GEOFFREY PROUD
Adelaide, South Australia | 1946–2022
Geoffrey Proud was an Australian painter, printmaker and sculptor whose distinctive work occupied a highly individual place in Australian art for more than five decades. Largely self-taught, Proud began exhibiting while still a teenager and developed a substantial career encompassing more than 80 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas.
Proud first came to prominence in the 1970s. In 1976 he was awarded the Sir John Sulman Prize, one of Australia’s major art awards, and in 1990 he won the Archibald Prize with his portrait of celebrated Australian poet and playwright Dorothy Hewett. The Archibald remains one of Australia's best-known awards for portrait painting, while the Sulman Prize recognises subject and genre painting.
His paintings are immediately recognisable for their expressive handling of paint and highly personal imagery. Proud moved freely between portraiture, the human figure, still life and more imaginative subjects, often combining beauty and tenderness with an underlying sense of mystery. His works can possess the quality of remembered scenes or fractured stories, where familiar subjects are transformed through colour, texture and expressive brushwork.
Flowers and domestic objects also formed part of Proud's visual world. In his still lifes, ordinary objects become opportunities for exploring colour and the physical qualities of paint. Loosely described forms, vigorous brushwork and unexpected passages of colour give these quieter subjects the same individuality found throughout his work.
This can be seen particularly well in the floral still life held by Plum Gallery. Soft pinks, creams and pale blues are enlivened by stronger touches of red, green and deep blue, while the flowers, cups and vessels are rendered with broad, confident strokes. Rather than attempting photographic detail, Proud captures the sensation and atmosphere of the arrangement, allowing the paint itself to become an important part of the image.
Over his long career, Proud worked across painting, printmaking and sculpture and exhibited extensively. His award-winning career and distinctive approach established him as a notable figure in Australian contemporary art.
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