Review: Fred Williams: The London Drawings, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
When Fred Williams died on 22 April 1982 at the age of 55, Australia lost one of the most important landscape painters of the late 20th century. Williams reinterpreted the landscape within the framework of modernism and taught Australians a new way of looking at the natural environment.
Williams studied art at the National Gallery School in Melbourne and took classes at George Bell’s more progressive private school. He then studied drawing at the Art School of Chelsea Institute of Technology in London for about five years and took a course in etching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
He returned to Australia in late 1956. That’s when he announced he was going to paint a gum tree.
Comprised of 160 drawings, 12 gouache and 30 etchings, the exhibition examines Williams’ work before he turned to gumtree. This is a metaphorical work Williams painted during his time in London, examining the human figure, zoo animals, and the rich cross-sections of theater and theater life. life on the street.
Many of these drawings have never been seen before and are part of a generous gift to the National Gallery of Victoria by the artist’s widow, Lynn Williams, and family.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Donation of Lynn Williams AM and family under the Australian Government’s Cultural Endowment Programme, 2022 © Estate of Fred Williams
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quickfire sketch
Fred Williams: The London Drawings show Williams as someone we’ve rarely seen before. A quick sketch of a model posing in an art school, a glimpse of a comic scene on a music hall stage, what the artist captured from the twilight perch of the gods, and the face he encountered in the street.
He seems to have taken great pleasure in sketching elephants and big cats in zoos, and took great pleasure in sketching people in the framing business he worked for, portraits of friends, and occasional trips to the English countryside. It seems that he sketched images such as rural landscapes from.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Donation of Lynn Williams AM and family under the Australian Government’s Cultural Endowment Programme, 2022 © Estate of Fred Williams
It’s not the subject matter that caught the eye of this 20-something artist that’s appealing, but the way he executes it.
A landscape artist, Williams was certainly an impulsive worker, with his distinctive dabbing, blobs, and dribbles dotting the surface of canvases, gouache, and etchings.
In the London drawings, Williams seems to frame this Mark’s repertoire with strange quick-fire sketches of random profiles, spinning stop actions, and grand and unexpected compositional arrangements.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Donation of Lynn Williams AM and family under the Australian Government’s Cultural Endowment Programme, 2022 © Estate of Fred Williams
Through many drawings, it is hoped to achieve maximum expressiveness, his lines frolicking in caricature, not to achieve comic intent, but to capture memorable gestures. The exhibition is peppered with tiny pockets of explosive expressiveness.
unconventional lonely artist
Williams frequently collaborated with other Australian artists living in London at the time, such as Francis Lynnburner, who painted with him at the zoo.
Linburner was a master craftsman draftsman. His animal sketches brilliantly convey the wholeness of living beings drawn with exquisitely clear lines.
Working next to him, Williams seems uninterested in articulating rhinos, elephants, giraffes, or lions, but tries to capture their expressive essence. The viewer is overwhelmed by the power of the drawing, its emotional impact, rather than the clarity of its overall form.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Donation of Lynn Williams AM and family under the Australian Government’s Cultural Endowment Programme, 2022 © Estate of Fred Williams
Williams would then adopt a similar strategy when he returned to Australia. In the early Nattai River landscapes and his first Mittagong series of 1957–58, apart from the reconstruction of the screen and the forward leaning of the surface, the expressive exuberance of the images is the expressive expressionist It comes from the creation of a good mark.
Williams was an extraordinary and outstanding draftsman, obsessed with what he found in London, original and enthusiastic. Apart from the foreign community that surrounded him and supported him to some extent, he was also a solitary and unconventional artist.
From the evidence presented in this large-scale exhibition, Williams was not swept away by the fashionable trends that influenced the British art world. , Rembrandt, Daumier, Whistler, Degas and other Renaissance masters.
full dedication
From the beginning, Williams showed a total dedication and a very careful approach to his art.
He suffered from bouts of depression common to many young artists, but for him art was an unhurried process. I was ready to train all year long.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Donation of Lynn Williams AM and family under the Australian Government’s Cultural Endowment Programme, 2022 © Estate of Fred Williams
Drawing in London was an apprenticeship, a training that prepared me for the challenges I would face when I returned to Australia. It is tempting to speculate that Williams was something more than a landscape painter.
When conversing with artists in the final years of his life, Williams seemed to have mastered the landscape and felt ready to return to the epic human narrative. Death finally robbed him of that opportunity.
Fred Williams: The London Drawings runs until 29th January at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
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