LEASON, PERCY (1889-1959)

"Nude Study (Salmagundi Club, NYC)" (1955)
Oil on canvas board
29.5 x 22cm
Signed lower left
*private collection, Melbourne
 
Leason was an importrant Australian Modernist. He trained at the National Gallery School & the Victorian Arts Society, under Bernard Hall & Frederick McCubbin. He worked as an illustrator on The Bulletin & Punch, and despite being Australia’s highest paid commercial artist at the time, he chose to study painting with Max Meldrum and adopt his Tonalist ideas. His paintings of Australian landscapes & portraits of Victorian Aborigines were exhibited widely, and many were purchased by National Galleries & Institutions for their private collections. This impressive piece was part of a series of nude studies completed when he was art instructor at the Salmagundi Club in NYC. Originally from the collection of the Castlemaine Art Museum.