Berkeley Editions Fine Art Prints Artist Biographies

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

FINE ART LIMITED EDITIONSGround Level, 8-16 Soudan Lane (off Hampden Street) Paddington NSW 2021 Australia T +61 2 9357 2222 F +61 2 9357 2244 E [email protected] PO Box 546 Woollahra NSW 1350ABN 57 001 841 998

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ARTHUR BOYD AC OBE BIOGRAPHY (1920-1999)Arthur Boyd remains one of the most respected and internationally acclaimed Australian artists. While his formal art training was minimal, Boyd had the advantage of being born into an illustrious family whose members included judges, artists, writers, merchants and architects. In fact it was Boyds grandfather who taught him the rudiments of painting in the Heidelberg impressionist tradition. He staged his first solo exhibition in 1939. Then, in 1943, after serving in the army, he decided to devote the rest of his life to painting and ceramic sculpture. In over half a century of painting the Australian landscape in its many guises, the richness and vitality of Boyds work never faltered. And, while he spent many years dividing his time between the United Kingdom and Australia, Boyd and his work remain synonymous with the Shoalhaven River area in southern New South Wales. Bundanon, the beautiful Shoalhaven property, which he and his wife Yvonne bequeathed to the nation in 1993 is now a living arts centre and a mecca for art lovers with its grand stone house and garden studio filled with Boyd memorabilia. When Boyd first viewed the Shoalhaven he commented I had done fields before, but I had never seen or touched such rugged terrain before. When I first saw the Shoalhaven it was so foreign that I didnt know how to treat it (The Artist and The River Sandra McGrath, Bay Books 1982). The Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Edmund Capon, remarked few Australian artists have cast their vision across so broad a landscape of ideas and traditions, both real and mythological, as Arthur, and few have sustained their creative powers with such force and energy. Arthur Boyds work is represented in all State galleries throughout Australia as well as many universities, regional and public gallery collections and prestigious private and corporate collections all over the world. In 1970 he was awarded an OBE, in 1979 an AO which was promoted to AC in 1992. In 1995 he was named Australian of the Year. Berkeley Editions published several beautiful images as limited edition prints with Arthur Boyd during the last 20 years of his life. These are some examples:-

Flame Trees & Pulpit Rock Edition of 70

Riverbride II Edition of 70

Riverbride III Edition of 70

Selected Bibliography: Modern Australian Painting 1960-70 K.Bonython; The Art of the Boyds, P.Dobrez and P.Herbst; The Artist and the River - Arthur Boyd and the Shoalhaven, Sandra McGrath, Bay Books 1982; The Art of Arthur Boyd U.Hoff (1986); The Art of Australia, Robert Hughes; Arthur Boyd Retrospective B.Pearch.



BOB MARCHANT BIOGRAPHY (1938 )Bob Marchant was born to a farming family in Dimboola, in the Wimmera region of North Western Victoria. He left the Wimmera at fifteen and, after studying art at Melbournes RMIT, travelled to London where he spent the next twenty years as a successful designer and art director. He returned to Australia and to painting in 1981. The Wimmera with its flat bleached landscape provides the setting for many of Marchants paintings but it is not so much the landscape as the resilient people of the Wimmera whose story he tells. The aunts knitting as they stand ankle deep in the dam to cool off, the rabbit shooters returning with their haul. Writer and art historian Gavin Fry says of Marchants Wimmera series each vignette is invested with simplicity and grandeur which speak of lives lived by an extended family facing hard times together. [he] renders his figures with sculptural massivity, pressing against the frame, too substantial to be contained by the painted rectangle. Australians at leisure sharing the pleasures of communal entertainment at the beach, the cricket, or an agricultural show, are themes Marchant explores with his characteristic eye for acutely observed detail, creating stories that engage the viewer with consummate skill. His Grand Parade at the Sydney Show won the Sulman Prize in 1988. A year later he won the Sulman again with his Catching Yabbies at Five Mile Dam. Bob Marchant and his wife, the ceramicist Inger Marchant, live in Bundeena in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. His work features in many international and national collections from the Australian Embassy in Tokyo to Parliament House Canberra. His work is also represented in many private collections around the world. In 2003 Berkeley Editions published a limited edition print with Bob Marchant titled In Preparation for the Birth.

In Preparation for the Birth: Editon of 40



CHARLES BLACKMAN OBE BIOGRAPHY (1928 )Charles Blackman was born in Sydney and studied at East Sydney Technical College before starting work as a press artist for the Sydney Sun newspaper. It was not until he travelled to Melbourne in 1952 and became involved in the more sympathetic, figurative movement there that Charles Blackmans work gained direction and attracted attention for its individuality. In 1960 Blackman won the Helena Rubinstein Scholarship and following this spent some years in London where he enjoyed notable success. Blackmans symbolic-styled paintings feature recurring images of children, flowers and cats and scenes inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Among his most famous images are those from his 1950s Schoolgirl series which conveys both feelings of vulnerability and menace. Art critic and writer Jean Campbell writes of Blackmans warm humanity and a tender awareness of the everyday personal relationships of the vulnerability of the human condition especially that of children. In 2000 Berkeley Editions was proud to announce the launch of a major portfolio of limited edition prints by Blackman titled The Orpheus Suite. These 12 images were sold individually or as a set in a portfolio box and are among the most passionate and lyrical images Blackman has created. Charles Blackman has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. He is represented in the Musee DArt in Paris, the Contemporary Art Society of London and in Australian State and Regional Galleries. His work also appears in many corporate and private collections in Australia and overseas. He was awarded an OBE in 1977 for services to the Arts. Two images from the Orpheus Suite

