Fred Williams is well-known and celebrated for his distinctive, abstracted paintings of the Australian landscape, yet his early commitment to drawing and his accomplishments as a draughtsman are little known.

Celebrating the opening of Fred Williams: The London Drawings, NGV Senior Curator Cathy Leahy leads a tour with artist and RMIT Associate Professor Peter Ellis introducing audiences to Williams’s drawings made while the artist was in London during the 1950s.

From drawings made at Regent’s Park Zoo and in London’s music halls to documenting the city streets and the world around him, Cathy and Peter will explore the full range and power of Williams’s drawing oeuvre.

Speakers

Peter Ellis is an artist with over forty years national and international experience. He is currently Associate Professor at RMIT University where he is Painting Studio Leader in the BA Fine Art Program. As a practicing artist, Peter Ellis is an acute observer of the natural world. Drawing is a central to Ellis’s practice. Through drawing he elevates observation, intuition, chance, suggestive magic and mystery. His work often depicts hybrid animals through spontaneous mark making. His work highlights current social, political and environmental concerns while also drawing upon a vast array of historic and cultural art references and includes paintings, drawings, prints, objects, multiples, artists’ books, zines and collaborative sound works.

Cathy Leahy is Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Cathy has curated numerous exhibitions at the NGV including William Blake, 2014; John Wolseley – Heartlands and Headwaters, 2015; Luminous: Australian Watercolours 1900–2000, 2016 and Colony: Australia 1770–1861 / Frontier Wars, 2018. In 2018 she curated the NGV blockbuster exhibition Escher x nendo: Between Two Worlds and she is the curator of Fred Williams: The London Drawings.