The Nigel Butterley Collection
A Special Exhibition of the Australian composer Nigel Butterley’s private collection of paintings, sculptures, prints and ceramics
Opening: 6 – 8pm Wednesday 11th November 2015 Closing: 5pm Saturday 28th November 2015
Watters Gallery 109 Riley Street, East Sydney NSW 2010 Tel: (02) 9331 2556 Fax: (02) 9361 6871 www.wattersgallery.com info@wattersgallery.com Hours: 10am-5pm Tues & Sat; 10am-7pm Wed to Fri
1, 2, 3. John Campbell (b.1857, NZ; d.1929, Tasmania, Australia) 1. green pot signed ‘John Campbell TAS 1935 8.5’ 2. ochre pot signed ‘JC 1932 8.5’ 3. ochre pot signed ‘John Campbell 1932 8.5’ 8.5 x 9 x 9cm each Provenance: purchased in Tasmania (where she was born) by Nigel Butterley’s mother, Nora von Stieglitz. Campbell moved to Victoria with his family as a child from NZ. He showed exceptional talent at ceramics when young and became an apprentice at Bendigo Pottery. In his early 20s he moved to Tasmania and, in 1881 in partnership with his father in law, bought Alfred Cornwell’s Victorian and Tasmanian Potteries Launceston pottery works. Pipe and brick manufacture was the largest part of the Campbell business, but John Campbell's own interest were the hand-thrown decorative items that they manufactured. Remarkably, through Campbell’s involvement, this small, family-run business in Tasmania went on to produce creative, world-class, highly collectable ceramics over a 100 year period. Campbell’s art wares were generally wheel-thrown, strongly built and liberally glazed in flowing colours—greens and blues, primarily— usually with a characteristic streaked effect produced by tiny blue-white flecks suspended in the darker colour. Campbell’s is best known however for its green-glazed art-ware. The unmistakable ‘Campbell green’ is a thick, lively, silver-green translucence flecked with minute suspended particles of blue-white or turquoise. It is often streaked with olive or gold. The recipe for this glaze seems to have originated at Campbell’s. John Campbell was remembered by his descendants as a tireless experimenter with shapes and glazes right up to his death in 1929. After his death the business was taken over by his eldest son, Colin, and continued after Colin’s death in 1956. By this time pottery sales were declining due to overseas competition and, as input costs such as glazes were increasing, the pottery closed in 1959. See Kevin Power’s book ‘John Campbell: recollections and collections’, Wollstonecraft, NSW, 2014
4. John Coburn AM (b.1925, Queensland, Australia; d.2006, Sydney, Australia) Canticle of the Sun 1965 oil on paper 56.5 x 53cm Provenance: Nigel Butterley had seen Coburn’s original, larger, version of this painting and asked the artist if he could have it on the platform at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for a special performance. As it had since been bought by the Mertz Collection in the USA Coburn promised to paint Butterley a replacement as a gift. Coburn attended East Sydney Technical College 1947-50. In 1966 his career took a turn when he was invited to design tapestries for the world-renowned Aubusson Workshops near Paris, then achieving almost immediate fame with his designs for the new Sydney Opera House. A series of seven tapestries were presented to the USA from the Australian Government and hung in the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington.
First solo show: Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, 1958 – the first of more than 60 solo shows; also Australian Galleries, Melbourne; Hungry Horse; Rex Irwin and Barry Stern, Sydney; Philip Bacon, Brisbane. He has been included in a great number of significant group shows in Australia as well as in Paris, New York, Washington and Hong Kong. In 1960 and 1977 Coburn won the Blake Prize for Religious Art. Collections: NGA, AGNSW, MCA, Australian Federal Parliament; Vatican Museum; Vienna’s Graphische Sammlung Albertina; Australian State and Regional galleries. He is included in most books on Australian art, also Rozen, The Art of John Coburn, Hamlyn, 1980; Amadio, John Coburn: Paintings, Craftsman House, 1988; L. Klepac John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2003. John Coburn is represented by Savill Galleries, Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald obituary of John Coburn by John McDonald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/art-of-the-clearprecise-and-joyful/2006/11/08/1162661754020.html James Gleeson interviews John Coburn (NGA transcript): http://nga.gov.au/Research/Gleeson/pdf/Coburn.pdf
5. Leonard French OBE (b.1928, Victoria, Australia) Chapel by the Sea c.1960 (Samos series?) oil on paper 29.5 x 24cm Provenance: unknown; Butterley comments: ‘I would have liked to have met Leonard French because his pictures give the impression that we would have been able to talk with one another. I relate to both his use of symbols and his titles.’ Leonard French is known principally for public art commissions of major stained glass works, also murals and tapestries. French created a series of panels for the cafe and foyer of the National Library in Canberra and one of the largest stained glass ceilings in the world for the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria (Nigel Butterley comments: (‘It’s important to lie on the floor underneath the French ceiling at the NGV or you miss its impact’). Leonard French won the Sulman Prize in 1960; the Blake Prize in 1963, 1980; and the Harkness Fellowship in 1965. He is included in most books on Australian art, and received an Australia Council Emeritus Award in 1995. French started exhibiting at Rudy Komon Gallery in 1960. Collections: NGA, AGNSW, AGSA, AGWA, NGV, QAG, State and Regional galleries; Hamilton Art Centre, Canada and MOMA, New York. Leonard French mixes his own paints from raw pigment. Many of his paintings are inspired by literary and historical sources, including the Bible and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, often dealing with themes of creation and spiritual journeys of heroic endeavour. Leonard French is represented by Charles Nodrum, Melbourne, and Savill Galleries, Sydney
6. James Gleeson OA (b.1915, Sydney, Australia; d.2008, Sydney, Australia) Untitled 1976 collage and frottage 70 x 51cm Provenance: Collage Exhibition: James Gleeson, Robert Klippel, Jon Plapp, John Peart, Watters Gallery, 9/9 – 26/9/1981, cat.no.1. This was the first work by James Gleeson sold by Watters Gallery.
