Wes Walters

Wes(ley) Walters, Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize.^[1] Born Mildura, Victoria, 1928.^[1] He was a realist portrait painter and abstract artist. He painted nearly 200 portraits of leading Australians, especially academics, businessmen, artists, and musicians.^[2] Awarded Minnie Crouch Prize in 1953 and 1956. He won the 1979 Archibald prize in 1980 with a portrait of Phillip Adams. He was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 1988 and 1990. He painted a 1.3 metre high, 1 metre wide portrait of the Central Queensland University's Chancellor, Justice Stan Jones. In 1998 he painted Donald Bradman. He died on 19 August 2014. Although Walters had been painting in a non-figurative style since the early 1960s, he did not hold his first exhibition of abstract works until 2001. He was elected to the Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1993.

In 2009 the book 'Walters: art of realism & abstraction' by David Thomas was published.

References

1. 1 2 "Wes WALTERS (1928-2014)". University of Ballarat Honour Roll. 
2. ↑ James Cockington (27 May 2009). "The art of Wes Walters". The Age.