"Hillside Number 1"
Gouache on Paper
51x37cm
Signed Lower Right
Prov: Gould Galleries. Sotheby’s 2001.
Private Collection Adelaide
$25,000-30,000
Emerging from a pivotal period in the development of Fred Williams’s mature style, Hillside No.1 exemplifies the distinctive visual language that came to define his interpretation of the Australian landscape. Moving away from traditional European conventions of depth and perspective, Williams reconfigured the picture plane into a compressed, almost aerial field, where space is constructed through the placement of marks rather than linear recession.
His hillside subjects are among his most recognisable and important contributions, reducing the landscape to a series of rhythmic, calligraphic gestures that suggest scrub, rock and vegetation without descriptive detail. In this approach, the motif itself becomes secondary to the act of mark-making, with each element carefully positioned to create a sense of balance and underlying structure across the surface.
Developed through close observation of the Australian environment, particularly in Victoria, these works reflect Williams’ ability to translate the irregularity and sparseness of the bush into a coherent and highly resolved pictorial system. The elevated viewpoint, often looking across or down onto the terrain, reinforces this flattening of space, allowing the landscape to be read as a unified field rather than a staged scene.
By the time of these hillside works, Williams had firmly established himself as one of the most significant figures in twentieth- century Australian art. Hillside No.1 stands as a concise and authoritative example of this achievement, demonstrating his capacity to distil the complexity of the landscape into a visual language that is both reductive and deeply evocative.
