Previously Ord Minnett (c 1970 to 1997)

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Michael Shannon
Landscape of Sydney, 1969
oil on canvas
151.00 x 122.00
signed and dated l.l.
City/Art, Heineman Educational Australia, 1978, illus p 42, as Landscape of Sydney 144 x 122 cm; and, collection of Ord Minnett.
In Shannons cityscapes of the 1950s an upward perspective tended to prevail. But his 1960 oil Urban Panorama looks out from an artificial height across the urban sprawl in a manner reminiscent of the isometric views in favour in the 19th century a viewpoint followed in other city paintings of 1961-2. 1968-9 saw a renewed commitment: Early morning, Melbourne, won the McCaughey Prize at the NGV in 1969, with its sweeping view of buildings clustered along the bayside shoreline; Early morning, Sydney (152 x 183) and its companion piece, the above Landscape of Sydney, both look south across the city rooftops from, it seems, one of the then new skyscrapers; however the latter with its narrower format includes two tall buildings in the middle ground which accentuate the vertical composition.
For 'Early morning, Sydney' see Morrison Cross Miller, McCaughey, Michael Shannon Australian Romantic Realist, retrospective exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2011, p. 87, and detail on front cover
Further works by the Artist
Since its establishment in 1984, the Charles Nodrum Gallery’s exhibition program embraces a diversity of media and styles - from painting, sculpture & works on paper to graphics and photography; from figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist & social comment to installation & conceptually based work.