COTTAGE, PORT WILLUNGA, c.1935
HORACE TRENERRY
oil on canvas-board
24.5 x 29.0 cm
signed and inscribed lower right: FROM TRENERRY
inscribed lower left: [illeg.] Willunga
Deutscher~Menzies, Melbourne, 2 September 2003, lot 55
Theodore Bruce Auctions, Adelaide, 4 April 2011, lot 67
Private collection, Sydney
A Fleurieu Heritage: Kathleen Sauerbier and Horace Trenerry, Chapel Hill Winery, McLaren Vale, South Australia, 6–29 November, 1998, cat. 27
Snowden, B., A Fleurieu Heritage: Kathleen Sauerbier and Horace Trenerry, Fleurieu Art Foundation, South Australia, 1988, cat. 27 (illus., frontispiece)
'... during the Christmas of 1932 he had gone to Port Willunga with a group of painters and friends, led by Kathleen Sauerbier who had discovered the pictorial possibilities of the area. Trenerry had already painted some views there and the prospect seemed attractive. He sold some of his belongings to pay what outstanding debts there were, paid the rent in arrears with pictures and went to Port Willunga.
Here he established himself in a deserted two-storey building which was locally known as the Residential Café. He had practically no furniture, but his talent to convert the most humble place and make it into a pleasant and comfortable interior helped him greatly ...
His lonely existence became quite an idyllic one. He could wander along the beaches, the cliffs overlooking the sea, and go over and beyond the characteristic hills of the area; or look back at the small township of Aldinga and the little church on the main road, and beyond to the Willunga hills. His paintings of the period are more introvert, and reflect a more mature outlook.'1
1. Klepac, L., Horace Trenerry, Beagle Press, Sydney, 2009, p. 16