Fred Williams – master of abstract landscape
An exhibition of paintings and etchings by the late great Fred Williams is a rare opportunity for art lovers and collectors.
Of all the great Australian landscape painters – and there are a few – Fred Williams looms as perhaps the greatest. Some may contest that, but he understood the landscape and was able to portray it in a visual language of his own making.
He was, by all accounts, a down-to-earth fellow, but now his work has an almost mystical quality. To see a suite of works come onto the market is a rare and wonderful thing, particularly for serious collectors.
So, the current exhibition of his work at Philip Bacon galleries is an opportunity to see works by Williams that you would not have seen before.
Williams is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most significant modernist painters and printmakers, known for revolutionising how the Australian landscape is depicted. Rather than painting traditional, picturesque scenes, he abstracted the bush to capture its essential “bones” and textures.
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In a catalogue essay, Philip Bacon quotes the artist: I haven’t been trying to impose anything on the landscape; I’ve simply let the landscape come to me as it were.
“A Fred Williams exhibition is always a major event in any gallery’s calendar, and this exhibition of 10 oil paintings and seven gouaches is certainly a highlight of the 2026 year for Philip Bacon Galleries,” Bacon writes.
“Lyn Williams AC, the artist’s widow and executor of his estate, has carefully curated this group of exquisite works with her usual sensitivity and informed knowledge of her late husband’s oeuvre.“
Some of the artworks have been exhibited in major public galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia, TarraWarra Museum of Art and McClelland Gallery, while others have remained in Lyn Williams’ private collection until now.
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Much has been written about Fred Williams and his preeminent position in Australia’s artistic firmament since his premature death in 1982, and he is widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest artists.
This focused exhibition underlines why this is so. It highlights Williams’ strength as a painter whose inspiration often emerged from the unique qualities of landscapes around him, such as Cottles Bridge, the Avenel Gorge and Yan Yean.
In some works, trees seem like cuneiform symbols in the horizontal landscape. Like William Robinson (another of Bacon’s artists), Fred Williams saw the landscape in his own unique way and his classic works are instantly recognisable. No-one else could have painted them.
The work on the cover of the main catalogue is eye-catching and quite fun. It is a strongly figurative expressionistic piece entitled Yan Yean II (Dog Chasing Possum) and, yes, there is the dog and the possum scaling the amazing tree in an attempt to flee.
It’s a more narrative work than others and is all the more interesting for that. The etchings are remarkably interesting and again the symbols look like a kind of cuneiform or hieroglyphs, particularly in a work such as Landscape in Upwey. Fascinating to see how his visual language developed and to marvel in it.
The cumulative effect of all this work by Williams viewed in an exhibition is quite uplifting and breathtaking, to say the least.
And while many of the works are, well, expensive (some as much as $500,000), there are some quite affordable limited-edition etchings for between $4000 and $12,500. One of these might be just the way to start a collection of Australian art. Just a thought.
Fred Williams continues at Philip Bacon Galleries, Fortitude Valley, until August 8.
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