SHIFT, 1978
RICHARD LARTER
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
185.5 x 142.0 cm
signed and dated lower right: R. LARTER / 3. 10. 1978.
signed, dated and inscribed with title on stretcher bar verso: RICHARD LARTER “SHIFT” 1978
Watters Gallery, Sydney
Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
The National Australia Bank Art Collection, acquired from the above in April 1979 (label attached verso)
The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries from the Collection of National Australia Bank, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 15 October – 28 November 1982
Lindsay, R., The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries from the Collection of National Australia Bank, The National Bank of Australasia, Melbourne, 1982, pl. 56, p. 69 (illus.)
‘From the late 1950s, Richard Larter produced a series of provocative Pop images based on the nude in aggressively erotic poses. He used a technique of drawing with a hypodermic needle filled with paint, however this linear style changed in the mid 1960s to a commercial art Popo style with simple areas of flat colour and clear crisp outlines and increasing emphasis on patternmaking between the figurative images. In the late 1970s Richard Larter began to concentrate on purely abstract works, of which Shift is a good example. The horizontal brush and “squeegeed” bands of paint are analogous to a musical score that can be read from left to right, with the “shift” of emphasis moving vertically in the construction of the work.’1
1. Lindsay, R., The Seventies: Australian paintings and tapestries from the collection of National Australia Bank, National Bank of Australasia, Melbourne, 1982, p. 69