FRED WILLIAMS WEIPA SERIES CAPE YORK
CAPE YORK
FUNDING PARTNER
GALLERY SPONSORS
IMAGE COVER AND DETAIL LEFT
Inlet,Weipa 1977
gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Purchased with the assistance of the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, 2014
Photograph: MIchael Marzik
Fred Williams is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most important and influential twentieth century Australian artists. The exhibition Fred Williams: Weipa series, Cape York brings together for the first time a major group of works produced by the artist in response to the remote landscape of far north Queensland. Despite his limited time in the north, Fred William’s produced a remarkable and innovative body of work that reimagined the vast, unrelenting spaces and fragile natural world of the north and opened up new possibilities for his art.
The exhibition is based around five gouaches held in the collection of the Cairns Art Gallery and supports the Gallery’s commitment to researching, exhibiting and collecting significant art produced in relation to the region and, in so doing, contributing to Australian art scholarship. We are indebted to Lyn Williams AM for her significant donation to the Cairns Art Gallery of three of the Weipa gouaches and her guidance with the selection of works and research for the exhibition.
The exhibition afforded us the opportunity to work with Dr Deborah Hart, Head of Australian Art, National Gallery of Australia who generously gave of her time to write the first dedicated essay on the significance of the Weipa series.
Without the enthusiastic support of the many private and public lenders the exhibition would not have been possible. We particularly acknowledge the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria who loaned a considerable number of works major works from their collections.
Finally, I would like to thank the Gallery’s staff, particularly the Curators Julietta Park, Ashleigh Campbell and Kylie Burke, and Marketing Coordinator Kelly Jaunzems who have all contributed professionally and creatively to the exhibition and supporting publication.
Andrea May Churcher Director
FOREWORD
ANDREA MAY CHURCHER
Fred Williams painting at Bournda National Park, New South Wales, January 1975
Photographer: Lyn Williams
FRED WILLIAMS THE WEIPA EXPERIENCE
‘Friendship Flight’ is good for seeing the country & the long grinding journey back by jet ... It was an interesting journey to Weipa & I will do a small series on it … I have never seen country like it before ... It is a remarkable landscape and it has left an indelible impression.
Fred
Williams 1
Fred Williams illuminated his principal focus as an artist when attending his retrospective exhibition of gouaches and prints, Fred Williams: Landscapes of a continent, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1977. At the media preview he said: ‘I will never paint anywhere but in Australia … I must be inside looking out - not outside looking in.’ 2 This was the first solo exhibition of an Australian artist at this prestigious institution, the home of works by artists Williams had long admired, such as Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. He was in his element. It provided a real boost to his confidence and he mentioned that he felt as though he could have filled the entire museum. 3 Yet he recognised with a clarity looking from ‘the outside in’, that
of all the sources of inspiration, it was the engagements – both real and imaginary –with his country of origin that were not only the main point of interest in his art abroad but, more significantly, at the core of his being as an artist.
The exhibition at MoMA was shown in the same year that Williams travelled to Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, literally a world away from the hustle and bustle of New York.
While a review of the exhibition at MoMA mentioned that Williams conveyed a feeling ‘peculiar to the Australian outback’, prior to his visit to Weipa and then the Pilbara in Western Australia, his encounters with remote areas of the country had been limited.
Saplings,Weipa 1977
gouache
55 x 75 cm
Private Collection.
Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
Photograph: Michael Marzik
DR DEBORAH HART
All the same this notion tapped into a dimension inherent in the philosophical underpinnings of the works – that in Williams’ thinking, regional diversity did not exist in isolation but rather could be understood as part of a greater, complex whole. His visit to Weipa was simultaneously a revelation of new possibilities as well as a confirmation of his imagined Australia.
