JOHN PERCEVAL

Following the busily joyous paintings of Williamstown and their rollicking boats, John Perceval developed an even freer style of painting in which the previous definition and focus gave way to a more overall treatment in the entanglement of thick paint and rich colour. References have been made to the originality of his new approach, described by Bernard Smith as 'a kind of action painting controlled by visual intuition'.¹ However, Perceal avoided concepts and theories, choosing to follow, as he said, the 'developments that occur while the work is in progress.' ² If art prizes and acquisitions by public art galleries are any measure of success, then Perceval's cup overflowed. The Gorge‚ 1959 was awarded Adelaide's Maude Vizard Wholohan Prize for that year and was purchased by the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 1960 his Dairy Farm, Victoria was the joint winner of the Wynne Prize, the Art Gallery of New South Wales acquiring the winning painting as well as Briar and Dry Creek, both 1960 works. Other 1960 paintings were bought for the future National Gallery of Australia, and the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery was given Two Gums - Homage to Buvelot.

The spontaneity that comes from working out of doors flows naturally through Perceval's Landscape‚ 1960, capturing the mood of the moment in the darkening scene and twilight touches on the horizon. The highly tactile and luxurious tangle of paint ascends the picture plane in a spatially innovative work that enmeshes the eye in its almost abstract web of undergrowth, trees and sky.

1. Smith B., Australian Painting 1788-1960, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1962, p. 322.
2. Perceval in John Reed (ed.), New Painting 1952-1962, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p.28; quoted in Plant M., John Perceval, Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1971, p. 76.