Fred Williams - Irena Zdanowicz

Published to accompany a British Museum exhibition, this catalogue illustrates the etchings and related drawings and gouaches by the Australian artist Fred Williams (1927-1982) - arguably the most important Australian painter-printmaker of the second half of the 20th century.;Best-known for his paintings of the Australian landscape, Williams took up printmaking in London in 1954. It was always of central importance in his work and no other Australian artist of comparable stature produced such a large and significant body of prints - the vast majority of them etchings. From the beginning, Williams's practice as an etcher closely paralleled his development as a painter, and a striking feature of his work is the cross-fertilization of ideas and motifs between his painting and his printmaking.;After five years working and studying in London, where his subject-matter focused on the music hall, Williams returned to Australia in late 1956 and quickly realized that he wanted to concentrate on painting the Australian landscape. Within months, his distinctive vision began to emerge. Etching played a primary role in the development of his understanding of the subject, imposing a need to simplify and render abstract the motif. William's portrayal of the Australian landscape through a discrete langauge of marks and new compositional formats profoundly transformed the way in which that landscape is viewed today.;This catalogue features 76 prints plus 9 gouaches and drawings, all but three of which were recently presented to the British Museum by the artist's widow.