Within Without

Edition of 70

Lifesong

Edition of 70

Selected Bibliography: The Paintings of Charles Blackman; The substance of Dreams A. Alvarez (1965); apparition A. Alvarez (1971); Lost Domains N.Amadio (1980); Charles Blackman, Paris Dreaming (Author ?) (1982); Modern Australian Painting 1950-1970 and Modern Australian Painting 1975-1980 K.Bonython; Australian Watercolour Painters J.Campbell (1983); The Years of Hope; Australian Art and Criticism 1958-1968 G.Catalano (1981); The Art of Charles Blackman T.Shapcott (1989).



COLIN LANCELEY AO BIOGRAPHY (1938 ) Dunedin, New Zealand Born in Dunedin New Zealand, Colin Lanceley came to Australia just a year later. In 1954 he was apprenticed as a colour photo engraver in the printing industry and then went on to study at East Sydney Technical College graduating with an Art Diploma in 1960. A year later, together with Michael Brown and Ross Crothall, he formed the Imitation Realist Group and Exhibited work at the Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne and the Rudy Komon Gallery in Sydney. In 1966 The Rubinstein Travelling Scholarship took him to study and work in Italy and the UK and for the following sixteen years he lived and worked in London, exhibiting with the Marlborough Galleries in London, New York and in Europe and also with the Waddington Galleries in London. During this time Lanceleys characteristic style evolved around his longstanding fascination with collage, which has been the basis of his work, virtually from the outset of his career. Lanceley returned to live in Sydney in 1981. He is widely represented in all state galleries, most regional galleries as well as in many prestigious overseas collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern art and the Guggenheim in New York, the Tate and V & A in London and the Stedelijk in Amsterdam. The critic John McDonald says of Colin Lanceley his aesthetic decisions are made with utmost gravity, his themes are tested and worried over for months. To make marks which sidestep those blind alleys of politics and theory, in which so many contemporary artists get lost is, in itself, a valuable goal to make works that are so consistently exuberant that turn every painterly anxiety into a source of strength is an act of sublime determination. In 2001 Berkeley Editions published two limited edition prints with Colin Lanceley titled Fishermans Wharf and Night Garden.

Night Garden: Edition of 50

Fishermans Wharf: Edition of 50

Selected Bibliography: Colin Lanceley (introduction by Robert Hughes) Craftsman House 1987; Three Artists in the Field The Kakadu, 1982.



CRAIG RUDDY BIOGRAPHY : 1968 As a child, Archibald Prize winner Craig Ruddy would wake from his dreams to see the profiles of unfamiliar faces in the shadows of his darkened bedroom. Ruddy, then seven years old and chronically ill with a rare lung disease, kept company with the elusive images, drawing them late into the night. By the age of 16, Ruddy's gift for capturing that intangible essence and energy in his subjects inspired him to pursue a life in art.One of the youngest students to be accepted into Sydney's Randwick Design College, Ruddy went on to study design and fashion illustration. He worked as an art director and designer for advertising and marketing agencies and later as a set designer creating events for major Australian corporations. Despite his successful and lucrative career, Ruddy's passion for painting prompted him to break away and start his life as an artist in earnest, crediting his practice of Qi Gong and Vipassana meditation for giving him the strength and courage to make a go of it. But it was never going to be an easy road. Needing to make a living, Ruddy turned to landscape gardening, using his every spare moment to paint. It was then, in early 2004, that Ruddy was inspired to paint the portrait of Aboriginal acting legend David Gulpilil. Ruddy's decision to enter the portrait, titled 'Two Worlds', in the 2004 Archibald Prize was a decision that would prove to be a major turning point in his career and would catapult him into the international art scene.

He not only won Australia's most prestigious art prize but also picked up the People's Choice Award in both Sydney and Melbourne. The arresting portrait continues to attract worldwide media attention.David Gulpilil by Craig Ruddy



Craig reaction to the fame and notoriety that came his way after winning the Archibald prize was encapsulated in 'Poppy Seeds', a series of emotive portraits, nudes and self studies that was successfully exhibited in November 2004. The series addressed the Tall Poppy Syndrome that often accompanies success. These days, Ruddy spends all of his time in his studio, now surrounded by the real life beauty of the faces which at one time came only to him in the solitude of his empty room. He was short listed for the 2006 Archibald Prize for a diptych, which maps his struggle with the highs and lows of what happens when dreams become reality and he was hung again in the Archibald in 2010 with his portrait of Warwick Thornton The Prince of Darknessand won the Peoples Choice Award for this portrait. In October 2008, Craig undertook his first ever coloured etchings through publisher Berkeley Editions. As he expains it, they depict the human form and the human spirit and their journey in connection with the landscape. The way Craig has drawn from the Outback palette makes these images quintessentially Australia and yet there is something universal about what he is saying. The longer you gaze at them, the more you see. Craig is passionate about what for him is a brand new way of creating. Its been amazing working with this medium, which has a different quality of line to what Im used to do. I was very happy to just go with the process, which is much more complex than I had imagined.

