William Robinson AO, acclaimed Australian landscape painter and two-time winner of the Archibald Prize, has died aged 89.
The Brisbane-born artist, who won his first Archibald prize in 1987 with a self-mocking portrait of himself on a horse, died peacefully in Brisbane on Tuesday evening.
“After a brief illness and care from the wonderful staff at the Wesley hospital, it is with heartfelt sorrow to tell you that our beloved father, Bill, passed away last night,” his children said in a statement. “He died peacefully surrounded by his family. He was much loved and we will miss him dearly.”
Robinson was best known for his paintings of the lush rainforest of south-east Queensland, winning the Wynne prize for landscape painting twice. He also won acclaim for his satirical self-portraits, winning the Archibald a second time in 1995 for his painting Self-portrait with stunned mullet, showing him in full wet weather gear and holding two fish.
Born in Brisbane in 1936, Robinson developed a love of painting and music as a child and considered becoming a concert pianist.
He married at 22, and with a family to support, he instead embarked on a long career teaching art in Brisbane.
In the 1970s he moved with wife Shirley and their six children to a rural property where they raised cows, goats and chooks, before retreating to the Gold Coast hinterland.
Several of his paintings were selected for Australian Perspecta in 1983 and the Sixth Biennale of Sydney in 1986, before his Archibald success the next year with Equestrian self-portrait.
Robinson was working as an art lecturer when he got the call telling him he had won the Archibald prize – and that he had to be in Sydney that afternoon.
“I can’t, I’ve got to feed the goats,” he reportedly replied, spawning the headline: Goat farmer wins top art prize.
By 1989, Robinson retired from teaching and became a full-time artist.
On Wednesday he was remembered as a modest man of faith, family and the Australian wilderness.
“When you’re an artist, you’re a bit of a loner, you have a sort of isolated take on things,” Robinson once said of his career.
“So it is not so much direct humour, it is rather a commentary on life and people.”
Robinson was awarded honorary doctorates by three Queensland universities and in 2007 was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for outstanding achievement and service to the arts.
The William Robinson Gallery opened at Old Government House in Brisbane in 2009 at Queensland University of Technology’s Gardens Point campus.
“It has been one of the highlights of my time … to work with Bill, his late wife Shirley and their family in realising the vision of the gallery,” QUT vice-chancellor, Margaret Sheil, said.
The Australian art world has lost a giant in the passing of Robinson, said Australian Galleries director Stuart Purves, who described him as “a man of outstanding care and human insight”.
Robinson’s work is represented in major galleries across the nation and the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.