REALISM _ William Delafield Cook

REALISM THE ART OF WILLIAM DELAFIELD COOK

Olsen Annexe | 20 August - 13 September, 2025

In partnership with 63 Jersey Rd Art Sales, Olsen Annexe presents Realism: The Art of William Delafield Cook. The landscape paintings of William Delafield Cook are complex depictions of rivers and rocky flats. Their impression is vivid, with not a breath of wind or person to complete the composition. The proposition is about painting as much as it is about photography. Painting is a system, but the camera has its own realism and a fixedness, and it is to this that we look to understand the art of William Delafield Cook.

Debra Hart has further commented: “In Cook’s painting the notion of ‘ an ideal’ in the context of the Australian landscape is revealed in paintings which are not about very much in a direct sense. Instead, they are reflections of the ways in which the environment, in all its neutrality and apparent emptiness, is in fact informed by small and large incident –rocks, stones, branches, tracks – if one is prepared to look long and hard enough; while the space in landscape itself informs contemplative space ” .

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Born in 1936, William Delafield Cook was a celebrated Australian artist remembered as a key figure in the art world, particularly for his role in redefining how contemporary artists engage with the landscape tradition. His highly detailed, often photorealistic landscapes capture expansive Australian rural scenes. He won the Wynne and Sulman prizes consecutively in 1980-81, and his work is held in public and private collections across the country including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria

Realism: The Art of William Delafield Cook is open in the Olsen Annexe from 20 August - 13 September.

Deborah Hart, William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, p.197