Godfrey Miller (Godfrey Clive Miller) (1893-1964)

Seated figure facing towards the right, c. 1957

Stamped with John Henshaw’s studio stamp of Godfrey Miller’s estate and numbered “286”

Pencil on buff coloured paper

Size: (image within the window mount) 37.6 x 25 cm; (frame) 64.3 x 49.6 cm

Condition: the sheet is in good condition but with light areas at the upper edge and the sheet overlaps the window matt on the lower edge; the timber frame is unvarnished and has minor signs of its age (i.e. yellow oxidisation, insect specks and dustiness), there are marks (dust?) on the window matt and the backing sheet should be replaced.

I am selling this framed, original, museum-quality life-class drawing by Godfrey Miller for AU$1200 including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this analytically strong figure drawing by one of Australia’s most famous artists, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

My reading of this drawing is that Miller has simplified the figure’s many shapes and angles down to its basic components: blocks and cylinders. Not only has he represented what he perceives to be the figure’s structural “building blocks,” but he has also described the spatial relationship of these blocks with one another.

For example, Miller signifies the spatial relationship between the figure’s arm that is closest to the viewer and the figure’s thorax by adding a dark tonal area on the outside of the arm—a tone that Paul Klee terms “exotopic tone”—to suggest that there is space behind the arm. Going further, Miller has also spatially separated the thorax from the further away arm by adding tone to the outside of the thorax to suggest that there is space between the thorax and the further away arm.