This eminent man’s output was prodigious: he was a scholar, an esteemed writer, arts administrator and arts reviewer, but above all an artist. Details of his career are almost too extensive to summarise here. From 1976-82 he was a member of the first Council of the Australian National Gallery. In 1988 Macquarie University invested him with the Degree of Doctor of Letters. As a young man in the 1930s Gleeson started investigating Surrealism in his work; his is the most important body of Surrealist work done by an Australian artist. In his mid-70s he started doing his greatest paintings, large scale scenes of an inner mindscape. He worked seriously on studies for those paintings and other works on paper right up to a few months before his death. Gleeson’s work was an important inclusion in the NGA’s exhibition Surrealism: revolution by night 1993 and its regional touring satellite Surrealism in Australia. Books on his work include those by Lou Klepac, ’James Gleeson: landscape out of nature’ 1987, and Renée Free, ‘James Gleeson: images from the shadows’ 1993, reprinted 1996. Individual exhibitions of his work have been held at the AGNSW, NGV, NGA, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale and the University of Sydney, among others. James Gleeson’s work is represented in all major public collections in Australia, and in numerous Regional and University collections.
Frottage is the technique of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface to form the basis of a work of art. The addition of collage and literary references (either his own or quoted) make this an arresting series that combined both Gleeson’s intellectual interests and rich his artistic instincts. Gleeson first exhibited at Watters Gallery 1982, where the definitive collection of illustrated exhibition catalogues of his work is available, contact: info@wattersgallery.com James Gleeson is represented by Watters Gallery, Sydney, and Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne. View previous work of James Gleeson at Watters Gallery: http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/Gleeson/Gleeson.html Read more about James Gleeson courtesy AGNSW: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/gleeson-james/
7. Thomas Gleghorn (b.1925, UK; arrived Australia 1929) River Landscape No.2 1966 oil on board 59.5 x 57cm Provenance: Blaxland Gallery, Sydney? When he was a student at Sydney Grammar School, Butterley used to go to the Blaxland Gallery in Farmer’s . The boys were allowed passes enabling them to leave the school grounds at lunch-time for this purpose. Butterley would also sometimes visit the gallery in David Jones’, ‘always just a bit more expensive than Blaxland’. An engineer by training, Gleghorn started painting at the age of 24, and though he was without any formal training he went on to win around 30 major awards from 1957-1973. Gleghorn held about 20 solo exhibitions in Sydney (Macquarie Galleries), Adelaide (Tynte) and Newcastle (Von Bertouch). As well as being director of the Blaxland Galleries, Sydney, 1958-60, Gleghorn became well known as a teacher and was head of the Art School in Canberra, 1968-69. References to his work are included in most major texts on Australian art. Thomas Gleghorn is represented in the NGA, most State and many Regional Galleries. Gleghorn is represented by Lauraine Diggins Fine Art in Melbourne. Gleghorn in conversation with Adele Boag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQqBaJjx7UA
8. David Hawkes (b.1956, Australia) Narrow Lines 1979 mixed media on paper 89.5 x 63cm Provenance: Student Gallery (before it became Mori Gallery), in the exhibition 8” x 4”, 1979. This was the first group exhibition in which David Hawkes was included, his first solo show was the following year in the same gallery. He has exhibited widely in Sydney: Mori Gallery, EMR, Sylvester Studios, Syme Dodson, joining Legge Gallery in 1992. Collections: NGA, NGV, NERAM, Artbank, Allens Linklaters, Gold Coast Regional Gallery. David Hawkes is represented by Watters Gallery, Sydney. See later exhibitions of Hawkes’ work, and full biography: http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/HAWKES/Hawkes.html
9. Lorraine Jenyns (b.1945, Victoria, Australia) The Gates of Consciousness 1992 ceramic, copper wire total work: 85 x 34.5 x 33cm (cat: 55cm high; white base 29 x 33.5 x 34.5cm; copper flames 20cm high) Provenance: Gateways, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 29/9 – 17/10/1992, cat.no.6 Lorraine Jenyns has exhibited extensively since 1971 within Australia and overseas, including 34th International Ceramics Exhibition, Faenza, Italy, 1976; Australian Crafts – A Recent Survey, touring Europe, 1978; Recent Ceramics touring Europe 1979-82; Australian Perspecta ’81, AGNSW; The Great Australian Art Exhibition all State galleries, 1988-89. Jenyns has had a deep, long-standing interest in the myths of different cultures – particularly those of South and Central America and Egypt. From them she has drawn much inspiration, particularly around the depiction of animals, as well as imagery of the female principle – archetypal forces, goddesses or earth mothers. See past exhibitions and full biography of Lorraine Jenyns: http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/jenyns.l/JenynsL.html
10. Mike Kitching (b.1940, Hull, UK) Ancient Fugue 1965 mixed media 115 x 64 x 7cm Provenance: unknown. Without any formal art education, sculptor, painter, print maker and designer Mike Kitching emerged as one of the original voices of the 1960s art movement in Australia. Kitching has exhibited in many leading private commercial galleries in Australia: Blaxland Gallery; Barry Stern; Mary Street Gallery; The Hungry Horse Gallery; Bonython Gallery, Sydney; Bonython Gallery, Adelaide; South Yarra Gallery; Georges Gallery; Von Bertouch Gallery as well as at Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney and Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria. Publications, eg: Art & Australia vol.5, no 2. pp.422-427, Sept 1967; Architecture in Australia, Dec 1967; Encyclopaedia of Australian Art, McCulloch 1968; Sculpture in Australia, Ken Scarlett 1972; Architecture & Arts, June 1997. Collections: NGA; AGWA; QAGOMA; ANU; Deakin University, VIC: MCA; Uni of West Australia; University of Technology; Geelong Art Gallery, VIC; Mildura Arts Centre; Muswellbrook Art Gallery; New England Art Gallery; Maritime Museum, Sydney; Queen Victoria Museum, TAS; Newcastle Regional Museum; Newcastle Art Gallery; Mertz Collection, USA; National Library, ACT; Ballarat Fine Art Gallery; Penrith Art Gallery and Lewers Bequest; Gold Coast Cultural Centre.
