, as it always is with the Delafield Cook landscape. The cinematic feel is accentuated by the proportion of the work being 2.4:1, almost identical to the 2.35:1 of Cinemascope, 'wide screen' as best understood when the work was created. That effect is further accentuated by the broad painted frame with its rounded corners, a photographic device the artist often used to enclose his subjects and further separate them from the wider world. In every way the painting is an understated masterwork, with subtle and sophisticated colour and a quiet mystery of subject matter, which turns us in on ourselves as we contemplate the patience and dedication of a true artist. Gavin Fry
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936 - 2015) A FRENCH CLIFF, 1979 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 86.5 x 305.0 cm signed and dated verso: W. Delafield Cook / London 1979 dated and inscribed with title on label attached verso: A French / Cliff / 1978 -9 PROVENANCE Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne The National Australia Bank Art Collection, acquired from the above in October 1980 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED William Delafield Cook: New Paintings, Redfern Gallery, London, 2 - 31 October 1979 William Delafield Cook: Mid - career survey, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 4 June - 19 July 1987, cat. 14 (label attached verso) William Delafield Cook, Selected Works 1958 - 1987, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 4 November - 6 December 1987, cat. 24 LITERATURE Perram, R., William Delafield Cook: Selected Works 1958 – 1987, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 1987, p. 17 Hart, D., William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pl. 69, pp. 148, 149 (illus.), 152, 160, 191, 211, 233 ESSAY ‘By giving what is commonplace an exalted meaning, what is ordinary a mysterious aspect, what is familiar the impressiveness of the unfamiliar, to the finite the appearance of infinity...’1 The antithesis of the Impressionist who seeks to capture the transient, fleeting effects of light, and utterly unlike the Expressionist who filters observations through his or her own – usually tortured – subjectivity, William Delafield Cook aspires rather to an art that is timeless, objective and monumental. Paying homage to the past – from classical painting and architecture to Romantics such as Casper David Friedrich and Surrealists including de Chirico and Magritte – his works speak at once of quietude and magnitude, amplifying small, barely detectable sensations to the level of grand history painting. Thus transcending the descriptive to offer something more metaphysical and speculative, Cook’s compositions capture not so much instances of time, but time immemorial, exploring eternal problems and experiences that pervade all humanity. In a manner akin to the previous lot which was inspired by Delafield Cook’s preoccupation with particular places and motifs employed by his artistic predecessors, so too A French Cliff, 1978 – 79 finds its origins in the annals of art history – and specifically, the oeuvre of Monet. Indeed, while still teaching at Maidstone Art School, Delafield Cook had presented a series of lectures that elaborated upon his interest in both this artist and the theme of ‘retracing the past’: ‘…I love the idea of doing it. I went to Rouen looking for the cathedral where Monet had worked. I did the same thing in London where I went to every spot I could find where he had painted around the Thames, Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben… You can actually stand in the same places where he stood. I went back over some weeks. I marked the spot on the ground so that I could put the tripod in exactly the same place. At different times of the day, I would take a photograph picking up on what Monet was trying to do – to reflect the shifting light and atmosphere. The trouble was that the air and light in London were so different from when Monet was doing it; so it wasn’t the same… It was partly about just wanting to see whether he was trying to be truthful to what was actually happening. Of course, I never found anything remotely resembling a Monet painting.’2 While Delafield Cook’s ongoing references to the work of Monet may seem incongruous given his vastly different approach to painting, it was, rather, the Impressionist’s subjects that interested him, affording the catalyst or springboard from which he would pursue his own pictorial investigations. Earlier in the decade, he had experimented with the idea of adopting a particular motif in his Waterlilies, 1972 – 73 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), and now in 1978, he visited a place that had been a great source of inspiration to Monet – the cliffs at Étretat in Normandy on the north coast of France.3 From Delacroix to Courbet, Monet and Matisse, generations of artists had been attracted to this location by ‘the beauty of its light and its famous chalk cliffs which the sea had worn away to form three arches and a solitary ‘needle’’.4 Incorporating the same distinctive curved arch