The School of Paris has been a big gap in the gallery's largely Anglophone collection and with this small painting the gallery is going to give its Pissarro, or other works that help fill the gap, location.
Menilmontant, a gouache 26 by 35 cm painted in 1923, was purchased at Sotheby's in New York on October 9 last year in the same round of sales at which a master Impressionist work is reported to have been acquired.
Curators are discovering how far a still relatively strong Australian dollar can go, the work being acquired for a mere $US25,000 which was effectively less than the lower estimate.
Solid buying overseas by private and public collections has disconcerted some local dealers who regret that the business is not two way, that is, purchases being offset by an equal amount of work overseas.
The Utrillo was estimated at $US25,000 to $US30,000 compared with $2.5 million to $US3.5 million for Pissarro's Prairie at Eragny.
The price suggests there are some bargains to be had during the day sales (where it was offered). In the evening sales prices go up 10 or 100 fold.
Prairie at Eragny came up in the evening for $US4.2 million including buyers premium. Estimates do not include this buying commission.
Menilmontant, named after a Parisian suburb, was painted in 1923 well after the much admired “white period.” But is characteristically naïve and simple.
This work is particularly arresting in showing his interest in Fauvism in the use of bold colour blocking but it took 12 donors to secure, being the gift via the AGSA Foundation Collectors Club.
Consider how lengthy the list of donors would have had to have been were Prairie at Eragny acquired on the same basis!
The list of donors is lead, alphabetically, by Sydney-based media tycoon Mr Neil Balnaves who appears to be an important new catch for the institution. He has also been listed as a backer of the current Biennial.
Although Utrillo had his particular niche in French Impressionism, Utrillo, who was influenced by Pissarro, was prolific and much faked.
This helps explain the price difference although Sotheby's has authentication by Jean Fabris - considered the last word in Utrillo attribution - and a provenance.
The gouache was acquired from Galerie Hermann, Paris by the grandmother of the present vendor circa 1965, thence by descent.
Menilmontant was a working class suburb with lots of bars due to its location outside the Paris taxation net. This would have been fine with Utrillo who was an alcoholic.
Fabris was a journalist, who became the secretary to Utrillo’s widow, Lucie Valore, and inherited the droit moral to the artist’s work when she died in 1965.
He is a powerful authority given the death in 1993 of Paul Pétridès, who compiled Utrillo’s 1959 catalogue raisonné.
Fabris had a joust with Sotheby's last year over one work which the big auction house wanted to include in a sale. The gallery could have benefited from a hiatus of interest in the artist's work arising from the debate over the Sotheby's inclusion.
The AGSA's curator of European and North American Art, Ms Jane Messenger, says that the fast drying medium gouache applied directly to the paper, helped convey the lively quality of Utrillo's brush work.
Contrasting sharply with the pale tones of the artist's white period the vivid hues of the palette show Utrillo's progress towards modernism.
Given the gallery's interest in local modernism, such as the work of the South Australian print maker Dorrit Black, the acquisition might have more relevance to the collection than the Pissarro, although French Impressionism remains a glaring exclusion from its holdings.
