Man with Fish Spear

Artist Russell Drysdale (Bognor Regis, England, 1912 - 1981)

Date1957

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 101.9 cm, Width: 76.5 cm
Frame: Height: 123.8 cm, Width: 98.3 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1958 with income from the Macdonald Bequest.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG003182

Keywords

About MeIt was the famous Australian artist Sir Sydney Nolan who called Russell Drysdale 'the most Australian of us all' and indeed it was Drysdale who was the first non aboriginal Australian painter to discover the Outback as a subject. His paintings capture the relentless, parching heat, made even hotter by the red colouration of the dry earth and the red dust that permeates the air.

Drysdale was fascinated by the outback and its inhabitants and wrote of them 'His gesturing hands, anatomically yours, are comported in a different manner. The eloquence of agile fingers drawing in the dust, or feet that have never been encased in boots or shoes, horned with heavy skin, pressed by hard and constant movement. Through them you glimpse another world. Hard, hot and stony ground, of fingers skilled in the fashioning of implements and the skinning of game'.