of the rockface that punctuates the interpretations of Monet and Courbet, A French Cliff nevertheless departs markedly from any artistic precedents – not simply in its obvious technical differences, but more importantly perhaps, in the antipodean’s choice of emphasis. Where previous artists had explored the connections between the rocks and ocean, Delafield Cook here focuses instead upon a broader expanse of the cliff face extracted from its surroundings – concentrating on the undulating contours capped by patches of grass, the minute horizontal geological situations, and the striking, raking light and shadow.5 With its long narrow horizontal format accentuating the expansive nature of his depiction, the composition offers an intensely vivid evocation of surface and substance that transforms the seemingly familiar into the extraordinary – inviting the viewer to contemplate the visible until we are drawn intuitively to that which lies beyond the physical realm. A technically demanding work executed over several months upon the artist’s return to his studio at Nettlecombe in Somerset, England, indeed A French Cliff encapsulates an impressive example of Delafield Cook’s deeply considered, scrupulously re-created painting where, as Ann Galbally suggests, ‘reality [is] twice-interpreted, twice filtered, twice heightened’ to generate a peculiar stillness, intensity and sense of isolation.6 As Delafield Cook himself reflected upon the agenda for his art in 1975: ‘…to isolate fragments of reality and to present them reduced to their essence, seeking an image which will endure and which will carry with it some of the strangeness and intensity which I myself have felt when experiencing them in nature. The subjects are not in themselves important and are selected simply as a means of conveying a view of the physical world that transcends the obvious, the particular and leads towards the metaphysical.’7 1. Quote from Novalis, Poeticism (1798) inscribed in one of Cook’s notebooks; see Hart, D., William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 220 2. The artist cited in Hart, D., Hart, D., William Delafeld Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 148 3. Hart, ibid. 4. Spate, V., The Colour of Time: Claude Monet, Thames and Hudson, London, 1992, p. 157 5. Hart, op. cit. 6. Galbally, A., ‘William Delafield Cook’, Art International, Spring 1977, p. 33 7. The artist in a letter to Dr Bernd Krimmel, Darmstadt, Germany, 7 April 1975, reproduced in Hart, op. cit., p. 88 VERONICA ANGELATOS
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK (1936 - 2015) MOOTWINGEE, 1990 synthetic polymer paint on linen 110.0 x 197.0 cm signed and dated lower right: Delafield Cook 90 PROVENANCE Australian Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne (label attached verso) The National Australia Bank Art Collection, acquired from the above in September 1990 (label attached verso) EXHIBITED National Australia Bank Collection: Rivers in Australian Art, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, October 1991 Australian Art: Colonial to Contemporary, Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne, May – June 1995, cat. 110 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 83) LITERATURE The National Australia Bank Art Collection: Rivers in Australian Art, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 1991, p. 15 (illus.) Hart, D., William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pl. 100, pp. 190, 197 (illus.) ESSAY ‘On one level my work might be seen as about some kind of reassuring, comfortable landscape painting – a banal thing… I’ve never felt that reassured. I’ve always felt the whole thing of our human existence is very precarious. The landscape is part of our time span here; it asks all the big questions because there is this whole mystery about reality out there and our mortality.’1 Hailed the quiet hero of Australian art, William Delafield Cook is one of those rare few artists whose works have entered public and private collections almost as soon as the final brushstroke has dried. Whether immortalising a carefully constructed pyramid of haystacks, the subtle nuances of the intractable Australian bush, or ancient relics in one of Europe’s hallowed art museums, undoubtedly fundamental to the widespread appeal of Cook’s art has been his unique ability to produce tantalisingly real images of meticulous, near photographic exactitude. Imbued with a haunting air of stillness, his immaculate images betray not only a fascination with the illusory possibilities of paint and mankind’s attempt to civilise nature however. More importantly perhaps, they explore the artist’s deeply felt awareness of our own mortality – a sense of time as immeasurable against the acute poignancy of our short lives. As he astutely mused, ‘I’ve long seen the world as a series of theatre stages. We players move in and out, but the world endures long beyond us.’2 With their glacial proportions and timeless subject matter, Delafield Cook’s Australian landscapes such as the magnificent Mootwingee, 1990, eloquently capture this concept of time immemorial. For