Fred Williams was one of the most important Australian artists of the 20th century. His unique landscape vision emerged in the late 1950s, after his return from a period of study and work in London. The 1960s saw an increasing minimalism in his paintings, which reached its most extreme point at the end of the decade. His monumental works of 1969 sought to evoke the scale of the Australian landscape through canvases of a single colour dotted with tiny flecks of paint, his bare, uncompromising pictures contributing profoundly to subsequent Australian interpretations of place.
This painting, one of the very first acquisitions of the National Portrait Gallery, was the last and most considered of his few self portraits. The work of painting is emphasised; here is no tousle-haired, tortured genius but a diffident, sober man going about his business. The treatment of the jacket is reminiscent of that of rocks and trees in his landscapes of the same period and the work is characteristically enlivened with touches of vibrant colour on cheekbones and ears.
Gift of Lyn Williams 1998. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program.
© Fred Williams
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