Design and Art Australia Online

Painter and potter who was born in Wagin and educated at Boyup Brook then Bunbury High School before working on the family farm. He did not find this satisfactory and enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force entering Point Cook for training in 1936. He was seconded to the Royal Air Force in 1937 and married Helen an interior designer, in the United Kingdom in 1939 when World War II broke out. He was shot down in 1940, severely wounded and spent time in Stalag as a prisoner of war where he developed an interest in art. He contracted tuberculosis and was returned to England in a prisoner exchange in 1944 and sent to a sanatorium in England where art could be explored further. In 1945, on his discharge, he enrolled at Chelsea School of Art studying under Ceri Richards, Robert Medley and Henry Moore. He also studied pottery at Woolwich under Heber Matthews from 1946-47.

Guy and Helen visited Paris and then returned to Western Australia arriving early in 1949. Here he taught art therapy at Wooroloo Sanatorium and had his first one-man show later in the year. He built a home in Darlington and set up a small pottery in 1951 making slip cast wares and Helen commenced screen-printing fabrics. He and his wife returned to England for the 1953-54 scholastic year when Guy enrolled at Central School of Arts and Crafts and Helen in screen-printing. They had joint exhibitions from 1956-1967 in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Guy painted, potted and taught at Adult Education.

He won the Western Australian section of the Perth Prize for Contemporary Art in 1955 and 1962, the Murdoch Prize in 1959, the Robin Hood Art Prize in 1962, the Perth Prize in 1964, the St George’s Cathedral Prize in 1966-67 and the Walter Murdoch Prize in 1967 and 1968, the Gold Coast Art Prize in 1975 and in 1978 the George’s Invitation Art Prize. Trips were made to Ceylon in 1963 and Bali in 1967. He began teaching at Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT) in 1969 but was seconded to the Foreign Affairs Department to lecture at the University of Fine Art, Phnom Penh for 1971-72 only to be caught up in the problems of civil war and they returned to Perth. He was awarded a Distinguished Artist Grant from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council in 1973. In 1975 they moved to Pemberton where he lived and worked until his death in 1981.

Writers:

Erickson, Dorothy (Dr)

Date written:

2011

Last updated:

2011