Fred Williams
(Australia, England 1927–1982)
- Title
- Sherbrooke Forest
- Other titles:
- Sherbrooke Forest I
- Year
- 1961
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil, tempera on hardboard
- Dimensions
-
142.2 x 122.0cm board; 156.0 x 135.5 x 5.0cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed l.r. corner, black oil "Fred Williams.". Signed u.r. verso on hardboard on label, black ball-point pen ".../ FRED WILLIAMS".
- Credit
- Purchased 1964
- Accession number
- OA14.1964
- Copyright
- © Estate of Fred Williams
- Location
- 20th & 21st c Australian art
- Further information
When I arrived in Fremantle, I was struck by how odd the Australian landscape was ... It always worried me that there was no focal point in it, so I simply thought, well I’ll paint it and I’ll leave the focal point out.
Fred Williams, 1976
Following his return to Australia in 1957, and strongly influenced by the post-impressionists and Cézanne in particular, Fred Williams began to create images exploring the symmetry and spatial ambiguities of stands of eucalypt saplings.
This resulted in an increasingly abstracted series of watercolours, paintings and prints of trees in Sherbrooke Forest in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, made during the next four years. This painting is a major early work
which signals how far Williams would go in his abstraction of the landscape.- Bibliography (12)
-
'Celebrating Fred Williams' by Hendrik Kolenberg, pg. 24-25., Look Nov 2004, Nov 2004, 24.
Lou Klepac (Australia; Croatia, b.1936) (Author), Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Bruce James (Australia) (Author), John McDonald (Australia, b.1961) (Author), Peter Pinson (Australia, b.1943) (Author), Gavin Fry (Author), Sasha Grishin AM (Australia) (Author), Deborah Hart (South Africa; United Kingdom; Australia, b.1959) (Author), Australian painters of the twentieth century, Roseville, 2000, 186 (colour illus.), 187, 188.
Ursula Prunster (Australia) (Curator), Australian painters; Seeing Cézanne, Sydney, 1998, 10, 28 (colour illus.), 31. cat.no. 55. This work is referred to as 'Sherbrooke Forest 1'.
Terence Maloon (Australia) (Curator), Classic Cézanne, Domain, 1998, 70, 71 (colour illus.). fig.no. 32
Annabel Davie (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales Handbook, Domain, 1988, 34.
Barry Pearce (Australia) (Author), Patrick McCaughey (Northern Ireland; Australia, b.1943) (Author), Twentieth century Australian masterworks from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Fred Williams Pilbara Series, Tokyo, 1985, 46 (colour illus.). cat.no. 27
Hemisphere May 1982-Jun 1982, May 1982-Jun 1982, 374 (illus.).
Sun 13 May 1964, 13 May 1964, page unknown. Gallery purchase
1964 Acquisitions 1964, 1964, 26-27. cat.no. 29
Herald 24 Jan 1962, 24 Jan 1962, page unknown. Melbourne Herald
Sun 20 Jan 1962, 20 Jan 1962, page unknown. Wynne Prize review
Sun 19 Jan 1962, 19 Jan 1962, page unknown. Wynne Prize review
- Exhibition history (3)
-
Twentieth century Australian masterworks from the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Fred Williams Pilbara series from the collection of CRA Limited, Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, 04 Oct 1985–06 Nov 1985.
Australian Painters Seeing Cézanne, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 28 Nov 1998–17 Jan 1999.
Australian icons: twenty artists from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 04 Aug 2000–03 Dec 2000.
