We invite Members to an exclusive Members exhibition introduction of Fred Williams: The London Drawings hosted by NGV Senior Curator Prints and Drawings, Cathy Leahy.

This exhibition presents Fred Williams’s drawings from his formative London years (1952–56) when he first came to maturity as an artist. Williams is celebrated as one of Australia’s most significant landscape painters whose distinctive, abstracted paintings helped shape Australians’ vision of their country. Yet Williams’s early commitment to drawing and painting the human figure is little known, as is his accomplishment as a draughtsman and the full range and power of his drawing oeuvre. These aspects of his work are explored in this first exhibition dedicated to Williams’s London period, which will present major series of drawings made at Regent’s Park Zoo and in London’s music halls and on the city’s streets.