Abbreviation | AWI |
---|---|
Formation | 1923 |
Type | Non-profit |
Purpose | Visual arts |
Headquarters | Sydney, Australia |
Region served | Australia |
Membership | By invitation |
Official language | English |
President | David van Nunen |
Main organ | Committee |
Website | awi |
The Australian Watercolour Institute (AWI) is a non-profit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolour painting in Australia. It was founded in 1923 by six painters in Sydney, and was modeled after the Royal Watercolour Society and the American Watercolor Society.
The AWI's first exhibition occurred at Hordern and Sons' art gallery in 1924. [1] A students' exhibition began in 1930. Until 1974, the AWI met in a variety of places and the annual exhibitions were held in different galleries. In that year, it received a grant enabling the AWI to rent space in a building on Sydney's Sussex Street. A reciprocal exhibition with the American Watercolor Society occurred in 1975, and in 1977, an AWI exhibition toured New Zealand. The international presence expanded to include Mexico City, Mexico; Spain; Vancouver, Canada; Hong Kong; and Korea (4th Asian Grand Watercolour Festival, Busan Biennale). [2]
The founding members were J. Bennett, Alfred James Daplyn, Albert Henry Fullwood, Benjamin Edwin Minns, Martin Stainforth and Charles Ephraim Smith Tindall. Invited foundation members included Albert Collins, John Eldershaw, Hans Heysen, Norman Lindsay, Sydney Long, Arthur Streeton, John D Moore, J. W. Tristram and Blamire Young. [3] Past presidents include George Duncan and Hal Missingham. Other notable members include Ronald Steuart, winner of the 1958 Wynne Prize, and Robert Wade, winner of the 1986 "Advance Australia Medal" for outstanding contribution to Australian watercolour. [4] While membership was by invitation, [5] it was not a requirement for exhibiting at the annual exhibition, such as the example of Heysen. [6] Jean Isherwood's first exhibited work with the AWI in 1934 was a small painting, but thereafter, she became a frequent exhibitor in major art exhibitions. In 2006, ten percent of the membership were recipients of honours awarded by the Australian state (Australia Honours). [7]
AWI published its first book, Australian Watercolour Institute: 75th anniversary 1923–1998 on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 1998. Its second book, The Australian Watercolour Institute: A Gallery of Australia's Finest Watercolours, was published in 2006. [8] The 2006 edition reproduces over 150 contemporary Australian watercolour works, as well as forty historical ones, and includes essays that document Australia's watercolouring history. [9]
Sir Hans Heysen was an Australian artist. He became a household name for his watercolours of monumental Australian gum trees. One of Australia's best known landscape painters, he is remembered for his depictions of sheep and cattle among massive gum trees against a background of atmospheric effects of light, of men and animals toiling in the Australian bush, and arid landscapes in the Flinders Ranges. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford, is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.
Jean de Courtenay Isherwood OAM, FRAS, AWI, (1911–2006), was an Australian watercolour and oil painter, and teacher, renowned for her colourful depictions of the Australian countryside.
Colin Robert Andrew Laverty was an Australian medical practitioner and was the first to confirm that the human papillomavirus was much more common in the cervix than previously thought and, in 1978, he suggested that this virus be considered as possibly involved in the causation of cervical cancer. He was also a prolific art collector.
Albert E. Collins was an Australian painter, teacher and actor born in New Zealand. After a successful career in painting and teaching he joined ABC radio, where he gave pleasure to a generation of children as "Joe" of the Children's Session and the main character in the long-running serial "The Wide-awake Bunyip".
Sir John William Ashton, OBE, ROI was a prolific Australian Impressionist artist and director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1937 to 1943.
Kenneth Frank Charles Woolley, BArch, Hon DSc Arch Sydney LFRAIA, FTSE, was an Australian architect. In a career spanning 60 years, he is best known for his contributions to project housing with Pettit and Sevitt, four time Wilkinson Award-winning architect, including three times for his own house, the first being the 1962 Woolley House in Mosman, and his longstanding partnership with Sydney Ancher and Bryce Mortlock. He is regarded as being a prominent figure in the development of the Sydney School movement and Australian vernacular building.
Robert Hague, is an Australian artist living and working in Melbourne, Victoria. He is best known for his metal and marble sculpture and his detailed lithographic print work.
Bertrand James Waterhouse OBE, FRAIA, FRIBA was an English-born Australian architect and artist.
Elwyn (Jack) Lynn was an Australian artist, author, art critic and curator.
Rodney Armour Milgate was an Australian painter and playwright. He was a Professor of the Visual Arts School of the (then) City Art Institute, University of NSW and newsreader.
Bernard Ollis OAM is a British-Australian artist, painter and advocate for arts education. He lives and works in Sydney and Paris.
Peter Laverty (1926–2013) was a painter, print maker, art educator and gallery director. In 1971 to become Head of the National Art School, Sydney, Australia and was Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1971 to 1977.
Lucy Culliton is an Australian artist, based in Hartley. She is known for her paintings of landscapes and still life.
New England Regional Art Museum
Margaret Coen was an Australian artist, known for her watercolours, paintings of flowers, landscapes and still life works. Her paintings and personal papers are held in national collections.
Howard Hinton was an Australian art patron and benefactor. A thwarted artist due to shortsightedness, he visited many of the great galleries of Europe in his youth. At age 24 he migrated to Australia and quickly associated with leading artists of the Heidelberg School and the bohemian artists' camps around Sydney Harbour in the 1890s. He built a successful career in shipping and, along with a family inheritance, used his moderate wealth to support waves of Australian artists in the first half of the twentieth century. Through extensive donations to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and particularly the Armidale Teachers' College he became one of the greatest benefactors in Australian art history.
Frances Dolina Ellis was an artist, printmaker and teacher who lived, worked and exhibited in both Australia and New Zealand. Ellis was well-known in the arts community in New Zealand and whilst living in Australia she had a significant professional relationship with artist and art teacher Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo.
Anna Glynn is an Australian visual artist whose diverse work spans the mediums of painting, drawing, installation, moving image, sound and sculpture. Her works have been shown in multiple exhibitions and are represented in the collections of numerous public galleries.
Harold Brocklebank Herbert (1891–1945) was an early 20th century Australian painter and printmaker, an illustrator and cartoonist. A traditionalist, as an art teacher he promoted representational painting, and as a critic was an influential detractor of modernism. He was the first war artist to be appointed for Australia in the Second World War, serving for 6 months with the Australian Infantry Forces in Egypt in 1941 and in the Middle East in 1942.