11. Robert Klippel (b.1920, Sydney, Australia; d.2001, Sydney, Australia) No.292 1973 brazed steel 14 x 20 x 27.5cm Provenance: Watters Gallery Robert Klippel, Sculpture since 1970, 21/11 – 8/12, 1979, cat.no.7, illustrated p.13. Purchased from: An Exhibition of Work by M. Bramley-Moore (etchings), Robert Klippel (collages, drawings, sculptures), Robert Parr (sculptures), Oliffe Richmond (sculptures), R. Wallace-Crabbe (paintings), Ken Whisson (drawings), Watters Gallery, Sydney 27/5 – 14/6/1980, cat.no.1. Illustrated and described in James Gleeson’s book Robert Klippel, Bay Books, Sydney, 1983, plate 296, illustrated p.359, reference pp.358-359: ‘Opus 292 (Pl.296) is another of those works that crop up in Klippel’s oeuvre from time to time without discernible warning or apparent effect. Preceding and immediately subsequent works appear to have little in common with them and they stand out as solitary exceptions; but also as reminders that Klippel’s teeming imagination is apt to produce such jumps and tangents and that we should not be surprised when they happen. So unusual is the form of this construction – from some angles it resembles a grand piano and (perhaps significantly) it was bought by a composer – that it takes a long time to realize that it is a circle and plate construction in heavy disguise. The chief agent in the deception is the tendency of many of the circles to extend themselves into cylinders and for an occasional plate to develop a flange or twist itself into a tube or rectangular section. Another innovation is the arrangement of its forms as a kind of platform supported on five short cylindrical legs – the grand piano format. We will see nothing remotely like it until, in 1977, in one of his later masterpieces, he again used the notion of a platform as a shape that has buckled upwards because of pressure from below, and shattered, to release a sequence of vertical shafts thrown up by escaping pressure (Opus 329, Pl.320). But that is four years away.’ Robert Klippel is considered one of Australia’s foremost sculptors. His first solo exhibition was with James Gleeson in 1948 at the London Gallery in London, UK. The following year he had a solo show with Galerie Nina Dausset, Paris; 1958 at Parma Gallery, New York; 1961 the Minneapolis Institute of Art; at Macquarie Galleries, Clune Galleries, Australian Galleries, Gallery A, Bonython Art Gallery and Rudy Komon Gallery before establishing the relationship with Watters Gallery that lasted until his death. Klippel’s first retrospective was at the AGNSW: Drawings 1947-1975, in 1975; this was followed by major solo survey shows Kalgoorlie gold: an exhibition of gold sculptures by Robert Klippel, AGNSW, 1989; 1990 The Sculptor’s Studio: Robert Klippel AGNSW, 1990; 1993 an exhibition of 44 sculptures, NGA; 1995 Large Wood Sculptures and Collages AGNSW, and Robert Klippel, AGNSW, 2002. He was included in scores of group exhibitions. There are too many references to Klippel’s work to include here, though significant among them is James Gleeson’s above-quoted book, and Deborah Edwards’ catalogue to the Robert Klippel retrospective at the AGNSW, 2002. Short video on Robert Klippel (courtesy NGV) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUQW267NanI
12. Hettie Margaret Ernestine (Margo) Lewers (b.1908, Sydney; d.1978, Sydney) Untitled 1960s? watercolour 37 x 54cm Provenance: possibly Blaxland Gallery, Sydney. This is one of the first paintings Nigel Butterley bought. Margo Lewers was a significant Australian painter, designer, textile-worker, mosaic-maker, craft-worker and sculptor. In 1941 Margo and her husband artist Gerry Lewers helped found the Contemporary Art Society. In the 1950s they created a home at rural Emu Plains, whose stylishness, modernity and hospitality were legendary. As Patrick White, a regular visitor and friend of Butterley and Kennedy, wrote it was ‘one of the focus points of our still tentative civilisation’... '(in) the house at Emu Plains ideas hurtled, argument flared, voices shouted, sparks flew. It was a place in which people gathered spontaneously'. From 1950 Margo Lewers won recognition as a leading post-war abstract expressionist. Her early compositions explored colour and formal geometric abstraction; but by the early 1960s her work became more fluid and expressionistic. She showed extensively in Australia and in several international travelling exhibitions. Lewers received numerous public commissions including the mosaic wall for the Canberra-Rex Hotel (1957) and the Aubusson tapestry (1968) for the Reserve Bank of Australia's boardroom. She won at least fourteen awards and prizes. For further information see the book: D. Hickey, Gerald and Margo Lewers, Their Lives and Their Work 1982, Sydney. Her first retrospective opened at the National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery in 2002. Prior to her death Lewers began the process of bequeathing her home and collection of artworks to the local community. Her daughters Darani Lewers and Tanya Crothers carried out her wish that their Emu Plains property be left as an artistic hub. The property and collection of artworks were given to Penrith City Council, and in 1981 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest was opened. An exhibition of Margo Lewers’ work opened Watters Gallery in its inaugural show at its Liverpool Street premises, 18/11 – 5/12/1964. Lewers’ work is represented in NGA and most State galleries, as well as in Regional and university collections. References: courtesy Art Collector magazine: http://www.artcollector.net.au/MargoLewersThoroughlyModern Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers Bequest website: http://www.penrithregionalgallery.org/
13. Roy Lichtenstein Before the Mirror 1975
(b.1923, New York, USA; d.1997, New York, USA) 108.6 x 81.2cm