Craig Ruddy working on the etching plates for Nocturnal Flower October 2008

Craig Ruddy multi-plate coloured etchings Embers, Dawn Embrace & Nocturnal Flower



CRISS CANNING BIOGRAPHY 1947 Criss Canning has her studio in an 1860s farm house in the farming district of Ascot, north of Ballarat where she lives with her husband, David Glenn, owner of Lambley Nursery. Together they have created an internationally renowned garden. Plant material from the garden is a major inspiration in her paintings. Cannings brave and exciting use of colour, her beautiful brushwork and her meticulous compositions are much loved by those collectors who have bought her paintings over the last 40 years or so. Criss Canning has held seventeen one woman exhibitions at leading art galleries (most of them sell out shows) in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane as well as exhibiting in numerous group shows both in Australia and overseas. Canning is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and major private collections both in Australia and overseas. The first major retrospective exhibition of Criss Canning, one of Australias foremost contemporary still life painters, was held at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery in February 2007. It was opened by Margaret Olley and then travelled to the Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery in July of the same year. A major monograph by David Thomas with an introduction by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was published by Macmillan to celebrate Criss Canning and her remarkable body of work to coincide with the exhibition. It turned out to be the fastest selling art book in the history of Macmillion Publishers and went on to be reprinted twice. In 2006 Berkeley Editions published a limited edition silkscreen with Criss Canning titled Hakea and Other Seed Pods.

Criss Canning Hakea and Other Seed Pods Medium: Silkscreen Edition of 60 Image Size: 90cm x 64cm COLLECTIONS INCLUDE: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Private collections in London, Hong Kong, Paris, Japan, Canada, U.S.A, U.K and Australia.



DAVID BOYD BIOGRAPHY (1924 ) Melbourne, AustraliaAnother prodigiously talented member of the Boyd family, David Boyd was born in Melbourne in 1924 and went on to study music at the Melbourne Conservatorium until conscripted into the army in 1942. On leaving the army in 1944, he switched from studying music to studying art and enrolled at the Victorian National Gallery Art School. His first distinction was as a potter, briefly, with the Martin Boyd Pottery and then with his wife Hermia. The pair held their first exhibition in Sydney in 1948 and during the fifties and sixties came to be regarded as the leading potters in Australia. David Boyds first serious painting commenced with the Explorer series, a group of symbolic paintings of the Australian explorers. A storm of controversy erupted in Australia over these paintings and also over his subsequent work, which was based on the tragic history of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Monoliths a painting from this series won him the Italian Government Art Scholarship Prize for Australia in 1961. David Boyd moved to Rome with his wife and family in 1962 and he continued painting this series. Paintings from The Tasmanians were exhibited to critical acclaim in solo exhibitions in London and Paris in 1963. Since then David Boyd has held many major exhibitions throughout Australia and also in England and France. David Boyds work has been included in numerous international exhibitions and is represented in major public art galleries, museums and university collections throughout the world. Berkeley Editons has published many limited edition prints with David Boyd, all of which sell out as soon as they are released. Some examples of these prints are shown below.

Return of the Tall Ships 2005

Flinders Ghost 2009

Selected Bibliography: Catalogue, David Boyd Retrospective Exhibition by Bernard Smith, London (1969); The Art of David Boyd by Nancy Benko (1973); The Art of the Boyds by Patricia Dbrez and Peter Herbst (1991). Appointments and Awards: 1993-96 Artist in residence School of Law, Macquarie University of NSW; 1998 Membro albo Doro Del Senato Accademico International Accadamy of Modern Art, Rome, Italy.



DAVID LARWILL BIOGRAPHY (1956 - 2011 ) David Larwill was born in 1956 in Ballarat, Victoria. He studied at the Prahran College of Advanced Education and the Preston Institute of Technology. He has been painting in his distinctive style since his earlier years as a founding member of the famous ROAR Studios in Fitzroy. Influenced by movements as diverse as tribal art, aboriginal art, abstracted figuration of the 1940s and 1950s and the nave style of DuBuffet and Art Brut, Davids paintings are controlled and sophisticated and characterised by their simplified forms and overall geometric patterns. Larwill is now a significant figure in the art world with two recent completely sold out exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. He has successfully established himself and is maintaining a high profile in a competitive field. David is an artist who has harnessed and refined his emotional desire to put paint on canvas. This has enabled him to produce works motivated by emotion and executed in a mature, considered and polished manner. Larwills unique mix of simplicity and sophistication will carry him confidently into the future. He has had many solo exhibitions both in Australia and in London and is represented in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and in Parliament House, Canberra. In 2004 Berkeley Editions published two limited edition prints with David Larwill titled Still Life and Metaphysical.

