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Collection on Display

Fred Williams

Fred Williams is celebrated as one of Australia’s most significant landscape painters whose distinctive, abstracted paintings helped shape Australians’ vision of their country. The NGV holds the leading collection of Williams’ work including paintings, prints and drawings. In 2026, NGV acquired Forest of gum trees III 1968–69 as a gift from Williams’ widow, Lyn Williams AC. This large painting depicts a steep vertical hillside of virgin bush in the Dandenong Ranges, and represents an evolution of the formula the artist first employed in his You Yangs paintings; the presentation of a continuous plane that can be interpreted as either a detail-up of a specific view, or a sprawling landscape. A selection of Williams’ paintings and drawings are also on display throughout the collection galleries at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.

Collection works

Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Self portrait with dog</em> 1949 <!-- (recto) --><br /> monotype with pen and brush and ink<br /> 31.5 x 20.6 cm irreg. (sheet) 32.9 x 20.6 cm irreg. (sheet)<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> Gift of Dr Joseph Brown, OBE, 1983<br /> P9-1983<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--26002--> Fred WILLIAMS
Self portrait with dog
 1949 Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Cricketer</em> 1955 <!-- (recto) --><br /> oil on composition board<br /> 46.0 x 34.0 cm<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004<br /> 2004.234<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--76053--> Fred WILLIAMS
Cricketer
 1955 Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Echuca landscape</em> 1962 <!-- (recto) --><br /> oil and tempera on composition board<br /> 139.0 x 122.3 cm<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004<br /> 2004.235<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--75888--> Fred WILLIAMS
Echuca landscape
 1962 Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Horseman in the landscape</em> (1967) <!-- (recto) --><br /> gouache<br /> 57.0 x 76.8 cm (image and sheet)<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H. J. Heinz II Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980<br /> AC4-1980<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--27883--> Fred WILLIAMS
Horseman in the landscape
 (1967) Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>You Yangs pond</em> (1967) <!-- (recto) --><br /> gouache<br /> 69.7 x 57.4 cm (image and sheet)<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H. J. Heinz II Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980<br /> AC14-1980<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--27921--> Fred WILLIAMS
You Yangs pond
 (1967) Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Dark hillside</em> (1967); (1964) {dated} <!-- (recto) --><br /> oil and tempera on canvas<br /> 108.0 x 132.8 cm<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004<br /> 2004.236<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--75889--> Fred WILLIAMS
Dark hillside
 (1967); dated (1964) Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Forest of gum trees III</em> (1968-1969) <!-- (recto) --><br /> oil on canvas<br /> 183.1 x 151.6 cm<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> Gift of Lyn Williams AC and Family through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2026<br /> <br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--159480--> Fred WILLIAMS
Forest of gum trees III
 (1968-1969) Fred WILLIAMS<br/> <em>Burning tree stump</em> (1968) <!-- (recto) --><br /> gouache<br /> 57.0 x 76.4 cm (image and sheet)<br /> National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br /> Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the H. J. Heinz II Charitable and Family Trust, Governor, and the Utah Foundation, Fellow, 1980<br /> AC10-1980<br /> © Estate of Fred Williams <!--27871--> Fred WILLIAMS
Burning tree stump
 (1968)

Discover More

Fred Williams: The London Drawings

In 2022, an exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia became the first to focus on Australian painter Fred Williams’s years in London, and specifically on the drawings he did while living in the city.

 Fred Williams’s Pilbara series

Fred Williams first visited the Pilbara with his family in May 1979, at the invitation of his friend Sir Roderick Carnegie, Chairman of CRA Limited (now Rio Tinto).

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Major early landscape by Fred Williams

In 1956, the 29-year-old Fred Williams returned by ship to Australia after five years in England.

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Fred Williams The Nattai River 1958

Upon returning to Australia in late 1956 after five years in London, Fred Williams saw the landscape of his own country through new eyes.

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Fred Williams Cape York bushfire (2) (1977)

After his return to Australia from London in 1956, Fred Williams turned his attention to painting the Australian landscape, depicting it in such a distinctive and fresh way that, for many, his art transformed their vision of it.

Selected affinities: Fred Williams’s drawings after Rembrandt

The latter half of the 1970s was a particularly busy period for Fred Williams: with his wife Lyn he made a number of trips to Europe and the United States; his exhibition schedule was crammed for long periods; and his public commitments continued unabated.

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Tribute to Fred Williams: National Gallery of Victoria, 12 May 1982

If we were not in the presence of the paintings, as we are so appropriately this evening, and were asked to describe the characteristic manner of Fred Williams, we would, perhaps, conjure up a picture that was dominated by vertical lines, and was greyish-brown in tonality.

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Past Exhibitions

Fred Williams The London Drawings

21 Oct 22 – 29 Jan 23

 Fred Williams A Working Method

15 Dec 95 – 12 Feb 96

 Fred Williams Infinite Horizons

7 Apr – 5 Aug 12

 Heroic Landscape: Williams, Streeton

20 Oct – 23 Nov 70