Placing the works in context it is worth recalling that Williams’ reputation as one of Australia’s most innovative and important landscape artists had been confirmed in the 1960s. As James Gleeson wrote in 1966, ‘The rarest of artists are the ones who see familiar things as no one has previously seen them, and who, in setting down their vision, reshape our world for us.’ 4 This was achieved through series such as Williams’ You Yangs, Upwey and Lysterfield works – all inspired by locations in close proximity to his place of residence. Across these major series comprising paintings, prints and gouaches, he developed a distinctive visual language; distilling natural phenomena such as trees, rocks and bushes to a semaphore of dots, dabs and dashes, akin to force-fields of energy. These were
applied to spacious, largely tonal grounds, with some works emphasising flat infinite horizon lines, to convey a wider sense of the continent. When he remarked in 1980 (as he had done earlier) that Australia was essentially the ‘same country … with the skin peeled back’, he was not denying the specificities of particular environments but rather referring to underlying geological formations and patterns of connection encompassing diversity. 5
Williams’ works of the 1970s, including those undertaken at Weipa, are notable for their luminous colour. Just prior to travelling to Weipa on 25 October 1977, he attended an exhibition of his art at the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) in Brisbane, thoughtfully reviewed by local art critic Dr Gertrude Langer who remarked that his most recent landscapes revealed ‘a courageous departure from the successes of earlier works. The all-over rich, shimmering, colourful, breathing surfaces (flatness, of course, is still preserved) with the evocation of fragrance and humming life … Williams has not said his last word yet’. 6 The IMA exhibition had been made possible by a special grant from Comalco Ltd (now Rio Tinto Ltd) 7 who now invited the artist to visit their
Bauxite Coastline II 1977
gouache
57 x 75 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014 Photograph: Michael Marzik
mining operations at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. 8
This part of the country is about as far north as it is possible to go on the mainland. The town of Weipa (from the Aboriginal word Waypa or Waypundun), is situated on west of the Peninsula, on the traditional lands of the Alngith people. 9 It has been noted that the western half of the Peninsula is characterised by large amounts of red and yellow earths, as well as laterite soils with significant bauxite deposits. There are also vast areas of alluvial soils near the coast. While Williams only spent a few days in Weipa, the ‘indelible impression’ he felt it had made upon him would be played out over many months on his return to his studio, informed by sketches, photographs and preliminary studies, as well as a clarity of memories. The direct engagement with place was a vital part of the process. He chose not to take a heavy-handed approach but rather to allow the environment to work on him.
As he said in an interview in relation to his working method, ‘I sort of take the attitude that I’m like an antenna. I let it come to me … I certainly don’t try to impose anything on it’. 10 He felt fortunate to get to see large aspects of the terrain around Weipa but also relished the chance to sit contemplatively and take it all in.
On 26 October 1977 he wrote:
Early rise and we head off at 8.30. [The plan] is to cover the entire area of mining!
A bit more than I had expected – to sit quietly would have been more to my taste! Across the river to Andoon, I drop off at odd times and make a quick sketch. We finally go about 30 miles east and have lunch at ‘Running creek’ where Keith has a weekend ‘platform’, a lovely spot … I finally sit for a few hours at a quiet spot and make some rapid notes. There is a long bend of the river (Embley River) that I decline to stay at –because Alan Young told me how someone had been taken by a crocodile eight months back. Both Keith and Dean assure me it is OK but I don’t do it.11
x 76 cm Private Collection. Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
Photograph: Michael Marzik
through
Coastline,Weipa 1977
gouache
57.4 x 150.2 cm
Purchased
The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC46 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
CapeYorkbushfire(2) 1977
gouache
57.2 x 76 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC50 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
It was during his time in Weipa that Williams had his first extensive view of the land from a light plane. He had long conceptualised the viewpoint that this experience might afford. In the 1960s, in the front of one of his cuttings books, he had pasted a newspaper clipping of a light aircraft flying over a landscape with scattered bushes below. The opportunities for such a flight had been planned in the past but for a range of reasons never materialised. Now, in 1977 he finally had the chance of flying in different aircraft including light planes.