Still Life: Edition of 50

Metaphysical: Editon of 50

David Larwill passed away in June 2011. Selected Bibliography: The Loti and Victor Smorgon Collection of Contemporary Art, 1987, introduction by J. Buckley. Roar Studios Touring Exhibition, 1992 Shepparton Art Gallery, Joseph Pascoe and Katrina Fraser, May Roar 1995, Traudi Allen, Craftsman House, Sydney. David Larwill by Ken McGregor, Craftsman House, 1997. Selected Reviews and Articles: Bunbury. 1982 Roarsomething to Shout About The Age, Weekender, 27 August Coburn, Elwyn Lynn 2987. From severity to serenity Weekend Australian, 4/5 July Magazine 10 Heathcote, Christopher. 1992 The roaring eighties Art Monthly Australia, No.52, August.FINE ART LIMITED EDITIONSGround Level, 8-16 Soudan Lane (off Hampden Street) Paddington NSW 2021 Australia T +61 2 9357 2222 F +61 2 9357 2244 E [email protected] PO Box 546 Woollahra NSW 1350ABN 57 001 841 998


FRANK HODGKINSON BIOGRAPHY (1919-2001)Frank Hodgkinson was born in Sydney in 1919. As a young man he worked as a lithographers apprentice, then as a commercial artist and illustrator for Sydney and Melbourne newspapers. The Second World War saw him in the Western Desert of North Africa with the Australian Imperial Forces, campaigning against the Vichy French in Syria and then in Papua New Guinea where he was mentioned in dispatches for conspicuous gallantry. Later, as official war artist, Hodgkinson recorded the landing of allied troops in Borneo. After the war, Hodgkinson continued his art studies at Londons Central School of Art and in Paris at La Grand Chaumiere. From 1947 he lived and worked in Paris, Florence, Rome, Madrid, Majorca, the United States, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Solo exhibitions of his paintings have been staged in London, Madrid, New York, Los Angeles and in Australia. His work has appeared in salons in the Musee dArt Moderne, Paris and at Londons Tate and Whitechapel Galleries. From 1971 Hodgkinson became intensely involved with primordial landscapes and the worlds last frontiers. He undertook many journeys to the most remote areas of Papua New Guinea and the Kakadu area of Australias Arnhem Land. Hodgkinson had the ability to abstract his perceptions of the world and transform them into a dazzling mosaic of visual energy. The author Morris West in his introduction to Hodgkinson (Beagle Press 1994) wrote, Frank Hodgkinson is a prodigy. He is a man so various that he hardly gives you the time to focus on any single one talent. He is a painter, a sculptor, an architect, an author, a designer of habitats and ambiences. In 1999 Berkeley Editions published a diptych limited edition print with Frank Hodgkinson, titled Maritime Totems I and Maritime Totems II.

Title: Collagraph: Published:

Maritime Totems I Editon of 50 1999 by Berkeley Editions

Title: Collagraph: Published:

Maritime Totems II Edition of 50 1999 by Berkeley Editions

Selected Bibliography: Australian Painters J.Kroeger 1968; Sepik Diary Richard Griffin 1982; Hodgkinson Lou Klepac 1994.



FRED CRESS AM BIOGRAPHY (1938 2009 ) Fred Cress was born in Poona, India and in 1948, during the turbulent period which followed the granting of Indias independence, the Cress family moved to England and settled in Birmingham. In 1954 Cress went to study at the Birmingham College of Art. There his training taught him much about the discipline of drawing from the model, but little else. Ultimately his inspiration was not to come from the contemporary practice, but from the art of the past, chiefly Goya and Turner. In turning to the past for his paradigms, Cress began a process which continues to preoccupy him. In fact, his modernity has always recognised the role of tradition. Cress settled in Australia in 1961 and applied for a teaching post. He was sent to Wangaratta and then, after two years, took up a lectureship at Caulfield Technical College. In June 1965 he staged his first solo exhibition at the Argus Gallery. The art historian Bernard Smith, reviewing the weekly offering of exhibitions in the Melbourne Age, described Cress as the most stimulating and in many ways the most professionally competent and that his work had something of the menace of Goya. In 1965, Cress left on a study tour to Europe. Before departing he had a painting called Love Me and Leave Me accepted for the McCaughey Prize at the National Gallery of Victoria. The painting addresses a subject which was to become central to his work the male/female relationship. Fred Cress has built a reputation as an intriguing figurative artist an acerbic, pictorial commentator on the contemporary human condition. Human nature and human values underpin the images I create he has said and particularly those aspects that all of us prefer to keep hidden from view. Picture making is important and I enjoy narratives based on everyday existence. To turn the petty into the significant, to give it drama, colour, movement yet fix it as a memorable image thats the aim. Cress spent some years as an abstract artist to learn how to make paint live for itself and then many more as a quasi-abstractionist. This latter phase was particularly productive in 1985 with the Stages and Secrets drawings and paintings. The subject matter of his narrative grew so strong that by 1988 he could no longer contain it within abstracted shapes and he was to produce the Tell Tales series of drawings which were the beginnings of his re-emergence as a figurative artist. 1988 was also the year he won the Archibald Prize and Peoples Prize for his portrait of John Beard. Since then Cress has not looked back and has produced many works dealing with the secret narratives between us. He has placed his dramas in gardens, on table tops and within large groupings of people. Vases with flowers are decorated with people and are the basis of his recent etchings. A distinguishing feature of Cress figuration is that it is not based on photographs. Everything comes from his imagination and his experience of life. The images, therefore, develop an authenticity with which we, as viewers, identify. This disturbs some while amusing others. People think they recognise some of his characters but this is impossible. He is not representing anyone in particular because the aim is to keep the subject as general as possible. One can identify with the behaviour but not those practising it! There is an element of humour to much of his work which Cress feels is essential, in order to cope. Life is so full of surprises yet underlying themes remain the same. The subject is inexhaustible.

