John Perceval
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John Perceval self portrait (1946) |
John Perceval, b. 1/2/1923, d. 2000 is a well-known
Australian
artist.
John de Burgh Perceval was born Linwood Robert Stevens South at Bruce Rock,
Western Australia, on
1 February 1923, the second child of Bob and Dorothy South. His parents separated in 1925 and he remained at his father's farm, until reunited with his mother in
Melbourne in 1935. He called himself John and adopted his stepfather's surname de Burgh Perceval. He was educated at
Trinity Grammar, Kew. In 1938 Perceval contracted
polio and was hospitalised, during which time he developed his skills at drawing and painting. Enlisting in the
army in
1941, Perceval met
Arthur Boyd, and later his sister
Mary, whom he married in 1944. Although showing regularly with the Contemporary Art Society, Perceval held his first solo exhibition at the Melbourne Book Club in 1948. Between 1949 and 1955 he concentrated on producing earthenware ceramics at the Boyd's home at Murrumbeena in Melbourne. In 1956 Perceval returned to painting with a series of joyous and spontaneous images of the Melbourne harbour suburb of Williamstown, seascapes and Gaffney's Creek.
In 1963 Perceval moved to
England, held solo exhibitions in London, and travelled to Europe, before returning to Australia in 1965 to take up the first
Australian National University Creative Fellowship. John Perceval, a major retrospective exhibition, was held at Albert Hall, Canberra in 1966 and Margaret Plant's monograph John Perceval, was published in 1971. In 1974 Perceval committed himself to the psychiatric hospital Larundel, Melbourne, where he remained until 1986. John Perceval: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings was held at Heide Park and Art Gallery in 1984. Perceval was awarded Officer of the
Order of Australia (AO) in 1991, and in the following year the
National Gallery of Victoria organised John Perceval: A Retrospective.
His death in 2000 was seen as a great tragedy. Perceval was the last of the original core known as the Angry Penguins having been predeceased by
Joy Hester, John and Sunday Reed,
Sidney Nolan and, most recently, by
Arthur Boyd and
Albert Tucker.
Numerous Solo exhibitionsNational Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, had a major retrospective exhibitions of his work in 1992.
McCaughey PrizeMelbourne and the Wynne Prize, AGNSW
Night gull, 1957Swy Game, 1971
National Gallery of Australia, CanberraAll state gallery collectionsUniversity and regional collections
'John Perceval', by Traudi Allen, ISBN 0-522-84489-8
