Paintings of Australian land and landscape at the RA

You can read my review of the new exhibition 'Australia' at the Royal Academy of Arts here - Making A Mark: 'Australia' Exhibition at the Royal Academy - review.

It includes paintings from 1800 through to this year's winner of the Wynne Prize.

Left - Australian Impressionists
Right - Federation Landscapes - in watercolour
'Australia' at the Royal Academy - 21 September 2013 to 8 December 2013
Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia

Given the narrative covering the last 200+ years, I'm aiming to revisit specific aspects of the exhibition on this blog.

The Wynne Prize - Finalists 2013 + their websites

The Wynne Prize ($35,000) for Best Landscape Painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture by Australian artists had 773 entries this year - which is marginally down on last year (2012: 783 entries; 2011: 712 entries)

The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’.

Richard Wynne left a bequest which established the prize.  It's run and judged on an annual basis by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.  The prize was first awarded in 1897 when the present Gallery opened in its current home next to the Botanical Gardens and Sydney Harbour  (I know - I've been!).

Those whose artwork will be in the exhibition were announced last week.

You can find the Wynne Finalists 2013 listed below.  You can also explore past winners and finalists on the prize webpage on the AGNSW website

• GW Bot - Glyphs and Moon GW Bot is the the exhibiting name of Chrissie Grishin, who was born in Quetta, Pakistan of Australian parents
• Linda Bowden - The others  Linda Bowden is a sculptor
• Jun Chen - North Queensland  Born in China in 1960, Chen migrated to Australlia in 1990 and now lives in Queensland. He graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China in 1986 and converted from being a brush and ink painter in China to using oil paint thickly applied with a palette knife in Australia!
• Xiuying ChenCentral Railway Station, Sydney  
• He is a member of the Australian Chinese Painting Society
• David Collins - Hawkesbury crossing
• Dale Cox - Tract 17 - He paints the geomorphology of the land - above and below the ground.  I'm thinking this one might be in with a chance./li>

Tract paintings in acrylic by Dale Cox
Tract 17 (burning) is bottom right

• Lucy Culliton - Table Cape
• Elisabeth Cummings - Sunrise, The Kimberleys
• Keith Fyfe - Untitled
• Neil Haddon - After the burn, Mt Nelson (a new landscape emerges)
• Nicholas Harding - Yuraygir pandanus with samp oak and pigface
• Belynda Henry - The trees
• Timothy Hutchinson - Back creek, Cowra
• Matt Huttlestone - Hardies Creek, Northern Territory
• Dinni Kunoth Kemarre - My footy heroes
• Fiona Lowry - Alone with you
• Guy Maestri - Last light over Ball’s Pyramid (won the 2009 Archibald Prize)
• Robert Malherbe - Govetts Leap
• Noel McKenna - Centennial Park<
• Shaelene Murray - Blossom
• Yukultji Napangati - Untitled



Winner of 2012 Wynn Prize
Waterfall (after Willams) by Imant Tillers

• Theo Papathomas - Figures dancing
• James Powditch - Kornfield XIV
• Mark Rodda - Alabaster Valley, Tasmania
• Margarita Sampson - Anemone incursions III: puss puss
• Alex Seton - Soloist
• Imants Tillers - Namatjira (won the 2012 Wynne Prize)
• Aida Tomescu - Sunburn
• Sokquon Tran - Wombeyan Caves
• Daniel Walbidi - Kirriwirri, Great Sandy Desert
• Annie Hsiao-Wen Wang - Conversations IV
• Susan J White - On the Hawkesbury
• Philip Wolfhagen - Thirteenth journey
• Joshua Yeldham - Yeoman's Bay, Hawkesbury River (also an Archibald finalist 2013)
• Salvatore Zofrea - Morning light

I'm hoping they will produce the online display of the individual works as they did last year

See my post The Wynne Prize 2012 - Selected artists and winner (which was published a little later than planned)

Sam Leach wins Wynne Prize

Sam Leach: Proposal for landscaped cosmos
copyright the artist

Sam Leach has won the Wynne Prize 2010 (AUS$25,000) for his landscape Proposal for landscaped cosmos. His painting style emulates 17th century Dutch painting. The painting for me prompts thoughts of the South Sea Bubble which, given his overall direction and emphasis on painting the offices of the corporate world, is maybe intended as a commentary on the dire state of global financial affairs - but that's just a guess on my part!

I do love his painting though - he captures the style of Dutch landscape painting perfectly. I'll leave it to the Australians to judge whether it reminds them of the Australian landscape.

The painting can be seen from 27 March – 30 May 2010 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales after which it leaves for a tour of Australian Art Galleries (see end).

The Wynne Prize is awarded to what the judges consider to be the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours, or for the best example of figure sculpture by an Australian artist. This year there were 798 entries for the Wynne. The Archibald and Wynne prizes are both judged by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sam Leach has also won the Archibald Prize 2010 (AUS$50,000) with a portrait of Tim Minchin. This is the second year in Archibald’s history that an artist has won both the Archibald and the Wynne prizes in the same year, the first being William Dobell in 1948.

Born in Adelaide in 1973 and based in Melbourne, Leach has a Bachelor of Arts, Honours (Painting) and a Master of Art (Fine Arts) from RMIT University. He won the Metro5 Art Award and the Fletcher Jones Prize in 2006 and the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award in 2007. He has had ten solo shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and has been represented in various group shows. This is his fourth consecutive year in the Archibald Prize.

Sam Leach has been consistently being listed for and winning prizes for his paintings since 2004. What I find fascinating is that his first degree is in economics and that he worked for years in the Australian Tax Office before becoming a full time painter - which provides a powerful message that there is hope for us all! ;)

This list of Wynne Prizewinners from 1897 to the present day is maintained on the website of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

It's great to see a country proud of its landscape and giving prominence to a landscape art prize. I do wish there was something similar for the UK.

Touring dates: For those living in Australia, the touring dates and venues for the exhibition are on the website:

• 11 June — 11 July 2010 Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
• 22 July — 22 August 2010 Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
• 30 August — 24 September 2010 Tamworth Regional Gallery
• 4 October — 27 October 2010 Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery
• 4 November — 5 December 2010 Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre
• 14 December — 18 January 2011 Shoalhaven City Arts Centre
• 27 January — 3 March 2011 Albury Art Gallery and Library Museum