David Strachan
David Strachan
The Poet, 1951
David Edgar Strachan (1919-1970)
etching, ed. 75
26 x 36 cm (frame 47 x 55 cm)
signed lower right
Provenance: Lou Klepac, Sydney
Literature: David Strachan / selected and edited by Lou Klepac ; introduction by Barry Pearce, with an essay by John McDonald, Sydney, NSW: Beagle Press, 1993. illustrated main double page, p. 117, ref p. 112
Other notes: another impression of this print is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, NGA 73.799.
sold
Strachan’s …mainly figurative and landscape subjects, and still-lifes (are) of haunting beauty. His flowers, bowls of fruit, birds, and angelic figures glimmered out of the darkness as things not of this world, evoked faintly, like mythological personages in a gently spoken narrative. Barry Pierce
David Strachan was born at Salisbury, Wiltshire, England and moved with his family to Australia in 1920.He studied art at the Slade School in London, the Académie de la Grand Chaumière, Paris and George Bell’s school in Melbourne.
In 1941 he moved to Sydney and was befriended by Jean Bellette and her husband Paul Haefliger, who were to be driving forces behind the Sydney Art Group (founded 1945). In 1948 Strachan settled in Paris. His paintings exhibited at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, where well-received by French critics. In 1950 he began tentative experiments in etching. His most important project was a series of twenty-two colour etchings illustrating Alister Kershaw's book of poems, Accent & Hazard (Paris, 1951).
He moved back to Sydney in 1960 and taught at East Sydney Technical College and exhibited regularly, winning the Wynne Prize in 1961 and 1964. In 1966 the National Gallery of Victoria held a survey exhibition, Four Sydney Painters, showing works by Strachan, Donald Friend, Justin O’Brien and Jeffrey Smart. In late 1970, just as he was beginning to feel ‘contemporary’ and that his best work was still to come, Strachan died as the result of a car accident in Yass. Daniel Thomas curated the exhibition David Strachan 1919-1970 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1973. Lou Klepac’s David Strachan with an introduction by Barry Pearce and an essay by John McDonald accompanied a touring exhibition of Strachan’s work in 1993. His works are held in 15 major galleries in Australia.