lithograph and screen print with embossing on BFK Rives rolled paper 93/100 (plus 22 Artist Proofs). Provenance: bought from a New York gallery when Nigel Butterley was in America to take up a position as Visiting Composer at North Western University in Evanston, Illinois. It is from the portfolio series 'Mirrors of the mind': 10 prints and 1 multiple: V. Agnetti, S. Arakawa, M. Broodthaers, R. Hamilton, R. Lichtenstein, Man Ray, B. Nauman, M. Oppenheim, R. Rauschenberg, J. Rosenquist. Markings: signed, dated in pencil " rf Lichtenstein '75", l.r.; Syra Studio dry stamp; copyright stamp verso: 'copyright Roy Lichtenstein Multiples Inc. and Castelli Graphics 1975' Condition: good condition but faded. Lichtenstein was an American Pop artist. His work defined the basic premise of pop art through parody. Favouring the comic strip and advertising as his main inspiration, Lichtenstein produced hard-edged, precise compositions, often in a tongue-in-cheek manner. In 1964, Lichtenstein became the first American to exhibit at the Tate Gallery, London. In 1967, his first museum retrospective exhibition: Pasadena Art Museum, California, also his first solo exhibition in Europe at museums in Amsterdam, London, Bern and Hannover. Lichtenstein had retrospectives at Guggenheim Museum in 1969, 1994. He was the first living artist to have a solo drawing show MOMA, New York, 1987. Recent retrospective surveys incl. 2003 Louisiana; Denmark (then London, Madrid, and San Francisco, until 2005); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005); Milan, Cologne (2010). Major retrospectives: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013. NGA has over 300 works. ‘Lichtenstein liked to confront art and push its limits. Mirrors, which are impossible to reproduce with fidelity on the canvas, became for Lichtenstein a combination of hatch marks and rolling waves. In “Before the Mirror” from 1975, one can admire the challenges Lichtenstein imposed on himself as a painter: a mirror, reflecting a glass vase filled with water. The result is true to Lichtenstein’s universe – one that is impossible to ignore among the great movements of twentieth century art.’ Film: The Life and Art of Roy Lichtenstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGPRStAXpIc Film: Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective National Gallery of Art, Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGqStiwh618 Roy Lichtenstein, Diagram of an Artist (Tate): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOsLpoa6c_4
14. Elwyn Lynn (b.1917, Sydney, Australia; d.1997, Sydney, Australia) Landlocked mixed media on canvas 86.5 x 101cm
Elwyn (Jack) Lynn was an Australian artist, author, art critic and curator who occupied a remarkable position in Australian art despite having had no formal art training. In 1958 Lynn visited Europe, where many major cities still bore the scars of the destruction of WWII. He felt that it was impossible, now, to create paintings that calmly tinkered with formal arrangements, or which confined themselves to beguiling but innocuous subject matter. Lynn turned to unconventional painting media and expressive surfaces to construct metaphors for human suffering and endurance. Most of his work was essentially abstract, although a sense of the landscape is often evoked. From 1958 Lynn had 50 solo exhibitions in Australia, Germany and NZ, including 1991 retrospective AGNSW, Wagga City Art Gallery, Bathurst City Art Gallery; 1977 major retrospective Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney. Over 150 group exhibitions Australia, NZ, UK, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Indonesia, Warsaw, Poland and Cologne. Lynn was appointed the first curator of the Power Gallery of Contemporary Art at the Power Institute, University of Sydney in 1969. In 1989 he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters, Uni of Sydney; 1994 Emeritus Award, Australia Council. Prizes: 1988 Wynne Prize AGNSW; 1983, 1980 Trustees' Watercolour Prize AGNSW; 1957 Blake Prize; Mosman Art Prize; Bathurst Prize. Collections: NGA, AGNSW, QAGOMA, AGSA, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, AGWA, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Museum and Art Gallery of NT, MCA, Australian War Memorial, Auckland Art Gallery. He is represented by Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney. James Gleeson interviews Elwyn Lynn (NGA transcript): http://nga.gov.au/Research/Gleeson/pdf/Lynn.pdf
15. Suzie Marston (b.1952, Sydney) Icmesa Highway 1985 acrylic on canvas 123 x 91cm Provenance: Suzie Marston: Paintings, Watters Gallery, 27/11 – 14/12/85, cat. no.21. In an accident in 1976, the Icmesa chemical factory in Sicily released a record amount of dioxin gas. It is now known as the Seveso Disaster, by some accounts one of the worst 15 man-made disasters to have occurred. Over 3,000 livestock were found dead in the days after the release while over 80,000 more were slaughtered over fears of contaminating the food supply. The territory is still polluted. In 2013 dioxin beyond the legal limits was found in eggs in Seveso. Local committees fought for years against a project to build a highway through the area. Suzie Marston started painting in 1970 and is essentially self-taught except for a year (1981) at Wollongong Technical College. She exhibited at Watters Gallery from 1982. She has taken part in group shows: 1982-83 Blake Prize Touring Exhibition; 1983 Figures and Faces Drawn from Life, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne; 1984 Animal Imagery in Contemporary Art, Ballarat, Bendigo and Wollongong Regional Galleries; Painters and Engravers, Cité International des Arts, Paris; 1984-5 A Bird’s Eye View, Penrith Regional Art Gallery; 1987 Urban Anxieties, NGA; 1988 Tamworth Environs, Tamworth City Gallery; 1991 Selected Acquisitions, MOCA Brisbane. Marston is represented in the NGA, Canberra, Burnie and Newcastle Regional Galleries.
16. Suzie Marston (b.1952, Sydney) Untitled 1984 pastel on paper 59.5 x 44.5cm Provenance: Euan Macleod and Suzie Marston: Drawings and Paintings, Watters Gallery, 3 – 21/7/84, cat. no.13 Marston, who taught painting, drawing, colour and design at Illawarra Grammar, Wollongong was also a lecturer in painting at University of Wollongong 1988. She exhibited in Melbourne at Pinacotheca Gallery.
