Untitled [Suicide study] (1982-3) [W/P]

This work, shown at the George Paton Gallery in 1983 as one of three ‘working drawings for recent paintings’, clearly formed part of the planning process for Suicide (1983).

When it was first exhibited in 1983, the sprayed imagery of a woman and a telescope pointing out of the window above were complemented by a collaged drawing of a male figure at the upper left (installation photo reproduced at left, courtesy of the University of Melbourne archive, July 2010).

However, when the work was acquired by the present owner, Arkley replaced the male figure with another outlined figure, closely similar to the falling woman in the final canvas. See also Untitled [‘Suicide’] (1984) [W/P], a related work on paper focussing on the falling figure, and Suicide and source material (1988 and earlier) [W/P]. For further comments on Arkley’s different variants, and the complex subject-matter, refer Suicide (1983).

Many thanks to the owner of the present drawing, a student of Arkley’s at Prahran CAE c.1982, for new information and the current photo shown here (forwarded via Henry Mulholland, Deutscher and Hackett, Dec.2024)

(photos: original form as exhibited in 1983 [above]; present form [below])

Provenance

• Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner, c.1983

Exhibited

• George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne, May-June 1983 (‘Comic Stripping’), including collaged male figure