PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland Purchased directly from Rachel Powers, Artist's wife, circa 1983

The untimely death of artist Philip Clairmont at age 34 was a great loss. His paintings, prints and drawings remain a powerful legacy, as it is through these artworks that we see and feel his talent, energy and highly original vision. Working in a paint-encrusted studio to a soundtrack of Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan, Philip Clairmont was the archetypal enfant terrible of New Zealand expressionism.

Using strong colours and distorted forms, often choosing an arrangement of domestic objects and interiors as subject matter, his work is unique andreadily identifiable. Clairmont studied in Christchurch under Rudi Gopas, graduating from the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1970. In 1973 he received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant, and by 1977 was painting full-time in his Mount Eden home. It was here that TVNZ filmed the 1981 Clairmont documentary. Clairmont was influenced by the works of Vincent van Gogh and Francis Bacon, and also influenced by his close friendships with fellow artists Tony Fomison and Allen Maddox.