Fred
WILLIAMS
Australia
1927
–
Australia
1982
England 1951-56
China sketchbook
1976
gouache on paper
closed
36.5 (h)
x
26.5 (w)
x
3.7 (d)
cm
Private collection
© estate of Fred Williams
Williams travelled to China on a study tour in 1976. His wife, Lyn Williams, had coordinated a Gallery Society group of the National Gallery of Victoria studying Asian art, especially Chinese ceramics, and as a result was invited to join a research trip under the auspices of the Chinese government.
Before his departure Fred Williams’s friend and gallery representative, Rudy Komon gave him a large sketchbook, which he turned into a marvellous visual diary during his travels from Beijing to Canton. Largely painted in hotel rooms, his impressions vary from recollections of great works of art to propaganda posters and intimate studies of daily life. He also recorded images from a wonderful journey down the Li (or Likiang) River in Kweilin surrounded by high mountains. The ways these diverse images were selected and depicted on the individual pages make this a very personal treasure-trove of memory.