Burning tree stump

Upon returning to Australia in late 1956 after five years in London, Fred Williams saw the landscape of his own country through new eyes. The vast featureless spaces, undistinguished scrubby bush and harsh light of his homeland offered a distinct contrast to the picturesque English countryside with which he had become familiar. The landscape of Australia also presented Williams with a subject, part of a long-standing and respected tradition and yet ripe for new interpretation, that would become the primary focus of his mature artistic practice. Importantly, it also provided a structure on which the formal and technical development of his art could be based.

From the very beginning of his career Williams drew on his experience of the surrounding world as the source of subject matter for his art. A natural extension of this practice was to work in the landscape directly from nature, something he did on a weekly basis throughout most of his adult life. The landscapes he depicted were often in close proximity to the family home, or holiday destinations such as Wilson’s Promontory and Walkerville in Victoria. From time to time, painting trips to regions further afield were also arranged.

The dramatic bushfires that raged through the Dandenong Ranges on the outskirts of Melbourne during the summer of 1968 had a profound impact on Fred Williams. In addition to threatening his family and their Upwey home, the fires transformed the surrounding area into completely unfamiliar territory. Compelled to go out and work in the charred landscape, Williams wrote at the time, ‘the countryside is now perfect to paint – I may never see it looking as it does again’. During the following months Williams painted some 100 gouaches outdoors, which were later followed by paintings and drawings completed in the studio. Together these works present a visual narrative of the fires, documenting their terrifying approach, the destruction of the landscape and its subsequent regeneration.

Text by Kirsty Grant and David Hurlston © National Gallery of Victoria, Australia