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1 Fred Williams: landscapes of a continent Author Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) Date 1977 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history from our founding in 1929 to the present is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA 2017 The Museum of Modern Art

2 Dark Forest Pond Private Collection, Melbourne. FRED WILLIAMS LANDSCAPES OF A CONTINENT MARCH 11-MAY 8, 1977 THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 11 WEST 53 STREET NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019

3 8. Desert Flowers, Tibooburra Lent by the artist. 12.The Bluff, Mornington Private Collection, Melbourne. 30. Killicrankie Bay, Flinders Island Lent by the artist. ft

4 1967 e. FRED WILLIAMS: LANDSCAPES OF A CONTINENT FRED WILLIAMS is an artist in mid-career. In Australia, he is known as a painter in oil on canvas and, also, as an etcher whose graphic oevvre approaches some 300 prints. Fred Williams's gouaches on paper, drawn for the most part directly from nature and in the out-of-doors, are less familiar. It is with these drawings in color, however, that Williams is introduced to the American public. Fred Williams is a painter of the Australian landscape. He was born in 1927 and studied in the School of the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, and also with the artist George Bell. In 1950 he studied and worked in London, where, in 1954, he began etching. He returned to Australia in 1957 and traveled in Europe in 1964 and again in 1976, when he also visited China. Australia is the world's oldest continent. Its skies domi nate an incredibly varied, sometimes hostile, and often dry landscape. Australia's shores are equally changing: islands, reefs, rocks, shoals, sand, tidal swamps. In the interior, the overwhelming proportion of which is undeveloped by man, an anthology of differing terrains contains deserts, awesome in their isolated majesty and stillness. The im mensity and contrasts of these landscapes, the vastness and brightness of Australian skies, are too infrequently appreciated even by the Australians themselves. Most of the population disdains the interior and hugs the shore. But a few miles from the cosmopolitan cities, glimpses of an extraordinary world may readily be seen. Many of these gouaches, indeed, were drawn not far from Melbourne, where Fred Williams lives. Fred Williams knows Australia. He is not an artist who would disdain a gum tree. He is not a foreigner seeking to impose a natural paradise on some strange exotic land. He is, however, a romantic artist and his approach to landscape is narrative. His images may at first seem ab stract, but they in fact describe actual times and places: a marked grave on a dot of an uninhabited island, burnt and foliate gum trees, bushfires and storms of dust, topsy turvy hills, bays whose aspect alters with each move; trafficked and tranquil rivers always flowing to the sea; deserts where a few drops of water create a floral carpet; deserts where bleached and blackened bones are mixed with sand. Fred Williams's colors are those of the continent itself dull brick, ocher, russet, pale green, vivid blue. Water, beach, rock, bush, and desert are observed level with the ground as well as from above and also at different times of day. On single or successive sheets of paper, one changing view is described in horizontal registers. Fred Williams's vision is authentic. It also belongs to an Australian tradition of painting that remains, unfortunately, little known to the general public. William S. Lieberman WBHm

5 FRED WILLIAMS: LANDSCAPE Checklist In the listings below, all works are on paper. In areas of impasto, the artist sometimes combines synthetic polymer with gouache. Dates appear on the reverse of the draw ings. Sheet dimensions are stated in inches and centi meters, height preceding width You Yangs, No Gouache, 22 x 30%" (56.4 x 76.3 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 2. You Yangs, No Gouache, I8V2 x 30" (46.8 x 76.2 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 4" 3. Dark Forest Pond Gouache, 25% x 22 (64.4 x 56.5 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 4. Silver Landscape, No Gouache, 221/2 x 26%" (57.0 x 68.1 cm). Lent by Mr. and Mrs. R. Wolcott Hooker, New York. 4" 5. Before Tibooburra Gouache, 22% x 30 (56.6 x 76.6 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 2 6. Desert Dust Storm, Tibooburra Gouache, 22 x 30" (57.1 x 76.0 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection. 7. Desert Flowers, Tibooburra Gouache, 29% x 221/2" (75.6 x 57.0 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 8. Desert Flowers, ' Tibooburra Gouache, 22% x 29%" (56.7 x 75.7 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 9. Aboriginal Graves, Tibooburra, No Gouache, 29% x 22%" (75.8 x 56.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Madeleine H. Russell. 10. Aboriginal Graves, Tibooburra, No Gouache, 4" 29% x 22 (75.7 x 56.6 cm). Lent by the artist, Haw thorn 11. Scallop Boat, Mornington Gouache, 22% x 29%" (56.8 x 75.7 cm). Lent by Franz von Bayern, Munich. 12. The Bluff, Mornington Gouache, 22% x 29%" (56.9 x 75.8 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 4" 13. Flinders Island Gouache, 22% x 30 (56.8 x 76.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection. 14. After Bushfire Gouache, 221/4 x 30%" (56.5 x 76.5 cm). Lent by Franz von Bayern, Munich. 15. Burnt Ferns, No Gouache, 30% x 22%" (76.4 x 57.0 cm). Lent by the artist,.hawthorn 16. Burnt Ferns, No Gouache, 30% x 22%" (76.3 x 56.8 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 17. You Yangs Landscape, No Gopache, 30% x 221/4" (76.3 x 56.5 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn You Yangs Landscape, No Gouache, 22 x 30%" (56.4 x 76.4 cm). Lent by the San Francisco Mu seum of Modern Art. 19. Australian Landscape, No Gouache, 21% x 301/4" (55.0 x 76.7 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 20. Australian Landscape, No Gouache, 22% x 30%" (56.6 x 76.4 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn

