Provenance
Private collection

Exhibited
John Borrack: Victorian Artists' Society Galleries, East Melbourne July, 1968, no. 31.
John Borrack: A Survey Exhibition, Benalla Art Gallery, October, 1987, no. 19.
John Borrack:A Retrospective Exhibition, City Of Whittlesea Art Gallery, March, 1996, no 23. Illustrated.

The beginning of an insatiable interest in European architecture, this drawing was based on sketch book studies made in Vézelay, France, and is an early example of the paintings of European hill towns which were to preoccupy him throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Borrack had studied Turner's drawings and watercolours in the British Museum, and in Paris and he had seen a significant exhibition of drawings by Dunoyer de Segonzac. His excursions into pen and ink are relatively rare but show stylistic affinities with these two artists.

Study, Puente St Martin, Toledo
1975 Toledo/Mernda, Melbourne
pencil on Kent paper
28 x 38 cm
inscribed l.r.: John Borrack
Puente St Martin Toledo Spain

Provenance
Private collection

Exhibited
* Griffin Art Gallery, Inaugral Exhibition, Melbourne State College, 1977.
John Borrack: A Survey Exhibition, Benalla Art Gallery, October, 1987, no. 27.
John Borrack: A Retrospective Exhibition, City of Whittlesea Gallery, March, 1996. no 43. Illustrated.

Study Puente St Martin was completed from a Toledo sketch book of 1964 as a preparatory study for several larger watercolours. The monumental features of the romantic Spanish town became the inspirational source for a close examination and renewed interest of other architectural motifs in Spain.

Provenance
Private collection

Exhibited
John Borrack: Australian Galleries, Melbourne, November, 1975.
John Borrack: A Retrospective Exhibition, City of Whittlesea Gallery, March, 1996. no 44. Illustrated.

Toledo, the early capital of Catholicism in Spain, has an historic culture and architecture. El Greco's images of his city and landscape seemingly unite a sense of place with spiritual strength and the expression of the transcendental. Borrack's description is inspired by his personal vision of Toledo which emanates from his own observations and a sense of place.

Literature

At first glance the watercolours of John Borrack (Australian Galleries) look like anachronisms.
The travel drawings in particular show him as a later day Ruskin or Turner transcribing with dot, line and color-wash the spires and battlements of Italy and France.
Combined with representations of the Australian bush and outback, the watercolors make for a kind of antipodean Lieber [sic] Studiorum.
Certainly Borrack is closer in spirit to Turner than he ever was to his first mentor - Cézanne - and from Turner he has successfully learned how to envelop objects such as buildings or trees in pellucid light.
From this his paintings of the outback develop an engaging softness, even if this is at variance with his deft handling of the medium.
Withal, Borrack has a command of the medium that can only be gained by hard work and long practice . . .

Alan McCulloch, 1975, "After Turner" Herald, Melbourne. 26 Nov. Illustrated, Gorge and Town, Toledo, Spain.

Provenance
Private collection

Exhibited
John Borrack: Australian Galleries, Melbourne, November, 1975, no. 13.
John Borrack: A Retrospective Exhibition, City of Whittlesea Gallery, March, 1996. no 45. Illustrated.

As a consequence of long drives through the precipitous mountains of Aragon and Andalusia in 1962 and 1975, Borrack was able to fill sketchbooks with notational records of these incomparable settings. Unlike Toledo and Tagus Gorge cat.44, this watercolour drawing is based on a general recollection of several scenes and in that sense is a composite of what he saw as a recurring Spanish image. The light filled sky illuminates the massing of simplified buildings perched on cliffs linked by a towering Roman bridge. The suggestion of the architectural forms together with unstated areas of flooded colour creates a powerful image and a timeless motif.