Fred Williams, Circle Landscape, Upwey, an etching and aquatint

Australia, AD 1965-66

The Australian painter and printmaker Fred Williams (1927-82) is well known for his personal vision of the Australian landscape. Trained at the National Gallery School of Victoria in Melbourne, Williams learnt to etch at the Central School in London (1951-56) where he was much influenced by Walter Sickert's music hall etchings. On his return to Australia in 1957 he developed his own unique style. By using notations of dots and dashes all over his prints he introduced abstract elements to his work, while retaining recognizable features of the dry, scrubby landscape.

The impression shown here is from the fourth state of the print, and it is one of five which were printed with an unevenly wiped, stormy sky. Williams made it after moving to Upwey in the Dandenongs outside Melbourne in 1963. There he worked on a major landscape series in painting and etching.

The composition is unusual for its circular format. According to one story, it was derived from a view of the landscape glimpsed by Williams in the round wing mirror of his car while he was driving through rural Victoria looking for motifs. Williams's diary, however, suggests that he also had in mind the circular rose windows of Gothic cathedrals that he had visited on a study trip to Europe in 1964.

J. Mollison, A singular vision: the art of (Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1989)

J. Mollison, Fred Williams: etchings (Woolahra, New South Wales, 1968)