17. Medjil (North Eastern Arnhem Land) acrylic on bark 86 x 35cm Provenance: verso – ‘This is an original aboriginal bark painting and has been collected by Dorothy Bennett of the Australian Aboriginal Trust. The bark has been specially treated before painting with Santobrite (a solution of Technical Sodium Pentachlothenate) and after painting, with a solution of Toluol and Bedacal? (Dorothy Bennett, Box 1057, Post Office, Darwin NT)’ Description on verso in hand-writing: In the mortuary rites ceremony, shark, fish and snake dances form the first part of the corroboree. The shark is represented by a solid wooden object as shown in this painting.’ Dorothy Bennett (1914-2003) came to the Northern Territory as a medical secretary with a team lead by Sydney surgeon Dr Stuart Scougall, studying orthopaedic problems in Central Australia and Arnhem Land. Dorothy Bennett accompanied Tony Tuckson and Stuart Scougall in the late 1950s on their pioneering collecting trips on behalf of the AGNSW. Bennett struck out on her own and, as with all of these collectors, forged close links with the artists, especially around Oenpelli and Minjilang. In 1959, Qantas asked Bennett and Dr Scougall to gather a small Aboriginal art collection to tour Japan. Dorothy Bennet went on collecting and buying paintings expeditions for up to eight months each year. The emphasis of her work was to help artists to exhibit and sell their work themselves, locally and overseas. Bennett worked with gallery operator Shirley Collins organising exhibitions in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972 she became consultant to the Aboriginal Arts Board, and a field officer and adviser for Aboriginal Arts and Crafts Company in 1973. From 1986 Dorothy worked independently among artists, recording their mythologies and collecting their works. She was an authorised consultant and was a member of the North Australia Research Unit attached to the Australian National University and was a federally appointed NT art valuer. Bennett, Dorothy. ‘Aboriginal Land Rights in the Northern Territory’, (Canberra), Legislative Research Service, Dept. of the Parliamentary Library, 1982. Forrest, Peter & Shelia. ‘Dorothy Bennett’, Northern Territory News, 30/12/03, p.28 ‘Dorothy backs the Black myths’, Northern Territory News, 3/7/94, p.4. Jackson, P. ‘Dorothy made art her life’, Northern Territory News, 26/5/03, p. 20
18. Billy Mijau Mijau White Sea Bird acrylic on bark 77 x 42cm Provenance: unknown
19. Robert Parr (b.1923, Adelaide) Anyone for Rubber 1974 wooden tennis racquet, spoon, mirror 93 x 49 x 13cm Provenance: ‘Robert Parr: sculpture’, Watters Gallery, 16/10 – 2/11/74, cat. no.9
20. Robert Parr (b.1923, Adelaide) Tree 1982 mixed media 300 x 180 x 180cm approx Provenance: ‘Robert Parr: sculpture’, Watters Gallery, 1/918/9/82, cat. no.9
Sculptor Robert Parr expresses wise insights in his optimistic and life-affirming sculptures. They playfully disrupt our expectations of what ‘serious’ sculpture should be.
Parr trained as an engineer, and studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Wollongong Technical College. He first exhibited at Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney in 1964, where he met Frank Watters. In 1966 he held the first of many solo and group shows at Watters Gallery. Collections: NGA, AGNSW, NGV, AGSA, AGWA, Melbourne Uni, VAB, IBM. Robert Parr is in ‘Australian Sculptors’ , Graeme Sturgeon, Nelson, 1980; ‘History and Development of Sculpture in Australia 1788-1970’, Thames & Hudson, 1978. He has been included in many important group exhibitions, including Mildura Sculpture Triennials, Melbourne, and Alcorso Sekers Award exhibitions for Sculpture at AGNSW and NGV. In 1965 Parr was included in Young Australian Painters and Sculptors, AGNSW and Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan.
21. John Peart
(b.1945, Brisbane, Australia; d.2013, Wedderburn, Australia) Untitled 1/9/1966 ball-point pen on paper 32.5 x 20cm Provenance: a gift from Peart to the composer in the year that Butterley won the 1966 Prix Italia. Nigel Butterley was introduced to Peart by John Hopkins, who had moved to Australia from the UK in 1963. As the Federal Director of Music for the ABC, Hopkins had, among other innovations, started an Australian Proms series in Sydney. In 1967, when Peart was 22, he created a large artwork at a prom concert in an ''interaction'' with Butterley and an orchestra at Sydney Town Hall and repeated a version of that at the Cell Block at National Art School. John Peart arrived in Sydney in 1962 from Brisbane. He first exhibited in Watters Gallery in 1967 and very soon was recognised as a leading non-figurative artist within Australia. Peart was in the 2000 Sulman Prize, finalist in the Archibald Portrait Prize, and the Wynne Prize seven times, finally winning in 1997. Peart had over 40 solo exhibitions and was included in numerous definitive exhibitions; early on The Field at NGV, 1968, also winning four major prizes that year. The survey exhibition John Peart 1964-2004 toured Australia, starting at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, and following that La Trobe Regional Gallery, VIC; Tamworth Gallery, NSW; Drill Hall Gallery, ANU; Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, WA; Burnie Regional Art Gallery, TAS; and lastly again at Campbelltown in 2006. Collections: NGA, all State and many Regional Galleries as well as many other significant collections both in Australia and overseas. John Peart is represented by Watters Gallery, Sydney. Past exhibitions, biography of John Peart at Watters Gallery: http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/Peart/peart.html The Sydney Morning Herald obituary of Peart, by Jeremy Eccles: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/john-peart-artist-was-at-one-with-every-landscape-hepainted-20131115-2xm6q.html#ixzz3nI0ovXsk
22. David Rankin
(b.1946, U.K.) Cloud Ground Trees 1976 acrylic on canvas 174 x 95cm Provenance: David Rankin: Paintings and Works on Paper, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 4/8 – 21/8/1976; cat.no.13. David Rankin is a New York-based Australian artist. He works predominantly in oil and acrylic on canvas, but also with paper, prints, sculptures and ceramics. At age 22 Rankin had his first exhibition in Sydney at Watters Gallery. Rankin is self-taught, developing his techniques and ideas in the outback towns of his youth. In the past 30 years Rankin has held over 100 one-person exhibitions in cities including Paris, Beijing, New York, Cologne and throughout Australia. He is represented in many of the world's leading collections and museums. He was selected as Australia's official representative in the UNESCO Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition celebrations that toured the world's capitals. He was featured in the Salon de Mai in Paris and the Chicago Art Fair. In 1983 he won the Wynne Prize. Recently an English-German monograph on his work titled ‘The Walls of the Heart: The Work and Life of David Rankin’ was published by noted US critic and art historian Dore Ashton. In 2005-2006 a major exhibition of Rankin’s art, curated by Dore Ashton, toured through public galleries in Australia. In September 2013, a book by Dore Ashton on David Rankin's work titled David Rankin: The New York Years was released.
