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New UWA art collection book

Published by the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, A partial view: The University of Western Australia art collection contains reproductions of over 130 works by 100 artists in the collection and short, informative entries on each of them. The artists illustrated in the book have been selected both for their individual importance and strength of their works and the role they have played in art in Australia and Western Australia, as well as for their significance, value or uniqueness in the collection.

Works discussed in the book range from a tiny 1896 watercolour of the Perth foreshore by Ernest Stocks through to the huge tiled painting by Imants Tillers which the Gallery bought in 2008 and which featured in this year’s PIAF show. They range, also, from two of the Sidney Nolan’s works through his peers, Williams and Ian Fairweather, through to WA figures like Howard Taylor and Robert Juniper and to contemporary women artists like Jo Darbyshire and Holly Story.

The book also includes images of works by artists who produced the work when they were in their twenties — Fred Williams’ Burning off was painted when he was only 20, Max Pam’s Herat, Afghanistan was photographed at 22, Robert Juniper produced untitled (The Founding of Australia) at 27, and Nigel Thompson painted Men Seen at 28. Interestingly, almost everything in the collection was acquired either by UWA or by the person who subsequently donated it within just a few years of it being produced — the collection has been built with and from contemporary art.

The works and artists discussed in the book are also intended to be in dialogue with one another, jumping across periods to make connections, engage in arguments and draw rich parallels. From iconic post war paintings to the unusual and eclectic and onto contemporary works, they can all be used to tell fascinating stores of Australia and Australian art. The Collection has since grown to be the largest public collection, and the most valuable in the state, apart from the State collection held at AGWA. It now has nearly 3,000 objects and nearly 1,000 artists represented.

The book is available in soft cover for $39.95 and hard cover for $59.95. ISBN: 978 1 876793 18 0. The book has been made possible through the Gordon Darling Foundation, the Friends of Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and The University of Western Australia.