Jeffrey Smart

Smart’s Wallaroo won the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize in the year it was painted, giving him a boost of confidence. In an interview with Edmund Capon in 1999 he recalled the process of gathering material for the painting: ‘I had a little sketch book, and a box of watercolours and I made a few notes of the place. The first one was just a colour note of the yellow beach with the rusty coloured seaweed and lots of dark rocks ... While I was making this ten-minute sketch two men carried a little boat out to the water ... Then I walked along the beach and found a strange sort of breakwater. It was made of old oil drums ... The drums and bars were rusty red ... In the town about half a mile away, I found two interesting old buildings ... so in they went, into the sketch book ... By now I was beginning to feel some of the charm of Wallaroo. I embarked on a more ambitious job, a largish watercolour and ink drawing ...’

Smart’s Wallaroo won the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize in the year it was painted, giving him a boost of confidence. In an interview with Edmund Capon in 1999 he recalled the process of gathering material for the painting: ‘I had a little sketch book, and a box of watercolours and I made a few notes of the place. The first one was just a colour note of the yellow beach with the rusty coloured seaweed and lots of dark rocks ... While I was making this ten-minute sketch two men carried a little boat out to the water ... Then I walked along the beach and found a strange sort of breakwater. It was made of old oil drums ... The drums and bars were rusty red ... In the town about half a mile away, I found two interesting old buildings ... so in they went, into the sketch book ... By now I was beginning to feel some of the charm of Wallaroo. I embarked on a more ambitious job, a largish watercolour and ink drawing ...’

Smart’s Wallaroo won the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize in the year it was painted, giving him a boost of confidence. In an interview with Edmund Capon in 1999 he recalled the process of gathering material for the painting: ‘I had a little sketch book, and a box of watercolours and I made a few notes of the place. The first one was just a colour note of the yellow beach with the rusty coloured seaweed and lots of dark rocks ... While I was making this ten-minute sketch two men carried a little boat out to the water ... Then I walked along the beach and found a strange sort of breakwater. It was made of old oil drums ... The drums and bars were rusty red ... In the town about half a mile away, I found two interesting old buildings ... so in they went, into the sketch book ... By now I was beginning to feel some of the charm of Wallaroo. I embarked on a more ambitious job, a largish watercolour and ink drawing ...’