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)

The Wynne Prize 2012 - Selected artists and winner

The Wynne Prize for landscape painting or figure sculpture seeks to identify the best contemporary landscape painting in Australia or figure sculpture of Australian scenery.

Apart from the prestige, the monetary value of the prize for this art competition is US$35,000 in 2012. (£22,716 / US$36,032)

I don't think there has been enough Australian Art on this blog to date so prepare for a surfeit!

This post identifies both the finalists and the 2012 winner of The Wynne Prize and says something about the history of the Wynne Prize.

[I was writing my post about the 2013 Prize and came back to reference this one - which I can well remember writing - only to discover I'd not quite finished it and it wasn't published it - so a year late here it is!]

Wynne Prize 2012 - Finalists

The 32 finalists cover the range of ways in which artists in Australia interpret their landscape - see below for images of their entries and links to their websites

BELOW are the finalists.  

• Click the links in the name to see the selected artist's website, blog or gallery.  
• Click this link to see the images produced by the 32 finalists for the Wynne Prize 2012 - and then on the image to see an image in more detail. (Tip:  If you start with the first and then press the arrow to the right of the image you can work your way through all 32 images)

I've also included a sentence about each work - taken from the page dedicated to the selected artwork, where artists in general have a lot more to say about their work. I think these commentaries will give all readers of this blog pause for through about the way landscape art can be stimulated and interpreted.

I recommend that people look through all the images if you're in any way interested in landscape art.

I've commented on some but not all of the artworks.  Do let me know what you think too and identify which are your favourites.

I sooooooo wish we had a prize like this in the UK!