Customs House

Artist Statement: “The Victorians had enormous pride in their civic buildings and the public places of their city. The Customs house might have served the most mundane of functions, collecting the taxes and excise duties on goods imported into the colony, but it is a wonderfully whimsical and quite romantic structure. The tower which supports the time ball would be at home in an Italian medieval hill town, while the elegant oriel window on the north side is taken straight from the set of Romeo and Juliet.”

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 76 x 30.5 cms
Date: 2016
Condition: New

Director's Statement: Gavin Fry has worked in Australian art for more than 50 years, but only recently has gone full circle to the place where he started, as a practicing painter, fresh out of art school in the late 1960's. In a long career he took many directions, seeking out new experiences and forms of expression After teaching at secondary and tertiary levels, Gavin took to museum work as an art curator and museum director. As a direct result of that work he has become one of Australia’s best known and most prolific writers on art and history, with more than 20 books to his credit. A lifetime of looking at, and writing about art has taken him back to where he started, painting and drawing the world around him in a distinctive and highly personal way.