Lifelong friends and business partners Geoffrey Legge (b. 1935) and Frank Watters OAM (1934–2020) ran Watters Gallery in inner Sydney from 1964 to 2018. As gallerists and collectors, they encouraged, promoted and mentored several generations of Australian artists, and introduced a great many people to the pleasure of collecting art. 'Some of the earliest Australian video, installation, and performance art was shown at Watters Gallery,' art historian John McPhee wrote in 2014. 'Work considered outside the mainstream, overlooked, or too controversial was never a problem.' Because of their profession, Legge and Watters were depicted by various artists and in various mediums. Sculptor Robert (Bob) Jenyns, who began exhibiting with Watters in the 1970s, made this sculpture to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the gallery's establishment. For many years the sculpture lived in Watters' flat on the top floor of the gallery's premises in Riley Street. Watters gifted the work to the National Portrait Gallery in 2018, when he moved away from Sydney and back to the Hunter Valley, where he had grown up.
Gift of Frank Watters OAM 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
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