DATES: 19 August 2017 to 5 November 2017
LOCATION: Geelong Gallery Little Malop Street Geelong VIC 3220
WEB: www.geelonggallery.org.au and http://www.geelonggallery.org.au/…/fred-williams-in-the-you…
T: 03 5229 3645 | Open daily 10am – 5pm
ENTREE: Adult $16.00 | Concession $12.00 | Child $7.00 | Members $10.00 | Group (over 10) $14.00
Fred Williams in the You Yangs, the largest major in-focus exhibition of a single subject in Williams’ oeuvre. One of Australia’s most important painters, Williams irreversibly changed the way we consider the Australian landscape. In this first exhibition curated by Jason Smith since he became Director of the Geelong Gallery in May 2016, Fred Williams in the You Yangs features more than fifty paintings, drawings and prints that mark the revolutionary turning point in Williams’ art and beyond. Viewed together, they reveal the way his observation of, and work in, the You Yangs altered his – and our – ideas on how landscape could be represented. The spectacular You Yangs range lies just over 20 km north of Geelong, and is a sacred site of the Wadawurrung (also Wathaurong) people, whose traditional clan lands encompass the You Yang and Geelong. The name #YouYang comes from Aboriginal words Wurdi Youang or Ude Youang, which may have a number of meanings from ‘big mountain in the middle of a plain’, to ‘big or large hill’. Williams first spotted the range in 1957 from the deck of the ship on which he was sailing home to Melbourne from London. He commenced working in the You Yangs in 1962, and the geography provided him with various vantage points to focus on the distinctive rocky outcrops of the place, and the vast expanses of country that opened before him. The exhibition presents the groundbreaking moment that won him wide acclaim as his feeling for the landscape distilled from representation to remarkable painterly abstraction – what we now consider Williams’ indelible interpretation of the Australian landscape, instantly recognisable for their spots, dabs and dashes – underscored by his studied observations of and deep engagement with the geology and geography of the You Yangs.
Exhibition curator and Geelong Gallery Director Jason Smith, “Fred Williams in the You Yangs focuses on the turning point in Williams’ vision of the Australian landscape, which went on to define his ‘classic’ interpretation of the Australian landscape. Exclusive to Geelong Gallery, this major exhibition reveals Williams’ enduring fascination with the You Yangs, and surveys in marvellous depth the artist’s working method.”
Thanks to our friends at Miranda Brown Publicity Bohemian Rhapsody Club and Online Magazine is proudly covering the official opening (18 July by invitations; media: Gab Grech ) Please stay tuned for more information
image below:
Fred Williams
You Yang Pond 1963
oil on composition board
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Gift of Godfrey Phillips International Pty Ltd 1968
© Estate of Fred Yoanna Bella