Pink Rinse, 1963
enamel on board
82.5 x 60 cm
signed with initials and dated ‘RL63’ (lower right); furthers titled and inscribed ‘”PINK RINSE”/40gns/Richard Larter/18A Fifth Avenue/Bradfield Park’ (on the reverse)
SOLD
Provenance
Watters Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney
“The remarkable development in Larter’s practice into the 1960s was his consuming commitment to representing unfettered, pleasurable sexuality, through his audacious representation of women. His models - primarily (his wife) Pat - are displayed all over the picture plane; they roll, they flash, they spread. Larter gleefully mined soft porn, art history, pop culture and contemporary advertising in his paeans to ordinary living and its freedoms, but the paintings exist beyond tease and titillation, they are self-referential: sex is not the hook, it is the catch.” (Deborah Clark, ‘Richard Larter: eros and civilisation’, Richard Larter, National Gallery of Australia, 2008, exhibition catalogue, p.107)
It was during the 1960s that Larter adopted a hypodermic syringe as his painting tool. As Larter notes “In spite of the painting’s appearance it was a heavily planned work (pencil workings may possibly be discerned under paint) the result of many sketches and diagrams - the spontaneity comes solely from the paint application both by brushes and hypodermic syringe - which is really like drawing in paint - only it was runny and fast-flowing - making me work quickly.” (Deborah Clark, ‘La comedy humaine, Richard Larter, National Gallery of Australia, 2008, exhibition catalogue, p.35)
Image courtesy of the artist's estate and Watters Gallery, Sydney