On the eve of Australia Day, this week’s picture is Red Landscape by Fred Williams, who remains little known in this country but was one of the most gifted Australian artists of the second half of the twentieth century. One of the principal works from a group of paintings entitled “The Pilbara Series”, this large and vibrantly colourful image was inspired by the landscape of the Pilbara region in the extreme north west of Australia. Created in 1981, not long before the artist’s premature death from lung cancer, the picture can be seen at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Less far afield, “Fred Williams: An Australian Vision” is currently on display in the British Museum’s Prints and Drawings Department, until 25 April.
Williams flew to the Pilbara for the first time in May 1979, at the invitation of Sir Roderick Carnegie, family friend and chairman of the mining conglomerate CRA (now Rio Tinto). The area is rich in iron ore deposits, which partly accounts for the predominant deep red colour of its landscape. At the time the Pilbara had only recently been opened up to large-scale mining. Carnegie wondered if Williams might like to record its appearance before the landscape was altered by new settlements and increased population.
Partly because of the scale of Australian geography, Williams chose to make his first forays into the Pilbara by light aeroplane. Extracts from his diary convey his enthusiasm for its bare and rugged terrain:
“13 May 1979: On the way we run into a squall – the pilot comes down out of it in a cork-screw turn and the sight at about 500 feet was brilliant – flocks of parrots and lines of brumbies… running through the desert – very memorable… Chris takes me to a delightful spot. I paint...