6 \NDSCAPES OF A CONTINENT Checklist 1/4 21. Upwey Landscape, No Gouache, 22 x 30" (56.5 x 76.2 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 22. The Bay and the Bluff, Walkerville Gouache, 23% x 31% " (58.8 x 79.0 cm). Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Cullman, New York. 23. Traffic, the Mouth of the Yarra River Gouache, 22% x 30%" (56.8 x 76.7 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Woollahra, New South Wales. 24. The Murray River, Tocumwal, No Gouache, 1/8 21% x 30 " (55.0 x 76.3 cm). Lent by Madeleine H. Russell, San Francisco. 25. Man in a Landscape Gouache, 31% x 23%" (79.0 x 58.8 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn East, Victoria. 26. Lysterfield, No Gouache, 23 x 31 %" (58.3 x 79.8 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Wool lahra, New South Wales. 27. Lysterfield, No Gouache, 21% x 30%" (55.2 x 76.4 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Wool lahra, New South Wales. 1/4 28. Lysterfield, No Gouache, 30 x 21%" (76.9 x 55.1 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Wool lahra, New South Wales. 1/4 29. Lysterfield, No Gouache, 30 x 21%" (76.5 x 55.1 cm). Private Collection, Melbourne. 30. Killicrankie Bay, Flinders Island Gouache, 21% x 30% " (55.4 x 76.7 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn 31. Burnt Ti Trees, Flinders Island Gouache, 21% x 1/2" 30 (55.4 x 77.7 cm). Lent by Mr. and Mrs. John A. O'Hara, Greenwich, Connecticut. 32. Sea Forms, Walkerville, Gouache, 23 x 31%" (58.4 x 79.1 cm). Lent by the artist, Hawthorn East, Victoria. 33. Marked Grave, Erith, No Gouache and sand, 22 x 30%" (55.7 x 77.1 cm). Private Collection, New York. 34. Marked Grave, Erith, No Gouache and sand, 21% x 30%" (55.6 x 77.3 cm). Private Collection, New York. 35. Sturt Desert Peninsular, Broken Hill Gouache and sand, 22% x 30" (57.4 x 76.1 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Woollahra, New South Wales. 36. Sturt Desert Pea Gouache and sand, 22% x 30" (57.5 x 76.0 cm). Lent by Charles B. Benenson, New York. 37. Bega, No Gouache, 22% x 30%" (56.1 x 77.4 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Woollahra, New South Wales. 1/4 38. Bega, No Gouache and sand, 22 x 30%" (56.5 x 77.5 cm). Lent by the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Woollahra, New South Wales. 39. Dry Landscape, No Gouache, 22% x 29%" (57.1 x 75.9 cm). Lent by Franz von Bayern, Munich. 1/4" 40. Dry Landscape, No Gouache, 22% x 30 (56.9 x 76.7 cm). Lent by Franz von Bayern, Munich.

7 Burnt Ferns, No Lent by the artist The Museum of Modern Art gratefully acknowledges the support of its exhibition program by the New York State Council on the Arts. The exhibition will be subsequently shown at other museums. it hoca A The Museum 7A A? cir /Modern Art Library