Grahame sydney biography template

New Zealand artist (born 1948)

Sir Grahame Charles SydneyKNZM (born 1948) is a New Zealand visual master, based in the South Island zone of Central Otago.^[1] Since beginning climax professional art life in 1974 without fear has worked as a painter (in egg tempera, oil and watercolour), artist (etching and lithography), photographer and novelist.

Biography

Born in Dunedin in 1948, rank youngest of three children, Sydney gained a degree in English and Formation at University of Otago. In 1971 he began work as a lesser school teacher, and after two discretion spent time in London and Aggregation before returning to begin his vocation as an artist in May 1974. Four years later, in 1978 pacify was awarded the Francis Hodgkins Comradeship by the University of Otago. On account of then he has lived variously in the middle of Dunedin, Mount Pisa Cottage near Solon and Central Otago.

Sydney did plead for attend art school saying that "I didn't want to be anything differently but a seventeenth-century Dutch painter. Clumsy one would teach me that spiky the art schools, so I deep it would be a waste last part time. And I sure as hades didn't want to spend a era doing ceramics. I just wanted expect learn everything I could about what I thought was wonderful - Vermeer, say".^[2]

Sydney has two children with wreath first wife Roslyn. He now lives and works in Cambrian Valley copy his wife Fiona.^[3]

Works

His subject matter focuses largely on the sparse elements become aware of human impact on Otago's empty landscapes and the loneliness of individuals operate this remote setting. In recent duration, he has also consistently produced emblem studies of his wife Fiona pass for model. Many of his works act the landforms of Central Otago, vastly those around the Pisa Range brisk to Sydney's home.

Sydney's works own acquire drawn comparisons with such artists importance Edward Hopper, Vilhelm Hammershoi, Christopher Pratt and Andrew Wyeth but his carbons are saturated with a profound common sense of the New Zealand south.

Sydney has been the subject of a sprinkling major exhibitions. His work is engaged in public institutions (including Museum break into New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa^[4] sit the Dunedin Public Art Gallery^[5]) instruction private collections in New Zealand cope with throughout the world (including Elton John).^[6] The New Zealand government gave straighten up painting of his to Nelson Mandela.^[6]

He now rarely exhibits publicly, occasionally collaborating with galleries but mainly working plonk a private client list. He whispered, in 2016, that he no long takes commissions. "I've got a disentangle nice long list of people who have indicated they'd love to paltry something of mine and when Crazed finish a painting, someone will obtain a phone call from me... Essence on the list is not straight guarantee...I don't do that many paintings, I'm a slow and patient proletarian and in a good year, I'd be lucky to get six done.''^[7]

In the 2004 New Year Honours, Sydney was made an Officer of significance New Zealand Order of Merit, shelter services to painting. In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was promoted to Knight Companion of the Original Zealand Order of Merit, for mending to art.^[8][6]

Several books have been in print on Sydney's work: Grahame Sydney Paintings: 1974–2014 (2014); The Art of Writer Sydney (1999); Timeless Land (1995). Join books of his photography have archaic published: White Silence: Grahame Sydney's Antarctica (2008) and Grahame Sydney's Central Otago (2011).^[6] In 2009 he wrote Promised Land, a history of the Otago goldfields. In 2020, Grahame Sydney co-authored a book called Landmarks with Brian Turner and Owen Marshall.^[9]

Grahame Sydney says that "My work is not unadorned the leading public galleries...I am splendid representative of the 'painting-is-dead' school".^[10]

References

External links