Every year, modernist Eric Thake would send his friends a hand-made Christmas card. Original linocut prints, these cards have since become canonical, each observing a changing nation through one its most distinct voices. They also speak to Thake’s innerworld, with this particular work coming from the collection of his friend, revered writer and curator Ursula Hoff.

Dated 1965, ‘Figure in a Rocky Landscape’, is an optical illusion – is it a face or a mountain range, a figure or topographical folds? Thake was interested in shadows and silhouettes, the visual versions of double entendres. In this work, he gently makes light of the artist’s fixation with the female form, finding his own face in a rocky landscape.

Represented across numerous public collections, including at the National Gallery of Australia, ‘Figure in a Rocky Landscape’ is a museum-quality work. It speaks to Thake’s remarkable vision, Australian modernism and the friendship between an artist and scholar. With strikingly excellent provenance, it is a prize for collectors of modernist art.

Eric THAKE (1904 - 1982)
'Figure in a Rocky Landscape' 1965
linocut on paper
Image Size: 15 x 21 cm
Dimensions: 15 x 42 cm; overall sheet size scored to fold
Signed: Signed and dated lower right: Eric Thake 1965; titled lower centre. Inscribed reverse sheet, ink: To Ursula / with Best Wishes / for Xmas + 1966 / from Grace & Eric Thake
Comes with Letter of Provenance

EXHIBITIONS:
Acquisitions 1967, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 March – 1 April 1968 (another impression)
Hand and Eye - A Survey of Artists' Materials and Techniques, Art Gallery of New South Wales Travelling Art Exhibition 1970 (another impression)

LITERATURE:
Colsey, D., Hand and Eye - A Survey of Artists' Materials and Techniques, Art Gallery of New South Wales Travelling Art Exhibition 1970, Sydney, 1969, cat. no. 49 (illus., another impression)

Impressions of this work are represented at the:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, accession number: DA48.1967
National Gallery of Australia, accession number: 72.214
National Gallery of Victoria, accession number: P135-1974
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, accession number: 2011.42

Condition: Excellent

© The Artist or Assignee