Fred WILLIAMS
Australia 1927 – Australia 1982
England 1951-56

Snow storm, Koscuisko 1976-77
oil on canvas
signed lower left
101.6 (h) x 183.0 (w) cm
Private collection
© estate of Fred Williams

In January of 1975 Fred Williams and his family stayed with friends Ray and Diana Kidd in the snow country of the Kosciusko National Park, in New South Wales. He was entranced by the changing cloud formations and snow patterns in the region.

In Snow storm, Kosciusko, he explored the curved snow-capped horizon line in contrast to the straight horizons of his 1960s Upwey works. The height of the mountainous terrain is accentuated by the vertical composition. The shapes formed by patches of snow in the ranges fascinated Williams and he wrote of creating ‘portraits’ of them in a number of his works.

He experimented with a light palette in a number of his summer images of the snowy mountains. Here he captures small red blooms in bleached grasses exposed to extreme conditions, the gathering and billowing low clouds and crisp icy blue summer sky giving a feeling of this cool-climate environment.