Guy Grey-Smith: ART AS LIFE

Guy Grey-Smith AM (1916 – August 1981) was a Western Australian painter, printmaker and ceramicist. Grey-Smith pioneered modernism in WA, and has been described as “one of Australia’s most significant artists of the 20th century”.

Guy Grey-Smith was born in Wagin, Western Australia in 1916.

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. Grey-Smith was influenced by Cézanne, English constructionist painters, Nicholas de Staël and the Western Australian landscape. 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.

At the time of his death, his work was increasingly achieving recognition and is held in high regard today. In December 2007, Christie’s auctioned one of his landscape paintings with an estimate of £1500 to £2500. The painting sold for £29,300 (A$64,000). 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.

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