The experience of flying low over the country was just as brilliant as Williams had always hoped it would be. He had long enjoyed tilting conventional expectations about composition and perspective and in Coastline, Weipa (page 9/10) and Bushfire, Weipa II 1977 (page 14) he went further than ever before. Flying over the shore he was able to view the expanse of sparkling blue sea. In Coastline, Weipa he allows spaciousness to take over; the flat blue ocean connecting with the thinnest strip of land at the very top of the composition. It is a meeting of land and sea, reality and abstraction. Williams’ particular choice of blue captures a
true feeling for the heat and distinctive light of North Queensland. Looked at another way, this remarkable work also suggests his admiration for American Colour Field painters.12
A number of Williams’ bushfire gouaches reveal an adventurous and disorienting confluence of land and sky. At times the smoke issues from the landscape tilted vertically – as in Bushfire, Weipa 1 (page 13) in which the soft plumes of smoke are at one with the delicately painted ground and sky. Also mapping the landscape from above Cape York, bushfire (2) (page 12) reveals warmer tonalities as though illuminated from within by fire. In other works such as Bushfire, Weipa II and Weipa bushfire (page 36), the ground is at the base of the painting, the smoke rising up from the low hills and billowing into the partially darkened sky.
While Australia is often thought of as a dry country, the Cape York contains sixteen complete drainage basins, including several large river systems. A sense of aerial mapping is particulary evident in works in which waterways intersect with the land, at times as in Weipa coastline (page 7) Williams allows delicate tendrils to curl into the landscape.
Bushfire,WeipaI 1977 gouache
75 x 55 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Purchased by Cairns Regional Gallery, 1999
Photograph: Michael Marzik
IMAGE RIGHT
Bushfire,WeipaII 1977
gouache
57 x75.5 cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
Photograph: Michael Marzik
IMAGE LEFT
In other works such as Cape York river swamp I (page 41) and Cape York river swamp II (page 16) dramatic, curvilinear luminous yellow rivers create pathways cutting a swathe through the terrain.
Among the notable aspects of Williams’ Cape York works is the great variety of compositional formats with which he experimented. In Bauxite coastline II (page 6), Tidal swamp (page 40) and Vines and wildflowers (page 31), Williams employed what he described as the ‘strip gouache’ format in which different aspects of the same scene can be shown together. The idea of the horizontal strips had originated earlier in the decade when Williams was working on the edge of the Victorian coastline at Queenscliff and then in Erith Island. For an artist who enjoyed working in series, this was a way of having self-contained series in the same work. The idea of taking a horizontal perspective across the landscape also referred to the early nineteenth century artists like Charles Lesueur and William Westall who mapped parts of the Australian coastline to record coastal profiles of the continent.13
nottitled[CapeYorkriverswampsII] 1977
Weipalandscape(2) 1977
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC47 - 1980
gouache
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
nottitled[Landcapewithtermitemounds, CapeYorkPeninsula] 1977
gouache and synthetic polymer paint
57.2 x 75.8 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
In some instances the Cape York landscapes are seen front-on such as Weipa landscape I and II (page 44 and page 38), Cape York scrub (page 37) and Landscape with termite mounds, Cape York Peninsula (page 18).
While bold in their conception there is also a softness and delicacy in the painterly aspects, as though the environment is seen through the heat haze of a mirage. Other works such as Aerial landscape, Weipa (page 39), take an overview of the space with classic Williams’ visual notations on muted yet richly inflected grounds recalling great works of the 1960s such as Forest of gum trees 1968-70.14
As was always the case when he travelled, Williams looked not only at the macrocosm but at the microcosm. In Weipa he was particularly struck by carnivorous plants, given new life in his gouache Insect-catching plant, Weipa 1977 (page 20), painted in mauves and rich purples and greens suggesting
tropical vegetation. The brush marks here are loose and free, following the curling forms of the plants that almost seem to dance across the three strips; their magnification recalling the emphasis given to small ferns regenerating after bushfires. In Vines and wildflowers, Williams retains a lighter touch with the seeming freefall of dots and dashes to suggest natural growth. He was also interested in the spindly forms of saplings at times coinciding with the extraordinary termite mounds that are characteristic of the area.
