Guy Grey-SmithAM ((1916-01-07)7 January 1916 – 11 August 1981(1981-08-11) (aged 65)) was an Australian painter, printmaker and ceramicist. Grey-Smith pioneered modernisminWestern Australia, and has been described as "one of Australia's most significant artists of the 20th century".[1]
Guy Grey-Smith, the second son of Francis Edward Grey-Smith, station manager, and his wife Ada Janet (née King) was born in Wagin, Western Australia in 1916.[2]
In 1952, his tuberculosis recurred, and upon recovery eight months later, he and Helen moved back to London.[6] He studied fresco painting at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under Louis le Brocquy until 1954.[3] Upon their return to Australia, Grey-Smith worked for the Education Department and Art Gallery before journeying across the Nullarbor and to the north-west of Western Australia, which inspired his work.[3][6]
He formed the Perth Group in the late 1950s with fellow artists Robert Juniper Brian McKay, Tom Gibbons and Maurice Stubbs. The group's aim was to promote European modernism, which was not yet accepted in Australia.[1] Grey-Smith was influenced by Cézanne, English constructionist painters, Nicolas de Staël[8] and the Western Australian landscape.[1] He travelled throughout the state, including the Kimberley, Pilbara, Goldfields and South West regions, drawing and making notes in order to produce larger works back in his studio.[9]
At the time of his death, his work was increasingly achieving recognition and is held in high regard today.[3] In December 2007, Christie's auctioned one of his landscape paintings with an estimate of £1500 to £2500.[10] The painting sold for £29,300 (A$64,000).[10] According to art collector Max Grunberg, Grey-Smith paintings sold at a large auction during the 1990s for $18,000 to $20,000 would now sell for at least $40,000 to $45,000.[10]
He won the Perth Prize for best Western Australian entry in 1955 and 1963, and the Perth Prize in 1964.[11][12] In 1959, he was awarded the Murdoch Prize,[13] and the Robin Hood Art Prize in 1962[14]
He received the St George's Cathedral Prize in 1966 and 1967, and the Walter Murdoch Prize in 1967 and 1968.
Grey-Smith was honoured with a Special Distinguished Artist and Scholar Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts in 1973 and an Order of Australia in 1981.[6]
In 2012, a new biography of the artist by Andrew Gaynor was published.[15]
^ abcdeBuggins, Anne; Guest, Debbie (9 November 2006). "Gordon Stephenson, Guy Grey-Smith, Eric Edgar Cooke". Features. The West Australian. p. 6.
^Jenny Mills, 'Grey-Smith, Guy Edward (1916–1981)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grey-smith-guy-edward-12566/text22625, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 20 January 2016.
^ abcdefgMcCulloch, Alan (1994). The encyclopedia of Australian art. Allen & Unwin. ISBN1-86373-315-9.