23. Oliffe Richmond (b.1919, Hobart, Tasmania; d.1977, Sydney) Pilot 1966 lithograph 99/250; BG Crisbrook Paper 60 x 45.5cm Provenance: Oliffe Richmond: A Retrospective Exhibition 1919-77, Watters Gallery, 28/7 – 15/8/1987, cat.no.90 Having studied at East Sydney Technical College under Lyndon Dadswell, in 1948, aged 28 and having just won the NSW Travelling Arts Scholarship, Richmond left for UK. There he found immediate personal rapport with Henry Moore for whom he was an assistant for two years, 1949-50, and whom he helped at odd times over a further four years. From 1954 Richmond's sculptures were included in major group exhibitions in London and other British cities, and in Paris, Oslo, Zurich, Switzerland, Sydney, Melbourne, and Phoenix, Arizona, USA. He held his first solo show at the Molton Gallery, London, in 1962, on which the critic Edward Lucie-Smith commented: 'it is not very often that an artist springs on us more or less fully fledged'. Other solo exhibitions followed, in Belfast, 1964; New York, 1964; London, 1965; Canberra and Melbourne, 1967; and Sydney, 1968. From 1980 he exhibited at Watters Gallery. Richmond placed artistic integrity above popular and material success. Laconic and self-effacing, he was rock-solid in maintaining his aesthetic values. He meditated for long periods among the megaliths of Stonehenge and was sustained by the sense of being part of a great and ancient tradition. His work is held by major galleries in Britain, the Netherlands, USA and Australia. He is included in most books on Australian sculpture, including G. Sturgeon, The Development of Australian Sculpture 1788-1975, London, 1978; K. Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, 1979; C. Hogben, Oliffe Richmond, exhibition catalogue, Sydney 1980; C. E. Johannes, Oliffe Richmond Drawings, exhibition catalogue, 1989); G. Legge, Oliffe Richmond 1919-77, exhibition catalogue, Watters Gallery, Sydney, 1993; Art and Australia, 3, no.1, June 1965, 15, no.2, Dec 1977 (courtesy Australian Dictionary of Biography). Richmond is represented by Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney Australian Dictionary of Biography, Oliffe Richmond: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/richmond-robert-oliffe-11519
24. Henrikas (Henry) Salkauskas
(b.1925, Kaunas, Lithuania; d.1979, Sydney) Untitled 1963 watercolour on paper 37 x 54cm Provenance: possibly Blaxland Gallery, Sydney Salkauskas and his mother fled Lithuania ahead of the advancing Russian army in 1944, eventually reaching Melbourne in 1949 on the immigrant ship, SS Skaugum. He worked as a house-painter for all of his adult life. A friend of many artists, he was a committee-member from 1957 of the Contemporary Art Society and a founder (1961) of Sydney Printmakers. He eagerly promoted printmaking and helped to organize exhibitions of graphic art, nationally and internationally. Salkauskas represented Australia in major international print exhibitions at São Paulo, Brazil, 1960; Tokyo, 1960 and 1962; South East Asia, 1962; Yugoslavia 1963. In 1965, two years after completing this work, he turned his full attention from prints to painting large watercolours. In Australia, Salkauskas won over sixty art awards, among them the Perth prize, 1963; the grand prize for the Mirror-Waratah Festival, 1963, Sydney; and the Maude Vizard-Wholohan prize, Adelaide. His work is represented in National, State and Regional galleries in Australia. The AGNSW held a retrospective exhibition 1981 and established the Henry Salkauskas Contemporary Art purchase award. His work is documented in V. Ratas (ed), ‘Eleven Lithuanian Artists in Australia’, 1967; G. Docking, Henry Salkauskas, in AGNSW, Henry Salkauskas, 19251979, exhibition catalogue, 1981; The Sydney Morning Herald, 7/6/56; 27/6/61; 4/3/64; 9/5/67; 8/9/79; Daily Mirror (Sydney), 10/10/63; Herald (Melbourne), 7/3/71; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 29/10/71. Salkauskas interview transcript, 1962, National Library of Australia: http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn1871622 James Gleeson interview transcript, 1979, NGA: http://www.nga.gov.au/Research/Gleeson/pdf/Salkauskas.pdf Elwyn Lynn (cf) discusses Henry Salkauskas: http://www.lituanus.org/1966/66_2_04Lynn.htm
25. Jeffrey Smart AO
(b.1921, Adelaide, Australia; d.2013, Arezzo, Italy) Man with Bouquet c.1981 (original version) etching, colour aquatint 24 x 19.3cm Signed l,r. pencil ‘Jeffrey Smart’, not dated Smart, who studied with Fernand Léger in Paris at Académie Montmartre in 1949, is one of Australia’s most well-known artists of the last fifty years. The power and aesthetic relationships between the contemporary urban world and man were the focus of his art for nearly his entire career, most of which he spent in Italy. He held over 45 solo exhibitions 1957-2006, including in Sydney Macquarie Galleries and Australian Galleries; in Melbourne Australian Galleries and South Yarra, and Philip Bacon in Brisbane.
Significant group exhibitions: 1961 Whitechapel and 1963 Tate exhibitions of Australian art; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1966; Survey, NGV, 1966; The Great Australian Art Exhibition, 1988; Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901-2001, NGA and touring, 2000-02. His autobiography ‘Not Quite Straight, A Memoir’, was published by Heinemann in 1966. Jeffrey Smart is represented in all major Australian collections; Metropolitan Museum, NY; Yale University, USA. Smart’s work is included in numerous catalogues and in most general books on Australian art, including Gleeson, ‘Masterpieces of Australian Painting’, Lansdowne, 1969; McDonald, ‘Jeffrey Smart: Paintings of the 70s and 80s’, Craftsman House, 1990; Pearce, ‘Jeffrey Smart’, Beagle Press, 2005. It was an image Jeffrey Smart particularly liked. He did two versions of this print, and there is also a painting of the same name and subject matter, ‘Man with Bouquet’, original provenance: Redfern Gallery, London. Literature: J. McDonald, ‘Jeffrey Smart: Paintings of the 70s and 80s’, Sydney, 1990, p. 160, cat. 248; P. Quartermaine, ‘Jeffrey Smart’, Melbourne, 1983, p.109, cat.483. John McDonald Sydney Morning Herald obituary of Jeffrey Smart: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/jeffrey-smart-a-modern-australian-master20140529-395yc.html A copy of this print is in the AGNSW collection. Jeffrey Smart is represented by Australian Galleries, Sydney.