Among the most outstanding gouaches to come out of his visit to Cape York visit were Weipa I-IV 1977 (page 23 -26). In these strip gouaches the colours of the earth are given full resonance; from reddish ochres veering to soft glowing pinks, dark to sandy browns and warm mustard yellows; variously translucent and opaque. There
was a special correlation between the strip format and the particularities of the Weipa terrain. Williams was fascinated by geology and would have been aware of the richness of this landscape which in profile reveals layers that have developed since Jurassic times. These include sandstone and marine sediments and kaolin deposits that are ‘part of the same profile as, and occur below, the bauxite ores’. 15 The year after Williams’ visit to the Cape York Peninsula he undertook the first two paintings of long riverbeds stretching across the landscape in Riverbed A and Riverbed B 1978, a pair of paintings, followed by another two, of the lightly treed woodland country around a huge river.
With the benefit of distance other artistic interests flowed into the works including subtle connections with Aboriginal and Chinese art. Williams had been an admirer of Aboriginal bark paintings incorporating multiple perspectives as well as rock paintings and engravings. In 1976 he had
travelled to China where he had undertaken breathtakingly minimal drawings of mountains and rivers in his beautiful drawing book. Yet the linear river stretching vertically from top to bottom in the Riverbed works also provided a counterpoint to the more complex formations he had seen in China. As James Mollison noted of the riverbed paintings: [Williams] again used a map-maker’s view of the Cape York Peninsula landscape to describe the infinite spaces of the outback. The river, with bordering mangroves, became a line that he treated as if it were an Aboriginal mark on the landscape. Williams was fascinated by the fact that an aspect of Aboriginal art could be incorporated in a landscape seen from the air. He contrasted the Australian river with the complicated, twisting river forms he had seen from the air in China – forms in which he saw the origins of the dragon motif in Chinese art. 16
In his Riverbed works and Weipa I-IV Williams gave painted substance to the richly coloured earth of the far north, laying the groundwork for the Pilbara series later on. This came about after a visit to Williams’ studio by Sir Roderick Carnegie, the Chairman of the mining company Conzine Riotinto of Australia (CRA, now Rio Tinto Ltd) who had been a friend of the family for some years. Having seen Williams’s works resulting from his visit to the Cape York Peninsula, he believed that the artist would benefit greatly from a journey to the magnificent Pilbara region. 17
By the time Williams painted his Weipa and Cape York subjects he had mastered the technique of painting with gouache on paper which comprises most of the works. While earlier in his artistic development gouaches were sometimes preliminary studies for oils, by this point they were very much considered to be finished works in their own right. The Weipa gouaches were created in 1977 and 1978 alongside other works in
progress from different locations in a lively dialogue across series. They demonstrated a combination of spontaneity and assurance in his development and led to several new approaches. As Patrick McCaughey wrote of this period in time:
The most remarkable aspect of those years is that for all the travelling and extensive and substantial exhibiting – six exhibitions in three years – Williams produced an outstanding amount of work. More certain of his direction now that the new style of the 1970s was winning acceptance, he turned to his work with renewed confidence and concentration. 18
nottitled[WeipaIV] 1977
from Gallery admission charges, 1983
gouache
57.4 x 75.1 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased
WeipaI 1977
gouache
57.6 x 76.4 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
nottitled[WeipaII] 1977
and synthetic polymer paint
57 x 76 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
gouache
Weipalll 1977
gouache
57 x 76 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
nottitled[Drycreekbeddiptych, CapeYork] 1977
gouache with additions in chalk colour
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
In conclusion, Williams’ visit to Weipa lasted a matter of a few days, yet it provided him enough fertile ground for around 50 gouaches, mostly painted back in the studio. His engagement with Weipa points to the significance of up close and personal encounters with myriad tangible realities of specific locales that bring the authenticity of real experience to the works: the absorption of distinctive qualities of light, patterns of dry and wet environments, the life of plants, butterflies and termite hills, the colours of bauxite and iron ore, and the seemingly endless coastline. Add to this – and it is a crucial aspect of Williams’ art – the interactions between the subject out there and the abstract life of the work itself recollected in the space of the studio.