despite their visual immediacy and apparent fidelity, such landscapes nevertheless appear suspended in time – suffused with a sense of calm and tranquillity that, though reassuring in its contemplation of an eternal space, simultaneously evokes a disquieting undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty through the landscape’s ability to expose our limits and the finitude of our existence.3 The span of a human life pales into insignificance in the face of such an ancient and monumental rock formation; and indeed, as the artist admits, part of his motivation for fastidiously recording a place springs from ‘acknowledging your mortality’ and ‘attempting to leave something behind after you are gone.’4 Heightening the depiction of reality to such unimaginable degree to reveal the ‘essence’ of his subjects, thus Delafield Cook highlights the surreal within the real, inviting us to contemplate that which lies beyond our perception – the basic human quest for an underlying universal truth that transcends time or locality. Both Delafield Cook’s affinity for the Australian landscape and his consummate skill in capturing its essential character with an intensity that is unparalleled in Australian art is all the more remarkable when one considers that such paintings – which he created almost exclusively from the late 1970s onwards – were produced entirely from his studio in London. Relocating to London in 1958 after what had been intended as a short trip became a second home, significantly Delafield Cook would nevertheless spend part of every year for the last three decades of his life travelling back to his country of origin to reconnect and undertake long journeys into the landscape ‘…where his ancestors had settled, where his grandfather had painted, where he had grown up…’5, before then returning to his studio abroad to recreate his vision. Paradoxically perhaps, such distance has only enhanced the power of his iconic landscapes, allowing the artist to pursue ‘…the pure idea of land filtered through memory, in which all voices and activities are silenced, and the spirit of the earth can peacefully emerge’6. As he reflects, ‘My feeling about the process of removing oneself at intervals from direct contact with the source of one’s subject matter is that distancing intensifies the experience of the place, makes it in recollection more vivid. By squirrelling it away, then retrieving it at a later date you can recover it, repossess it, see what it is that should happen to it.’7 Paying homage to the breathtaking ancient landscape of Mutawintji (or Mootwingee) National Park, 130 kilometres to the north-east of Broken Hill in New South Wales, Mootwingee was inspired by the artist’s travels in the area after he was invited by the Director of the Broken Hill Art Gallery at the time, Michael Pursche, to present a lecture in November 1986. Derived from the Aboriginal word meaning ‘green grass’, Mootwingee holds dual significance in both traditional indigenous culture and the history of nineteenth-century white exploration; as elucidated by Alan Moorehead in his moving recount, Cooper’s Creek (1963): ‘Even today it’s an extraordinary place, for there is much evidence here of the existence of an inland sea in prehistoric times; marine fossils are found, and the conglomerate rock is filled with pebbles that appear to have been formed by the action of rough waves… For the blacks this was a sacred place. They came here for their circumcision rites and other tribal ceremonies and in the over-hanging caves they made drawings and rock carvings.’8 For Delafield Cook, moreover, the site bore particular resonance derived from his interest in the work of Ludwig Becker, an artist and naturalist who had accompanied Burke and Wills on their arduous, ill-fated expedition in search of a mythical inland sea in 1860. As illuminated by the artist – and relayed by art dealer and consultant, Georges Mora, in his letter to then-Chairman of the National Australia Bank, Sir Rupert Clarke, in June 1990 – ‘This (Mottwingee [sic.]) interested me as the place where Bourke [sic.] and Wills stopped en route to the centre and where their artist Ludwig Becker did at least two versions of the same subject: one in watercolours, the other, I think, a pen and ink drawing… I made the trip as part of an overall project I had some years ago to re-visit places that artists have been interested in – lots of Von Guerard of course – The Becker things are especially poignant in that he did not survive very long after doing these drawings…’9 A powerful, mysterious image, Mootwingee offers a recreation of this sacred landscape that is so utterly still and elemental, it seems beyond time. Notwithstanding its ostensible neutrality or stark emptiness, the landscape is informed rather by exquisitely rendered incidents – both small and large, including rocks, stone, branches, tracks – while the vast amplitude of the excavated rockface is conveyed through the painting’s panoramic scale; as Delafield Cook suggests, ‘…it brings in this element of having to turn your head to take in the picture which fills the field of