Fred Cress passed away on 14 October 2009 after a long battle with cancer.

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Selected Bibliography:

www.fredcress.com (or .net) Stages, Fred Cress, Alan Krell. Wild & Wooley Fred Cress, Gavin Fry. Beagle Press Whispers by Ken McGregor 2007



GARRY SHEAD BIOGRAPHY (1942 ) Sydney, AustraliaGarry Shead is one of Australias most popular and distinctive artists and printmakers. Winner of the 1993 Archibald Prize and the 2004 Dobell Prize for Drawing, Shead was born in Sydney in 1942. Following studies at the National art School he became a scenic artist with ABC TV before staging his first solo exhibition with Watters Gallery in 1966. In 1967 he won the Young Contemporaries Prize and then travelled to Japan before embarking on an expedition to the Sepik Highlands in Papua New Guinea. In 1972 Shead became Artist-in-Residence at the Power Studio, Cite Des Arts, in Paris. In 1981-82 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Michael Karolyi Foundation in Vence, France, where he met his late wife, the Hungarian sculptor Judith Englert. After living in Budapest for a year and travelling widely in Europe, Shead and his wife returned to Australia and in 1987 settled in the small coastal community of Bundeena, south of Sydney. Sheads biographer, Dr Sasha Grishin, notes that Sheads paintings highlight a distinctive love of the Australian landscape. This is evident in his Stockman series of the late 1980s, his gently satirical Monarchy suite of paintings and, most significantly, in his famous D.H.Lawrence series. In 2004 Garry Shead won the 2004 Dobell Prize for Drawing for his diptych Colloquy with John Keats. After winning this prestigious prize, this work was automatically acquired for the Art Gallery of New South Wales permanent collection. From 2002 to the present day, Berkeley Editions has published many limited edition prints with Garry Shead, six based on his famous D.H.Lawrence series of paintings and three from his Stockman series. More recent works include the 2009 multi-plate coloured etching titled The Sacrifice and The Bride (Mount Pleasant) released in June 2010.

Garry Shead The Bride (Mount Pleasant) Year Published: 2010 Multi-plate coloured etching: Edition of 55 Selected Bibliography: The D.H.Lawrence Paintings (1983); Encounters with Royalty (1998) Garry Shead and the Erotic Muse (2001) All by Dr Sasha Griffin (Reader in Art History at the Australian National University).



HELEN NORTON BIOGRAPHY (1961 ) Melbourne, AustraliaHelen Nortons extraordinary life is central to understanding and appreciating her artistic output. Born Helen Joy Rodwell in Melbournes St Kilda in 1961, she left home at sixteen and moved around the country working in a variety of unusual and demanding jobs cook in a roadhouse, rabbit shooter, fox hunter, jillaroo, station cook, shark hunter. Not surprisingly when she came to painting she called on these life experiences and the people and the landscape of the Australian outback as powerful motifs. After roaming through some of the most desolate areas of Australia for many years, Helen Norton settled in Broome in 1985. There she began to paint for the first time since leaving school. Her first solo exhibition was staged at the Broome Regional Art Gallery in 1988. Since then she has come a long way to becoming an artist in her own right. She describes herself as a reporter of the human condition noting that there is always a hidden agenda in my work. Helen Nortons internationally acclaimed work often uses a metaphorical Australian landscape as a backdrop to portray her passionate study of the human condition. Her unique narrative style focuses on the possibility of life being a malleable stage play, with the story dictated according to our cultural perceptions. Her work has featured in over 70 solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas. Helen Norton has become one of Australias most well received artists and her work is included in many major private and international collections. In 2001 Berkeley Editions published two limited edition prints with Helen Norton titled Up The Creek and Cooking the Catch.