Yet this kind of distance was wholly different to the distance felt in New York. It was about deepening and widening connections to place, never taken for granted but respected and understood as enlivening and enriching.
The element of distancing from the intensity of real experience had long been important to Williams in the inspired internal making of his works, whether painting the landscape close
to his back door, a short drive’s distance away or a long flight to the far north of the country.
Many of his recollections of Weipa embedded in the art confirmed what he had intuitively grasped years earlier about the continuities of landscape; the underlying geological formations, skeins and lines of connection that stretch across the continent (calling to mind the idea of Aboriginal songlines). In the Cape York environment and back in the studio, tangible memories of experiences flowed into paintings on paper that were not simply stepping stones to Williams’ Pilbara achievement that followed, but instead resonated with distinctiveness and distinction. Among them are some of the most outstanding gouaches of his career, holding their own with seminal works of the 1960s.
They are informed by the past, but also much enlivened by fresh possibilities opened up by a remarkable area of the continent, experienced and re-imagined, as he put it, from the ‘inside looking out’.
Dr Deborah Hart, 2018
END NOTES
1 Fred Williams diary entry, courtesy of Lyn Williams, quoted in Deborah Hart, Infinite horizons, National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, 2011, p.160. Some parts of this essay are drawn from this catalogue that accompanied Williams’ exhibition at the NGA in 2011.
2 Fred Williams quoted in John Raedler, ‘Triumph on West 53rd Street’, The Australian 14 March 1977.
3 See James Mollison, Asingularvision:Theart of Fred Williams, Australian National Gallery and Oxford University Press, Canberra & Melbourne, 1989, p.229.
4 James Gleeson quoted in Hart, Infinite horizons, p.61.
5 Fred Williams, quoted in Anthony Clarke, ‘Exploring Fred Williams’, The Age, 13 July, 1980, p.17. See also Mollison, Asingularvision, p.230.
6 Gertrude Langer, ‘Fred Williams, an artist to treasure’, Courier Mail, Brisbane, 29 October 1977.
7 See www.riotinto.com.au/aluminium. Rio Tinto (formerly Comalco) has owned and operated Weipa bauxite mine since 1963.
8 Lyn Williams told the author that the interest from Comalco Ltd. had started with Dean Bunny, who was in Public Relations for Comalco and also a member of the Gallery Society of the National Gallery of Victoria.
9 See www.weipatownauthority.com.au/westerncape-history (viewed 11/10/2018) The impact of incursions into the land since white settlement in the area in the 19th century has been complex and difficult for local Indigenous communities, although in more recent times there has been greater emphasis on consultation and inclusion.
10 Fred Williams in an interview with Alan Oldfield on 12 August for the Australian Eye series #5, Patternsoflandscape:ThroughtheeyesofFred Williams 1927-1982, Film Australia, Sydney, 1989.
11 Fred Williams’ diary entry on 26 October 1977, courtesy of Lyn Williams.
12 While the environment was the key, Williams was particularly adept at integrating his understandings of particular moments in art history into his vision, including contemporary developments, as he had done in the late 1960s when his vast, spare landscapes of a continent were variously titled Australian landscape and Minimal landscape.