26. Eric Smith (b.1919, Melbourne, Australia) Untitled 1952 oil on board 99.5 x 122cm Provenance: possibly purchased 1953 Eric Smith has won many of Australia's major art prizes, including the Archibald three times; the Wynne Prize twice; the Sulman Prize three times; and the Blake Prize six times. Smith studied Commercial Art and Painting at Brunswick Technical School in Melbourne. In 1940 he joined the army (in 1945 his self-portrait, painted on an army canvas, was runner-up for the Archibald). In 1956 Smith showed in the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, during the Direction exhibition. The success of this exhibition led to Smith's work being included in the 1963 exhibition of Australian art shown at the Tate Gallery, London. Whilst in London in 1963, Smith gained further international recognition after winning the Helena Rubenstein Art Award. In 1970 Smith won the Archibald again for his portrait of Sydney architect Neville Gruzman. His winning 1981 portrait of Rudy Komon in the Archibald Prize was controversial - it was claimed to resemble a photograph and hence in breach of the competition’s requirements. Legal action was threatened to prevent the prize being awarded but the original decision to award the prize was upheld. Eric Smith’s work is in many major Australian collections: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; AGNSW; NGV; QAGOMA; AGSA; Geelong Regional Gallery; Penrith Regional Gallery; Uni NSW; Uni Sydney, among others. ERIC SMITH: NOT FINISHED YET is a documentary film about Smith and his quest to mount one final exhibition, preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwkUl5H0mWQ (2012 Atom Award nominee - "Best Documentary - Arts"; 2013 WASA Award nominee - "Best Television Production – Factual")
27. David Van Nunen (b.1952, NSW, Australia) Untitled 1974 pastel on paper 59 x 42.5cm Provenance unknown, possibly a gift. Van Nunen was a friend of Nigel Butterley and Tom Kennedy. David Van Nunen graduated from the National Art School, Sydney, in 1974, holding his first solo show in that same year. Since then he has had over 25 solo exhibitions (notably at Robin Gibson Gallery 1978-88) and been included in over 70 group shows, including international surveys of Australian contemporary art and the Wynne Prize, AGNSW: 1978, ‘79, ‘80, ‘81, ‘82, ‘84, ‘86, ‘87, ‘89, ‘92, ‘93; the Sulman Prize in 1984 and the Archibald Prize in 1993 and 2002 . His work is included in the collections of the NGA, MCA and the Stedlijk Museum Amsterdam, among others.
28. Vicki Varvaressos (b.1949, Sydney) Six foot Caucasian with Beard 1976 acrylic and collage on canvas 171.5 x 245.5cm Provenance: Vicki Varvaressos: Paintings, Watters Gallery, 22/6 – 9/7/77, cat.no.2. This painting is marked “Collection Nigel Butterley” in the catalogue for the exhibition. Vicki Varvaressos sprang into the limelight in the 1970s, a high point for ‘political’ and ‘protest’ art. Her paintings of this time were constantly in demand for curated exhibitions. She started showing at Watters Gallery in 1975 and has had over 30 solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne (Niagara Galleries) and Brisbane since. She has been in many important group exhibitions, including 1995 Review: works by women from the collection, AGNSW; 1985 Australian Perspecta, AGNSW; Recent Acquisitions of Australian Prints, NGA; 1984 5th Biennale of Sydney, AGNSW; 1983 Romanticism and Classicism in Contemporary Australian Painting, Geelong Art Gallery.
Vicki Varvaressos’ work is in NGA, NGV, AGNSW, AGWA, QAG, AGNSW, National Gallery NZ, University of Tasmania, Chartwell Collection NZ, Artbank, Heide Museum of Modern Art, and many Regional and corporate collections. Numerous books, papers and magazines: Donald Williams “In Our Own Image: The Story of Australian Art 1788-1986”, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1987; Anna Voigt “New Visions New Perspectives: Voices of Contemporary Women Artists” Craftsman House, 1996; Daniel Thomas “Outlines of Australian Art: The Joseph Brown Collection”, Macmillan, Melbourne, 3rd ed, 1989; Bernard Smith with Terry Smith “Australian Painting: 1788-1990, Oxford University Press, 1991. This was the major painting in and the image on the cover of the invitation to Varvaressos’ retrospective at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery, 2014.
29. Rose Wallis (b.1953, Singapore; d.2012, Sydney) ceramic, 10 x 10 x 13cm; Provenance: Sydney, 1992. Rose Wallis studied at the Shillito Design School, Sydney. In the 1980s she was part of ‘Dart Studios’, Auckland, NZ. In 1993 Wallis was selected as one of 13 participants in a Crafts Council of Australia 'Craft Australia' franchise to be set up in the David Jones Gallery, Sydney. The British glass artist Yorgos Papadopoulos worked as a ceramic assistant at Rose Wallis Ceramics in 1995
30. Andy Warhol
(b.1928, Pittsburgh, USA; d.1987, New York, USA)
Mick Jagger 1975 From a portfolio of ten prints of Mick Jagger screen print on Arches aquarelle paper, 240/250 signed in pencil at bottom right by Warhol and in black at bottom left by Jagger Printer: Alexander Heinrici, New York; Publisher: Seabird Editions, London Stamped in black on verso: ©Seabird Editions Bears the papermaker’s chop mark and watermark
Purchased from a gallery in New York (see Lichtenstein print). The photographs in this series were taken by Andy Warhol. In 1975, the year these portraits were produced, Warhol developed a technique in which he used blocks of coloured graphic art paper with the halftone and/or drawing line. This technique is readily evident in this print. Warhol and Jagger first met in 1963. In 1972 Warhol designed the logo for the Rolling Stones’ record company, as well as the cover of their 1972 album, Sticky Fingers. Andy Warhol was a renowned and sometimes controversial American artist who was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the USA dedicated to a single artist. Warhol used many types of media: hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, music. He founded Interview Magazine, wrote books, and managed and produced the band The Velvet Underground. He is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films.
31. Untitled (Madonna with child) c.15th or 16thC, German oak?, possibly previously painted, or soft lime wash 62 x 26 x 16cm Provenance: This is the first piece Butterley bought when he came back from Europe in the early 1960s. Frank Watters sold it to him at Barry Stern’s gallery. Butterley thinks it possibly cost £250, ‘which was a lot! I was reckless. It was so wonderful in Europe, I saw lots of early art for the first time in churches and cathedrals, and there this Madonna was in Barry Stern’s in Paddington!’
