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SELF PORTRAIT
c 1916 (pencil)
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ART BOOKS / REVIEWS MUSIC COMPOSITION WEB CONSTRUCTION
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LLOYD
REES: coming home
ROCKHAMPTON ART
GALLERY
CENTRAL QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
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Australian Tour
28 May 1999 - 12 November 2000
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One
of Australia’s best-loved and acclaimed artists is featured in
this solo exhibition of more than 40 favourite paintings, drawings and
prints lent by the Rees family
LLOYD REES: coming home will be on view at the Rockhampton Art Gallery,
from 28 May to 1 July 1999 before touring to Townsville, Logan City,
Toowoomba, Moree Plains, Bathurst, Geelong, Burnie and Hobart.
Lloyd Rees (1895-1988) occupied a unique position in Australian art:
he was critically accepted by traditionalists and modernists alike,
and respected for both the great serenity of his light-filled paintings
and his sensitive handling of a wide range of drawing and print media.
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Alan, Lloyd and Jan Rees
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LLOYD
REES: coming home is very much a personal look at the artist and
his work through the eyes of his son and daughter-in-law, Alan and Jan
Rees. The works chosen relate to the home and favourite places in which
the artist lived or often visited: Brisbane, Sydney Harbour and Werri
Beach in New South Wales, the Derwent River in Tasmania and cities and
regions in Europe. The exhibition has been developed by Lawrence Bendle
and Lisa Loader and ranges from Rees’s earliest cathedral drawings
in 1915 to his last paintings in 1988. It reveals the artist’s
mastery of painting in oils and watercolour, pencil, pen and ink and
charcoal drawing and printmaking. |
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Rees inspirational, as Brett Whiteley recalled:
" I first saw an exhibition of Lloyd Rees’s painting when
I was a fourteen-year-old kid in school cadet uniform. I used to carry
my easel around Sydney Harbour and stand where Lloyd stood, to copy
his paintings. My generation of artists has to get in a lot closer
to the subject -- Lloyd has that more pulled-back European view. But
his attitudes, instincts and tremendous capacity as an artist were
always incredibly exciting to me."
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| Rees images of Sydney Harbour
include Opera House from Kirribilli 1966
(pen & wash) 38x48 cm, Moonlight
1980 (oil) 50x60 cm and Boats in the bay, Lane Cove River
Island 1978 (handcoloured soft-ground etching AP) 24.9x30.4
cm |
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During
his long career, Rees moved from early architectural drawing in Australia
and Europe to late atmospheric landscapes reminiscent of J.M.W. Turner.
Rees above all sought to express an ideal of harmony between man and nature.
He found inspiration in quiet pastoral surroundings: he loved to paint
figures strolling along riverbanks, and boats scudding across breezy harbours;
houses glimpsed over rolling hills or through fringes of bushland; worshippers
in old cathedrals; winter morning ferry rides and summer drives along
back roads.
Paris 1 1966 (carbon pencil and watercolour)
11x19.5 cm |
As Alan Rees recollects:
It was a very close marriage, though Dad knew absolutely nothing about science
or mechanical things and I don’t think Mum had any particular appreciation
of art. She supported him entirely in what he was doing, but I used to go down
and watch Dad painting in his studio and, when I think of it, I don’t remember
her ever doing it ... It’s well-known, though, that Dad was an old-style
socialist and Mum was known in the Teachers’ Federation as ‘the little
Bolshie’, so they had a meeting of minds ...
In the insightful and very readable book that accompanies the exhibition, Alan
and Jan Rees share some personal memories of the artist, revealing some of the
struggles and challenges of Lloyd Rees’s early life, his experiences in
London, Paris, Italy, Sydney and Gerringong, New South Wales (where many of
his landscape paintings were done), his warmth and generosity.
The book is fully illustrated and includes detailed accounts of individual
works in the exhibition and of Rees’s life and career. It was written by
Sue Smith, who spoke to Alan and Jan Rees.
The Rockhampton Art Gallery’s art collection, exhibitions and public programs
have done much to provide central Queensland with a high cultural profile. The
gallery specialises in Australian painting by such notable artists as Arthur
Boyd, Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan, and each year welcomes many Australian
and international visitors.
SPONSORS:
This touring exhibition and accompanying
book have received the generous support of a number of sponsors: Ergon Energy,
Visions of Australia (A Federal Government Touring Program), Rockhampton City
Council, Anderson’s City Printing Works (Rockhampton), Ansett Australia,
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
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