Deutscher and Hackett

Opera Numero Uno (Work number one) was painted in Milan during the years Yvonne Audette was living in Italy. Returning to Australia permanently in 1966, she brought many of her paintings with her, giving finishing touches to some, as in this work, before signing and dating them in the year of their completion.

Although Audette's first Italian studio was in Florence, she opened another Italian front in Milan in 1958, working and exhibiting in both cities. It was a time of technical and aesthetic experiment, considered by many as her best period of achievement. Significantly, her forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in September this year will focus on these works of the fifties and sixties. Reflecting on Opera Numero Uno, Audette commented on her ongoing interest in planes in space, on spatial relationships and the importance of the pictorial surface, noting that this painting was one of a series of intended works of related interest. The elegantly flat, square edged slices of cool colour and sophisticated paint, enlivened with calligraphic gestures in black, speak very much of this highly creative period of forty years ago, any wayward illusions of depth correctly brought back to the pictorial plane. As Audette said, 'In my painting I have always had total respect for the flat surface.'¹

1. Conversation with the artist, 28 July 2007

DAVID THOMAS