Certificate of Authenticity signed by Hilda O'Connor & Allan Swinton affixed verso

Four works by John Weeks Lots 29 - 32

How refreshing to see four works of John Weeks which do justice to his wider artistic ability rather than the popularly held belief that his interest lay primarily in an interpretation of the New Zealand landscape as was suggested in an obituary at the time of his death.

Indeed the four works here give us an indication of the path of his development and his interest in modernism that he brought back to Auckland after his sojourn in Edinburgh, Paris, Morocco, Tunisia and elsewhere.

A profusion of colour and form in the background wallpaper, dado and chair, alla Nabis, does not take away from the clearly defined and dexterous use of colour in Still Life with Fruit and Flowers somewhat reminiscent of Cézanne's Still life with Compotier, of 1879-82 (private collection). Cézanne, who inspired so many, and whose work provided a starting point for much of the art of the twentieth century, perhaps provided the starting point for Weeks in his composition.

The white compotier filled with fruit, shadowed in blue-green and in the same place as Cézanne's, is the striking similarity between the two works, except that Weeks has removed the grapes in the compotier and placed them with a single apple in a plate on the right whose underside picks up the pink of the material on which it is resting.

Just above, two parallel lines in green rise up from what might be leaves. But it does not really matter what they are. In terms of structure these two lines form a right angle with a reference to Dutch painting - the paring knife - which Weeks has placed in the left foreground. Another line further to the left and above reinforces this loose parallelogram which frames the fruit and flowers.

Each piece of fruit touches or overlaps and in doing so has both a single and a composite life given even more complexity with the variety of axes. The same could be said for the flowers the delicate strokes of which contrast with the patches of colour making up the fruit. There are moments of richness and "mellow fruitfulness" - the orange fruit contrasting with the pale lemon apple, a luminous light next to a riot of colour - which found expression in Weeks's works after study of, and with, his masters - the Scottish colourists, André Lhôte, and the blindingly brilliant light of North Africa. Angela Ashford