Up The Creek: Editon of 70

Cooking The Catch: Edition of 70



JASON BENJAMIN BIOGRAPHY (1971 - )Jason Benjamin is a hopeless romantic; his paintings are pure poetry, beautifully mysterious and sensitively rendered. He explores the desire to hold onto a memory, feeling or moment in time regardless of the reality of its ephemeral and intangible nature. Born in Melbourne, Benjamin travelled to New York for his art training at the Pratt Institute and returned to settle in Sydney. Benjamins evocative works are visually stunning, modern neoclassical pieces. Whether his choice of subject is a sweeping landscape, a floral composition or a beautiful nude, Benjamins paintings have a mysterious, haunting edge to them. They possess a monumental cinematic quality that is unique, with accompanying titles that conjure up an alternative viewpoint. His work shows a sensitive understanding of form and light, possessing subtle tonalities within these strong compositions. It is only rarely that an artist of such high calibre is accompanied with nation-wide popular appeal, but Jason Benjamin has been singled out as an artist whose work is both appealing and collectable. The Australian Art Collector magazine shortlists Benjamin in their Top 50 Most Collectable Australian Artists alongside the critically acclaimed names of Blackman, Olsen, Whiteley, Boyd and Nolan. An impressive career to date, he has exhibited successfully across Australia, frequently in Tokyo Japan and also in Hong Kong, Italy, London and New York. He has twice been a finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery NSW and in 2005 he won the Packing Room Prize with a portrait of actor Bill Hunter called Staring Down the Past. Berkeley Editions has published several beautiful multi-plate coloured etchings with Jason Benjamin over recent years. Below are examples of this fine work.

More Than He Could Hold Edition of 55

The Crows Edition of 60

Represented in many important collections, Benjamin makes an exceptional contribution to the ongoing importance of the Australian landscape genre. Collections: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Macquarie Bank, Sydney Art Bank, Sydney Ballarat Art Gallery, Ballarat Shepparton Art Gallery, Shepparton Mornington Peninsular Art Gallery, Victoria The Derwent Collection, Tasmania Gold Coast City Gallery Significant private collections throughout Australia and overseas



JASPER KNIGHT BIOGRAPHY 1978 Jasper Knight was born in Sydney in 1978 and remains Sydney based. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 and 2010 Jasper was a finalist in the Archibald Prize and he was also exhibited in the Wynne Prize in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, Jasper was awarded an Australia Council New Work grant, the Freedman Foundation Scholarship and The Rocks Art Prize. He has also been a finalist in the Blake Prize, The ABN-Amro Prize, The Mosman Art Prize, The Helen Lempriere Prize and the Brett Whiteley Prize. Jasper has shown in numerous venues, including every major artist-run space in Sydney. He started the Half Dozen Artist-run Initiative and it has since shown over 150 artists in four countries. In 2007 he opened Chalk Horse Gallery with the generous support of the Australia Council and the City of Sydney. Jasper had shows in 2007 in Berlin, London (Tidemark, COSA), Melbourne (Metro 5), Perth (Greenhill Gallery) and Sydney. In 2008 his work was exhibited in Adelaide (Adelaide Festival of Arts Exhibition Feb/March), Brisbane at the Brisbane Art Fair, Sydney, Hong Kong and Perth. In 2008 Berkeley Editions published two silkscreens with Jasper, which was a diptych titled Resolve and General VIII and Mesina and Merit.

Resolve and General VIII

Mesina and Merit

These images were based on a series of work he did in London in 2007 of tug boats on the River Thames. It was an exciting challenge to use the different medium of silkscreen for these two works and I am delighted with the result. Collections Sydney Port Authority, The Rocks, Sydney, The Premiers Office, NSW State Government, Sydney; Random House Australia, Milsons Point, Sydney; Australian Consulate, Makati, Manila, Philippines; Baker and McKenzie; Various private collections.



BIOGRAPHY: KERRIE LESTER (1953 - )Kerrie Lester was born in 1953 in Sydney and has lived and worked from her Mosman studio since 1989. Lester is renowned for her distinctive stitched canvas paintings, offering a unique perspective of her immediate environment and surroundings artworks poised between painting, drawing, sculpture and weaving. With an art career that has been meteoric, Lester has held over 21 solo exhibitions spanning over a 30 year period, her first held immediately after graduating from art school. In conjunction, Lester has been represented in many important group exhibitions including the Biennale of Sydney in 1979 and Australian Perspecta in 1981 and 1985. Lester has been a finalist for fourteen consecutive years for the prestigious Archibald Competition and winning the Packers Prize in 1979, as well as receiving a number of major art awards and commissions. Her work is represented in many public, corporate and private art collections across Australia. In addition, Kerrie has been an influential educator, lecturing at the City Art Institute Sydney, the National Art School Sydney and Seaforth Technical College. In 2007 Berkeley Editions published a multi-plate coloured etching with Kerrie Lester titled Catch This, a quirky image taken from a trip to Pittwater in Sydney.

Catch This: Edition of 45 Collections Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney Australian National Museum, Canberra BHP, Australia Dusseldorp Collection, Horsham Regional Art Gallery Horsham Regional Gallery National Gallery of Australia, Canberra National Gallery of Australia, The Print Collection National Portrait Gallery, Canberra New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale

Newcastle Regional Art Gallery Philip Morris Collection, National Gallery of Australia State Bank of NSW The Childrens Hospital, Westmead, SydneyFINE ART LIMITED EDITIONSGround Level, 8-16 Soudan Lane (off Hampden Street) Paddington NSW 2021 Australia T +61 2 9357 2222 F +61 2 9357 2244 E [email protected] PO Box 546 Woollahra NSW 1350ABN 57 001 841 998


