In 1947 Rosemary Madigan and Robert Klippel AO were part of a remarkable cohort of students of sculpture at the East Sydney Technical College, and became two of Australia's most significant sculptors. In love, as in art, each took the path less travelled, and it took nearly 30 years for their friendship to morph into what became an enduring creative and romantic union. Having initially taken divergent paths in travel and life, the artists reconnected in 1973 and began a professional and personal relationship that lasted until Klippel’s death in 2001.
Though Madigan taught drawing for many years, she is known primarily as a sculptor. In this drawing we see Klippel's private self – not 'the-artist-in-his-studio' but the man at home wearing a favoured shirt (pink was his favourite shirt colour). As Madigan's daughter Alice Giles AM noted: 'Mum was especially proud that she caught a softness and gentleness about him that she felt reflected her own special insight and experience of his personality.' Madigan kept this work until her death in 2019.
Purchased 2020
© Rosemary Madigan/Copyright Agency, 2021
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