Fred WILLIAMS
Australia 1927 – Australia 1982
England 1951-56

Landscape with water ponds 1965-67
oil on canvas
signed: l.l.
153.0 (h) x 184.0 (w) cm
Private collection
© estate of Fred Williams

The motif of small dark ponds in the landscape reappeared in a number of Williams’s paintings of the mid-to-late 1960s. Landscape with water ponds is one of the most impressive of these. Here dark ponds are located within a richly layered ground that Williams worked on over a long period. Near the centre an old tree trunk, a prominent feature on the Upwey property, resides like a silent witness to fires of the past.

This work brings together aspects of the classic Upwey format with elements of the Green cloud and owl paintings. On 23 February 1967 Williams wrote in his diary: ‘I try to make it a composite painting … in the hope of summing up what I have been doing in the last few years.’