Benalla Art Gallery unveils Ron Robertson-Swann’s timeless masterpieces

Featured paintings are drawn from the same period as those exhibited in the seminal National Gallery of Victoria exhibition, The Field, and similarly illustrate the artist’s interest in the physical dynamics and sculptural properties of painting.

Benalla Art Gallery director Eric Nash said over more than 50 years Robertson-Swann had forged a career as one of Australia’s pre-eminent contemporary artists.

“His work has been consistently exhibited and collected by all major galleries in Australia, as well as many overseas, defying the gravity of time and its passing trends,” Mr Nash said.

The exhibition has been supported by Charles Nodrum Gallery, where it will tour following its Benalla Art Gallery showing.

Charles and Kate Nodrumsaid stylistically, the paintings and the sculpture diverged early on.

“In sculpture, the use of straight, curved, fabricated and found steel, welded and then painted in monochrome — with its endless scope in the way narrative and mood can be evoked through scale, form and colour — has remained his favoured process.

“In painting, the straight lines and thinly washed polychrome surfaces of the ’60s gave way to curvilinear forms and slightly richer surfaces in the ’70s.”