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Lot Essay
Related work: Upwey Landscape, 1964-65, oil on canvas, 143.3 x 182.9 cm, Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
"Williams moved into his house at Upwey, in the foothills of the Dandenongs, in August 1963, and began working on gouaches based on the surrounding landscape.....The two basic characteristics of the Upwey series are the introduction of the horizontal line for the horizon with trees silhouetted against the sky, and broad gestural arcs and bodies of colour.....In the Upwey series a pictorial recession is achieved through a visual progression from large open areas of space in the foreground containing large bodies of colour to the distant horizon where they become increasingly smaller and closer together. At the horizon the picture ftattens out as the silhouetted trees and the sky appear parallel to the picture plane, enabling Williams to create two ambiguous readings of the work - the pictorial space is flat and yet recedes, and the gestures of paint are abstract and yet also contain figurative elements". (R Lindsay and I Zdanowicz, Fred Williams: Work in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1980, p. 25)
"Williams moved into his house at Upwey, in the foothills of the Dandenongs, in August 1963, and began working on gouaches based on the surrounding landscape.....The two basic characteristics of the Upwey series are the introduction of the horizontal line for the horizon with trees silhouetted against the sky, and broad gestural arcs and bodies of colour.....In the Upwey series a pictorial recession is achieved through a visual progression from large open areas of space in the foreground containing large bodies of colour to the distant horizon where they become increasingly smaller and closer together. At the horizon the picture ftattens out as the silhouetted trees and the sky appear parallel to the picture plane, enabling Williams to create two ambiguous readings of the work - the pictorial space is flat and yet recedes, and the gestures of paint are abstract and yet also contain figurative elements". (R Lindsay and I Zdanowicz, Fred Williams: Work in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1980, p. 25)