BATHURST Regional Art Gallery has been able to purchase, through the generosity of BRAGS (Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Society), an important work for the permanent collection by the great Australian artist, Lloyd Rees.
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BRAGS is our volunteer support group that raises funds from its activities to purchase important works for the permanent collection. Over the years it has raised in excess of $200,000 for this purpose: an admiral record.
The Rees work is a beautiful pencil and watercolour work of the landscape around Duramana.
Lloyd Rees had a long association with Bathurst, beginning with his marriage to Marjory Pollard in 1931.
Marjory’s family had settled in the Bathurst district in 1886, and the couple would travel to Bathurst regularly to stay with her family at Duramana and Mount Rankin.
Rees developed a love for the Bathurst landscape and responded by painting and drawing it over the 40 years that he visited the region.
As well as his personal connection with the landscape of Bathurst, Lloyd and Marjory established a relationship with Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, donating 12 artworks to the gallery, 10 of which were by different Australian artists.
May Morning No. 2, Sydney from Lane Cove (1981) by Rees is a painting which Lloyd himself acclaimed as a major work and was purchased by the gallery with his generous assistance in 1981.
In recognition of his continuing generosity to the people of Bathurst and as a measure of the respect with which Lloyd Rees was held as an artist, he was made an honorary citizen of Bathurst in 1981.
BRAG celebrated this wonderful artist earlier this year in the exhibition Lloyd Rees: in the regions when the 59 works by Rees owned by Bathurst Regional Art Gallery were displayed.
Memberships to join BRAGS can be purchased at the Art Gallery and are very reasonably priced: $20 for individuals, $25 for families, $15 concession and $35 for corporate membership.
BRAGS members get special benefits including invites to attend members-only events. On Thursday, May 11, BRAGS members have been invited to attend a special evening to see the Lloyd Rees acquisition. At that event they will also be able to buy tickets in a raffle to win a painting by Amanda Penrose Hart, the recent winner of The Anzac Art Prize.
It is not too late to become a BRAGS member and be able to attend the May event.
People visiting our extraordinarily popular current exhibition Beyond Belief: the sublime in contemporary art have been unanimous in their praise.
It will be on display until Sunday, June 4.
