Tag: Obituary
Bob Edwards: A Eulogy
Friday, June 16th, 2023 Blog,Bob Edwards once asked me if I’d like to be director of a wellknown art institution. I said “No”, and have no regrets, but if I had wanted the job, I know he would have worked behind the scenes to make it a reality. He did this – discreetly – for others whom he had […]
John Olsen: A Reminiscence
Thursday, April 13th, 2023 Blog,Try as I might, I can’t remember the first time I met John Olsen, although it must have been in the mid-1980s. What I do recall is that even then, he was self-consciously the great man of Australian art – especially after the recent deaths of Fred Williams and Russell Drysdale. As the years rolled […]
John Olsen 1928 – 2023
Thursday, April 13th, 2023 Blog,Hearing that John Olsen is no more is like learning that Uluru has disappeared overnight. A towering presence in Australian art, a larger-than-life personality, Olsen has been a dominant figure in our cultural landscape from the 1960s until the present. Although 95 can be considered a good innings, the artist may have spoiled his own […]
Nicholas Harding 1956 – 2022
Friday, November 11th, 2022 Blog,When Nicholas Harding was awarded the 2022 Wynne Prize for landscape, one sensed it wasn’t simply a vote for a single painting, but for a lifetime’s achievement. This is not to detract from that winning canvas, Eora, a vast bushland scene, almost 2 by 4 metres – a scale that might have intimidated most artists, […]
Ken Whisson 1927 – 2022
Friday, May 6th, 2022 Blog,Ken Whisson was one of the great originals of Australian art. Had he ever become a household name he would have felt something was wrong. Whisson had no desire to live or paint in a conventional way. Like Giacometti, even when he began to sell work for higher prices he continued to live like a […]
Peter Powditch 1942 – 2022
Sunday, March 27th, 2022 Blog,Few contemporary Australian artists become well-known names, but Peter Powditch had his 15 minutes of fame. In 1972 the Sydney Morning Herald was putting together a front page feature on who was going to win that year’s rugby league grand final and Powditch was one of the celebrities contacted for an opinion. In later years […]
Jutta Feddersen 1931 – 2021
Thursday, February 10th, 2022 Blog,Jutta Feddersen, who has died peacefully at the age of 90, belonged to a generation whose lives were permanently shaped and scarred by the Second World War. Born in 1931, in a German town called Briesen that is now part of Poland, Jutta Schley enjoyed an idyllic rural childhood. One of five children, she was […]
Hossein Valamanesh 1949 – 2021
Thursday, February 3rd, 2022 Blog,When Hossein Valamanesh arrived in Australia in 1973, Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister, Patrick White was Australian of the Year, and change was in the air. The first Biennale of Sydney was held at the Opera House, and John Kaldor brought out Gilbert & George as “the living sculptures”. James Mollison purchased Jackson Pollock’s Blue […]
Christo – His legacy in Australia
Thursday, June 11th, 2020 Blog,Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia. The most important piece of avant-garde art ever made in this country, or the the work of a madman? Both views got plenty of traction at the end of October 1969, when Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009), undertook the monumental task of wrapping part […]
Frank Watters 1934 – 2020
Thursday, May 28th, 2020 Blog,Frank Watters, who has died at the age of 86, was not only a pillar of the Sydney gallery scene for more than 50 years, he was a truly humane personality in a business that breeds sharks. Although he adored gossip and had a wicked wit, Frank held fast to his own standards. He was […]