Jeffery Smart

Factory staff, Erehwyna is one of the first large-scale canvases Smart painted after moving to his home Posticcia Nuova in Tuscany. The surface of a beige metal factory forms a large horizontal field across the composition, a device Smart employed in several of his works. The artist’s dry sense of humour is evident in this work – ‘Erehwyna’ is ‘Anywhere’ spelt backwards, while the group of factory workers are not factory workers at all. Rather, the group includes likenesses of Smart’s friends, as well as his own self-portrait.