MARGARET OLLEY, AC, AO BIOGRAPHY (1923 2011 ) Born in Lismore in 1923, Margaret Olley studied at the Brisbane Central Technical College then at East Sydney Technical College graduating in 1945 with first class honours. She went on to study and travel extensively to France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, China, Russia and Cambodia. During the 1940s she became a prominent figure in the Sydney art scene and joined other artists such as Donald Friend at Hill End. Olley held her first solo exhibition in 1948 and has held at least one exhibition annually. She is known for her colourful interiors and still life paintings. She is also widely known for being the subject of the famous William Dobell portrait which won the Archibald Prize in 1948. Olleys close friend, the Australian entertainer Barry Humphries writes A visit to Margaret Olley is certainly an unforgettable experience. Her house is a series of studios, filled burgeoning with furniture, textiles and objects that she incorporates into her ravishing nature mortes. In each room and in various stages of completion, stands a painting, propped sometimes against a chair or flung with seeming carelessness upon a sofa this is no sign of so formal an accoutrement as an easel. A simple table, covered with gourds and tangerines and upon which might also rest a Turkish pot, a jar of flannel flowers or a dish of desiccated raspberries, stands against a black and gilded Chinese screen. In the foreground, Miss Olleys painting of this subject is casually appended. It is not difficult to image that she was once (in 1959) the proprietrix of an antique store. Margaret Olley is a legend in the art world both as an artist and a generous philanthropist. Her paintings are highly sought after by public and private collectors both in Australia and all around the world. In 1991 Margaret Olley was awarded the Australian Office Order of Australia (AO) and in 2006 she was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the Queens Birthday Honors list. In 2007 Margaret Olley was appointed a Fellow of the National Art School. She was only the third Fellow to be appointed, joining Peter Rushforth and John Coburn. Berkeley Editions has had the privilege of publishing several limited edition prints with Margaret Olley over the years, the latest being a beautiful multi-plate coloured etching titled Marigolds and Fruits which image typifies what Margaret Olley is best known for, her still life compositions.

Marigolds and Fruits 2009: Edition of 80 Sadly Margaret Olley passed away on 26 July 2011 at her home in Paddington, Sydney Selected Bibliography: Margaret Olley, a Biography by Christine France (1990); Margaret Olley by Barry Pearce (1996); Margaret Olley Recent paintings (1997). Far From A Still Life a biography by Meg Stewart (2005).th



BIOGRAPHY MARTIN SHARP OA (1942 - )Regarded as this countrys most prominent Pop artist, Martin Sharp has made significant contributions to Australian culture since the early 60s, with his posters and record covers in particular receiving international recognition. Martin Sharp began his career at art school contributing to the magazine The Arty Wild Oat along with fellow artists Garry Shead and John Firth-Smith. Martins contributions were noticed by Richard Neville, Editor of the University of NSW Thuranka and by Richard Walsh, Editor of Sydney University magazine Honi Soit. Both editors wanted to publish their own magazine and asked Sharp and Shead to become contributors. Australian Oz magazine hit the streets on April Fools Day, 1963. The popularity of Oz magazine continued to increase during the years it was published and gained Martin Sharp sufficient following to prompt his first one man exhibition at the Clune Galleries in Sydney in 1965. After overturning convictions for printing an obscene publication in 1966, Sharp left Sydney for Londons pop art scene where he and Neville established London Oz. As well as being Oz art director and cartoonist, Sharp designed album covers and posters for Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan and wrote lyrics for band Cream. In 1969 Sharp returned to Australia and was instrumental in setting up the Yellow House, a multimedia art space. He also became involved with the Nimrod Theatre at this time. In 1973 Sharp, Richard Liney and Tim Lewis began redecorating the entrance towers and face at Luna Park. Recurring themes in Sharps work include entertainer Tiny Tim and Arthur Staces copperplate writing of the word Eternity. Two of Martins most compelling paintings are works in progress; Pentecost and Courage My Friend. Whereas Courage My Friend is bright with simple direct composition, Pentecost is a more complex work Appropriating images from Matisse the table and the leopard skin rug and the colour red; Magritte the cloud bird; Van Gogh the chair; Antoine De Saint Exupery the star and the landscape with the Southern Cross and Australia by Sharp and the heart ash as the eye of the dove by a dear friend, the late Edda Walker. The flames are from Pentecost as in the tongues of the holy spirit. Like much of Martins work, this painting has to do with ideas, the intellect, refined composition and colour. What else would one expect from an artist whose influences are the History of Art, Vincent Van Gogh, Tiny Tim, icons of contemporary culture, the Bible, other great books, songs and more songs and whose landscape is that of the imagination?

