Des O’Brien is a respected editorial and institutional illustrator, designer, author and painter. However his personal art has seldom been exhibited and unlike his applied art is unknown to the public: genre scenes, geometric abstracts, still life, portraits, figure paintings and drawings. He makes no distinction between his fine and applied art, believing each is more accurately characterised as a continuous development.
Some noted clients include: John Fairfax, Associated Newspapers, OTC, Australia Post, Australian Wool Bureau, Herald and Weekly Times, Reader’s Digest, Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and advertising for many corporations.
He is a recipient of a Bronze Medal from the Arts Festival of the Melbourne 1956 Olympic Games. The author, designer and illustrator of the children’s picture book The Frog and the Pelican, awarded a Bronze Medal from Leipzig in 1983, and the Australian Book Publishers Design Award. He was inducted into the Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1995. Since that time he has worked almost exclusively on his personal art and producing limited edition artists books of his work.
The artist – designer was born in Sydney and studied at the National Art School Darlinghurst and later, figure drawing with Godfrey Miller.
His work is illustrated in The Arts in Australia Series, “Commercial Art” written by R. Haughton James, Longmans, Green and Co., 1963.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2014
- Last updated:
- 2014
