Andrew Sibley, The Trolley Pushers and other works

Andrew Sibley: The Trolley Pushers and various Works

Biography:

A painter and teacher, Andrew Sibley was known for his figurative paintings, landscapes and abstract works.

He arrived in Australia from England in 1948 at the age of fifteen, having studied at the Gravesend School of Art in Kent.

First settling in Queensland, he became a key member of the ‘Brisbane School’, an informal group of artists which included Jon Molvig, Roy Churcher and Ian Fairweather.

The early 1960s saw much success for Sibley; having held his first exhibition in 1960, Sibley progressed to exhibiting at the influential Whitechapel Gallery in London, participating in a group exhibition at the Tate Gallery, and then winning the Transfield Art Prize, then Australia's richest art award.  During this period, his work continued to be included in international exhibitions, in Japan, USA, Paris and Germany.

Sibley relocated to Melbourne in 1966 and took employment as a lecturer in Fine Arts at RMIT until 1990, when he became Head of Painting at Monash University.

In the mid-late 1960’s Sibley joined Rudy Komon’s gallery stable in Sydney, that included many of the most important Australian artists of the time and where he established lifelong connections with these fellow artists.

For Sibley, the 1970’s was a decade of inspiration and experimentation which saw him spending time in Europe firstly at a residency in West Berlin (1972) where he drew influence from artists such as Max Beckman, Jean Dubuffet, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, and travelling back and forth to London for new exhibitions by his contemporaries such as Francis Bacon. The time had a profound impact on Sibley’s art practice, which manifested in a more avant-garde style, material and technique experimentation both in terms of composition and presentation.

In the 1980’s Sibley again evolved as an artist achieved major success with his Circus Series that continued his exploration of the human condition. He exhibited regularly and successfully and was acquired by the vast majority of museum collections throughout Australia.

Bibliography

Hall, Rodney, Focus on Andrew Sibley, University of Queensland Press, 1968

Grishin, Sasha, Andrew Sibley: Art of the Fringe of Being, Craftsman House, 1993

Grishin, Sasha, Australian Printmaking in the 1990s: Artist Printmakers, 1990-1995, Craftsman House, 1997

View more works by Andrew Sibley at the National Portrait Gallery, and at the Art Gallery of New outh Wales