vision, like being there.’10 Infinite in its detail and infinite in its expanse, Mootwingee thus fathoms an Australian ‘sublime’ that is boundless and majestic in the manner of David Casper Friedrich and the eighteenth-century Romantics Delafield Cook so admired. Inspiring awe and reverence, the classical harmony and stillness of the work implies that the forces of the cosmos have here aligned – that there is a divine order amidst the chaos of nature.11 Bereft of human presence or any apparent narrative, it is the landscape itself, distilled in its unknowable ‘essence’, that occupies centre stage, imbued with a sense of drama that leaves the viewer poised indefinitely in a moment of suspense. As Delafield Cook observes of this quality in his art, ‘It’s the stage that we’re living out our lives in… The picture is the set, pregnant with possibilities’.12 1. The artist, cited in Hart, D., William Delafeld Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p. 203 2. The artist, cited in Field, F., ‘William Delafield Cook: Artist hailed as one of Australia’s finest whose monumental canvases depicted the rugged landscape of his native land’, The Independent, London, 13 May 2015 3. Fitzpatrick, A., ‘Intimations of Mortality in the Work of William Delafield Cook’ in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp.32 – 44, p.39 4. The artist, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 184 5. Hart, ibid., p. 168 6. Gregg, S., ‘William Delafield Cook: A Survey’, in William Delafield Cook. A Survey, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, 2011, pp. 2 – 23, p.5 7. The artist, cited ibid. 8. Moorehead, A., Cooper’s Creek, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1963, p. 60 9. The artist, cited in Letter from Georges Mora to Sir Rupert Clarke, 20 June 1990, NAB Archives 10. The artist, cited in Hart, op. cit., p. 199 11. Gregg, op. cit., p.9 12. The artist, cited ibid. p.16 VERONICA ANGELATOS
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 1936-2015 Hillside, Portsea 1988 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed and dated 'Delafield Cook 88' lower right 85.7 x 200.7 cm PROVENANCE William Delafield Cook, London Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne (stock 10,417) Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above on 1 December 1988 EXHIBITED The Jack Manton Exhibition 1989: Recent Works by Twelve Australian Artists, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, July-August 1989 (label verso) LITERATURE Deborah Hart, William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House and G+B Arts International, Sydney, 1998, p. 193 (illustrated)
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK SNR, BY THE BEACH, OIL ON CARD, 52 X 77CM, FRAME SIZE: 68 X 93CM, CONDITION: FOXING AND SURFACE SPOTS THROUGHOUT, SLIGHT WARPING TO THE CARD. LOSSES TO THE FRAME ESPECIALLY UPPER LEFT
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK SNR, BY THE BEACH, OIL ON CARD, 52 X 77CM, FRAMED SIZE: 68 X 93CM, CONDITION: FOXING AND SURFACE SPOTS THROUGHOUT, SLIGHT WARPING TO THE CARD. LOSSES TO THE FRAME ESPECIALLY UPPER LEFT.
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK JNR (1936-2015) Formal Garden 1970 acrylic on canvas signed and dated lower right: W. Delafield Cook 70 70.5 x 91cm PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist 1976 The Collection of Carmel and Harry Crock AO, Melbourne EXHIBITIONS: Gardens of Delight, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, 1970
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 1936-2015 Sprinkler 1970 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed and dated 'W Delafield Cook '70' verso 127 x 152.4 cm frame: original, maker unknown PROVENANCE Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne Private Collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above EXHIBITED Bill Delafield Cook: Real Art, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne, March - April, 1970, no. 2, or, no. 3 LITERATURE Deborah Hart, William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pp. 78 (illustrated), 79, 'A Sprinkler'
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK 1936-2015 Headland, Hawkesbury River 1985 synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed and dated 'Delafield Cook 85' lower right 121.8 x 182.8 cm frame: original, maker unknown, Melbourne PROVENANCE Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne (stock 9469) Private Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above on 16 October 1985 Private Collection, Sydney, by descent from the above
WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK, (1936 – 2015), TWO CUSHIONS, 1998, charcoal on paper SIGNED: signed and dated lower right: W Delafield Cook 98 DIMENSIONS: 75.5 x 116.5 cm PROVENANCE: Sherman Galleries, Sydney Gene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney EXHIBITED: William Delafield Cook, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 29 October– 21 November 1998, cat. 1 LITERATURE: Hawley, J., ‘The Fine Detail’, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 24 October 1998, p. 28
