6 minute read
Etchings with Related Paintings 1954 - 1968
An exhibition of etchings and related paintings. With most artists one might expect the prints to be copied from the canvases, but this is Fred Williams, a master of both these media so the creative relationship between versions of an image is complex, a matter of interdependency. Rather than transforming a completed picture into a derivative etching, the artist would pin prints up in his studio for visual reference, then proceeded with more paintings, refining, and further developing an image.
That is why it is a bit of a chicken-or-egg puzzle deciding the sequence of paintings and etchings in this show. Williams would return to a composition over the years, rephrasing and rejigging the form to devise fresh versions when exploring the possibilities of the different media.
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Take his images of trampoline youths and tumblers. They stemmed from drawings Williams made in the mid 1950s in London. He periodically returned to the subjects, setting figures in profile before reworking the theme. With the tumblers he compositionally translated the human torso into slinky flexed limbs, whereas those bouncing figures in the trampoline pieces were geometrically abstracted and pixilated á la Mondrian. Going over the exhibits we make out a purpose to his acts of stylisation: if the tumblers become progressively so energised and animate, in contrast the trampoline compositions evoke such a terse suspended moment.
Viewers often savour the craftsmanship of Williams’s paintings, especially his signature landscapes: how he built a ground with thin, semi-transparent layers of colour, then patiently set down tree trunks and areas of vegetation with dabs and dashes of textured paint. There is such an expressive tactility to his brush strokes. However, you cannot do these things with an etching. You cannot layer pigment or build textures, manipulate colour, adjust the surface sheen. Then there is the matter of size, how to work small. Creative decisions are more restricted.
But Fred Williams embraced the seeming limits of the etching medium, using black or deep brown inks to focus wholly upon tone and composition. Williams may sometimes gouge in a line, yet he refrains from heavily working the plate and is sparing in his tonal gradations. He also honed his distinctive approach to aquatint, using effects from a fine smokiness to gritty-looking abrasions, so that the inked paper sometimes has the quality of a dark felt-like fabric.
The etchings certainly make clear what it is in Williams’s landscape vision that moves us. The spatial qualities of his canvases with their built-up paint surfaces may be absent, the prints have in comparison a quite flat verticality, although what comes to the fore is the utter stillness of these views—from Fallen tree with its skinny trunk glimpsed in mid-air, to the planar views of Upwey, Lysterfield, and the You Yangs, he shows landscapes where change seems suspended, and time stands still.
Of course, the prints bring out the way his landscape compositions are always balanced, with Williams valuing clarity of form. He keeps each design in firm order. What the etchings show also is implicit within those planar views of Upwey, Lysterfield, and the You Yangs an indebtedness to Mondrian, especially his plus-and-minus abstractions. Hence the underpinning logic for standing and fallen tree trunks acting as contrasting vertical and horizontal dashes, with a loose scatter of dots, knotted lines and patches of aquatint spread across the composition used to denote rocks and scrubby vegetation. Yet what strikes us most about these works is how Fred Williams conveys the utter solitude and loneliness of the Australian interior, how experiencing it can sometimes become a personal encounter with the infinite.
There is much to savour in these inter-dependent prints and paintings, much to contemplate and enjoy. They offer a very rare chance to see a master artist grappling with potent creative ideas.
—Christopher Heathcote, June 2021
Saplings, Mittagong (state IV) 1958-61 aquatint, engraving and drypoint
Above: Trampoline (state III) 1955-56 etching, aquatint and drypoint on brass 14.5 x 19.5 cm edition 10
Below: Trampoline number 2 (state I) 1961 engraving and aquatint on copper 13.5 x 16.5 cm edition 10
Above: Somersault (state I) 1955-56 etching, aquatint, engraving and flat biting on zinc 12.5 x 17 cm edition 9
Below: Somersault (state II) 1955-56 etching, aquatint, engraving and flat biting on zinc 12.5 x 14 cm edition 9
Above: The forest pond (state IV) 1959-60 etching, aquatint, engraving and drypoint on copper 20.5 x 15 cm edition 25
Below: The forest pond number 2 (state III) 1961 aquatint, engraving and rough biting on copper 13 x 10 cm edition
Above: Design for a programme cover, Bend Thy Boughs 1962 deep etching, aquatint and engraving on zinc 16 x 14.5 cm proof C Below: Hakea (state
1963 etching, aquatint, engraving and drypoint on zinc
Above: Tumblers (state II) 1954-55 etching on copper 10.5 x 10 cm edition 14
Below: Windmill girls (state V) 1955-56, 66 etching and drypoint on copper 10.5 x 17 cm edition
Isobel in profile looking up (state II) 1965 etching and aquatint on copper 9 x 10 cm edition 25
Below: Picnic at Yellingbo (state I) 1966
Decorative panel, You Yangs number 1 (state II) 1965-66 etching, drypoint, flat biting and mezzotint rocker on copper 18.5 x 10 cm
Hummock in landscape (state III) 1965-66 etching, aquatint, engraving and mezzotint rocker on copper 15 x 15 cm edition
Fred Williams
(1927 – 1982)
1927 Born, Melbourne
1943-47 Attended National Gallery Art School, Melbourne
1946-50 Attended George Bell Art School, Melbourne
1951-56 Moved to London, worked as framer and attended the Chelsea School of Art and Central Art School
