Sunshine & Shadow: A B Webb and The Poetics Of Place

WEST AUSTRALIAN ART

• Exhibition held at Art Gallery of Western Australia, 28 August – 12 December 2004.
• 96 p. : col. ill., ports. ; 23 cm.
• Bibliography: p. 95-96.
• #090224
• Webb, A. B. (Archibald Bertram), 1887-1944
• Landscape painting — Western Australia — Exhibitions
• Landscape in art
• Western Australia in art
• Art Gallery of Western Australia

Archibald Bertram Webb (1887-1944) and his wife migrated to Western Australia in the Osterley, reaching Fremantle on 11 May 1915.

Webb is best known for his delicate watercolours and colour woodcut prints, which were “thoroughly WestAustralian”.

Webb lived at Nedlands, close to the Swan River, a favourite subject for his prints and watercolours. Reputedly a reserved and rather private man, with a stern and somewhat arrogant mien, he worked largely in isolation. Influenced by English art of the 1880s, he was unimpressed with most modernist developments, which he termed the ‘Continental movement’. He adopted variations of the style and techniques used in Japanese woodcuts. His interest in Art Nouveau was also evident in the design of many of his works. While preferring persimmon wood, he experimented with easier-to-find local hardwoods, working on the plank grain. His woodcuts were favourably reviewed in Art in Australia (1924) and the London magazine Studio (1926).