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Oil on canvas Signed lower right
Painted in 1978 Provenance The Artist's Estate, catalogue number LW64; Mrs Lyn Williams Collection Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne; purchased by Elders IXL Limited, 9 February 1987 Portrait of Australia Collection, Foster's Group Limited Exhibited Portrait of Australia: The Elders IXL Collection, part of national tour, 1987-1988, catalogue supplement Reference Portrait of Australia, Elders IXL Collection, Supplement to the Handbook, 1987, illus. pl. 52 Elwyn Lynn, 'Landscapes of Intrigue, Lyricism and Mastery', The Australian, 19 September 1987, illus. In 1987, when toured as part of the 'Portrait of Australia' travelling exhibition, Elwyn Lynn wrote that here was one of Williams's 'most natural tributes to the disorganised, cluttered Australian bush...where paddocks and hillocks are not dictated to by fixed boundaries or the dominant horizon line that he grappled with during his all-too-brief career. This painting alone makes a visit to this generally intriguing show more than worthwhile'.(1) Like the Foster's Forked Tree and Kite (Lot 37), Hillside at Anakie dates from the decade of the 1970s. Lyn Williams recalls that the artist had set out on a painting excursion to the You Yangs but spent the day at Anakie instead. The tiny township west of Melbourne lies at the foot of three hills known as the Anakies. First settled in the 1840s, the thin topsoil around the Brisbane Ranges provided poor pasture and so population remained very sparse until gold was discovered in the hills during the 1850s. Here Williams depicts the golden hillside empty of human habitation. Fire has evidently burnt through the trees at some time. The burnished sky is of no particular colour - not blue, not grey; the powerful horizon line is marked by a streak of mauve and rose. We are most grateful to Mrs Lyn Williams for assistance in cataloguing this work. (1) The Australian, 19 September 1987.