RAY CROOKE
Ray Crooke’s paintings of village life in the Pacific have established his reputation as one of Australia’s best known and respected artists with a body of work characterised by its vibrant colour and decorative Post-Impressionist treatment of form.
Crooke attended Swinburne Technical College from 1937-1939, taking leave for military service and working as a map maker on Thursday Island during the Second World War. He returned to Thursday Island in 1949, sketching and painting the landscape and its people, as well as the Barrier Reef and Islands. Recording the vegetation and light, as well as the activities of its people, the decorative and colourful formalism of his paintings intimately reveal and celebrate the pattern and detail of their subjects.
In 1963 his work was included in Australian Painting Today at the Tate Gallery in London and in 1968 he was the recipient of the Archibald Prize.
Crooke has work in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Vatican in Rome. In 1993 he was made a member of the Order of Australia and in 1996 he received an honorary doctorate from Griffith University, Brisbane.
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