18 August 2013

Pilbarra series

Very exciting to get this slim volume in the post - ordered from the National Gallery of Victoria -
A new edition of the 2002 publication. I saw the paintings round the walls of a big room in the gallery in 2005 - perhaps they have grown bigger in my memory, but 1.5m x 1.8m is quite big enough to be impressive. The oils were painted in 1981, but he first went to the area in 1979 to paint a series of gouaches. The book includes excerpts from his diaries at the time, and photos of him painting.
As for the colours - it's about the way the colours work together, those vivid bright dots...

Some sample pages -

I've written before about Fred Williams and my connection with his art, so I'm looking forward to reading about this series of work.

2 comments:

Jane Housham said...

I've just tracked back through your earlier posts about this artist. Very interesting. I'd love to see those landscapes (in Australia). Interesting art too.

Dijanne Cevaal said...

Ahh one of my favourites.... The Pilbarra series is magic , such presence, such energy. They had a Retropsective last year which also had a fantastic catalogue but only a few of the Pilbarra- my next project I have to do is go up to those You Yangs( they are after all, only a stone's throw away)- it was where fred Williams to that extraordinary leap into abstracting the landscape.