1957 Returned to Australia
1961 Married Lyn Watson
1963 Moved to Upwey, VIC
1964 Travelled to Europe on Helena Rubinstein Scholarship
1969 Moved to Hawthorn, VIC
1972-74 Member, Commonwealth Art Advisory Board
1973-76 Member, Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
1975-82 Trustee, Council of the National Gallery of Australia
1976 Awarded OBE
1980 Awarded Doctorate of Law, LL.D (Honoris causa) by Monash University
1982 Died, Melbourne
Selected Exhibitions
2023 ‘Etchings with Related Paintings 1954 - 1968’, Australian Galleries, Sydney
2022-23 ‘Fred Williams – The London Drawings’, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne
2022 ‘Etchings with Related Paintings 1954 - 1968’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2021 ‘Fred Williams: Gouaches and Drawings from the Artist’s Estate’, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
‘The Ranges: Three Perspectives’, Burrinja Cultural Centre, Upwey, VIC
2020 ‘Fred Williams: Guthega’, Olsen Gallery, Sydney
2019 ‘Grand Country: Fred Williams in Gippsland’, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, VIC
2018 ‘Fred Williams’, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane
‘Fred Williams: Weipa Series, Cape York’, Cairns Art Gallery, Cairns
2017 ‘Fred Williams in the You Yangs’, Geelong Gallery, Geelong, VIC
2016 ‘Fred Williams: The Australian Landscape’, Olsen Irwin, Sydney
2015 ‘Reducing Landscapes: Fred Williams & John Nixon’, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, VIC
2014 ‘The Continuous Landscape of Distance: Fred Williams’ Bass Strait Paintings’,
2013-14
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston
‘Fred Williams: Landscape Themes of the Seventies’, Olsen Irwin, Sydney
‘Fred Williams: The Pilbara’, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla, VIC
2012 ‘Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
‘Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons’, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
2011 ‘Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons’, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
‘Boundary Line’, TarraWarra Museum Of Art, Healesville, VIC
‘Out of Australia: Prints and Drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas’, British Museum, London
2010-12 ‘Spirit in the Land’, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VIC, touring Australia
2010 ‘Fred Williams – Selected Etchings’, Rex Irwin Galleries, Sydney
2009 ‘Regeneration – After the Bushfires’, Rex Irwin Galleries, Sydney
2006 ‘Fred Williams: Paintings and Etchings’, Rex Irwin Galleries, Sydney
‘Olsen, Nolan, Williams, Drysdale’, Works from The Holmes à Court Collection, Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth
2004 ‘Fred Williams: An Australian Vision’, The British Museum, London
2001 ‘Fred Williams: Drawing The Nude’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
‘Fred Williams: Landscapes 1959-1981’, Monash University Faculty of Art & Design, Melbourne
‘From Music Hall to Landscape: Fred Williams Drawings and Prints’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2000-01
‘The Enduring Landscape: Gouaches by Fred Williams from the National Gallery of Victoria’, Monash University, Melbourne
2000 ‘Fred Williams: Pilbara Series’, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne
1999 ‘Fred Williams: Drawing the Exotic’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
1996 ‘Fred Williams: The Queensland Gouaches’, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Gold Coast, QLD, touring Queensland
1995 ‘Fred Williams: A Working Method’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1994 ‘Fred Williams: Etchings 1970-76 and the Guthega Paintings’, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne
1988 ‘Fred Williams: The Pilbara Series’, touring exhibition London, Ulster, Belfast, Kilkenny
1987-89
1983-84
‘Fred Williams: A Retrospective’, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, touring Australia
‘Fred Williams: The Pilbara Series’, touring exhibition Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo
1981-82 ‘Fred Williams: Bass Strait Landscapes 1971-78’, touring exhibition Victoria, Tasmania
1981 ‘Fred Williams: Painter/Etcher’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1980 ‘Fred Williams 1969-79’, Fischer Fine Art, London and Australian Embassy, Paris
1978 ‘Fred Williams: Paintings, Gouaches and Lithographs 1976-78’, touring exhibition Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide
1977-79 ‘Fred Williams: Paintings 1963-77’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
1977 ‘Fred Williams: Landscapes of a Continent’, Museum of Modern Art, New York, touring exhibition Florida, Nebraska, Texas
1974-75 ‘Ten Australians’, Australia Council, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, touring exhibition France, Italy, West Germany, United Kingdom
1973 Adelaide Festival Theatre Murals, Festival Theatre, Adelaide
1972 ‘Fred Williams Retrospective’, Mornington Peninsula Art Centre, Mornington Peninsula, VIC
1971 ‘Fred Williams: Watercolours’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane and Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle
1970 ‘Heroic Landscape: Streeton to Williams’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Collections
Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide
British Museum, London
Centre for Contemporary Art, Hamilton, New Zealand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
Queen Elizabeth II Collection, United Kingdom
Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.
Sydney Opera House Trust, Sydney
Tate Gallery, London
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
All State Art Galleries throughout Australia
All Major Regional Art Galleries throughout Australia
All Major University Art Collections throughout Australia