13 See Hart, Infinite horizons, p.125
14 See above, p.90, for a detail of Forest of gum trees 1968-70 which Williams considered one of his best paintings.
15 This information is based on a geological report by Porter GeoConsultancy in 1990. The comments in this report are relayed in abbreviated form to give a sense of the parallels between Williams’s approach and the landscape itself. For more detail see the following website that was checked for this document on 11 June 2011: http://www.portergeo.com.au/database.
16 Mollison, Asingularvision, p.229. The two later paintings, Riverbed C and Riverbed D 1981 are illustrated in Mollison on p.228.
17 See above, p.230. Although Rod Carnegie was keen to commission the artist to paint a series for the company, Williams was not prepared to accept the idea, suggesting instead ‘that if CRA liked any of the paintings that eventuated from the trip, they could have the first choice of them’.
18 Patrick McCaughey, Fred Williams, Bay Books, 1987, p.178. This major monograph was republished by Murdoch Books in 2008.
ButterfliesandFlowersWeipa 1977 gouache
Image size 51 x 75.5 cm
Private Collection. Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
Photograph: Michael Marzik
Vines and wildflowers 1977
gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Private collection, Melbourne
Photograph: Mark Ashkanasy
CapeYorkLandscape 1977
gouache
55.0 x 74.5 cm
Private Collection, Launceston
Photograph: Michael Marzik
IMAGE LEFT
WeipaLandscape 1978
gouache
57 x 75.5 cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
Photograph: Mark Ashkanasy
IMAGE RIGHT
TermiteMound,Weipa 1977
gouache
75.5 x 57 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014
IMAGE LEFT
CapeYorkbushfire(1) 1977
gouache
57.2 x 76 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC49 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
IMAGE RIGHT
WeipaBushfire 1977
gouache
55 x 73.5 cm
Private Collection, Sydney
Photograph: Michael Marzik
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
nottitled[CapeYorkscrub] 1977
gouache and synthetic polymer paint
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
TidalSwamp 1977
gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014
LIST OF WORKS
Fred Williams
Australian 1927 – 1982
All works are by Fred Williams unless otherwise stated.
© All works by Fred Williams are reproduced courtesy of the Estate of Fred Williams.
The list of works includes all works included in the exhibition FredWilliams:Weipaseries,Cape York
All works listed are reproduced in the catalogue. Works are listed in the order of reproduction in the catalogue.
All work dimensions are height x width in centimetres.
Cataloguing conventions of lending institutions have been adopted.
1 Inlet,Weipa 1977 gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns Purchased with the assistance of the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, 2014
Photograph: MIchael Marzik
2 Saplings,Weipa 1977 gouache
55 x 75 cm
Private Collection.
Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Photograph: Michael Marzik
3 BauxiteCoastlineII 1977 gouache
57 x 75 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014
Photograph: Michael Marzik
4 WeipaCoastline1977 gouache
57 x 76 cm
Private Collection.
Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane Photograph: Michael Marzik
5 Coastline,Weipa 1977 gouache
nottitled(CapeYorkriverswampsI] 1977
painting
57.2 x 75.6 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
57.4 x 150.2 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable
and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC46 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
6 CapeYorkbushfire(2) 1977 gouache
57.2 x 76 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC50 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria
7 Bushfire,WeipaI 1977 gouache
75 x 55 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns
Purchased by Cairns Regional Gallery, 1999
Photograph: Michael Marzik
8 Bushfire,WeipaII 1977 gouache
57 x75.5 cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
Photograph: Michael Marzik
9 nottitled[CapeYorkriverswampsII] 1977 gouache
57.6 x 74.8 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
10 Weipalandscape(2) 1977
gouache
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor ,and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC47 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
11 nottitled[Landcapewithtermitemounds, CapeYorkPeninsula] 1977
gouache and synthetic polymer paint
57.2 x 75.8 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
12 Insect-catchingplant,Weipa 1977
gouache
57.6 x 76.6 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC44 - 1980
Photographer: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
13 nottitled[WeipaIV] 1977
gouache
57.4 x 75.1 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
14 WeipaI 1977
gouache
57.6 x 76.4 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
15 nottitled[WeipaII]
gouache and synthetic polymer paint
57 x 76 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
16 Weipalll 1977
gouache
57 x 76 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
17 nottitled[Drycreekbeddiptych,Cape York] 1977
gouache with additions in chalk colour
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
18 ButterfliesandFlowersWeipa 1977
gouache
51 x 75.5 cm
Private Collection.
Courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
Photograph: Michael Marzik
19 Vinesandwildflowers 1977
gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Private collection, Melbourne Photograph: Mark Ashkanasy
20 CapeYorkLandscape 1977
gouache
55.0 x 74.5 cm
Private Collection, Launceston
Photograph: Michael Marzik
21 WeipaLandscape 1978
gouache
57 x 75.5 cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
Photograph: Mark Ashkanasy
22 TermiteMound,Weipa 1977
gouache
75.5 x 57 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014
23 CapeYorkbushfire(1) 1977
gouache
57.2 x 76 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC49 - 1980 Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
24 WeipaBushfire 1977 gouache
55 x 73.5 cm
Private Collection, Sydney Photograph: Michael Marzik
25 nottitled[CapeYorkscrub] 1977 gouache and synthetic polymer paint
57.2 x 76.2 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
26 WeipalandscapeII 1977 gouache
56 x 74 cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
27 Aeriallandscape,Weipa 1977 gouache
56.5 x 75.5 cm
City of Townsville Art Collection, Townsville Purchased 1998 1998.20
28 TidalSwamp 1977 gouache
57.0 x 75.5 cm
Cairns Art Gallery Collection, Cairns Donated through the Cairns Regional Gallery Foundation, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Lyn Williams AM, 2014
29 nottitled(CapeYorkriverswampsI] 1977 gouache
57.2 x 75.6 cm
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased from Gallery admission charges, 1983
30 Weipalandscape(1) 1977 gouache
57.2 x 75.8 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria ith the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC45 - 1980
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Weipalandscape(1) 1977
57.2 x 75.8 cm
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria ith the assistance of the H.J. Heinz ll Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980 AC45 - 1980
gouache
Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Cairns Art Gallery acknowledges the many individuals and organisations that have assisted us with our research and bringing together, for the first time for exhibition, the largest body of works from the Fred William’s Weipa series.
The Gallery is indebted to Lyn Williams AM for her generosity and ongoing support of the Gallery and her contribution to the research for this project. The Gallery is extremely grateful to Dr Deborah Hart who shared her research and contributed to this publication.
The Gallery acknowledges the generosity of private and public lenders who have made the exhibition possible:
National Gallery of Victoria (Tony Elwood, Ieva Kanepe)
National Gallery of Australia (Gerard Vaughan, Aaron Pollock, Jane Marsden)
Perc Tucker Gallery (Erwin Cruz, Stephanie Smith)
Philip Bacon Galleries (Philip Bacon, Nicholas Smith)
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art (Lauraine Diggins)
Sothebys Australia (Geoffrey Smith)
Deutscher and Hackett (Louise Choi)
Lyn Williams AM
Anonymous lenders
Published for the exhibition
Fred Williams: Weipa series, Cape York Cairns Art Gallery 2 March – 1 July 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9757635-9-9
© Cairns Art Gallery, Estate of Fred Williams
The publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be directed to Cairns Art Gallery.
Text copyright © Dr Deborah Hart
Publisher Cairns Art Gallery, 2018
Image reproductions All works by Fred Williams are reproduced courtesy of the Estate of Fred Williams.
Photography Mark Ashkanazy; Michael Marzik; National Gallery of Victoria; National Gallery of Australia
Cairns Art Gallery
Cnr Abbott & Shields Streets
Cairns Queensland 4870
61 74046 480
www.cairnsartgallery.com.au
WILLIAMS
FRED
WEIPA SERIES CAPE YORK