The Breakfast Table (Brack)

The Breakfast Table
Artist	John Brack
Year	1958
Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	122.2 cm × 68.7 cm (48.1 in × 27.0 in)
Location	Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

The Breakfast Table is a 1958 still life painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts a table after breakfast but before the plates, cups and cutlery have been cleared.

Breakfast has finished and the participants have gone, although the detective-like artist has set out visual clues that tell us about the people who were here. To begin with Brack himself, his painter-wife, and their four daughters are signified by a glass, a tea cup and four mugs. Of course, all these vessels are empty, much like the egg shell in its cup, and the five plates dotted with a few crumbs left from toast. Even bottles are drained of liquids. Not a scrap of food remains. No crusts, no dabs of butter, no unconsumed dregs of milk.

— Dr Christopher Heathcote, [1]

The viewpoint of the artist is from over the table, laying out the objects in a geometrical pattern with tubular bottles and jars, flat plates, and knives tilted at different angles.[1] The painting foreshadows some of Brack's later work—his 1960s still lifes portraying knives and his allegorical conflict paintings of the 1980s.[1]

Previously part of the Grundy collection, the Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired the work in 2013 for A$1.3 million.[2]

References

1. Heathcote, Christopher. "The Breakfast Table". Bonhams. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
2. Dow, Steve (1 July 2013). "Gasps as Art Gallery of NSW shells out millions on Brack". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 4 June 2016.

External links

• The Breakfast Table - Art Gallery of New South Wales