Fred Williams’ deliberate yet vivid depictions of the Australian bush are the product of his truly unique approach to landscape. In contrast to the Antipodeans (from which he was famously excluded), Williams was less interested in the mythologies of Australia’s past than in observing and...
Slide Show
Art Reviews
By Timothy Abdallah BA
27 Feb 2019
Over a period of about four years in the mid 1960s, Fred Williams produced the breakthrough paintings on which his reputation rests as the most important Australian artist of his generation. In the following years he consolidated the experience and technical gains made over his lengthy years of...
By Caroline Jones BA, MA (Art Admin.)
27 Feb 2019
The Shoalhaven River was a continual source of inspiration to Arthur Boyd and, looking back over the artist’s vast body of work, formed a major part of Boyd’s oeuvre. The Shoalhaven region, on the south coast of New South Wales, has historically been an area favoured by artists because of its...
By Asta Cameron
27 Feb 2019
David Boyd was a prolific artist of extraordinary skill, compassion and humanity. Born in Melbourne in 1924 to artists Doris (1888-1960) and Merric Boyd (1888-1959), whom this painting depicts, he grew up in a milieu of gifted artists where he learned creative skills, including pottery, painting...
By Anonymous
27 Feb 2019
‘… In the growth and transformation of its myths a society achieves its own sense of identity… The ways in which a society images its own feelings and attitudes in myth provides him with one of the deepest sources of art.’1
One of the eight Melbourne painters to join art...
By Asta Cameron
27 Feb 2019
Unlike most students at the National Gallery Art School, Sam Fullbrook came to it as a clean slate, having seen very few paintings before the age of twenty-four. However, his instinct to study art in the post-war years proved a sound one. Sir William Dargie (1912-2003), Australia’s foremost...
By Rodney James BA (Hons.), MA
27 Feb 2019
Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe (1810-61) was a well-known colonial identity, field surveyor and professional artist. The recipient of numerous awards and medals, Balcombe was also regarded as a man of sensitivity and wide-ranging interests. As one friend and colleague aptly put it, Balcombe was an ‘...
By Gavin Fry
24 Oct 2018
European migrants arriving in Australia before World War Two found that the easiest way to make a good life was to blend in as best they could. Many changed their names, simplifying and Anglicising their ‘difficult’ spellings and pronunciations, modifying their dress and behaviour to be accepted...
By Caroline Jones BA, MA (Art Admin.)
24 Oct 2018
The Shoalhaven River was a continual source of inspiration to Arthur Boyd and, looking back over the artist’s vast body of work, formed a major part of Boyd’s oeuvre. The Shoalhaven region on the south coast of New South Wales, has historically been an area favoured by artists because of its...
By Timothy Abdallah BA
24 Oct 2018
A painter of sporadic genius, John Perceval’s life swung from the occasional low point, mainly characterised by inactivity, to the greatest heights. His work invites comparison with that of his friend and brother-in-law Arthur Boyd. Both artists started their careers in the late 1930s and after...
