Richard and Pat

Richard Larter and Pat Holmes married in England in the early 1950s and emigrated to Sydney in 1962. To Richard, the local art scene ‘represented the worst trends seen in a pre-World War II backwards-looking Royal Academy’.

From about 1966 onwards, Pat Holmes and Richard Larter collaborated in a series of works that unashamedly and defiantly mocked conservatism and hypocrisy in their many forms – in particular the attitudes that deemed sexuality shameful and women’s bodies deserving of exploitation. Pat started as Richard’s model and muse but ended up becoming an artist in her own right. Collectively, their output – in painting, printmaking, performance, video, photography and recorded sound – documents what comes close to being Australian art’s most fruitful creative partnership. The National Gallery of Australia presented a retrospective of Richard’s output in 2008, with curator Deborah Hart referring to Pat and Richard’s union as ‘a remarkable artistic exchange and personal relationship ... that had been an unquestionably wild and passionate ride’ in the accompanying catalogue.