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Lot Essay
The 1960s were one of the most successful and creative periods of Williams's career. In August 1963, Sydney gallery owner Rudy Komon became William's official dealer, paying him a monthly stipend that enabled the artist to paint full time for the first time in his career. The following year, Williams and his wife Lyn spent seven months travelling through Europe as a result of Williams being awarded the Helena Rubenstein Travelling scholarship. This liberty to paint and travel was crucial to the maturing of Williams's art and its effect, particularly upon his painting of the Australian landscape, (upon which his later reputation was to largely rest), was immediately apparent. Patrick McCaughey has noted that: "These years were critical ones of formal mastery, when the classical Williams emerged For the first time figure paintings and portraits played a secondary role in the development of his art. (From 1963 - 1968 were) perhaps the richest and most consistent five years of Williams's creative life" (P McCaughey, Fred Williams, Sydney, 1980, pp. 152 - 153)
Prior to the European journey, the Williams's had moved from Hawthorn to a property at Upwey in the Dandenong Ranges, approximately thirty-four kilometres to the south-east of Melbourne. Upon his return to Australia, Williams settled in to his new home and studio and embarked upon several series of works, including the Upwey series to which this landscape belongs. The Upwey series and related works were as highly regarded for their distinctive rendering of the Australian bush at the time of their execution as they are now. They garnered several major art prizes for Williams, including the Georges Invitation Art Prize, the W.D. and H.O. Wills Prize and the Wynne Prize. These prestigious awards established both Williams's critical reputation and a high level of public recognition and awareness of his unique visual interpretation of the Australian landscape.
Unlike the delicate mark-making that characterised the You-Yangs series which preceded them, the Upwey paintings are saturated with darker, earthier colours and a more substantial and tactile figuration. The high horizon line, which is another feature of these works, had its basis in the actual view from Williams's studio, for as Mollison recorded: "His house was in a valley, and from the studio his view above the surrounding trees confirmed his use of a narrow band of sky for the Upwey landscapes. (J Mollison, A Singular Vision: The Art of Fred Williams, Canberra, 1989, p. 89)
The immediate critical and commercial acclaim that greeted Williams's Upwey landscapes was a precursor to the significant position that they would come to occupy in Australian art history. In common with all great art, Williams achieved works that were not only triumphs of technique and paint, but that also offered a fresh perception and vision of the Australian bush. As Drysdale had done with the desert and outback, Williams celebrated the severity of the bush and found beauty in the straight white trunks of gum trees, the sparesness of foliage and the muddy tones of scrub and rocks. This balance between technique and creative instinct was commented upon by McCaughey who noted: "In the Upwey landscapes Williams had found a format where he could marry his desire for a painting of feeling, touch and intuition to a formal sense of design and architectural structure."
(P McCaughey, op.cit, p. 168)
Paintings from the Upwey series are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and The National Gallery of Victoria.
Prior to the European journey, the Williams's had moved from Hawthorn to a property at Upwey in the Dandenong Ranges, approximately thirty-four kilometres to the south-east of Melbourne. Upon his return to Australia, Williams settled in to his new home and studio and embarked upon several series of works, including the Upwey series to which this landscape belongs. The Upwey series and related works were as highly regarded for their distinctive rendering of the Australian bush at the time of their execution as they are now. They garnered several major art prizes for Williams, including the Georges Invitation Art Prize, the W.D. and H.O. Wills Prize and the Wynne Prize. These prestigious awards established both Williams's critical reputation and a high level of public recognition and awareness of his unique visual interpretation of the Australian landscape.
Unlike the delicate mark-making that characterised the You-Yangs series which preceded them, the Upwey paintings are saturated with darker, earthier colours and a more substantial and tactile figuration. The high horizon line, which is another feature of these works, had its basis in the actual view from Williams's studio, for as Mollison recorded: "His house was in a valley, and from the studio his view above the surrounding trees confirmed his use of a narrow band of sky for the Upwey landscapes. (J Mollison, A Singular Vision: The Art of Fred Williams, Canberra, 1989, p. 89)
The immediate critical and commercial acclaim that greeted Williams's Upwey landscapes was a precursor to the significant position that they would come to occupy in Australian art history. In common with all great art, Williams achieved works that were not only triumphs of technique and paint, but that also offered a fresh perception and vision of the Australian bush. As Drysdale had done with the desert and outback, Williams celebrated the severity of the bush and found beauty in the straight white trunks of gum trees, the sparesness of foliage and the muddy tones of scrub and rocks. This balance between technique and creative instinct was commented upon by McCaughey who noted: "In the Upwey landscapes Williams had found a format where he could marry his desire for a painting of feeling, touch and intuition to a formal sense of design and architectural structure."
(P McCaughey, op.cit, p. 168)
Paintings from the Upwey series are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and The National Gallery of Victoria.