32, 33. Unknown alabaster 7.5 x 4.5cm Provenance: Purchased by Butterley in Jerusalem, on top of the Mount of Olives, c.1962
36. Unknown 34. Unknown ceramic 30 x 17 x 17cm Provenance: bought by Nigel Butterley
35. Unknown porcelain 12 x 11cm each Provenance: old family pieces; sold as a pair
ceramic 12 x 6 x 6cm
Provenance: old Butterley family possession
37. Unknown acrylic on bark 122 x 42cm Provenance: unknown; verso: ‘Bilinyarra – the little doves are looking for insects on the leaves of the big yams with climbing vines. In the ground are some young yams and ... of old rotten yams. The men are looking for food. The large wasp poison ... yams dreaming ...’
38. Unknown ceramic (ginger-beer?) bottle; 12 x 8 x 8cm Provenance: given to Nigel Butterley by the Principal of Sydney Girls’ High School after he gave a talk there. A number of such bottles were found buried in their grounds. A former student of Butterley’s who taught at the school at the time told him that “She approves of you. She gives these only to people she likes.” From the early 1820s on the volume of convict pottery bottles and glass jars made here was not sufficient (in fact Australia was not self sufficient in glass making until the turn of the 20th century). Because of the popularity of ginger beer, which in the early days was usually put in stone bottles, the pottery trade could not keep up the supply and even into the 1940s many stoneware bottles originated in England.
39. Unknown stele; stone; 14 x 11 x 2cm Provenance: David Jones Gallery, Sydney. When a student at Sydney Grammar, Butterley would occasionally buy artworks on the way home. Generally these types of stone pieces are called stele. Sometimes they have sculptural reliefs and sometimes inscriptions, or a combination of both. Original Buddhist steles represent an important subset of early Chinese Buddhist art that flourished during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (386–581). This is probably Lopburi, (Thailand), 13/14th C. The AGNSW has two fine Chinese examples in their collection that feature Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Link to a stele, collection AGNSW, that has a configuration similar to this verso: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/314.2006/ Thanks to Matt Cox, AGNSW, and Ray Tregaskis.
40. Unknown ceramic jug, metal lid 1877 19 x 15cm Provenance: a family piece, engraved on lid: ‘Pembroke College: Athletic Sports: Half Mile 2nd Prize; C Cockburn 1877’
41. Unknown Quan Yin wood, paint 21 x 10 x 8cm Provenance: unknown (on base ‘Chinese Ming Period: c.1600 $25’) This wooden statue is of Quan Yin, one of the deities most frequently seen on altars in China . She has many names : Great Mercy, Great Pity; Salvation from Misery, Salvation from Woe; Self-existent; Thousand Arms and Thousand Eyes. She is one of the San Ta Shih, or Three Great Beings, renowned for their power over both the animal kingdom and the forces of nature. Alone among Buddhist gods, she is loved rather than feared and is the model of Chinese beauty. She was originally male until the early part of the 12th century.
Nigel Butterley was born in Sydney in 1935, and among his teachers were Frank Warbrick (piano) and Raymond Hanson (composition). It was the first performance of Laudes at the 1964 Adelaide Festival which established him as one of the leaders of the then ‘new wave’ of composers in Australia. This work was the first fruits of study with Priaulx Rainer in London, and of a year spent in Europe. In 1966 Butterley’s reputation was consolidated when his radiophonic choral work In the Head the Fire was awarded the prestigious Italia Prize. Two years later came the orchestral work Meditations of Thomas Treherne, the last of a number of works with specifically Christian motivation. Major orchestral works from the 1970’s are a violin concerto, a symphony, Explorations for Piano and Orchestra (commissioned for the Captain Cook Bicentenary) and Fire in the Heavens (commissioned for the Cleveland Orchestra by Lorin Maazel). At this time the poetry of Walt Whitman became a major stimulus, resulting most notably in Sometimes with One I Love for two singers, speaking voice and ensemble, and Watershore, a radiophonic work for actors and instruments, incorporating the use of photographs of the seashore as graphic notation. Two innovative works were devised for ABC Sydney Prom Concerts: Interaction (1967), an improvisation for painter (John Peart) and orchestra, directed from the piano by the composer, and First Day Covers (1972), written with Barry Humphries for Dame Edna Everage. The monodrama The Owl, for Joan Carden and the Seymour Group, appeared in 1983, and with the same librettist, James McDonald, Butterley wrote the two-act opera Lawrence Hargrave Flying Alone, commissioned for the NSW Conservatorium of Music Opera School, which produced the premiere season in 1988, conducted by Myer Fredman. The orchestral work From Sorrowing Earth received the 1992 Sounds Australia Award for the Best Composition by an Australian Composer. Praised as “a metaphor of growth and renewal exemplified in music,” “totally original, and absorbing from beginning to end,” it was hailed by one writer as laying “great claims to be one of the finest and most moving orchestral works written in this country." After being a member of the ABC’s music staff for some years, Nigel Butterley was lecturer in contemporary music at Newcastle Conservatorium from 1973. Having become a Senior Lecturer within the University of Newcastle, he retired in 1991. Since then he has undertaken residencies at several Australian universities, including the post of Visiting Professor at the University of Newcastle. From his first ABC ‘Young Australia’ broadcast at the age of fourteen Butterley has been active as a pianist. His many performances throughout Australia of Messiaen’s Visions de L’Amen and John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano have been highly acclaimed. A recording of his performance of Sonatas and Interludes was released in 1993 on the Tall Poppies label (TP025). In 1991 Nigel Butterley was awarded a four-year Australian Artists’ Creative Fellowship (Keating Fellowship), and appointed Member of the Order of Australia, for services to music. In 1996 he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of music honoris causa, by the University of Newcastle. He has taken a small number of private composition students including Chris Williams, who has gone on to build a significant career. In the late 20th- and early 21st century Butterley has concentrated on music for solo voice as well as ensemble, much of which is inspired by the poetry of Kathleen Raine, a major influence on his work. He lives in Sydney’s Inner West with his partner of 37 years, Tom Kennedy.