Untitled from 'Tall Tales and True' ,
1986
oil on plywood
91.5 x 91.5 cm
signed ‘Susan Norrie’ (lower left) and Susan No /‘86’ (lower right)
SOLD
In 1987 Susan Norrie won the inaugural Moët and Chandon Fellow with her painting ‘fête’, an image of Mickey Mouse cloaked in a 17th century costume from a Watteau painting, hanging amongst ‘confiscated museum and popular imagery in a blurry, “mix’n’match” sludge of high art, mass culture and individual production through which she signified the deliberate tragic frivolity of “modern times” (Charles Green, ‘Peripheral Vision’, 1995, p.86)
The 1986-1987 ‘Tall Tales and True’ series of sumptuous paintings by Susan Norrie are the most highly celebrated images of 1980s painting in Australia. How relevant they remain today.
In ‘Untitled’ the Disney figureheads of Mickey and Minnie Mouse are painted as bastions of the international consumer identity, in the provocative doubled image of Ronald and Nancy Regan. A pair wrapped blithely in the deliberate and tragic frivolity of modern times. Yet the reference to Norrie’s earlier paintings is still seen in the centre-ground, with another Mickey figure opening a curtain to the tradition of Australian landscape painting.
“Norrie observed that American imperialism, cultural colonialism and the history of its impact on Australian art informed the ‘Tall Tales and True’ series. Her paintings of this period included Disney figures such as Goofy and Mickey Mouse set amongst abstract expressionist blocks of colour and expressionist drips. They were infected by a ghoulish fascination with decay, kitsch and ‘fin-de-siècle’ ambivalence.” (Charles Green, op. cit., p.87)
From a small series of works mostly held in museum collections, we are very excited to be offering this work.
Provenance
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney since 1986
Exhibited
'Tall Tales and True', Mori Gallery, Sydney, 1986
'Susan Norrie – Artist-in-Residence 1984', University Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 15 October – 14 November 1986, cat.no.8
Literature
'Susan Norrie – Artist-in-Residence 1984', University Gallery, University of Melbourne, 1986, illust. p.17 (in black and white)