Entitled Still life with Japanese figure, this 1929 original linocut with watercolour by Australian graphic artist and painter Erik Anchor Thake , is on sale by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne, for $3300.
One of the first Australian artists to work in a surrealistic manner , he challenged the conservative standards . Thake attended night classes at the National Gallery in Victoria. Later he studied under Kew born painter , draughtsman and teacher George Henry Frederick Bell who had studied overseas, including Paris, elected a member of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, London , in 1908, exhibited in Europe and America.
During WWl Bell had worked in munitions ,served as an official war artist and returned to Australia in l920. He became the art critic for the Melbourne Sun-News-Pictorial for 25 years.
In the case of Thake , he also became an official war artist for the Royal Australian Air Force during WWll . He was prominent in industrial design ,typography ,layout and illustration, designed many bookplates. Signed by Thake in pencil , in a black timber frame .