Pentecost Continued Silkscreen Size: 87cm x 60cm Edition of 40FINE ART LIMITED EDITIONSGround Level, 8-16 Soudan Lane (off Hampden Street) Paddington NSW 2021 Australia T +61 2 9357 2222 F +61 2 9357 2244 E [email protected] PO Box 546 Woollahra NSW 1350ABN 57 001 841 998


MELISSA EGAN BIOGRAPHY (1959 ) Sydney, Australia Melissa Egan was born in Sydney in 1959. She attended the World College of South East Asia in Singapore and then gained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Australian National University. She also holds a Diploma of Education from the Canberra College of Advanced Education. Creating paintings is a part of Melissa Egans everyday life and many of her subjects are drawn from childhood memories, marriage and motherhood. Her family, friends and the day to day tasks she performs provide a plateau on which she builds her works. Egan views herself more as a creator than as an artist. Labels concern her. She began painting as a child and for her, becoming a successful artist is the realisation of a life-long passion. Balance and harmony prevail in Egans work. If I can achieve an overall balance in my paintings then other components have usually been achieved in a spontaneous and unconscious manner. The Australian landscape provides the backdrop for her paintings and figures. She uses the landscape as a stage for her actors. Egan says while figures predominate in the majority of the work, it is their interconnectedness with their environment that lends plausibility to their existence. To me, the landscape, the figures and the animals interrelate with one another to be of equal importance. Melissa Egans work is represented in corporate and private collections in Australia and overseas. She has been a finalist in the Portia Geach Memorial Award, The Sulman Prize, the Doug Moran Portraiture Prize and the Blake Prize. In 2002 and 2003 Berkeley Editions published two limited edition prints with Mellissa Egan titled Girl on a Swing and My Kite.

Girl on a Swing 2002 Edition of 50

My Kite 2003 Edition of 50



RAY CROOKE OA - BIOGRAPHY (1922- ) Ray Crooke was born in Melbourne in 1922. His lifelong passion for nature developed as a boy and early on he entertained the idea of becoming a natural history illustrator. At 15 however he joined a Melbourne advertising agency and at night attended classes at Swinburne Technical College. The agency job ended with the outbreak of war and Crooke went on to study art full time at Swinburne before enlisting in the army. His service years saw him in Western Australia, North Queensland, Borneo and Thursday Island, places that would feature dramatically in his later work. After the war Crooke completed his art studies at Swinburne and held his first solo exhibition in 1948 at Melbournes Kosminsky Gallery. Crooke returned to Thursday Island in 1949 and worked as a trochus diver. In 1951 he married June Bethel and the couple settled in Cairns before moving back to Thursday Island where Crooke worked for the Anglican Diocese, an experience that was crucial to his subsequent development as a painter. The cool, Gauguin-like portrayal of island life that emerged in his work soon won him wide acclaim. Crooke returned to Melbourne in 1955 and in 1959 held a successful solo exhibition at Australian Galleries Melbourne. Now, highly sought after by major galleries, he returned to Cairns and with the picturesque Yorkeys Knob as his base, travelled the tropics, the Gulf country, central Queensland, Fiji and Tahiti, creating some of the major pictures of his career. The experience of life in the tropics became a key element in his work. In 2003 and 2005 Berkeley Editions published two limited edition prints with Ray Crooke titled Fijian Village and Island Interior.

Fijian Village 2003:

Edition of 70

Island Interior 2005:

Edition of 55

Ray Crookes work is in the National Gallery of Australia, all state and many regional galleries. His murals grace Australia House in London and his Painting The offering 1971, is in the Vatican Museum collection. Ray Crooke won the Archibald prize in 1969 with a portrait of his friend, the writer George Johnston. In 1993 he was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to the visual arts.



SALVATORE ZOFREA BIOGRAPHY (1947 ) ItalySalvatore Zofrea migrated with his family to Australia from Italy at the age of nine. At fourteen he enrolled at the Julian Ashton Art School, where he studied for the next five years. He soon evolved his own highly expressionistic style whose imagery and vigour is steeped in his Calabrian background. Zofrea works in oils, woodcuts and frescos which he studied in Italy in 1985 through a Churchill Fellowship. His fresco based on ray Lawlers play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is located in the foyer of the Sydney Opera House. Inspired by artists like Durer and particularly Paul Gauguin, Zofrea was drawn to the medium of the woodcut and had his first solo exhibition in 1990 with the Odyssey series. His Capricornia Suite documents the labours of Italian migrants in the Queensland canefields while his monumental series of woodcuts Appassionata documents the story of his life. Zofreas great life project however, is to paint all one hundred and fifty images from the Book of Psalms. The Quercianella Series is based on Psalm 40 and features scenes from the seaside town of Quercianella in Tuscany. Salvatore Zofreas work can be seen at the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, in major state and regional collections and in the Vatican Museum in Rome. In 1995 the Italian Government awarded him the title of Cavaliere (Knighthood) for his contribution to art in Australia. Berkeley Editions has published several limited edition prints with Salvatore Zofrea, most recent being Afternoon at Quercianella and Girl in Afternoon Caf which were launched by Edmund Capon at the Gallery of New South Wales in 2005.

Afternoon at Quercianella Woodcut: Edition of 25

Girl in Afternoon Caf Woodcut: Edition of 25

Selected Bibliography: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Greengrocer (Quadrant, March 1982); Salvatore Zofrea S.Claire & A.Waldman (1983); The Psalms of Life (Andrew Sayers 2008)FINE ART LIMITED EDITIONSGround Level, 8-16 Soudan Lane (off Hampden Street) Paddington NSW 2021 Australia T +61 2 9357 2222 F +61 2 9357 2244 E [email protected] PO Box 546 Woollahra NSW 1350ABN 57 001 841 998


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