1942 Born, Sydney
1959-68 Worked on pastoral properties in Western Qld and in the Riverina
1969-72 Lived and worked in London. Began to paint.
1973-76 Bachelor of Arts (Hons), University of NSW
1977 Member of Australian Watercolour Institute
1979 Travelled to the UK
1981-84 Vice-President of Australian Watercolour Institute
1987 Officially invited to Antarctica with Jan Senbergs and Bea Maddock
1991 Residency in Ipswich and West Moreton Coalfields, Queensland
“Probably Australia’s finest watercolour artists.”
John Coburn, 17 November 1996
“Perhaps the best known is John Caldwell, who lives at Blackheath and continues a long exploration of rugged landscape in some of the most accomplished work one is ever likely to see.”
Elizabeth Fortescue, Arts Editor, Sunday Telegraph, 25 April 2004
“I do not think even his admirers necessarily know what an exceptional and generally unacknowledged artist we have here.”
Giles Auty, Weekend Australian, 26-27 May 2001
“An artist, who, in the craft and technique of his medium, is the equal of any artist in Australia working from the landscape.”
John Millington, Courier Mail, 25 June 1998
John Caldwell is one of Australia’s master landscape artists, with more than forty solo exhibitions, twice selected for the AGNSW Wynne prize, and receiving numerous awards including the Art Gallery of NSW’s Trustees Watercolour Prize in 1984 and 1987. His work is represented in many Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Artbank, and the Holmes à Court collection.
The primary focus of Caldwell’s work is the natural landscape where there is little or no evidence of human presence. Caldwell begins many of his landscape paintings in the field, recording details and general impressions with drawings and the reference material that results in his finished studio work.
Works focus on journeys around New South Wales, Western Australia, the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, the Grampians and Great Ocean Road in Victoria and Sydney’s Blue Mountains where he has his studio.
Some of his images are specific to detailed locations, whilst others are concerned more with place memory.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2012
- Last updated:
- 2012
