Category: Iconic Artists

  • William Dobell (1899 – 1970)

    One of Australia’s most celebrated portrait and genre painters, William Dobell became renowned for his unique style of painting which allowed his work to vary from Impressionism and Expressionism, and thus bring a distinct character to his subjects. Born in Cooks Hill, Newcastle, New South Wales, Dobell demonstrated artistic talent from an early age. As…

  • Lin Onus (1948 – 1996)

    Widely acknowledged as a pioneer of the Aboriginal art movement, the versatile and greatly innovative painter and sculptor, Lin Onus played a major role in leading the cause of Aboriginal advancement in Australia. Born in the Aboriginal community of Cummeragunja in Victoria, 1948, Onus was the only child of a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man and…

  • John Brack (1920 – 1999)

    Considered to be an artist of rare excellence, John Brack became renowned within the Australian art world for his graphically abstract style of painting in which he achieved a perfect synthesis of line, colour and tone. Born in Melbourne in 1920, Brack received a formal education in the arts at the Melbourne National Gallery School…

  • Nora Heysen (1911-2003)

    Born in Hahndorf, South Australia in 1911, as the daughter of the renowned landscape painter, Sir Hans Heysen, Nora Heysen demonstrated great artistic talent and technical skill from a young age. These skills were further developed through an extensive education in the arts in which she studied at North Adelaide’s School of Fine Arts. Displaying…

  • Margaret Olley (1923 – 2011)

    Much loved and highly regarded, Margaret Olley is one of Australia’s most respected still-life interior painters. She became a distinguished member of the Australian art world for the way she used her art to glorify simple, everyday objects and her acts of philanthropy to the visual and performing arts in which she has been an…

  • Pro Hart (1928-2006)

    Nicknamed ‘Pro’ as a symbol of his artistic talent, Kevin Charles Hart has become a household name in Australia. Better known as Pro Hart, he is regarded as the father of the renowned outback painting movement, the prolific painter of primitive-regional pictures took a unique approach to his art to effectively capture the true essence…

  • Charles Blackman (1928 – 2018)

    Born in Sydney in 1928, Charles Blackman spent his childhood in Queensland before leaving school at the age of thirteen to work as an illustrator for the Sydney Sun newspaper while attending classes at the East Sydney Technical School. He kept his illustrating job for five years and studied between 1943 and 1946. When Blackman…

  • Fred Williams (1927- 1982)

    Recognised as one of the most significant Australian painters and graphic artists of the twentieth century for his figurative and landscape works, Fred Williams was in the forefront of the Australian modern art movement. Williams was born in Richmond in 1927. Although he is considered to be a largely self-taught artist, he received his initial…

  • Elioth Gruner (1882- 1939)

    Elioth Gruner was born in 1882 at Gisborne, Poverty Bay in New Zealand to an Irish Mother (Mary Ann Brennan) and Norwegian Father (Elliott Gruner Snr). His family moved to Australia in 1883 where his art education began in 1894 at the age of 14, attending drawing lessons at the Julian Ashton Art School while…

  • Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865 – 1915)

    Regarded one of Australia’s most gifted colourists and figure painters, Emanuel Phillips Fox became a greatly celebrated member of the art world for the way he captured the effects of sunlight in his works and combined Impressionist-oriented vision with academic training. Born in Fitzroy, Melbourne in 1865, Fox began his art education at the age…