Georgia Peach

Michael Taylor was born in Sydney and studied at East Sydney Technical College from 1949 to 1953, graduating with a Diploma in Painting. He travelled in Asia in 1959 and, after winning the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship in 1960, spent three years in Europe. In 1972 Taylor settled in the Canberra region, first at Bredbo and then in 1995 in Cooma. From 1974 to 1975 he travelled in the United States, Europe and India.

Taylor is an important Australian artist whose work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and major state galleries, regional and corporate collections, and numerous private collections. He established a reputation very early as an expressionist painter of rare verve, and between 1964 and 1990 held thirty-five solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne. Taylor has been included in many significant group exhibitions including: Biennale des Jeunes (1963, Paris); Contemporary Australian Paintings (1966, Los Angeles); Australian Art Today (1969, touring South-East Asia); Ten Australians (1974-75, touring Europe); and Lâ-art contemporain Australien (1991, Noumea). In 1979 he was a Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University.

This work is a response to the 2003 January fires of the Canberra region. The title refers to the helicopter sent from United States to assist in the containment of the fires. The work depicts the helicopter "dropping large amounts of water in the Bredbo area, with the residents of the town assembled to watch".