FRED WILLIAMS

The artist's Estate

Carolyn Galbally, Melbourne
Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, 1988
Private collection, Sydney
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne
Private collection; purchased from the above in 2003

Annual Collectors' Exhibition 2003, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 6 September - 5 October 2003, cat. 43, illus.

Fred Williams first painted wattle at his friend, Clifton Pugh's place, 'Dunmoochin', at Cottlesbridge, north-east of Melbourne, in mid-winter 1969. He returned to the subject in 1974, noting in his diary for July 24: 'It was a superb spot and a delight to paint the Wattles in their nat[ural] surrounds' .¹ He completed numerous paintings of the wattle, continuing his interest into the following years. These works, as in Wattles at Dunmoochin, were painted with the rich, rainbow palette of the time, more representational and emotionally involved. The washes of under paint are overlayed with an abundance of succulent colours and textures – of mauves, blues, greens, and spots of yellow on the slender trunks of the saplings. Although the ascending hillside allowed Williams to dispense with the horizon line and concentrate on the deft manipulation of paint on the picture plane, the composition more than hints at the traditional pictorial format, with masterly interplay between surface handling and depth of field. The felicitous influence of Williams's visit to China the previous year is seen in the subtle beauty of its floating forms and luminous atmosphere.

 1. Quoted in Mollison, J., A Singular Vision: The Art of Fred Williams, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1989, p. 175.