Australia’s oldest working artist and former Archibald winner Guy Warren has died overnight at the age of 103. “We are saddened to hear of the passing of Guy Warren this morning,” King Street Gallery, the Sydney gallery that represents him announced on Instagram.
Who was Guy Warren ?
Guy Wilkie Warren AM was an Australian painter who won the Archibald Prize in 1985 with Flugelman with Wingman. His works have also been exhibited as finalists in the Dobell Prize and he received the Trustees Watercolour Award at the Wynne Prize in 1980. He turned 100 in 2021.
King Street Gallery, the Sydney gallery that represents him announced on Instagram
“A consummate painter, educator, humanist and lover of life, Guy’s work expressed the beauty and depth of an artist imbued with a visionary aesthetic,” it said.
“He was kind, nurturing, funny and incredibly knowledgeable – with a strong desire to share his love of art and the surrounding world with others.
“Guy will be greatly missed and remembered in the art world. Our thoughts are with his two children, Paul and Joanna, about whom Guy said, ‘they are the best thing I ever made’,” the post said.
Artistic Career
At the end of World War II, Warren undertook art training at the National Art School. During this time, Warren met other veteran artists who had also served in World War II, and who took advantage of the Commonwealth’s post war training scheme. On completing this program, Warren travelled to England to pursue landscape painting where a chance meeting with a young veteran and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, provided the opportunity to continue his passion for the jungle through photos Sir David provided from his own travels to New Guinea.
Warren has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions. In 2016, the S. H. Ervin Gallery held Genesis of a painter: Guy Warren at 95, which focussed on works from the 1950s and 60s together with works painted late in his life. The intention of the exhibition was to show Warren’s “enduring imagery of the relationship between the figure and background”. At least two exhibitions were held at the time of his hundredth birthday, From the Mountain to the Sky, held by the National Art School; and Hills and Wings: A Celebration of Guy Warren and his Work, at the University of Wollongong, where he was previously the director of the University’s art collection.
Guy as a military (Military service)
Warren (Service number NX110908) served in the Australian Army during World War II from 15 May 1941 until 3 April 1946. During his service outside Australia in New Guinea and Bougainville Island with the 136 Advance Supply Depot he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant.
Many of Warren’s creative influences can be traced to his Army service. An experience of the jungle at Canungra in southeast Queensland, which was reinforced during his service in New Guinea became a constant theme throughout his career.
