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.

‘Sunshine and Rain, Lygon Street’ is among Thake’s best known linocuts. It is an exemplar of his interest in shadows, silhouettes and windows – devices that connect and trouble reality. In it, Thake pictures himself gazing into a shop window on Carlton’s Lygon Street. The fantasy it holds is cast against reality, embodied by a hunched woman plodding from the store. In the shop window perfection is possible; on the street shoppers dodge a downfall.

Represented across numerous public collections, including at the National Gallery of Victoria, ‘Sunshine and Rain, Lygon Street’ is a museum-quality work. It speaks to Thake’s remarkable wit, 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)
'Sunshine and Rain, Lygon Street' 1964
linocut on paper
Image Size: 20 x 14 cm
Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm overall sheet size, scored to fold
Signed: Signed, dated, and titled in pencil in margin below image: Sunshine and Rain, Lygon Street. Eric Thake 1964. Inscribed reverse sheet, ink To Ursula / with Best Wishes / for Xmas + 1965 / Eric & Grace

Comes with Letter of Provenance

EXHIBITIONS:
Acquisitions 1967, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 March - 1 April 1968 (another impression)

Impressions of this work are at:
National Gallery of Australia, accession number: 72.211
National Portrait Gallery, accession number: 2011.40
Gallery of New South Wales, accession number: DA38. 1967
National Gallery of Victoria, accession number: P134-1974
Castlemaine Art Museum, accession number: G519

Condition: Excellent

© The Artist or Assignee