"Watching from the Shore"
Oil on Canvas
34x49cm
Signed Lower Right
Prov: Private Collection Adelaide
John Giles Paintings from Estate of Murray and Dulcie Vick
Lots.95-97, 100, 265-267
Refer to provenance details on Lot.95
$1,500-1.800
John Giles Paintings from Estate of Murray and Dulcie Vick
This selection of paintings by John Giles comes from a collection that formed part of the estate of Murray and Dulcie Vick.
John Giles was the partner of V.E. (Ern) Vick in a tailoring business in St Vincent St Port Adelaide. After the partnership dissolved in the late 1920s, John devoted himself to painting while Ern continued to run the business. The two men and their families remained lifelong friends. In particular, their sons, Jack Giles and Murray Vick went to school together and also remained lifelong friends.
Several of the early paintings in the collection were gifts to Ern Vick, which passed to Murray and Dulcie on Ern’s death. Others, from different periods in his work, were gifts from the artist to Murray and Dulcie. One was a later purchase by Murray and Dulcie.
This ongoing generosity reflected not only family friendships, but his attitude to his development as an artist. He had given Murray and Dulcie a painting of zinneas as a wedding present; several years later, he gave them another of the Port River, as a second wedding present, explaining that he was not satisfied with the earlier gift, as ‘flowers are not my best work’. Later, he gave them the Snowden’s Beach wanted them to have some of his later paintings reflecting how his approach had changed and developed from his earlier ‘impressionist’ style.
