The Legacy of Frederick Ronald Williams
The Abstract art style originated in the early 1900s and has since grown in popularity to the point where it is considered to be the most prominent style of modern art of the 20th century, and continues to hold the title now in the 21st. The use of abstraction in art does not intend to tell a story like many other classical styles do with realistic, or at least, easily understood imagery, but rather uses shapes, colours, forms, and other seemingly random effects to achieve a non-consensus reality that encourages each individual viewer's involvement by stimulating their imagination and creating a unique and intangible emotional experience.
Australia, being the home of all things new and wonderful, has supplied the world with some of the greatest practitioners of abstract art, boasting a proud tradition of groundbreaking artistic achievement.
Among these artistic pioneers was painter and printmaker Frederick Ronald Williams, born in Richmond, Victoria, on the 23rd of January 1927. At age 14 he left school to become an apprentice at a Melbourne shopfitting and box-making firm. He also took lessons from conservative modern artist George Bell, who proved to be influential.
Like many young Australian artists, Williams went to Europe, studying at the Chelsea School of Art in London Between 1952 and 1956, where he subsidised his schooling by working part-time as a picture framer. He enjoyed creating vivid caricatured sketches of life in London for amusement. His work was included in the 'Recent Australian Painting' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, and in 'Australian Painting: Colonial, Impressionism, Modern' at the Tate Gallery. Williams returned to Melbourne in 1956.
Back in Australia, Williams was drawn to the aesthetic potential of the bush's inherent plasticity, and strove to find a way to express the aliveness of the landscape when compared to Europe, and took his cues from the methods Aboriginal artists used to capture the vast flatness that breaks down the relationship between foreground and background. Williams' first Australian landscape series was based on the Nattai River, he then produced works depicting the passage of the Yarra River from its source to its mouth.
Williams was invited in 1960 to enter the Helena Rubenstein Travelling Art Scholarship, the most prestigious art prize at the time. Five paintings were required, so Williams selected Landscape with a steep road (1957), Landscape with a building I (1957), The forest pond (1959), Sherbrooke Forest (1960) and The St George River (1960). He won the prize, which was a turning point in his career bringing Williams wide acclaim, especially from influential critics and curators. Williams was a success, culminating in his 1965 Evening Sky, Upwey selling for $1.15 million, the most expensive work sold at an Australian auction as of 2009.
Williams died on 22 April 1982, aged 55. Friend and fellow artist John Brack gave the eulogy:
"Fred brought us a new vision of Australia’s landscape... He changed the way we see our country: an achievement which will live long after all of us are gone."
